Caroline Kettlewell: Journal

October 2004

After a middling interlude for technology updates, followed by a further interlude for feeling blindly about to figure out bug in technology update, I bring you October.

What I'm reading now: I've been reading gardening books this week. Between hurricane Isabel (Fall '03), the tree that fell, the burly crew from the Missouri tree company dragging off the tree that fell, and the Monsoon Summer of '04, what trifling layer of reasonably fertile topsoil there was has all ended up downslope at the bottom of the yard (though it's not a yard but that's for another discussion), where it is lavishly fostering the growth of the English ivy, a plant that decidedly does not need encouraging, because as anyone who has ever tried to uproot it from a garden well knows, it will be the last thing standing, along with the cockroaches and Lil' Tikes plastic play equipment, when the end of the Earth is nigh. Possibly there will be kudzu in the mix as well.

Anyway, I'm trying to restore some measure of life to The Wasteland. My book on organic garden design chatters on blithely about Southern gardening and clay soil and how those of us wielding a trowel south of the Mason-Dixon line might need to do substantial soil ameding.

Oh my dear, yes. The Wasteland is the black hole--or perhaps I should say the clay hole--of soil amendments. Whole continents worth of mulch and compost are swallowed whole without leaving the slightest evidence of their passing into the soil. Gardening sure does teach a person to take the long view.

Anyway....on my I-pod: The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

On the tape deck in my car:Death of a Scriptwriter by M.C. Beaton (I like a good police procedural to while away any miles I have to travel).

Also: I've been watching the Mt. St. Helen's web cam over the last week. It's a still image that refreshes every five minutes (or so). There's an odd suspended excitment to watching a volcano blow by still shot at five minute intervals.

Today feels very much like October. Cool, breezy. I confess, I am no big fan of fall. It's not that I have anything against fall, per se, so much as that fall is damned by association as the prelude to my least-favorite season, winter. To rosy cheeks and chestnuts on the open fire I say, "Pah!" To Jack Frost nipping at your nose I say, "Fie!" Come September 1st, I start counting the days until I can reasonably expect to see the first green things of spring begin to emerge. About March 1st, I stop wearing a coat, on the grounds that gadding about in warm layers only encourages winter.

The whole holiday thing--ThanksgivingChristmasNewYears--gives you a sort of momentum to carry you through November and December. And then what? You're dumped cold into the raw light of dawn, January 2nd, with nothing to look forward to for the next sixty days except...February. Hoo boy. Although to its credit, February has the decency to be done with itself in under thirty days.

It's the dreary, dried-up, washed-out drabness of winter that gets to me. I like the lush, riotous excess of summer in Virginia. For sustenance in the grim mid-winter, I retreat to the orchid room in the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

So let's see... Last weekend was our local James River Writers Festival, which was good fun all around and desirably informative as well. Our keynote guest this year was Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down), who was engaging and funny and had interesting tales to tell of life in journalism. It's also always comforting to hear a writer who's sold a boatload of books talk about those other books, the ones that sold less by the boat-measure and more by the immediate-family-and-friends measure.

I was on a panel about adventure writing, along with Charles Slack (Blue Fairways) and Logan Ward (who talked about his experience, among others, learning to free-dive for a story for Popular Science.) Dean King (latest book: Skeletons on the Zahara) moderated. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, so, it occurred to me to point out in the course of this panel that when you read the bios of writers who have "made it" (pick your own definition thereof), they're not likely to mention (any more) that their first gig was for Penny-Saver Weekly. But most writers don't hit The New Yorker on their first shot (though in fact I have a friend who did, just to prove that there's an exception to every instance). On the record here, let it be known that my first published work, of which I was exceptionally proud, was "Committee Studies Bike Path Plan," commanding about 3 column-inches somewhere in the local section of the North Adams Transcript. (The intervening years may have rendered the article's headline inexact in my mind, but you get the gist.)

And now I would like to add--for the benefit of those of you who remain convinced that Richmond, VA is the godforsaken far corner of the known universe (a recent NY Times story managed to make us sound like Detroit on a bad day)--Mark Bowden's verdict: "I was swept away by (very hip) southern hospitality. The Festival was two days plus of smart writers, good food, and great conversation. "

In the not-so-breaking news department, "Gasoline prices have climbed nearly 8 cents a gallon in the past two weeks because of record-high crude oil prices, and they are likely to continue rising, an industry analyst said Sunday." (AP, October 11).

Meanwhile, as a nation (with the marked non-leadership of our leadership) we sit around scratching our collective chin and musing idly, "Gee, one of these days you know we really ought to get around to thinking about that whole energy thing."

...the California Air Resources Board once more leaps bravely into the fray: " California air regulators Friday unanimously approved the world's most stringent rules to reduce auto emissions that contribute to global warming...."

...and the auto industry responds on cue: "The ARB's move came despite vigorous opposition from auto industry officials, who argued that the board did not have the authority to adopt such sweeping regulations and that they could not be met by current technology. The industry has threatened to challenge the regulations in court."

(Both quotes from the AP, September 25, "California OKs World's Toughest Smog Rules)

If the song-and-dance wasn't so depressingly familiar, it would be funny: See pp. 70-74 of Electric Dreams.

and more good news.... From Reuters, 10/11/2004: "An unexplained jump in greenhouse gases since 2002 might herald a catastrophic acceleration of global warming if it becomes a trend, scientists said on Monday.

'It's a worrying sign,' said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at environmental group Greenpeace."

I'll second that one, Steve.

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