The Tenderfoot --- Day 4/30

Walk: Around home
Distance: ? (lifting, hanging, trying on, folding, walking to different places, teeth grinding, etc)



Ciwt is wondering how many more hours of closet capers are necessary before her feet toughen up.

India/Italy ...--- Day 4/29

Walk: Laurel Village, Trader Joe's 
Distance: 3.2 miles and take yoga class



Lilies at Sunset bring a bit of India/Italy glow to Ciwt's back room.

White with Envy: Coda --- Day 4/28

Walk: Corte Madera
Distance: 1 mile and try, try, try on clothes



This is what your private jet looks like if you are a person who wears white.  (Unidentified owner, but it really is a plane)

The Ice Cometh -- Day 4/27

Walk: City Picture Frames
Distance: A Few Blocks and (achey/creaky) Home Yoga (but hope it does its magic)



Photo: Seth Wenig, AP, Boat making its way through ice on the East River, February 25, 2015

  
Guy C. Wiggins (1883-1962), East River Harmony, 25" x 30", o/c


Artist and date Unknown to Ciwt, Winter, East River


Robert Henri (Ashcan School), East River Embankment,Winter, 1900, o/c

Ciwt loves the timeless quality of these current photos of Manhattan ringed by ice, a rare modern phenomenon.

White With Envy --- Day 4/26

Walk: Medical Bldg, Hi-Tech Nails
Distance: 2.5 miles, tiny yoga (seems to be making an instant recovery from possible flu)



A friend was wearing/rocking white the other day, and that very day a New York friend sent a picture of her doing Noo York City in pure white.  White clothes are so upliftingly fresh, and, well, Clean. Ciwt is white with envy, but has trouble keeping spots (and cat hairs) off her blacks and can only admire those who carry off their sparkling whites.

Gray Fox and Black Crow --- Day 4/25

Walk: no, flu
Distance: 0 and no yoga.  Resting.



Ciwt is feeling Oscar letdown.  Now there will be a lull.  But she loves this cinematic shot of a gray fox spotted just a few blocks from her in the Presidio.  With the influx and growth of the coyote population in the Presidio and no fox sightings for years, it has been assumed that these canine predators had eradicated the Presidio foxes.  Hope it's a girl - and that a boy survived as well.

Best, Worst, and A New CIWT Category --- Day 4/24

Walk: Trader Joe's
Distance: 2 miles and home yoga

OK, the Red Carpet is over, and Ciwt has her picks.  Many, many beautifully (but pretty conservatively) dressed women and men so it was difficult to decide. Now onto Neil Patrick Harris and the Oscars!!

Best - A+



Rest of the Best

   


 
  
      and lots of the guys handsome in (blue) tuxes.
             


Worst

    

    hate to be stodgy, but...


Non-Plussed/Don't Know What to Think


           

   

CIWT 2015 Oscar Ballet --- Day 4/23

Walk: No
Distance: 0 (read!, nice), small home yoga



Ciwt's big day, the one for which she rushes around and sees movies galore (or that give her an excuse to do what she would do anyway) is almost here. Of course we're talking the Red Carpet and Oscars., and  You can click on this link for Ciwt's official ballot.

She tried to think like Hollywood instead of her own preferences.  Mostly!  She will be personally devastated if Ida doesn't win Best Foreign Language, and she's quite sure (and sad) Song of the Sea won't win Best Animated Feature but just had to choose it anyway because it is so wonderful. Then there is the hand-wringing over Keaton or Redmayne for Best Actor.  Hollywood loves Keaton but they also love a remarkable and deeply touching acting feats like Redmayne's shining portrayal of Stephen Hawking. (But then Redmayne is young, British, has another chance...Oh, dear).

Okay, catch you tomorrow.  Fingers crossed for an excellent NP Harris (he's so likable and talented), a few fashion disasters, some verbal flubs, unexpected antics and the rest of the Oscar events that keep us Oscar buffs watching hour after hour, year after year.

Fun___ Attire --- Day 4/22

Walk: Mindful Body
Distance: 10 Blocks and yoga class





Something about spending the day with her Advance Healthcare Directive that leaves Ciwt less than chatty this evening.

