Cat Mother's Presents --- Days 13/126-129

Walks/Lopes: Hood: errands, open houses,

Distances: 1.9 miles (nose to grindstone finishing will update), 4 miles, 4 miles, 5.5 miles

Happy Mother's Day.  Ciwt's cats mostly give her the gift of company and a few soft, colorful 'mice' here and there. No cards.

Where'd That Office Go? --- Day 13/126

Walk/Lope/Stretch:  Hood and Neighborhood Park

Distance: 3 miles

Has Ciwt shown you what she likes best about having her office in a closet?

All messy

And now....

All gone; even her cats can't find the mess

Chocolate, Books, Life - In Miniature --- Day 13/125

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

Tatsuya Tanaka, Sweet Time, 2021. MINIATURE CALENDAR.

Japanese artist Tatsuya Tanaka started publishing his miniature works on instagram where he now has 3M followers.  His playful minature landscapes are put together using commonplace objects along with figures from Tanaka's collection of diorama figurines.  Shortly after his first post a follower commented that he wanted to see a new miniature post every day.  So Tanaka did just that then got so involved in his daily posts he created a Miniature Calendar.

You can find all of his miniature scenes and calendars here

Favorite Drawer --- Day 13/124

Walk: Just a few errands

Distance: 1/2 mile

So, its the little things in life that can bring so much pleasure. For instance,  Ciwt's limited closet and drawer space keeps her carefully folding and hanging her things.  But she allows herself the luxury of one Completely Messy drawer.  After getting her bedroom in order with  things neatly put away, she just loves to pick up the last little pile and just heave it into her designated any-way-she-wants drawer.

Caution: Lemons Ahead --- Day 13/123

Lope: Hood

Distance: 5.5 miles

Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Lemons and Olives, 1629, oil on canvas

Readers, take heart.  Ciwt is nearly done with her will update project so the CIWT palette should be brightening very soon.

But, while she's on the will theme,  a note on another dark work of art.  Probably you know that the Golden Age Dutch still lifes are filled with symbols.  And that virtually all of them are a version of memento mori, Latin for 'remember you will die.'  So glasses can be tipped over, everything on the table can be near the edge and therefore precarious, about to fall. There's usually at least one piece of fruit that is sliced, peeled and beginning to rot.  

And in this painting, that fruit is clearly the lemon. Lemons were very expensive in that era, so they are a sign of wealth.  On the other hand, they are also bitter and one of them has been sliced and peeled.  So what we have is a moral warning for the viewer: You may enjoy your costly objects but remember earthly beauty is deceptive and fleeting.

As Ciwt said, brightness is on the way around CIWT.....

Falling for Stars --- Day 13/122

Walk: No, rain and cold wind

Distance: yoga

You know who: Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt

So Ciwt took advantage of good weather before the coming storm to go to The Fall Guy.  Really to be able to gaze at that Ken and other roles guy, Ryan Gosling, and that Quiet Room and other roles woman, Emily Blunt.  She was duly rewarded with numerous 20' high close ups of each of them throughout the movie.  

The plot was thin so those huge headshots, and some great car rolls and myriad enteraining stunts, were about all she got from her movie outing.  But, given the talented, eye candy stars, that was Plenty.

             

Lavinia Fontana, Leading Artist, 1600 ad --- Day 13/121

Walk: AMC Kabuki (The Fall Guy)

Distance: 2 miles

Lavinia Fontana (Italy, 1552-1614) , Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children, ca. 1604-5. Oil on canvas, 39 x 53 1/4 in. (99.06 x 135.255 cm)

So, the Decorator Showcase designers (see previous CIWT) will likely cast admiring eyes at the Legion of Honor's newly acquired painting by Renaissance artist Lavinia Fontana.  Look at those sumptuous fabrics, the haute couture fitting of each family member's outfit, the lengthly strand of enormous matching pearls.

If you can make them out, that is.  The painting is remarkably preserved having been in one family for over four hundred years, so the overall dark tones are not due to accumulated dirt and grime.  Instead the reddish brown ground layer was likely achieved by the artist's decision to grind and reuse broken clay bricks for her colors. In fact, the trend of using darker colored grounds was only just taking hold in Bologna where the multiple portrait was painted and indicates Fontana was up to date with the newest technical developments in her field.

Up to date is the least of it.  Livinia Fontana, an unusual woman in unusual circumstances, was far ahead of her time in many regards.  First, of course, in her natural talent, which was honed by her father who was a recognized artist in his own right. Second by the good fortune of being born in Bologna at a time when elite women had greater opportunities to participate in public life and women artists had more chance at acceptance.

