Last week’s Monday evening  found us in a Santa Clara motel room with access

to the mind-bogglingly wide spectrum of cable TV networks available in Silicon Valley, the better to compare and contrast opinions on recent bewildering events, then Tuesday

the world woke up to the threat of a nuclear war with North Korea; try to figure THAT one out.

With Best Western’s complimentary breakfasts and the Chinese Global TV Network as background we readied ourselves to Abandon All Disasters and meet

Atthowe Fine Arts’ rigging crew at Santa Clara University for a day of intensive sculpture installation, some assembly required on all fronts;

a modest enough project for them but major for us.

By three they were packing up,

leaving LF and some able SCU sculpture majors to carry on with the seemingly endless

tightening of myriad nuts and bolts

until by afternoon’s end “Solar Flare”, a commission over a year in realization,

is up and running at 789 Franklin Street, corner of Alviso, Santa Clara, California.

Awaiting only the final pavers, removal of the chainlink fence…

and a dedication ceremony in October.  We checked out the University’s new Edward M. Dowd

Art and Art History building with its conspicuous Chihuly and,

timing making escape inadvisable, ventured onto El Camino where, next to a nail salon in a

mini-mall, Burmese Bistro provided what proved to be really good dinner [this merely the salad…goat stew, pumpkin shrimp, a most passable merlot, yum].

Sufficiently restored and rush hour somewhat eased we made it home by eight,

twenty-four hours forty-two minutes after leaving the dogs to their desperate devices.

Next morning, winter in April, wintry all day

But an intensely successful expedition, with wonders unceasing, in our Brave New World along the social medians, MOABs ‘n’ all.

M