Fashionable or Fashion Victim (1)? --- Day 4/21

Walk: Goldsworthy Spire, Laurel Village
Distance: 4.5 miles and small home yoga

Ciwt keeps encountering a trend she finds a bit ridiculously fashionista.  To wit: 'New York City Arctic Chic' which seems to be promoting just kind of throwing your coat over your shoulders with no hat or gloves in New York City winter.  Now, Ciwt was just there wearing - along with most of the people on the sidewalks with her - several layers of down, gloves, and hat. (Along with long underwear, knee highs and warm boots). Ie, completely bundled up against the bitter cold.  The people who were not in down were wearing gorgeous fur coats, hats, and gloves (and probably long underwear, etc). 

For people following the trend, Ciwt thinks Good luck with your flu or cold or....

Does Ciwt see high heels and no tights?

Change Happens -- Day 4/20

Walk: Presidio, Opera Plaza Cinema (She's Beautiful When She's Angry)
Distance: 3.5 miles



"We live in a country that doesn't like to credit any of its radical movements," Susan Brownmiller says in the documentary film She's Beautiful When She's Angry. "They don't like to admit in the United States that change happens because radicals force it." 

Ciwt, went to see that documentary today and is letting Brownmiller's quote and her relationship to it sink in.  What Ciwt thinks of radicalism and agitation as mindsets and strategies probably doesn't really matter in the face of a well-deserved recounting and appreciation of the second wave of feminism (after the first wave suffragettes who, in 1920, finally won the 100 year movement to give women the right to vote).  That complex, fractious, highly energized movement of the 60's - no matter its detractors - has given us much of the world in which we now live in terms of equal rights, equal pay, reproductive rights, domestic violence, women's health.

A few of the women who were most active are alive on archival film only, and other early activists are presented in those old films as well as in current interviews. And, living or dead, they are an impressive, impassioned, gutsy, determined, resilient, highly intelligent lot indeed.  It is worth taking the time to listen to them.

Grace Munakata --- Day 4/19

Walk: Trader Joe's, B&B Pet Supply, Mindful Body
Distance: 1 mile and teach yoga class


Grace Munakata, Propellers, 2011'
acrylic & mixed media on gatorboard
48 1/8 x 34 1/2 in.

Ciwt went to her favorite San Francisco gallery recently, and there it was! The painting that works perfectly over her fireplace. Finally!  34 years after she moved in, but well worth the wait.  Even better news: the old fireplace painting/friend she was afraid she was going to have to get rid of now looks great over her bed.

http://gracemunakata.com/work/current/work_current_slideshow_10.html

One is Good;Two was Great --- Day 4/18

Walk: Just around condo re-hanging some art and
Distance: A few times up/down stairs and home yoga

Beautiful Presidents Day here in sunny, warm San Francisco.  But Ciwt remembers fondly the times
when there was not just one Presidents Day but two because Lincoln's  and Washington's  birthdays were their own separate holidays.  That meant, Yippee!!,  no school or no work Twice in February.

Happy Day to you, Living Presidents 

Hardwood! Chapter 2 --- Day 4/17

Walk: Cinema Club (Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem)
Distance: 2 miles and home yoga

  
Before                             After

If you need a craft job done, give it to an old school tradesperson, preferably from Europe.  This transformation in Ciwt's newly discovered but disastrous floors was done beautifully in ONE Day by ONE man.  With the door on.  Everyone else (who didn't throw up their hands and say "Impossible!") was going to bring a crew (so one could get coffee, another could change the radio station, a third could talk with the guy who was actually doing the work), take off the door (blocking neighbors/losing security) and take THREE days.

February 14 --- Day 4/16

Walk: Mission District Frame Shop,Kelly Moore Paints, Presidio
Distance: 4.6 miles

A few Valentine's Day (today) facts:

1.

King Henry VII officially declared February 14 Valentine's Day in 1547.

2.

According to 'Latin Times,' the city of Verona, Italy receives some 1,000 letters addressed to
Juliet each year on Valentine's Day.


3.

While she was in line at a paint store today, a perfect stranger looked and smiled at Ciwt and said
"Happy Valentines Day."

