I got up early the other day, and glanced out the west window and saw ... a stunning full moon, just setting.
I set the camera on a solid surface and propped it upward a bit with a piece of thin wood so I could capture the lunar beauty without blurring.
Down, down, down...
I'm glad I got to see it sink below the horizon.
Just one of those beautiful moments.
By popular demand, we're continuing our "Product Review Monday" series. Up to this point, it's been "Book Review Monday," but we're expanding somewhat to profile some favorite products besides books.
So today, let's examine a great light source during power outages.
Our favorite go-to light source during power outages is the kerosene lamp. I've been in love with kerosene lamps since I was a teenager, and in fact still have (and frequently use) a beautiful lamp my parents gave me when I was sixteen.
But as much as I love the ambience they give, kerosene lamps are not ideal. They require care (so as not to be knocked over), they're potentially dangerous (fire!), the light is not overly bright, and some people are sensitive to the odor, even when using lamp oil instead of kerosene. Plus, of course, you need kerosene (or lamp oil) for fuel.
When we moved here to our new home, it didn't take long to learn power outages are very, very common. A windy day, a snowstorm, a Tuesday ... outages can last anywhere from a few hours to several days.
The logical question that arose during this realization is: What happens if there's a much longer power outage? Do we have enough kerosene on hand to supply all the lamps for a long time?
It was about this time we started searching for an LED light source, something portable, easy to handle, and off-grid. There are numerous options on the market, but we ended up purchasing something called a Dynamo hand-crank solar powered lantern.
This item had extremely good reviews, so we purchased one to see how we liked it. In fact, we liked it so well we purchased four more, and keep them in various locations around the house (and Older Daughter keeps one in her car for roadside emergencies).
This lantern is ten inches high and lightweight. While we usually keep them charged up by electricity, they can be charged a number of ways, including a USB port or a car charger. They have a solar panel on the top (ours still has the protective clear plastic film over it)...
...a AAA-battery case at the bottom...
...and best of all, an option to hand-crank the lantern (one minute of spinning the crank will give about 5 to 8 minutes of light, depending on how fast the crank is turned).
Fully charged, the lamp gives 16 hours of light at the lower (60 lumens) setting, or 10 hours of light at the higher (120 lumens) setting.
These are, unfortunately, a Chinese-made product, so I don't know what (if anything) the tariffs situation will do to the price. Also, be aware a number of different names appear to be on the lantern: Aeptek, Whetstone, etc., but the product is identical.
(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, I earn a small commission.)
We have used these lamps extensively during power outages. They're easy to grab when moving to a dark part of the house at night (bathroom, closet, etc.), safe for children and pets to be around, and provide very decent light. It's not the warm yellow light of a kerosene lamp, but instead the bright white light typical of LEDs. However it's plenty bright to read by, do household chores, or place in a bedroom for children to see.
They are also, in my opinion, an important addition to our emergency inventory. Highly recommended.
Ah, nothing like arriving home at three o'clock in the morning.
I flew out from Southern California Friday evening, had one layover, and arrived at a regional airport at midnight. Older Daughter had some errands in the city, so she timed them for Friday, hung with some friends, went to a movie, then just waited at the airport until I arrived. We embarked on the long drive home in the wee hours and arrived at 3 am. None of us got much sleep (Don dozed in a chair but otherwise waited up for us), so yesterday (Saturday) was a zombie day.
But I came home to a landscape transfixed and firmly in early spring. Things are green green green! All the wild plum trees are in full bloom, looking like fluffy balls of cotton on distant hillsides. Sometimes I call this cotton-candy season.
Last year, I noted the complete – and I mean complete – absence of wild plums for whatever reason. If these blossoms are anything to go by, that won't be the case this year.
It's good to be home.
"See if you can get Dad to buy some new shirts," hinted my youngest brother one day on the phone.
It seems Dad was down to just a couple of shirts, and while I (with my typical "'clothing blindness") didn't notice, my brother had. He even went so far as to note Dad's shirt size with an eye toward picking up a few garments on his behalf.
Fortunately it didn't get that far. Dad had a doctor's appointment in a nearby town on Thursday, so on Wednesday I told him, "Tomorrow after your doctor's appointment, let's go buy you some shirts."
