Bargain Vacation --- Days 14/346 & 347

Walk: Asian Art Museum, Apple Cinema

Distance: 3.75 miles average

So Ciwt saved the plane fare and general travel hassles by traveling locally to one of her favorite places - a local theater.  And Wake Up Dead Man, the next installment of the Knives Out murder mystery movies, proved to be a delightful way to take a between holidays vacation.  Playing the role of Detective Benoit Blanc is such a romp for Daniel Craig who has actually upped his campy-hammy game, and Ciwt enjoyed going right along with him (as well as admiring his acting range).  This time Craig is matched with new-to-Ciwt Josh O'Connor who balances Craig perfectly both in story line and acting skills.  The rest of the cast is star studded, especially by Glenn Close who can do no wrong in Ciwt's book (but not necessarily in her role...).  As promised in the Knives Out series, the murder is wrapped up, but it takes many thought provoking twists and pscho-spiritual turns getting there.

Wake Up Dead Man will begin soon on Netflix (who produced it), but if you watch it there, you won't get the full over the top movie experience or the mini vacation actual theaters provide.  

First One --- 14/343-345

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.5 miles average

Looks like Ciwt's last (but not least) 2025 Neighborhood Home Decorationg contest has begun. 

Neighborhood Thanksgiving Welcomes --- Days 14/340-342

Walks: Hood

Distance: 3 miles average

So, on her Thanksgiving morning walk today. Ciwt was delighted to see that may of her neighbors had gone from "Thanksgiving, yawn" to "Thanksgiving, Yay!"  with their welcoming decorations.  

Happy Thanksgiving

Up for the Hoidays --- Day 14/339

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

Completely not gorgeous, apparently kaput, end of February-November end, 2025

Nothing looked more lifeless or got less attention than Ciwt's 'dead' amaryllis bulb as it sat in her dark storeroom for eight months after its spectacular holiday bloom.  

Just beginning its gorgeous full bloom, January 10, 2025

But, as Ciwt had read, and every Amaryllis-ite knows, its 'dead' bulbs can return to life.  So, Ciwt thought "Why not give it a try?, plunked her bulb downstairs, ignored it completely as she got rid of everything else in the storeroom (almost) except it.  Then, last week, she thought "Okay, let's see what happens" and brought it back into its old place.  And look!!

Today, 2025

Another Theater Worthy Movie! --- Days 14/337 & 338

Walks: Presidio, AMC Kabuki

Distances: 3.6

So a movie buff friend recommended Rental Family and movie buff Ciwt was only too happy to go to one of her local theaters to take it in.  Here's what she found:  Fantastic cinematography! Mildly engaging rest of the movie.  BUT the audience around her were audibly fully engaged and Rental Family has a 99% Rotten Tomatoes audience rating.  So, Ciwt thinks go yourselves and see what you think.  At the very least, if you too are a movie buff, you'll enjoy being back in a theater watching a worthy cinema production.

Lighting Up --- Days 14/335 & 336

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4 miles

JOLLY LIGHTS Truck

Seeing this holiday lights truck today has Ciwt feeling hopeful about her Annual Neighborhood Christmas Decorating Contest

Chair Mom --- Days 14/333 & 334

Walks: Magic Flute, Nordstrom Marin

Distances: 4.5, 1 mile

 For the reason you see above, Ciwt rarely finds an opening for herself on her sheepskin chair. Maybe they consider it another mom (besides Ciwt who isn't so furry but feeds them...)

Naw... --- Days 14/331 & 332

Walks: Hood

Distances: 4 miles

"Rats on that for a game of marbles.'  Ciwt just became acquainted with this (very) old timey phrase coined by Englishwoman who lived to a ripe old age.  Apparently she used it when she had had enough of some obligation or project.  "Screw it" might be a modern version.  However it is said, Ciwt is well acquainted with the spirit of the phrase in the longish, darkish, drearyish last few months of the year.  Never seems like a time to begin anything of consequence - even holiday preparations if you aren't particularly in to holidays. And all fitness equipment and diet foods seem like enemies.  Comfort food, mystery books, ipad binges or just plain bed with cats (or dogs) call more strongly,  All very anti the Puritan ethic of carrying on and producing with energetic cheer at all costs.  But, often at this time of year, Ciwt just thinks "Rats on that..."