The rest was up to Fontana's strong vision for fashioning her own life and career - eventually establishing herself as the first female career artist in Western Europe. Instead of offering a traditional dowry at her wedding, Fontana offered her ability to paint - and this was accepted.  She earned commissions for her income; her family relied on her career as a painter; her father retired and became her painting assistant; her husband, Gian Paolo Zappi, gave up his own career, raised their 11 children, managed her studio  and served as her agent.  That last, was of paramount importance because, even in the comparatively liberal city of Bologna, she would have needed a man to engage in business negotiations on her behalf.

While Bolognese society at large was supportive of Fontana's artistic career it was the newly empowered uppper class women who became Fontana's initial core clientele. With their patronage and increasingly important commissions, by the end of the 1550's, she was the uncontested portraitist of Bolognese noblewomen. 

And as her fame grew within and beyond Italy, Fontana had vision, ambition and courage to move her studio and family to Rome. There too, in that competitive, cosmopolitan, male city, she thrived as she had in Bologna. Even Pope Paul V himself was one of her sitters.  Over her thirty plus year career, Lavinia Fontana became the recipient of numerous honors and is today regarded as the first highly successful woman artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent. And San Francisco's Fine Arts Museums and its visitors are fortunate to now have this work by such an enterprising, talented and successful woman artist in its collection and on view.

Moody Displays for a Good Cause --- Day 13/120

Walk/Lope: Decorator Showcase

Distance: 4 miles

This year's Decorator Showcase house: 4-story, 10-bedroom, 7-bathroom home built in 1899 —with ipanoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay

Decorator Showcase is the major fundraiser for a local high school's financial aid program.* A San Francisco mansion is emptied and Bay Area design and decorator talents move in and are given a room a two to display their look and craft.  

The last time Ciwt went to a Showcase was at least forty years ago, so when she walked past its open door today she decided to donate to a good cause and go in.  On her last visit, much was made of white, white, white - and a bit of peach, light pink, periwinkle.  She distinctly remembers the dining room: It was draped floor to ceiling in embroidered white silk as was the large, round table in a slightly different pattern. The dining chairs were upholstered in yet another thick white silk, and there might even have been a white rug on the floor.  In all, there was at least $400,000 of fabric teed up to be spilled on and stained at the first dinner party in the room.

But Ciwt learned as she looked that 2024 is not the year of white. Not at all. The Showcase was room after room of high-gloss surfaces, deep toned custom paints, complex marble and tile fixtures, various wall creations, moody, layered fabrics. Basically drama, drama, drama. Dark drama.

For those of you about to redecorate your homes, forget minimalism; it's o-u-t apparently.  Opulence and abstract design are i-n.  And, if you are looking for a new home, this one is currently on the market for (remember this is San Francisco) $32 million.  You can probably talk a few of these designers into leaving their creations in place for you.  

Powder Room in Blue

Welcome Salon in Black

Kitchen in Very Dark Brown

Grand Living Room in Purple Velvet

 (detail)

Study in Browns with Abstract Painted Ceiling

Guest Room Bathroom in  Many Deep, Rich Colors (detail below)

*Throughout its history the Decorator Showcase has raised over $18M to provide hundreds of deserving Bay Area students with world-class college preparatory education.    

Sometimes You Laugh --- Day 13/119

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

So Eighty is a difficult age to ignore.  Impossible so far for Ciwt who has had a lifetime pattern of flying by - even forgetting - her birthdays.  But not 80!  It's coming for Ciwt and it's somewhere on her mind much of the time these days.  

Maybe it has just been Ciwt's luck, but most of the articles or books she's read on older age/turning 80 haven't spoken to her.  The focus of some has been on decrepitude or deep acceptance and spiritual connections.  Then there are the spunky 80 year olds who start new (successful) companies or find love and marriage or become wildly participatory in activities and volunteer jobs.  Oh and the very wealthy ones talking about golf, fly fishing, heli skiing and new resort homes.

Not many Ciwt has encoutered  talk about  people like her - somewhere in the middle  - who enjoy good (enough) health, relative economic okayness (for now) and slowly, day by day, (reluctantly) notice and find ways to adjust to the myriad little parts of themselves that are lessening - balance, strength, focus, stamina.  

So even though she didn't laugh, Ciwt related and was edified by the candid descriptions of such lives in Susan Evans' You Have to Laugh. It's a small, wise book of short, well-crafted essays (Evans calls 'riffs') told with compassion, intelligence and loving candor ; not too upbeat, not too downbeat, but just right on for Ciwt.  

Loping Along --- Days 13/117 & 118

Lope: Crissy Field; de Young Museum

Distance: 4 miles; 7 miles

Ciwt Can Walk Everywhere --- Day 13/116

Lope: Hood

Distance: 4.5 miles

Please, dear readers,  don't let all Ciwt's city walks confuse you.  CIWT began as a tribute to her daily long walks in the woods near her home with Zipper, her best friend and dog.  (See CIWT 1).  After those were walks in the rolling hills and arboretums of Connecticut, also long.  Probably the most glorious were the challenging hikes in the clear blue, windless skies (see Hemingway) of Idaho - up, down, around the Sawtooth Mountains.  Theoretically the most dangerous were the Marin hikes when she she moved back to California.  The trail system is extensive and beautifully maintained there, but she did many of her long hikes while the Trailside Killer was also walking along those trails. 

