And the Winner Is --- Days 9/238 & 239

Walk: 1. Pickleball 2. No; Day of  preparing recycling pickup

Distance: 1. 3 miles, 90 minutes pickle  2. .5 miles, Yoga

So to give you a little insight into Ciwt's covid lockdown life, the other day she found herself bingeing on Elvis.  You Tube videos and a couple of documentaries on him.  A fact from one of the latter continues to blow her away a bit:

Turns out Elvis wasn't at all popular in school, quiet and actually considered peculiar, "a nothing," or whatever terms 50's teenagers might have used.  Then he happened to enter the annual school talent contest at L.C. Humes High School.  He was 16, it was his first high school performance so they probably didn't give his entry a thought.  On the day of the show the audience - kids, parents, grandparents, a bunch of locals - filled the auditorium.  When Elvis was introduced, he walked on  alone, and gave them.... "Old Shep."*

Can you imagine?!!  They had absolutely no idea what was coming, and there on their aauditorium stage was that extraordinary rich voice delivering a song that tears hearts apart. Probably there was silence for a moment, then they demanded an encore - all clapping, most completely stunned, some dissolved in tears. They must have known they were hearing something completely special, but, Ciwt doubts any of them guessed that just five years later that quiet boy would be ELVIS, the international sensation.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

*He had actually sung "Old Shep" for a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.  It was his first public performance, age 10 and needing to stand on a chair to reach the microphone. He came in 5th and won $5 and a ticket to all the fair rides.

Untitled Even --- Days 9/235, 236 & 237

Walk: 1. Pickleball, T Joe's  2.  Hood in the drizzle 3. No, rain 😀

Distance: 1. 3.5 miles, pickle   2. 2.5 miles, Yoga  3. Yoga

Really, Ciwt can't think of a thing to write about.  

Winner Already(?)! --- Days 9/233 & 234

Walk: 1. Pickleball and hood  2. Hood

Distance:  1. 4 miles, 90 minutes pickleball, small yoga  2.  4 miles

Weeks before the true holidays, but Ciwt is thinking she's already found the winner of her Annual Holiday Decoration Contest.

If nothing else, this house will win for most effort. And courage!  When Ciwt walked by the other day she saw many workers resting from scaling scary heights and dragging the heavy wooden scenes and snowflakes into place.  They weren't in a holiday frame of mind. 

  

Death Valley Sunset --- Day 9/232

 

Walk: Hood 

Distance: 4 miles, Yoga

Paul Hosemann, Sunset, Thanksgiving, Death Valley

Detail, enlarged

CIWT's favorite FGP (Friend's Grandson Photographer) has done it again!  The original must be so stirring.

https://paulhosemannphotography.weebly.com/landscapes.html

Also see CIWT Day 7/134 and CIWT Days 9/103, 104 for more of Paul's work

Mostly Orange Books --- Days 9/230 and 231

 Walk: Hood both days                                                                                                                                     Distance: 4 miles both days

It's the time year for book lists so Ciwt thought she's offer up a few she enjoyed.  

A Picture is Worth...... --- Day 9/229

 Walk: Pickleball                                                                                                                            Distance: 4 miles, 2 hours pickle, Yoga

Ciwt vividly remembers driving her yellow Monza with the radio on when she first heard American Pie.  She was stunned and needed to pull over to the side of the road to take it in.  The innocent 50's, Don McLean's prescient, poetic lament was sad and brilliant.  The innocent 50's, the times of Ciwt's childhood were over, just like that.   

There have been a few other direct communications between artist and Ciwt, Think Matisse's Dance II .  They always feel like special gifts of human understanding, being truly seen.  They reach right in and capture something deep and pure in Ciwt.  And myriad others!  Everyone has those arias, poems, paintings, photos that articulated some unspoken and intensely personal feeling. 

Yesterday's arrival of The New Yorker was one of those gift moments.  Surely we all have a fuzzy feeling of how the pandemic is playing out for us.  The non-existant attention span, the Amazon orders andarrivals, strange food and drink appetites, sanitizer, non-latex gloves, cats (hair and food), soft clothes of some casual sort, random housecleaning.  And in the midst of this quiet, shambled home trauma, we put on a together face in carefully rigged light for business and book group meetings, cocktail parties or friends, many not seen since college.

All the while we're thinking "I could never explain it."  You and your friends try but never quite get there, finally shrugging "You know.  Yeah...."  "Uh huh...."  

Now Adrian Tomine has completely, totally nailed it for so many of us. His December 7 New Yorker cover, titled Love Life, captures the 'reality behind the home web cam ' and immediately went viral (and onto CIWT).  People say they 'feel seen,' 'identify to an uncomfortable degree,' 'have all experienced this to some degree in 2020," "Perfection!"  And Ciwt agrees with all of them.  

Bittersweet genius.

 

More Gusto Please --- Days 9/227 & 228

 Walk: 1. LP Nails, T. Joe's  2. Mountain Lake                                                                                   Distance: 1. 3.8 miles, T. Joe's Yoga  2. 4 miles, yoga

Ciwt is not optimistic about this year's Holiday Decoration contest.  Any year out here actually.  San Franciscans seem to put more gusto into Halloween and less into the November-December holidays.

But, she may end up being happily surprised.

Holiday Decorations Contest Begins --- Day 9/226

Walk: Hood and (yes) Presidio Pickleball                                                                                                  Distance:  5 miles, 1 Hour Pickleball, Yoga stretches

Well, looks like it is already time to start the CIWT holiday decoration contest.  Usually Ciwt's hood - the whole city actually - doesn't seem to put much effort into these.  But maybe this year will be different.  

Here are the first contestants: