A Home Not a Ship --- Day 8/3

Walk: Fort Mason, Ghiradelli Square, Union Square
Distance: 5 miles

So one reason Ciwt doesn't get on airplanes very often is the abundance of attractions right here in her very own city.  Today on one of her favorite walks up and over the hill from Fort Mason up to Ghiradelli Square she realized she had never gone into the San Francisco Maritime Museum on the water there.  So in she went in and found an array of quite good crafts created by sailors

Turns out many sailors - on board and on land - adapted their maritime skills (ropes, rigging, sighting, ivory, music,photographis etc) to making folk art, early photographs, paintings and other art forms.

Ciwt's favorities, no matter who makes them and where she sees them, are always the detailed miniture models of ships, or, as many a salt has called them, homes.  

Next Stop Please(?) --- Day 8/3

Walk: Cinema Club (Transit)
Distance: 2 miles, small yoga

Ciwt's Cinema Club movie today was Transit.  Ciwt is going to borrow fromWinston Churchill's description of Russia,* to say it is like a coincidence inside a coincidence wrapped in a coincidence.  Subtly, quietly the enigmatic and unexpected lurks around every corner of Transit throughout all of its 101 minutes.  Personally Ciwt was absorbed in the ongoing suspense, but, beware; many of her Cinema Club audience members reported being bored, bamboozled, angry or completely checked out.  So perhaps you would like to transit right through to the next movie.

* "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia.  It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma..."
                                   Winston Churchill, Radio Broadcast, October 1, 1939

Black Step Aside --- Day 8/2

Walk: No, Really finished Spring/Summer Closet caper
Distance: 0, Yoga

Not easy since Ciwt's closet is almost entirely city woman black, but she pressed through with 

her Spring/Summer closet caper and accomplished her goal: no black (almost).  We'll see if she wears those colors or reaches into the wings where her blacks are hiding).  

CIWT YEAR 8 and THE Reader --- Day 8/ONE

Walks: Hood, Presidio, Whereever Ciwt can in our beautiful weather
Distance: 4.5 miles, wee yoga sessions

Ciwt is happy to begin CIWT YEAR 8 with an homage to those who write and read better than she does.  Better than most people anywhere do.

A few days ago, Ciwt wrote to say she was quite impressed with people who apparently read two or more books at once and that she herself might give it a try.*  In response to this, one of her readers sent the picture above.  And, no, those books aren't lying there because they haven't been attended to and the bookshelves are getting dusty.  Those are the books her husband is currently reading. All of them. Soon they will have been read cover to cover and a new pile will begin forming.

Needless to say, Ciwt was stunned.  Luckily her reader also included a note:  The above photo is my husband's reading/rotating book stack.  He rotates 20 (Ciwt's bold) at a time although he says he does better when we travel and he brings along 10 - in both cases replacing finished books with new ones (from Amazon) to be savored.  He assiduously reads, reviews and probably passes over 120 books a year.  As a result he's a fascinating dinner partner and guest.  Plus I luck out because he knows what I like and passes them along.

Knowing Ciwt's brain was likely spinning at this news, her reader sent an addendum to help Ciwt understand how her husband accomplishes this.  Ready?  If he has, say, 10 books,  he reads every other space: Book A, then Book B, then back to Book A, and then...to Book C and so on until he gets to book number 10.  Book A varies; he chooses it because it has the least pages left to read, so the longer books gradually work their way up to Book A position.  

Using this personal system he finishes one book every other day on average. 200 pages a day.  And remember the yearly 120 books in the description above?  Well, it turns out that was an underestimate and he actually reads more like 150 books a year.

