Mayday and International Labor Day:
Summer arrived in earnest the last two days, although it's cooler today. Otto and I took advantage
of the hot weather to eat lunch in the outdoor patio of a favorite Italian cafe across from the Monterey Market, Berkeley's favorite fresh produce store. It's one of my favorite places for people-watching. The flirting couple and Papa doing baby-sitter duty while working on his laptop, with a latte to earn him table rights, were among my favorites this time. That luscious platter of pannini (enough for two people) was another attraction!
When I was young - for that matter, when my children were young - Mayday was the occasion for hanging anonymous posies on front doors, ringing the doorbell and running like mad. It's a custom I wouldn't mind reviving! We certainly have the flowers for it on this date.
Our wisteria, which covers a trellis that raises it above the tile roof over the dining room, entry, and garage, reached the height of its bloom earlier. I decided (a little late last week) to take pictures of it after it had leafed out and the blossoms had faded somewhat. The fragrance lingers.
MAY DAYFrom maypole, festive ribbons fluttered peach,
lavender, pink, mint green and baby blue.
In thought we girls rehearsed our steps to reach
the intricate patterns final weave, each hue
crisscrossed with every other. Our pale bare feet
curled in the cut green lawn. We were too small;
Our turn at last, the ribbons wouldn’t meet
(one high, one low), nor could our teacher’s call
prevent collisions, pull our tangles free.
Reversing, bumping, blushing, we were through.
The threads of history weave imperfectly.
May first, and on our T.V. screens we view
parades of thwarted workers whose spring-bright dreams
have tangled in a web of others’ greed.
A world away a smoky ribbon streams
from a wounded plane. Its cry of urgent need
is ours, who, stumbling, fumble to unbraid a
knotted world where we’ve enmeshed us:
Mayday! Mayday!
Today we went to a gathering of poets (for critical editing of one another's work), then,with our good friend, Caroline, we went up to the combination music store and cafe called "The Musical Offering." Otto and I shared a delicious (huge) baguette filled with roasted yellow peppers, red onion, mushrooms and eggplant, all hot from the oven. On the way back to our car we passed the pelargonium at the left. Since the heat-moderating fog has moved in from the ocean today, the picture is not in sunlight. The fog is very welcome after the first two days of this week, which were sweltering!
other flowers and geranium varieties. They grow as high as the patio walls, as seen below.
Flora tries to take over our house (exterior) and yard. Ivy climbs and insinuates itself beneath our roof tiles. Small weedy things, such as the white-flowered one above, find cracks in the brick stairway and enlarge them. Otto's trumpet vine (which will be glorious a few weeks from now) stretches tendrils in all directions. The green branch above is one example.
Above is a larger view of the stairway down from the street to our front door. The pink geraniums are rampant. A few minutes ago I looked at a Google satellite view of our house and found that our roof is almost entirely obscured by trees.
of the hot weather to eat lunch in the outdoor patio of a favorite Italian cafe across from the Monterey Market, Berkeley's favorite fresh produce store. It's one of my favorite places for people-watching. The flirting couple and Papa doing baby-sitter duty while working on his laptop, with a latte to earn him table rights, were among my favorites this time. That luscious platter of pannini (enough for two people) was another attraction!
Deer are frequent visitors to our yard, especially when there are young shoots on which to nibble. They leap a fence to enter, but we think they feel safe behind our fences. The two below are beneath our blossoming plum tree. They will be back later to eat plums, either from low-hanging branches or from the ground. They seem to prefer the ones on the ground which are often fermented. Alcoholic deer?
ained so bitterly that we called the pound. The animal control officer brought a wire cage large enough to hold a peacock or even a small mountain lion, and baited it with choice seeds. The peacock never was tempted inside but slept on top of it. At the end of the summer, having attracted no similarly displaced peahens,
It isn't spring, but more like summer today. This has been a great year for California poppies. They have been flourishing in road dividers as well as gardens and vacant lots. It's an abundance that almost rivals that of my childhood years when we thoughtlessly picked them by t
he armload. Only once since then have I seen as many. In the year after the great Oakland fire, poppy seeds, that had been dormant ever since houses were built above them, sprang forth in the ashes of said houses.
