The big event around here this past week was the hatching of two hummingbird chicks just outside the kitchen window. By “just” I mean approximately two feet from the glass, which meant that we had the kind of look you get from a nest-cam in the nature films. The first nest, a bit lower in the camellia bush, was unsuccessful. Inside it were two diminutive white eggs the shape and size of Good & Plenty candies, but something overturned the nest and got them in the middle of the night (rat suspected, but I wouldn’t put it past one of the resident opossums or raccoons). The second clutch was successful and I watched the two chicks crowd the nest till next morning both were standing outside it, trying to figure out how their helicopter wings worked. Wildebeest can get up and run an hour after birth—and it’s a damned good thing too, what with hyenas on the prowl—but hummingbirds? How are they going to feed themselves? One solved the problem of the wings and flew off, but the second lingered through a second long damp night—no nest, no mother, no sibling—before finally figuring it out the next morning and buzzing off to practice hovering over the smorgasbord of flowers in the garden. This is called nature.
As for news, know then that I am proceeding apace with the new novel (working title, "No Direction Home") and hoping to finish and deliver before the end of the year. The writing organizes my days. When I’m done for the day I try to get outside, at the beach, on the hiking trails or here in the yard, cutting back the vegetation that burgeoned, jungle-like, after our gloriously rainy winter/spring. A few weeks back, for the third year in a row I did a show in the company of my daughter, Kerrie, at the Santa Barbara Art Museum. This time we performed “The Apartment,” in which I got to represent the hapless R., who has bought Madame C.’s apartment en viager, allowing her to live out her life there, only to discover that her life would go on a whole lot longer than he imagined. Kerrie played the redoubtable Madame C. This past weekend, Cedering Fox’s WordTheatre in L.A. knocked me out with a superb performance of the same story starring Christina Pickles and Christopher Gorham. I loved being part of the audience and feeling the pulse of my fellow listeners as the story delivered its surprises. Truly, it was a joy. Even better, I got to enjoy the trip down to L.A. via Amtrak rather than fighting traffic (most people really like sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic or fending off uncoordinated homicidal divers at ninety m.p.h., but I’m an exception).
Incidentally, when I first began doing live readings on the occasion of the publication of my first book, "Descent of Man," I lived in L.A., and I assured my publicist that I could get to the venue on my own, sans driver, coordinator or armed guard. Of course, I hadn’t counted on the traffic. By the time I got the bookstore I was ready to kill rather than be witty, amenable and sweet of temper. Ever after, I’ve insisted on being delivered to the venue. (In case you’re wondering, it’s worked.)
Ciao for now.