Dad was surprisingly agreeable about it. So after his doctor's appointment, we went to a nearby department store, and he selected four shirts. "In lighter colors," he said. "Most of my current shirts are darker."
Armed with four new shirts, we drove home, at which point I confessed that Younger Brother had put me up to the task. Dad laughed heartily over that. My younger brother is, thank God, like a mother hen to our parents.
But the significance of those four new shirts – and possibly why he didn't kick up a fuss over buying them – came clear that evening on the way home from feeding my mother dinner in the nursing home. My own imminent departure was looming, and I'm certain Dad was thinking about living in the house alone without Mom (and without me there as a stopgap).
We were discussing the social aspects Mom might experience in the nursing home. While her ability to communicate is limited, she's surrounded by a very nice (if sometimes odd) collection of patients and a lovely staff. She will have plenty of opportunities for socializing with these people
Out of the blue, Dad started talking about his own social life. For the last few years, being unable to leave my mother's side except for a few dashed and gaspingly fast errands or appointments (after giving Mom strict instructions to stay in bed while he was gone, lest she fall in his absence), his social life has been nonexistent. Now, without Mom in the house, he has the freedom to resume his social connections. And – logical engineer that he is – he recognizes the importance of doing so.
"That's why I bought those shirts," he concluded.
Aha. And here I thought his decision was solely based on my feminine wiles.
But it was a pivotal moment in some ways. Dad will have to adjust to living on his own now. While he's somewhat of an introvert like most of our family, that much solitude is not healthy for a nearly 90-year-old man. That's why I was thrilled when, about a week ago, Dad was able to attend the monthly meeting of a men's group from his church, for example. He fully intends to reconnect with this group and its activities, as well as to explore other activities he's been unable to do during my mother's illness.
So yeah, those four shirts are very, very important.
I had the opportunity to make one last trip to the ocean. Returning from feeding my mother lunch one afternoon, I noted the marine layer (which usually socks in the coast around here) was absent today. My dad urged me to go to the beach to take the opportunity to see it in sunshine. So I did.
At first I thought I would walk along a pathway in a nearby estuary park, which has some interpretive signage along the way. It was here I was able to learn the identity of the bright yellow flowers blooming along the road I noticed last time: Giant coreopsis.
Apparently these flowers are quite rare, although they seemed abundant in the area, easily noticeable since they were in bloom.
At a distance, some double-crested cormorants rested on a log.
However, my estuary walk was curtailed almost immediately with a chain-link fence across the path and a notice of closure. No explanation was given, but it might have been to protect nesting snowy plovers. So I returned to the car (after noticing this California ground squirrel in the parking lot) and went to the beach.
The view was vastly improved in the sparkling sunshine.
I strolled alone the shoreline, beachcombing. One of the first things I noticed was the abundance of velella (also called "By-the-Wind Sailors") washed up on the shore. Oddly, I saw none of these just a few days before. Now they were everywhere. Go figure.
A few treasures:
Top and bottom:
A stately seagull.
Another long-billed curlew. That beak is really something else.
While it was fairly common to see some dead barnacles on a sand dollar...
...this time I found some living barnacles.
Washed ashore as they were, these barnacles will die fairly quickly. So I yeeted the sand dollar and its companions as far out into the water as I could, fully aware it wasn't nearly far enough and they would certainly be washed ashore again in short order.
I took one last look at the beach, then headed back up the path to the parking lot.
I was sitting on a bench, rubbing the sand off my feet to put my shoes and socks back on, when I noticed a man standing on a sandy knoll, gazing at the water.
Then he flung his arms up and over his head, slowly, several times. I don't know if he was meditating, praying, having an exultant moment, or what, but it was kinda neat to see. Moments after taking these photos, the man climbed down from the knoll and went on his way.
And that was my trip to the ocean.
The English language has borrowed staggering numbers of terms from other languages and incorporated them into everyday usage. Modern English is heavily derived from both Germanic and Latin roots, but we've borrowed words from such far-flung places as Icelandic ("saga"), Indonesian ("guru"), and Polynesian ("taboo"), among much else.
