Wildlife

What is up with that duck? Quack quack quack since 4.45, then Suscipe chimed in with her own version of a Greek chorus, a sonorous 'Woe! Woe!" until I gave up and got up.

So, here I am with delicious coffee and a delightfully open day - no demolition today, oh no, maybe the Farmers' Market then a trip up to Napa. I seem to have split my index finger at the nail, pulled something in my knee and have theatrical bruises (see previous blog for photos) so today I shall be a Lady.

I have gone right through my pull sheets and house drawings to pare them down, and I am so struck by the consistency of my vision for this house, documented by obsessive scale drawings, plans, elevations and notes. I have the same layout in 2003 for the bathroom I am building now.

Three articles in the New York Times about Silicon Valley millionaire who don't feel rich, more specifically, they seem to suffer a driving sense of lack. What fools! I hope it made them appear less rounded than they really are.

I was thinking up the hill: what does the American flag represent to me? Along with all the predictable sour cynicism I uncovered a small, glowing Resistance movement, the best kind because it has come out the other side. I want to sign up.

We had breakfast out on the deck looking faintly ridiculous in Panama hat and broad-brimmed straw respectively, and I have conceived a wish to look sinister, like Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer the first time you see them in Rosemary's Baby. I don't know if I can do sinister.

We counted thirty ducks to the east, and probably missed some in the reeds.