The Blue Night

When I looked up at my neighbor's window last night, it was the same blue as the evening sky, giving the impression that it was just a hole in a wall with sky beyond. By the time I got the camera, changed the settings and managed to get it focused in such low light (when autofocus wouldn't work), the sky was slightly darker than the window. But still, a cool effect!

We got down to 26º F last night (-3º C), our coldest night yet. I woke in the wee hours of the morning, checked the temperature, and decided I needed to provide a little extra warmth for the avocado.

So at 4 a.m. I was running an extension cord from our shed, and plugging in the base of our lava lamp, which I tucked beneath the avocado's protective covering. (I didn't put the whole lamp in there -- not the glass part. Just the metal base with the bulb. The avocado needs warmth, not a groovy visual experience!) Now we have an interesting patio lighting feature in addition to, hopefully, providing the tree with a few extra degrees of heat.

I see that Anita Bryant has died. Any gay person of my generation or earlier has a complicated relationship with Anita, as I wrote here. (Well, I suppose for some it's not complicated at all -- she's a despised figure in the gay community. But for me, it's complicated.) As tiresome as I find all her Christian pedantry, it seems pretty consistent with her origins. You can take the girl out of Oklahoma, but you can't take the Oklahoma out of the girl. (Then again, Dolly Parton was of humble birth in a similarly conservative stronghold, and she's a beacon of tolerance. Birth doesn't necessarily dictate behavior, does it?)

And at the risk of turning this blog into a litany of dead celebrities, I saw that Peter Yarrow died recently. I was a huge Peter, Paul and Mary fan when I was younger. I owned (and still own, in iTunes form) at least seven of their albums, and I saw them live in the mid-1980's after the release of their album "No Easy Walk to Freedom." I remember going to Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Fla., with my friend Suzanne, and sitting in the darkened auditorium as each member of the trio made their entrance. Mary came last, and before she took the stage we could see her white-shoed foot peeking out from behind the curtain, which somehow only heightened the excitement: "Oh my God, it's Mary's foot!"

Anyway, Peter was not without his faults and blemishes, but he seemed a good-hearted person who always publicly promoted kindness and generosity. Something of a counterpoint to Anita.

These California fires are shockingly apocalyptic. The New York Times says 10,000 structures may have been destroyed so far. Imagine that! I can't say anything to ease that devastation but I'll try to make a donation somewhere in the hopes that it can do some good.