Time though moves on and with varying degrees of acceptance, Ciwt did as well.  To city life and her CIWT walks.  The trailheads in Marin gradually got so crowded, she often got there to find them filled.  Traffic increased along with bridge accidents, so a 90 minute hike could be three or four hours out of her day.  Yoga began calling.  And, of course, there was the matter of aging and less energy.

But, yes, she absolutely misses those nature adventures.  Deeply, at a soul level.  

City walks, though,  have many wonderful rewards of their own.  For one thing, they are right outside the door and constantly available.  For another, they can be measured and taken to destinations.  Ciwt appreciates that; no more walk, walk, walk just for the sake of walking.  But walking to get an errand done or to an appointment, all measurable by blocks at her chosen speed. Cities are stimulating. Nature can't paint an artwork, or build a building, or speak foreign languages, or do a lot of things that keeps Ciwt's mind alert, expanding.  She can go fast if she wants to; there are lots of runners on San Francisco streets.  And, realistically, San Francisco abounds with extensive and spectacular nature.  Think CrissyField, the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, just for openers.

A friend of Ciwt's lives on a reservoir, and another has a cabin in Wisconsin where she spends much of the year doing things like tagging wolves.  Ciwt herself once owned and lived in a log cabin.  She is happy for her friends living near nature and open to that possibility for herself if life brings it along.  For now she loves her city walks, CIWT and knows wherever her future lies, she will be walking to the best of her ability.

Periwinkle *#* - Sigh --- Day 13/115

Walk: Hood errands

Distance: 5 miles

So there's a color that speaks deeply to and confounds Ciwt.  One of her favorite paintings couldn't have been made without it:

Claude Monet, The Magpie, 1868-1869, oil on canvas

Nor would those last fifteen minutes before the sun disappears from San Francisco sky be as stirring:

Even its name eludes her when she tries to remember it: periwinkle.  It's not purple, but it is.  Not blue, or is it?  Same with violet, lavender, even mauve.  

It's named after a pretty plant -  that can also be invasive and poisonous, especially to dogs. In some religious settings, the lovely bloom is known as the 'flower of death.'

Vinca minor

Artists, especially the Impressionists, used periwinkle for years in the 1800's, but the color's name didn't enter the language until the 1920's.  It comes from Old English, from the word perwince or maybe from the Latin, pervinca.  But then in Russia you also have a flower named pervinka.

Periwinkle has always been a plant first, whose flowers inspired the color.  Oh, yeh, there's a snail called the periwinkle snail but its slime is not a purple color and there is no indication where it got its name. And did Ciwt mention, there are white periwinkles?

On and on the color's elusiveness goes. It can be difficult to pin down, to name.   But subtle, complex periwinkle's effect is deep and strong: it evokes a sense of freshness, comfort, serenity, calmness, peace.

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1905

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1907

Now for the Babies --- Day 13/114

Walk: No, toooo windy!  Good day for reading though

Distance: n/a

A mother hen protects a group of chicks under her wings and body. #

Matthew Troke / iStockphoto / Getty

A loon chick catches a ride on the back of a parent, photographed in Canada. #

Pchoui /

 iStockphoto / Getty

A young wood duck leaps to the ground from its nest in a tree in southern Minnesota. #

Stan Tekiela / Getty

Never Enough Birds for Ciwt (and CIWT) --- Day 13/113

Lope:  Hood 

Distance: 4 miles

A close view of an Atlantic puffin #

Nickjamesstock / iStockphoto / Getty

A close view of a peacock with its colorful tail feathers on display #

Raghu Ramaswamy / iStockphoto / Getty

A cassowary, photographed in Sydney, on November 26, 2014 #

Steve Christo / Corbis / Getty

Apes Can Ride --- Day 13/112

Walk: Presidio

Distance: 3 miles

Apes leaving the Golden Gate Bridge

So the rental bikers, dog walkers, runners, strollers and lopers like Ciwt were startled by their fellow Crissy Field promenaders today.  To say the least!  Bikers nearly fell over, some had to dismount from their bikes to be safe, dogs barked like mad, runners gave the horses a very wide berth.

San Franciscans are used to unusual sites on their streets, but apes on horses was (to Ciwt's knowledge) a first.  Clearly the apes can saddle and ride horses, but it looked like they can't write.  Or at least didn't bother to this afternoon so didn't carry or wear any identification.*

Free Apes Passing in front of Alcatraz along Crissy Field Beach

* According to SF Gate, the best guess is the apes were part of a publicity stunt for a new movie, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.  Or maybe they were just enjoying a timelessly beautiful site.

