Linda and Scott spent preparing work for the unanticipated Shipping to Omaha,

as they did Monday as well while I was all morning away for Kaiser radiology

and a carwash, only home long enough

to make lunch for them and a catch quick bikeride before

Tim Woods showed up with a 40′ Penske from Nebraska hoping it would make it through the alley [it wouldn’t] and stayed around loquaciously [man oh man those mid-westerners love

to talk!] until leaving for L.A. a bit past six at which point we, wrung out, opted for the Thai nearby, found them uncharacteristically closed so walked four long blocks down First to try the

Burmese in situ which proved to be low-ceilinged, loud and…disappointing, they were. Next day meant a trip to San Leandro for L. for pieces of a major sculpture rushed through Reliable in time for the shipping and for me the week’s shopping but with no one else around for the first

time a sense of possibility…as in maybe I’ll finally get to sorting through that pile of “landscapes,

recollected”…and so to lunch, bike and a peaceful, unusually normal dinner in.

After our morning walk down among the tacky warring sandwich boards Linda was hours

on the phone with KANEKO trying for commitment or at least some clarity on the literal eve of loading half her September show onto their unanticipated truck as I began sorting, digging through and making arbitrary decisions about the collected recollected landscapes, eventually

narrowing the Vast Array down to a mere 163 for Future Consideration.  Phew.  Meanwhile

she and Scott worked furiously the rest of the day preparing work for the trip…so much so we  went for Thai in the end, too bushed [and too much left undone] to do otherwise.

Thursday began early; we were up with time to savor the morning light, walk the dogs,

breakfast and move our vehicles before

Tim appeared to try, magically thinking, yet another forty footer unsuitable for our alley by

which time there was nowhere to park it for loading but an hour or so of strategizing led them to the solution of getting a second truck that would fit under the overhang to ferry loads to

the bigger one out on West Second, a plan which necessitated waiting until one for one suitable to be delivered to the local Penske so not until after a heaviness lunch of burritos with T’s uncommunicative helper Colin was he able to call to confirm that yes, no…but there was still one available in San Leandro [the one the bait ‘n’ switch guys on East Fifth had promised

to have by one].  I bailed for the daily bike, not being physically involved in this mess anyway, while it fell to Linda to drive Tim down there in rush hour and back as opposed to five hours

earlier. As a result the actual loading didn’t begin until until after four and went on well

into the night which Tim, after tying everything down so he could return Colin to Berkeley,

ended up spending here with us, thus poised for the final

final loading, which with Scott back for the first couple of hours went fine although T.

was still tying off at noon when friends of mine from, oh, sixty years ago began arriving for lunch. He left the big truck locked up out front and while we enjoyed a pleasantly vinous

afternoon took the ferry truck back, returning by some circuitously scenic route on his Ducati [which then had to be secured in the back] before, a day or so late, finally pulling out east

[actually south again to L.A. before east] into the twilight with his precious-to-us cargo…

now THAT was a week!