Auld Lang Nine --- Day 9/365

Walk: Presidio

Distance: 4 miles, Yoga

Goodbye 9.

Today is the last one CIWT readers will see 9/___ in the headline.  Like the eight years before it, CIWT 9 was an interesting year.  But 9 was certainly the most unexpected and unpredictable.

Yesterday Ciwt saw her first "Leased" sign on a vacant neighborhood shop, and the streets were busy with neighbors of all ages eating outside at our new parklets.  So, it looks and feels like some of the most anxious and erratic 9 energy is beginning to fade out and new space is being created for CIWT Year 10.  

We'll see tomorrow.  Meanwhile, Namaste CIWT 9.

It's Midweek!! --- Days 9/363 and 364

Walk: 1. Presidio  2. Office Depot to laminate Vaccine and Medicare cards

Distance: 1. 5.6 miles, Yoga  2. 4.5 miles, Yoga

Everywhere Ciwt looks, it's politics.  Since CIWT is not where you go for those (because they aren't here), she wishes you happy midweek days.  

1. 

2.

Go West (Portal), Young Man --- Day 9/362

Walk: Cute West Portal

Distance: 1.5 miles, small stretch

Remember neighborhoods that had a bookstore and a small movie theater along with flower shops, hardware stores, groceries and other practical, friendly offerings their people really need?  And no Starbucks (maybe).  Well, there's still at least one in San Francisco: cute, cozy, user friendly West Portal.

Oscar Endnotes --- Day 9/361

Walk: Monday Hood errands

Distance: 4 miles, Yoga

1. Usually it is about gowns, but in the many hours of last night's Oscars Ciwt began to obsess about the tuxedos.  She found the gold, pink and blue/yellow ones fetching; they draped nicely and were well fitting. 

Leslie Odom, Jr.

 

Colman Domingo

Martin Desmond Roe and Trevon Free

2. But then there were the black tuxes.  They looked good on Alan S. Kim, the young son in the movie Minari.  

But that same little boy cut kept showing up on adult male stars, like Harrison Ford 

The boxy jackets were hip length at most and their single button was somewhere just below the breastbone. They came across to Ciwt's eye as a size too small when the men were standing still, and when they raised their arms or even just moved, the jackets would open and ride up and the shirts and ties would pop out. Sloppy cute on boys, but not so much on older men.

 

3.  Ciwt's winner for Best Gown and Most Stylish Couple went hands down to 

Viola Davis and husband, Julius Tennon

4.  Ciwt's Award for Breath of Fresh Air goes to Best Supporting Actress, Minari's Yuh-Jung Youn

who made Ciwt (and many others) laugh out loud when she fauned over her presenter, Brad Pitt.

"Mr. Brad Pitt, finally. It's nice to meet you. Where were you when we were filming?"  

 Then the utterly charming statement "I don't believe in competition. How can you win over Glenn Close?"  And later when she lifted her Oscar and said to her two boys "who made me go out and work," "Beloved sons, this is the result because Mommy worked so hard."  So much is in her delivery which you can enjoy here.

  

Ciwt's 40th Oscars (at least) --- Day 360

Walk: Short one, rain👍

Distance: 1.5 miles, Oscar watching yoga

Colman Domingo

Apparently some stars have already started arriving at the Red Carpet, so Ciwt is off to watch as she has done faithfully for decades.

World Book & Indie Booksellers Days --- Day 9/359

Walk: Browser Books and Books Inc.

Distance: 3.9 miles, stretches

So today Ciwt participated in a personal dual celebration: belated World Book Day (yesterday, April 23) and today's Independent Booksellers Day (last Saturday in April).  She did it by walking (of course) to her favorite indies.  

At Browser Books she bought Barack Obama's Promised Land.  (Maybe she should say invested in; quite the price tag).  

Then it was on to Books Inc. where she  where she bought a novel by Jenny Offill, whose writing Ciwt likes a lot.  This time it was a paperback.

A good walk and a nice time to consider the significant part of our daily lives books have played since ancient times.  Ciwt was the kid who spent hours in her room with the door closed reading or walking around with her face in a book when her intensely social parents insisted she come out of her room.  Like many, she can't imagine her childhood without books and without all the things she learned about life from them, including how magnificent Collie dogs are and how they can break your heart. 

The great dog story writer, Albert Payson Terhune, "in conference" with his collies

 All this remains true, except now she can stay in her room and read for as long as she pleases.

Blowing in the Wind --- Day 9/358

Walk: Another cold, blowy trek through the Presidio 😶

Distance: 3.9 miles, yoga

So Ciwt always thought languishing was a Southern thing. Only characters in Tennessee Williams' playslanguished in faded chintz* and withered linen around their deteriorating properties.

But, no, now it is Ciwt up here in cold blowy San Francisco where there's never a need for linen.  And many of us all over our covid-haunted planet these days.  

Adam Grant does a pretty good (languish term for excellent) job describing it here

* Some of Ciwt's chintz is not only faded but has little tears from cat claws.

A Rather Blustery Day --- Day 9/357

Walk: Hood in cold, grey wind

Distance: 3 miles, yoga