December first—and
so we started our Venetian advent calendar this morning. A view of St. Mark's to make us long to be
there in the immense piazza sending a cloud of pigeons up into the Canaletto sky
or having espresso and cornetti at a
sunny little table with a day of art ahead, ending with Vivaldi concertos in a
drafty stone palazzo.
Instead, I'm taken
back in memory by a breakfast taco truck parked on Atherton Avenue outside some
great mansion, remembering ground beef and potato burritos eaten one cold
morning from such a truck, though where it was escapes me. Stanford I think, the job I took that
February when I might instead have gone into the Mathematics Department—a
different building in the Quad—and ended up quite somewhere else today. And then I'm charmed by a big shaggy white
dog which reminds me of the lovely Great Pyrenees service dog which attends all
of the operas we do (including Gilbert & Sullivan) and was once right in
front of us, lying somehow entirely under one seat. And just a little later I am taken off again
to days past by a black and white pinto horse poking its nose over the fence on
my way home, the field of horses tucked among the high-tech firms in odd
juxtaposition.
And now I'm at the
library learning about ancient peaches—over two million years old, and carnivorous
Oaxacan Butterwort.
Travels in lieu of
paying bills and doing other chores which were my mission. I can't help getting carried off by the swift
silver skates December has breezed in on.
image: Yehuda Edri Collection
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