Scraper or Planer? --- Day 4/15

Walk: No, staying inside with Callie for floor refinishing
Distance: 0, home yoga and a few resistance band pulls

Varnish for Ciwt's entryway wood is still drying.  You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the beautiful results.  In the meantime, please enjoy another of Ciwt's (and many others') favorite paintings done by, once again, one of her favorite artists, Gustave Caillebotte.  The painting - which visited San Francisco two summers ago - is in the collection of the Musee d'Orsay; photo and text are taken directly from the d'Orsay site.*



Gustave Caillebotte
The Floor Scrapers
1875
Oil on canvas
H. 102; W. 146.5 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

This painting is one of the first representations of urban proletariat. Whereas peasants (Gleaners by Millet) or country workers (Stone Breakers by Courbet) had often been shown, city workers had seldom been painted. Unlike Courbet or Millet, Caillebotte does not incorporate any social, moralizing or political message in his work. His thorough documentary study (gestures, tools, accessories) justifies his position among the most accomplished realists.

Caillebotte had undergone a completely academic training, studying with Bonnat. The perspective, accentuated by the high angle shot and the alignment of floorboards complies with tradition. The artist drew one by one all the parts of his painting, according to the academic method, before reporting them using the square method on the canvas. The nude torsos of the planers are those of heroes of Antiquity, it would be unimaginable for Parisian workers of those times. But far from closeting himself in academic exercises, Caillebotte exploited their rigour in order to explore the contemporary universe in a completely new way.

Caillebotte presented his painting at the 1875 Salon. The Jury, no doubt shocked by its crude realism, rejected it (some critics talked of "vulgar subject matter"). The young painter then decided to join the impressionists and presented his painting at the second exhibition of the group in 1876, where Degas exhibited his first Ironers. Critics were struck by this great modern tableau, Zola, in particular, although he condemned this "painting that is so accurate that it makes it bourgeois".

*Ciwt is interested to see the d'Orsay titles the painting "The Floor Scrapers" in one place and "The Floor Planers" in another. Seems unusual for a museum.

Before --- Day 4/14

Walk: Garage
Distance: 5 blocks and home yoga



Tomorrow's the day for Ciwt's newly discovered Hardwood!*entryway.
Stay tuned...

*Day 3/330

The Wind in the Laurels --- Day 4/13

Walk: Union Square, Trader Joe's, Fillmore Street
Distance: 5 miles



Tree on Ciwt's Roof after recent gale


Where once it created some privacy...Hello, Neighbors!

Some Things Get Better --- Day 4/12

Walk: Van Ness Med Bldg, Mindful Body
Distance: 2.8 miles and teach yoga class

The girls in the shop were all "Oh, you look Great!!!" which made Ciwt a bit suspicious when they handed her the mirror.  She had just had her eyebrows dyed and of course she looked like the girl in this picture  .  But, nothing could be done, she had another pre-teaching appointment so she raced to it wiping her nose from the allergy sniffles - and unknowingly nicking it.  The next appointment also involved a mirror, and this time when it was handed to her she saw b-l-o-o-d running from her nose?! (Sorry, readers)  Why the person she was talking to didn't say anything and what he was thinking is a mystery.  Luckily though he happened to have a device that stops blood (sorry again) in its tracks.  But the ingredient is Black. So, with barely time to get to the yoga studio, Ciwt hurried off and taught with her Groucho eyebrows and a big black spot on the end of her nose  .

And the good news is she really thought nothing of it.  If she had been her teenage self, she would have been absolutely Mor-ti-fied!  OMG.  Days, days later she would have been sooo upset.

Moral of the story: Some things do get better when we are old(er)/of a certain age.

Haute Cut-Outs --- Day 4/11

Walk: Sausalito, Trader Joe's
Distance: 2.5 miles and home yoga

Ciwt is a sucker for best/worst dressed lists so she clicked through the ones for last night's Grammys.  These three cut-out dresses made it to the Best list.  To Ciwt's eye, only the bottom one got in the correct category, and she hopes the whole cut-outs look goes away with this weekend's closing of the Matisse show.