No Amy: Week 3 --- Day 8/355

Walk: Garbage Out, Housework
Distance: A small way, wee yoga

So far Ciwt is keeping up pretty well with housework during these shelter in place times without Amy, her wonderful Tuesday cleaning girl.

Ciwt Weighs In --- 8/355

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 3.6 miles, Yoga

Ciwt is sort of at a loss for a topic today so she's going to stoop to being a nosy neighbor.  New buyers (?)have just had their little Victorian repainted. They must love it, and each to their own.  But, well......Ciwt thinks the whole side of the street has lost its flow and visual appeal because of the new clashing colors.  Classic example of doing it right is the picture postcard block with the famous San Francisco Painted Ladies.  (Thus spoke Ciwt....)

A Little Pink --- Day 8/354

Walk: No, Rain and waiting for grocery delivery
Distance: 0, Yoga

Ciwt was happy to see pink blossoms and new green shoots on her deck trees today.

Nice to Read Anyway --- Day 8/353

Walk: No (Rain and Sleepy)
Distance: 

Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, along with many other people, Ciwt received an email copy of a letter from F. Scott Fizgerald while quarantined in the South of France during the Spanish Flu pandemic in the early 1900's. There were all the lyrical sentences, the boozey references, the ongoing frenemy spat with Hemingway. Ciwt has long loved Fitzgerald's writing and was thrilled to read a letter she'd never encountered before.

Unfortunately, the reason she'd never encountered it was that it was actually written

like now by Nick Farriella of the humor website McSweeney's.  But Ciwt is going to post it anyway, for nostalgia's sake.

Look Up Sunshine --- Day 8/351 & 352

Walk: 1. No  2. Presidio
Distance: 1. Pedal, Yoga   2. 3 miles, Pedal, Yoga

There's a young street artist a few blocks down who has a way of gladdening Ciwt's heart.

Walking and Learning --- Day 8/350

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 5 miles

Pershing Square, El Presidio de San Francisco

Pursuing her current interest in history, revived from college major days, Ciwt took a closer look today at Pershing Square on the Main Post of the Presidio.  The flagpole marks the site of General 'Black Jack' Pershing's house while he was briefly Commander of the Presidio in 1913-15.  It commemorates General Pershing's highly distinquished and much decorated career as well, sadly, as the house fire that claimed the lives of his wife and three of his children while Pershing was in Texas pursuing Mexican revolutionary 'Pancho Villa.'

The flagpole is  flanked on either side by cannon. The name of one, El Birgen de Barbaned, wraps around the barrel, and when Ciwt returned home she found it was forged in Lima, Peru, and, along with five other Spanish cannons in the Presidio, is among the oldest artillery in North America.

El Brigen de Barbaned

Insignia

dated 1693

Flower Power --- Days 8/348 & 349

Walks: Hood
Distance: Only a mile, yoga

Tulips are Here!!!

Luckily San Francisco, like Ciwt, considers fresh flowers a necessity.

Art Around the World --- Day 8/346

Walk: Hood
Distance: 2.5 miles

You Know Who*

Let Ciwt be maybe the 50th person who has made you aware of on line virtual tours of 2500 museums, world class and otherwise.

And for you opera and classical music buffs these opera and symphony companies are streaming works for you to enjoy from home.

Of course there's online yoga, workouts, brainiac stuff, you name it.  If we have to shelter in place, this seems a good era to be doing it in.

* In case not:

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, known as LEONARDO DA VINCI (Vinci,1452-Amboise,1519),
Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, known as the Mona Lisa, c. 1503-19
Louvre Museum, Paris, France

Wouldn't Have Thought of Those Places Myself --- Day 8/345

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 3.5 Miles, small yoga

Cats Have Their Own Ideas About Sheltering in Place

Presidio Shelter --- Day 8/344

Walk: Presidio
Distance: 2.75 miles, Yoga

Someone's Sheltering in Place Along Andy Goldsworthy's Wood Line

Inhale, Exhale --- Day 8/343

Walk: No

Distance: Yoga x 3

Thank goodness for indoor exercise.  (But wouldn't it be nice if it were a bit more fun)?

The Green --- Day 8/342

Walk: Hood
Distance: 2 miles, Housecleaning (it's stenuous!)