A Movie! In a Theater! --- Day 14/330

Walk: AMC Kabuki (Sentimental Value)

Distance: 2.5 miles

Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning in Sentimental Value

At last!   A real (according to Ciwt) movie.  Adult script, superb acting, deep attunement to the authentc visitudes of human life and emotions . And, speaking of dreariness - as CIWT was a day or two ago - here is that bone deep, DNA deep Norwegian version captured so well by Munch's "Scream" 😱, and now writer-director Joachim Trier.  If you have a Nordic (or something) sense of humor, Sentimental Value is categorized as a comedy (????) so perhaps you'll enjoy laughing if you go.  Or maybe you'll be like Ciwt and sit unsmiling and nearly spellbound by the overall precision, quality and emotional texture of the movie.

Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve the principal co-stars of Sentimental Vlaue

Thanksgiving Decorating Non-Contest --- Day 14/329

Walk: Hood

Distance: 4.5 miles

So, much as Ciwt would love to have a Thanksgiving Nieghborhood Home Decorating Contest, she has been searching in vain for entries.  Lots of little pumkin arrangements here and there.  Many behind new front gates installed during the unsafe times of Covid.  

But if she did have a contest, here would be her favorites, each with its own merits.

Most Distinguished

Stand back, Patience and Fortitude*, here are a couple of your counterparts out in San Francisco.  Ciwt loves the restful way they balance the two quietly matching doors and wreaths.  Unmatchable tastefulness.

Very Best Pumpkin Arrangement

The super healthy Thanksgiving red orange and  yellow gold colored Chrysanthemums and artful arrangement bring this festive display to life.  And also mean that this is no passive arrangement.  The owners clearly put it together with an artistic eye and will need to give daily care to the live flowers.

(Some readers may have recognized this as the very skeleton covered house that has been the Halloween BEST WHOLE HOUSE winner for several years.  So, if Ciwt had an actual Thanksgiving Neighborhood Home Decorating Contest, this beauty would be back-to-back CIWT contest winners).

* New York readers and Main Library visitors know Patience and Fortitude very well.

The New York Public Library's 42nd Street building on opening day in 1911

Spoiler Alert: Dreariness --- Days14/327 & 328

Walks: Hood & None (Storm)

Distances: 4 miles, 0 ☔☔

So in her usual exhuberance over the beauty of Fall, Ciwt tends to forget it is also the time of rains, blustery winds and light so low it almost feels like evening all day long.  (Not very energizing ...)

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Rain Storm Union Square, 1890, o/o

Veterans Day 2025 --- Days 14/325 & 326

Walks: Hood and Presidio

Distances: 3.5 miles, 5 miles

San Francisco Presidio National Cemetery 

Veterans Day 2025

Solemn and tranquil resting place of 30,000 soldiers and their families

Often the last thing they saw when they shipped out to battle

The Color of Daily Life --- Days 14/323 & 324

Walks: Hood

Distance: 4.5 miles

Cats, dogs, flowers, daily scenes around the home and grounds!!  How can private, homebody, art and color loving Ciwt resist private, homebody, color loving artist Pierre Bonnard (Fr. 1867-1947)  

She can't; every time she sees a Bonnard work some part of her relaxes right into his scene.  He captures the intimacy of living life without being intrusive or overly cute or judging or trying to understand his subject. There is the ultimate mystery of other people no matter how close, but not detachment.  Through his complex commingling of color, light, shade Bonnard communicates the dearness to him of all that fills his daily life.  The scenes out the window, the pets, the people, the routines, the hush.

Even when he was a young art student in the heart of vibrant Paris, Bonnard finds each individual passerby going about his or her life.  

Pierre Bonnard, Paris, Rue de Parme on Bastille Day, 1890. Oil on canvas,  16" x 31" 

His true artistic life  began shortly after his student years.  Neither political nor interested in the many artistic style debates surrounding him in Paris, he became more and more free to paint the subjects that called to him in ways he developed and refined on his own.  