Soon to be Well Dressed Wanderer (Hopefully) --- Day 13/111

Walk/Lope: Patagonia, Athleta, Sports Basement

Distance: 5.3 miles

Time for some new hiking clothes and shoes. Time for going place to place to place to find and try them on.  Time to come home and crash from the effort.

Adorable Earth Day --- Days 13/109 & 110

Walk (Ciwt is mostly loping these days):  Hood, Retail

Distances: 4 miles, 1 mile

A rufous-crested coquette seeks out nectar from porterweed, photographed in Panama. #

Juan Carlos Vindas / Getty

A Friend and Wonder --- Day 13/108

Walk: Hood

Distance: 5 miles

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room - The Souls of  Millions of Light Years Away, 2013, wood, metal, glass, plastic, acrylic panel, rubber, LED lighting system, acrylic balls and water

A friend takes in Yayoi Kasuma's sparkling and infinite universe of love at LA's Broad Museum today.  

Things Happening All Over the Place --- Days 13/106 & 107

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.5 & 4.2 mi

Ciwt's life has been pretty nuts and bolts these last couple of days.  So she's delighted to see in The Atlantic Photos of the Week that all sorts of important things were happeing all over the place.

Goslings took some of their first steps in Hamburg, Germany:

Michael Probst/AP

A squirrel with a peanut in its mouth just made it up a tree ahead of a dog in Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

Mert Alper Dervis / Anadolu / Getty

And lovely bluebells bloomed in the Hallerbos Forest, aka the"Blue Forest," in Brussels, Belgium:

Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu / Getty

New T$$th --- Day 13/105

Walk: Union Square Dentist

Distance: 5.5 miles

So, a little tooth gets wobbly, you go the dentist, they take a few xrays and then tell you you need a new tooth.  You come back a few times for various steps along the new tooth way, and they - looking a little concerned for you - say you don't have to pay yet.  Then just before the new tooth is to go in, you are sent the reason for the concerned looks: the "Treatment Plan."  Ie, the bill.....

Or at least that was the step by step route to the new tooth Ciwt had implanted yesterday.  Luckily the anesthesia took the edge off initialing pages and pages of  possible life threatening complications and paying off the 'Treatment Plan' in full, up front.  

PS - It's way in the back. She can't really see it, but knows it's there when she looks at her check book..  

Complicated, Please --- Day 13/104

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4.5

So, when Ciwt was in Palm Springs, the sky was never not clear and blue, or the mountains blocked by haze.  Blades of perfectly green grass were mowed several times a day so they were always even with each other.  There were extra, open pickleball courts for all the snappily dressed players.  Everyone smiled, waved, said "Another perfect day in Paradise!" as they golf carted by.  Even the plane ride from San Francisco had been ripple free.

The flight back was extremely turbulent from takeoff to landing.  The skies were thick with mid grey clouds which reached almost to the ground.  As her plane descended, there were ripples of water on the windows by her seat.  And, sure enough, there was 'unseasonable' rain and cold on the ground.  People whisked by nearly knocking each other over at the airport, the highway to the city was frustrating to navigate, homeless people began appearing on the sidewalks. The complications of San Francisco city life began emerging.. 

And, happily, Ciwt began to feel the particular palpable energy of this fascinating, difficult, challenging, ever evolving, embarrassment of riches city that holds her heart.

Here's Looking at You --- Days 13/102 & 103

Walks: Hood      Presidio

Distances: 3 miles     4 miles

Hello, readers.  Ciwt is back from the desert, complete with camels, giraffes, rhinos and other desert creatures at the Living Desert* just in time to get her taxes in.    

*https://www.livingdesert.org/

The Desert Calls --- Days 13/95-101

 Walks: Palm Springs, Indian Wells

Distance: tbd

Ciwt is off to Palm Springs to spend time with family.  She'll meet you on CIWT in 5 days.

Where in the World is Carmen...? --- Day 13/94

Walk: T Joe's

Distance: 2.4 miles

So, Ciwt couldn't help but wonder what the opera lovers in the SF Ballet audience yesterday were thinking during its new dance version of the beloved Carmen. 

The music is almost entirely new (but catchy and pretty hip). Carmen is not a cigarette factory worker; she's a waitress. And she's in Cuba, not Spain.  She's married in this dance.  And, oh, she comes to realize that she is a lesbian after all.

Ciwt and the season ticket holders sitting around her are a pretty open-minded (though mostly mature) group, and none of us got into this Carmen.  If the dance was 'modernized' for the younger audience, judging from the tepid applause at the end, it didn't sound like they got into either.  Ditto our local dance reviwer.