Speechless --- Day 8/340 & 341

Walk: 1. No 2. Presidio
Distance: 1. Yoga  2. 3 miles

What could Ciwt possibly say at this time?

Splendor in the Rain --- Days 8/338 and 339

Walk: 1. Presidio  2. No, Rain
Distance: 1. 3 miles, Yoga  2. Nada, enjoying the rain

Martin Munkacsi (American, born Hungary - 1896-1963), Jumping a Puddle, 1934. Gelatin silver print

                                 
Before Richard Avedon or any lively fashion photographer there was Martin Munkascsi.  He took the medium from a staged affair using mannequine-like models in a musty studio to the above. For the first time, fasion photography was genuine, breathless, artistic, creative.  For these qualities and many others, he is considered the Father of Modern Fashion Photography.

Richard Avedon said of Munkácsi:

He brought a taste for happiness and honesty and a love of women to what was, before him, a joyless, loveless, lying art. Today the world of what is called fashion is peopled with Munkácsi's babies, his heirs. ... The art of Munkácsi lay in what he wanted life to be, and he wanted it to be splendid. And it was.

Bounce Factor --- Day 8/336 and 337

Walk: 1. Presidio  2. Marin Driving
Distance: 1. 3.5 Miles, Small Yoga   2. Medium Yoga

With so many things closed or closing, not much for Ciwt to bounce off of in San Francisco these days.

Another Sort of Home --- Day 8/335

Walk: St. Dominic's church and Hood
Distance: 2.5 Miles, wee yoga

St. Dominics Church, San Francisco

So when guides give public tours of the houses in Ciwt's neighborhood, for some reason they begin at the top of the Alta Plaza Park steps looking across to the church in the distance.  Where?  Not just to the church but to the steeple tower.  Can you find it (in the approximate middle of the photo)? 

Usually by the time Ciwt figures out what building they are talking about, the guide is well into their spiel about how the original steeple was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, and they never rebuilt it.  Not a particularly electrifying beginning in Ciwt's opinion but probably an excuse to talk about about the 1906 earthquake - which always gets everyone's attention. 

Today, continuing her recent 'Home' theme and after decades of walking by it, Ciwt explored St. Dominic's - on line and in person. On line she saw right away why they didn't rebuild the original steeple. Given how the fog rushes in and the wind howls in San Francisco, it is a wonder it even lasted from its erection in 1873 until the earthquake .

St. Dominic's Church Interior
(Why can't iphone cameras capture stain glass? Ciwt wonders).

In person, the church is gorgeous. Particularly the woodwork which was carved by the Edmund Schmid Woodcarving Studio of Oberrammergau, Germany.

In the old days, wood carvers were itinerant and carved individually in situ.  But by the time of St, Dominic's rebuilding in the 1920's, it had become customary for carving to be done by machine.  So it was a joy to see wood that - albeit it in Germany by contract - was carved by hand.

Stop, Look, Enjoy --- Day 8/334

Walk: Sloat Garden Center
Distance: 3.8 miles, Yoga

Several reasons to stop here, especially to enjoy the gorgeous blue ceanothus bush.

More Homes --- Days 8/332 & 333

Walk: Presidio both days
Distance: 4 miles and Yoga both days

Why so many home pictures?  Homebody Ciwt - like many health conscious people - has been doing double duty these days so her home is particularly on her mind.

Sadly she has virtually no pictures of the grand house on the lake she patially grew up in - and it is on a grey, almost leafless early fall day.  Anyway, it had a tennis court, beach house, dock and rolling hill to those.  Ciwt thought it was gorgeous, lakeview and light-filled, beautifully appointed.*

But the house she identifies with is this one.  Again on a leafless day, taken on one of Ciwt's rare visits to the place she grew up.  This was the Zipper (her dog) house with woods all around it that she and Zipper explored every day after school.  It was red with white shutters when she and her family lived there.


* After Ciwt left for college and her family moved on, the next owners painted it bright white which Ciwt thought was way too showy.

Then, grand and well situated as it was on on the property, it wasn't grand enough for the last 'owners.'  After paying a pretty penny, they tore it down and built a hulking (Ciwt thinks monstrosity) that overpowers the property and sprawls nearly to the lake.  

At first when she heard the house was gone, Ciwt was quite devastated.  Now, she feels relief.