Despite this linguistic flexibility, there are endless extraordinarily specific terms used in other languages that have no English equivalent. According to this article, "Have you ever felt a little mbuki-mvuki – the irresistible urge to 'shuck off your clothes as you dance'? Perhaps a little kilig – the jittery fluttering feeling as you talk to someone you fancy? How about uitwaaien – which encapsulates the revitalizing effects of taking a walk in the wind? These words – taken from Bantu, Tagalog, and Dutch – have no direct English equivalent, but they represent very precise emotional experiences that are neglected in our language."
This is what came to mind when I read about the Japanese term tsundoku, and you're gonna love it. Yes, the Japanese have coined a term to identify "the art of buying books and never reading them."
I'm sure every bibliophile suffers from this to some degree. Specifically the term "describes the intention to read books and their eventual, accidental collection."
My standard requested Christmas gift each year is a gift card to an online used-book seller, so whenever I see a book I'm interested in reading, I can order it without angsting over the price. (The penalty for living extremely rural is a library system that is almost guaranteed (a) to not have the book you want in the system, and (b) be unable to find it in inter-library loan.) However this usually means if I'm interested enough in a book to order it online, I'll follow through and read it.
The same can't be said (ahem) when it comes to things like library sales or other in-person second-hand resources. I mean, c'mon ... who's going to deny themselves the pleasure of purchasing an armful of books for pennies on the dollar? Under such conditions, I'll admit that sometimes we get carried away and purchase books with the good intention of reading them, and which then pile up. So yeah, tsundoku.
Fortunately, apparently the term does not have any connotations of criticism in Japan, nor does it carry any overtones of stigma. (Yet another example of things the Japanese do right.)
In my current situation, visiting my parents in Southern California, I am so tempted to visit an excellent used bookstore Older Daughter and I discovered a couple years ago. But I've resisted. Not only would it be impossible to schlep twenty extra pounds of books with me on an airplane, but our new dedication to extra super-dooper frugal living hasn't waned just because I'm traveling. (Knowing I would be visiting my parents, we put aside a travel budget before I got laid off.)
In fact, frugal living simply gives me an opportunity to start going through our selection of unread books and dip into them. Maybe I can reverse our tsundoku.
So is it just me, or do others suffer from this affliction?
No trip to see my parents would be complete without a visit to the ocean as well. As you can imagine, living as far inland as we do, seeing the ocean is a novelty.
So on Sunday afternoon, I went for a drive. The day was sunny and bright, but as I approached the coast, the marine layer (the almost-perpetual layer of coastal fog) became visible on the horizon.
This area is heavily agricultural. I passed fields of broccoli...
...peas...
...and strawberries, among much else.
Approaching the coast, the road was hewn through sandstone (or what I presume was sandstone).
In some areas, the road cuts were deeply channeled, looking like miniature badlands.
But some coastal flowers were blooming...
First glimpse of the ocean.
Naturally, there were lots of ice plants...
...and a few yellow sand verbena.
I climbed down the access path to the beach and strolled along the shoreline.
This part of the coast has relatively few shells, but it seemed every rock was collectible. I have to remember I'm flying home, not driving, so I can't pack five pounds of rocks in my suitcase.
This rock looked like a mini Oreo cookie. Okay, I should probably have pocketed this one (but, regrettably, didn't).
I found a piece of sea glass in a pale, sea-foam green. This one I did keep.
Sand crab carcasses were everywhere.
I found a sand dollar in almost perfect condition.
Later, I found a purple sand dollar, which probably means it had more recently died.
Close-ups of the papillate spines on the ventral and dorsal surfaces.
Color difference between a newly dead sand dollar and an older one.
Fragment of a crab shell, no idea what kind.
Barnacle attached to a sand dollar.
Snowy plovers were everywhere. Portions of this beach are often cordoned off to protect their nesting grounds.
I think this is a western sandpiper (correct me if I'm wrong).
The long-billed curlews were especially fascinating to watch.
Found a sand crab!
You can see it at the bird's feet.
Yum.
The higher portions of the beach were strewn with the fragile paper-thin carcasses of velella (also called "By-the-Wind Sailors"). I didn't see any fresh ones, so I'm guessing they tend to wash ashore later in the summer.
Walking back to the beach-access path, I saw dozens of sand pipers clustered together in an area of only a few square yards. Must have been an exceptionally rich haul of goodies below the sand.
And that was my visit to the ocean.
