Old La Honda

Neighbours are having a late afternoon party. I don’t see them, don’t even know in which of several backyards they might be, but I hear the voices, speaking in a foreign language, European, possibly Slavic, and cutlery striking dishes. The sun which has been absent for most of the day is now slanting in long streaks across roofs and the bank of the creek our apartment building overlooks—recently cleared, presumably as a precaution against wildfires, of all its brush and some blue-flowering vines I was attached too. Now the ground is a golden-brown litter of leaves, mostly, I think, live oak, which, I think, sheds constantly, but never completely.

Yesterday I went on a steep ride, but didn’t make it to the top of road, Old La Honda at Skyline, though I think I was close. But I was pooped, couldn’t go another half-mile, and so turned around and headed down. At home I looked at a video of someone else climbing the road: 20 minutes bottom to top. I was on the road for 45 minutes and not yet at the top. I’ll try again.

Reading a book of essays by Freeman Dyson. Also Pessoa, poems, wonderful in a translation that seems to me (I don’t read Portuguese) excellent. Also read and found very good Georg Buchner’s play, The Death of Danton.