Home --- Days 8/330 and 331

Walk: 1. Not sure  2. Hood
Distance: 1. Yoga  2. 2.8 Miles, small yoga

So, Ciwt doesn't remember ever showing you a picture of the outside of her building.  Finally, here it is.  

It is an Edwardian which is an architecture style in vogue amongst style conscious San Franciscans from 1904 to 1910 (Ciwt's building is 1904).  Named for Victoria's son, Edward, it was intentionally more 'tastefilly' plain or 'less cluttered'

  

and decidedly less colorful

than the Victorians that preceded it.

Ciwt's World Turns Curious Yellow --- Days 8/328 & 329

Walk: 1. Errands 2. Presidio
Distance: 1. 2.5 miles, medium yoga   2. 3.8 miles, Yoga

So many yellow wildflowers in bloom in the Presidio right now.

Earliest San Francisco --- Day 8/327

Walk: Trader Joe's
Distance: 2.5 Miles, Yoga

Louis Choris, Ohlone Indians in a Tule Boat in San Francisco Bay, ca 1922

Since she knows a bit about San Francisco history, several people have asked Ciwt why they don't hear or read more about its first settlers, the Ohlone Indians. So, Ciwt did some research and found that present day members of the Ohlone tribes know very little of that themselves and are working hard to learn more.  

In many respects much of their history has vanished.  And in many respects this is due to the Ohlone taboo against mentioning the name of a dead person.  This taboo is common to many indigenous peoples worldwide, and can go so far as to remove a person's name from the language entirely.  Needless to say, individual lineage/geneology is nearly impossible to trace along with many aspects of Ohlone culture.

Along with this taboo, the decimation of the Ohlones' lives and culture by Spanish, Mexican and American colonialists and the diseases they carried was so rapid, historical accounting was nearly impossible. 

Certain things are known or known with some dispute.  These are just a few:

Original migration to California:  Either 20,000 years ago by land from Asia or 3000 years ago by sea from Siberia by sea.  There are other theories, with the preceding being the outer limits.

Northern California Village Regions: From the present day San Francisco Peninsula to Big Sur and inland to the Diablo Range. 50 distinct nations or tribes have been recorded to date with 50 to 200 in each.  These interacted through trade, intermarriage, ceremonial events as well as conflict.

Diet: The Ohlone were hunter-gathers and rough harvesters.  They ate crushed acorns, nuts, grass seeds and berries.  Hunted and trapped game, fish and seafood were also important to their diet and abundant.

Arts: Basket weaving, female tattoos, ear and nose piercings and other ornamentaion.  

Clothing: Men did not wear clothing except in cold weather when they wrapped themselves in animal skin or feather capes. Women wore deerskin aprons, tule or shredded bark skirts along with ornaments of shell beads, abalone pendants, bone or wood.  As mentioned, they were tattooed.  On cool days they too wore animal skin capes.

Building Materials: On the Coast, dome-shaped houses of woven or bundled tule mats 6 to 20 feet in diameter.  Inland they built conical houses from redwood bark on wooden frame.  Their boats were built of tule or balsa wood.

Contemporary San Francisco Area Ohlone group: Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has over 400 enrolled members and is comprised of 'all of the known surviving Native American lineages aboriginal to the San Franciso Bay Region who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara and San Jose and who descend from members of the historic Federally Recognized Verona Band of Alameda County.'

Trader Joe --- Day 8/326

Walk: No, Recovering while doing laundry, reading, enjoying Sunday
Distance:  Yoga

Joe made a trader out of Ciwt.  And that's saying something.  Ciwt is basically a non-cook, non-foodie, one of those who eats to live.  But!  She Loves going to her local Trader Joe's.

For one thing it is a perfect mile away - which makes a walk there and back 2 miles.  Add a few more errands, and, voila, a long or longish walk.  For another, how could she live without the Alstroemeria lilies that light up her life and she buys by the dozens because Trader Joe's sells them for $3.99 - at least half of what they are sold for elsewhere? At Joe's she can count on the year round affordable fruits and juices, the premade and healthy salads, the tuna, nuts, cheap and good wine (and the addictuive snacks).   All Ciwt needs - along with super friendly employees and a zanyish atmosphere Ciwt likes better than a few of the ultra high brow grocery stores around her.

So, a personal thank you and send off to Joe Coulombe, the original Trader Joe who made all this trading joy available to millions of people.

Joe Coulombe (1930-2020)