Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
In Sweden, Gloria Steinem once said, both parents take care of the children. This is also true in Davis. Also in Davis, both parents take care of the dog.
Our puppy, Margot, can now sleep seven hours at night between visits to our front yard. Her ability to sleep at night has done wonders for her “parents’” ability to do the same. That said, something usually wakes me before the seven-hour chime rings on my iPhone. Sometimes, as was the case this morning, our son Jukie visits the bathroom before 6 AM and leaves the light on, like an unwelcome light therapy alarm clock. On other mornings, Margot decides that she wants to engage with Kate and me, even if the bedroom is not even remotely illuminated by the dawn’s early light. Sometimes Margot will hear Jukie before we do, and share a tentative bark, to let us know what an excellent watchdog she is. These interruptions of sound and light are not easily reconciled with our last dreams of the evening, and soon we are both awake, attending to the household creatures that desire our attention.
This morning, I attended to the mouths to feed as best I could before leaving the house at 6:45, 30 minutes before the official sunrise. Typically an indication of coming storms, the eastern sky was filled with red light, refractions upon the winter fog that we enjoy at this time of year. Driving north and west over Richards Boulevard from south Davis, I saw red lights in my rear-view mirror that reminded me of a description of dawn over the chaparral in Larry McMurtry’s best-known novel, Lonesome Dove:
“The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.
It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source.”
The vermillion sky shared its orange glow with the meditating sitters who had gathered at the Davis Shambhala Center at 7 AM, reminding us to be mindful of our environment, and how we respond to it. The warm welcome of my friends at the Center filled the room with bonhomie as we took our seats (in chairs or on zafu meditation cushions) and our minds started to settle. I reflected on how lucky I was to be present in that moment, and how right Alan Watts was when he said that “Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”
The sky had lightened dramatically as I headed home, and the morning was almost warm by the time I stepped outside with Margot again, both of us deeply breathing the morning air. Always in touch with the joy that eludes many of the humans that she meets on her daily walks with Kate, Margot was communicating with her spry vertical leaps that she was already ready to play. As I handed the puppy back to her mom at 8, I realized that I had lived a “day” rich in discovery and gratitude, all before turning to the computer on a Monday morning, curious to know what I would share with my friends in today’s Pub Quiz newsletter.
In addition to topics raised above, tonight expect questions on unbreakable records, showhorse senators, proper names, marathoners, the question of brotherhood, square predictions, drinks and beverages, post-revolutionaries, Good Friday, cell biology, Taiwan, gross domestic products, invisible walls, terminals, blood disorders, saviors, happy families, work days, exports and imports, rushing horses, international hitmakers, Stan Lee, crosshairs over Wisconsin, lovely lakes, hard math, acronyms, causes and effects of anxiety, numbers that define, departed birds, four-letter annoyances, fractions of control, aspiring geniuses, oversleeping hankies, tax revenues, the Forbes Global 500, and Shakespeare.
Our next poetry night takes place on February 7th, and will feature UC Davis English Department professor Margaret Ronda, and the poet laureate emerita of Napa, Leonore Wilson. Mark your calendar now, and plan to join us at the Natsoulas Gallery that night at 8.
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Books and Authors. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, what best-selling poet in America died last week at the age of 83?
- Current Events – Names in the News. Founded in Macon, Georgia, what airline’s foundation provided the grant needed to keep open Martin Luther King National Park?
- Shakespeare. Least likely to be performed in high school, the title of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most violent work starts with the letter T. What is it?
P.S. Do you know the work of essayist and novelist James Baldwin? This writing-centric introduction may intrigue you: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/08/james-baldwin-advice-on-writing/.
P.P.S. Congratulations to our own John Lescroart, whose new novel The Rule of Law was named the top-selling legal thriller on Amazon last week.