Ciwt would like to add a few notes of her own:

1. This topic of exceptional readers and how they do it is surely worthy of some NYT, or New York Review article by an excellent columnist.
2. If you don't quite grasp the husband's system, neither does Ciwt.
3. It should be noted the husband has a PhD in some form of Engineering.
4. Lest you think all this reading is accomplished by a hermit, let Ciwt correct you:  He's a terrific guy; they have a wonderful long marriage and spend much time conversing, entertaining, enjoying their children, grandchildren and each other.  It can be done. 
5.  If you meet such a man, send him Ciwt's way please.
6.  Welcome to CIWT Year 8.  Thank you very much for reading at whatever pace suits you.  You are valued.

*Ciwt Day 7/363

With a Whimper --- Day 7/365

Walk: Hood
Distance: 3 miles

Ciwt is sad to end her seventh year of CIWT with sad news about Alex Trebek, the man who has been her dinner partner every night - with very few exceptions - for 35 years.  While she collects her thoughts and sends her hopeful wishes, she offers a partial quote from a longer article by Ken Jennings, 79 consecutive day Jeopardy winner, and links to his full article as well as another (out of many internationally) from the New York Times.  Ciwt is not alone in her feelings.

In praise of Alex Trebek: “Alex Trebek announced a few days ago that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and that he plans to keep working as he fights the disease. Let me be clear: This is not an elegy. I hope Alex will be hosting ‘Jeopardy!’ for a long time to come. It’s impossible to even imagine the show with anyone else. But he’s been doing one job so long, and so well, that I think we sometimes take him for granted. Let’s make sure that we appreciate the man as long as we have him... In person, he’s decidedly not the stern, judicial presence you might expect. On TV, he’s all business. He has 61 clues to get to, and not a lot of time. Hosting such a dense, fast-moving game is an insanely hard job, but he makes it look effortless. Here’s the belief that lies at the core of Alex’s TV persona: ‘Jeopardy!’ itself, not he, is the star of the show. It’s all about the format, the players, the facts, the dissemination of answers and questions. It’s hard to imagine any modern TV personality deftly avoiding the spotlight like that.”

What Alex Trebek is Really Like by Ken Jennings
Why America Loves Alex Trebek

Catching a Wave --- Day 7/364

Walk: Crissy Field, Monday Hood Errands
Distance: 4.8 miles

          
So this morning at Crissy Field there were these guys actually in the Bay with cameras.  Ciwt is guessing a surfing movie is on their horizon.

Multiple Diversions Recommended --- Day 7/363

Walk: No (c-w-r again)
Distance: 0, Yoga

So over the years Ciwt had heard people talking about reading several books at once.  This seemed odd to her and she dismissed the concept.  Now, with months on end of cold-wind-rain (c-w-r) and getting a bit bored with the book group novel she's been reading, she decided to Google the topic.  

Well, turns out having multiple books going can have all sorts of positive effects like keeping the reader stimulated when he/she has run out of steam on one, and enlarging one's understanding of the world for two.  In Ciwt's case there might be the dissipation of guilt factor as well.  She's not a library borrower so she buys books, puts them in her bookcase then, more often than she cares to admit,  never takes them off to read them.  

She's going to give multiples a try; her big question is whether she'll forget the characters and plot on several books at a time. (Likely).  If that happens, she'll take a lesson from her cats. As you might notice from he picture above, Ciwt's cats have no trouble whatsoever with multiple toys and couldn't care less if they forget the one they were just carried away with.

Information, Please --- Day 7/362

Walk: No (another rain-wind-cold one)
Distance: 0, Yoga, and exercising her eyes reading a book club selection

Today is the 7th year, 362nd day of CIWT. Can 365 be far behind?  Time hovers more consciously than before.  Earlier this year it prompted Ciwt to go visit one of those (sensible) places for maybe the 17th year of CIWT.  Oh dear.  The lobby fountain is above; residents dress for dinner, there is ballroom after ballroom for entertaining (this is a guess).  Upstairs things are less grandly appointed but still on the high end of the scale (even the 'health' - read hospital - facilities).

This option - and others like it - are not on Ciwt's wish list, but in year 7 of CIWT it seemed 'sensible' to become informed.