TGIF

This guy tools around the neighborhood in what he calls "the world's smallest pickup truck. When I asked if I could take his picture, he seemed pleased...



...then insisted I get a "side view," as well. Only when I downloaded the second one did I notice that he had laid back as if asleep. I have no idea why he did that.

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News reports are out tonight that Obama actually won Super Tuesday with the number that matters most now -- delegate count.

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Three days after the voting ended, the race for Democratic delegates in Super Tuesday's contests was still too close to call. With nearly 1,600 delegates from Tuesday contests awarded, Sen. Barack Obama led by two delegates Friday night, with 91 delegates still to be awarded. Obama won 796 delegates in Tuesday's contests, to 794 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to an analysis of voting results by The Associated Press.

The New York Times reported that they split the popular vote down the middle, sharing just under 15 million votes cast with a margin of difference of less than half of one percent! (Clinton 7,427,700 v. Obama 7,369,798.) Obama won 13 states and Clinton 9.

To place this all in context, Danogram forwarded a fascinating article by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal stating outright that Clinton is losing to Obama, much to the dismay of Republicans, who think that they can beat Clinton in November, but if Obama is the nominee, the Democrats are going to win the White House going away. (To read her analysis, simply click on the title of this post, which links to it directly.)

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From the political to the environmental. The days are growing longer again, the temperatures are (slowly) rising. My new central heating system should be operative by Monday, just in time for the cold we've been enduring for a month to yield to warmer weather.

As if already anticipating spring, the buds are on the plum tree.



I was developing this fantasy of growing food in the backyard until last night, when my house mate dropped in for a chat, she reminded me that only a few "crops" grow well in this climate, principally lettuces, cherry tomatoes and a few hardy local herbs.

That would be a start, I suppose, but then she also reminded me that whenever we turn the earth over here, the neighborhood cats (including Oliver) show up to turn the bare soil into their preferred toilet.

She told me one more thing I did not know -- that an extremely large raccoon lives nearby...and two nights ago, when I was away at a party and the furnace workers were here, with my front door open, this creature was apparently about to enter my flat when she shooed him away.

I have lost my childhood fondness for raccoons. You know, that was the Davy Crockett era, when we all wore coonskin caps, although come to think of it, someone had to kill the animal that turned into my hat (note to younger readers: there were no synthetics yet, only the real deal), so let me clarify that what I was fond of was a skinned raccoon's coat, not the wily animal itself.

There are seven secret streams running under San Francisco. Most of them have long since vanished from view, buried under concrete, vegetation, viaducts or other urban creations.

But they are still there, and the one I call the 28th Street hill creek ran straight under and through the backyard of the house I used to own on that street in Noe Valley, between Sanchez and Noe. The long-forgotten stream surfaced into two lovely, rock-lined ponds separated by a narrow "bridge" of earth and stone.

When we moved in, in the summer of 2000, around eight large goldfish called these ponds home. They had plenty to eat (we never had to feed them) and they were skilled at sensing the approach of a predator (usually a house cat), darting under the "bridge" or sinking to the bottom of the pond, at a depth where no predator's paw could reach.

But, then, after 9/11, dot.bust, and the many other social and personal disasters that chose to visit us all over the next two years, a new killer appeared on the scene. It started when we found pieces of some of the larger fishes' bodies strewn around the yard one sad morning.

I set up surveillance (me on the back porch at night) and discovered that the hugest raccoon I'd ever seen was murdering our fish at night. I scared him off when I could, but eventually he succeeded in liquidating every last fish in our pools. His arms were simply too long for any of them to escape his attacks.

I thought of him as a serial killer, and cursed the fact that I had no live 16-gauge shells to put into my vintage shotgun, especially because his nightly raids made my children so very sad.

Alas, many other forces were at work against our vulnerable little family, and we all soon forgot about the giant raccoon as we struggled with the dragons that at times seemed to come at us from every side.

When the battles were finally over, and our life savings, the house, and our sense of unity all were gone, and the kids had to learn how to adapt to the "Mom's House, Dad's House" routine, which brings us essentially up to the present moment.

***

Here is some good news.

Next week, I am scheduled to release a brand new blog, this time supported by a major media company. I am excited, and will provide links to it once it is "live." Until then, if you must go elsewhere, dear reader, please visit our sister blog, Sidewalk Images, where similar stories get told with many fewer words.

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