Pierre Bonnard, Woman with Cat, 1912

Pierre Bonnard, Woman and Dog, 1922, oil on canvas

Pierre Bonnard, Coffee, 1915. Oil on canvas

Pierre Bonnard, Interior with Flowers, oil on canvas

Pierre Bonnard, Young Woman Writing, oil on paper

Pierre Bonnard, Dining Room in the Country, 1913, oil on canvas

 

Pierre Bonnard, Landscape at Le Cannet, 1928, 50 3/8 × 109 1/2 in., oil on canvas

Detail

Out of the Basement --- Day 14/322

Walk: Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles

So, Ciwt is back out of her storeroom/yoga room (which are actually at ground level) to color and a 'view' of how artist's commune and learn from each other through time.  

Matisse set color free in Paris with his intensely controversial "fauve" paintings at the beginning of the 1900's.

Henri Matisse (Fr. 1869-1954), Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, 21 3/4" x 18 1/8"

And artists have been liberated ever since: 

Pierre Bonnard (fr. 1867-1947), The Open Window, 1921,  Oil on canvas  

Richard Diebenkorn (Am, 1922-1993), Ocean Park #27, 1970

Basement for You, Ciwt! - Pt. 2 --- Days 14/320 & 321

 Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.5 miles

With Ciwt's storeroom under much more control (see previous day), she was finally ready to put together her little home gym/yoga room.

First she got rid of a smelly old carpet

Then she had a new cork floor put down

Then she brightened it up with new lighting and fresh white paint

Stay tuned for further developments.....

Basement for You, Ciwt! --- Days 14/317 - 319

Walks: Hood

Distances: 3.5-4 miles daily

So, maybe because she spent so much time looking at neighborhood halloween decorations, Ciwt's mind - and then she herself - went to her basement.  There she first made a further dent in clearing her storeroom accumulation.

So far she has taken this:

To this:

With all that done, she moved on to the room she's been waiting to fix up.  Stay tuned........

Father Knows Best --- Day 14/316

Walk:  Hood of course

Distance: 3.5 miles

So, Ciwt's father had spectacular season tickets to the newly arrived Twins when she was growing up.  Occasionally he would offer them to Ciwt; Ciwt's reaction was "Yawn."  So he took to making the offer in front of Ciwt's boyfriend or whatever boy happened to be over to the house.  Whoever it was, his eyes Lit Up and Ciwt was stuck sitting in the stands watching nothing happen, listening to all the people around her trade statistics and other minutia about each player.  Action or no action on the field, the fans were totally involved.  Minus Ciwt.

If those tickets were available today, Ciwt would leap at the chance - thanks to the spellbinding excitement of this year's World Series. The two teams, L.A. Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays, are tied 3-3, the last game is tonight, and she is on pins and needles about the outcome.  At 5:00 Pacific time she will be sitting at her TV watching station glued to the riveting play and actually appreciating the ads which give her a chance to google her iPhone for, yes, statistics and other minutia about the players.

What team does she hope wins?  Good question.  Both of them!  Like many people - especially up here in the Northern part of California - she's not a Dodgers fan.  But then they have the Glorious, Beyond Talented, Baseball adoring, Singular Joyful Baseball Presence Shohei Ohtoni whom Ciwt would be thrilled to watch eating breakfast.  

The Blue Jays have palpable team spirit as well as talent apparently as deep as the Dodgers.  They are come-from-behind over the years supposed underdogs - except you'd never know it.  Not in Ohtoni's Beyond Superstar league (no baseball player has been for at least 60 years or something), Vladimir Guerrero, Jr has Ciwt holding her breath every time he comes to bat.  And then there's that 22 year old rookie pitcher, Trey Yesavage, who basically lives out of hs truck but made it up to the major league just in time to devastate the Dodgers in his initial World Series showing.

Who knew baseball could be so exciting?  Ciwt's father for one, plus all the "America's Passtime" fans since the early 1800's.  And now Ciwt.

(Yah, yah, Ciwt knows what you're thinking, yawners......)