Missed poets, felted berets, and tsunami scares

I’ve been sick, so I missed seeing my favorite poet, Ada Limón, who was in Tucson on Tuesday. Dana even scored two difficult-to-come-by tickets and invited me, but I wasn’t sure I was well enough yet. Here’s my lucky friend Dana, getting her book signed by the beautiful and talented Ada. I have that book too, but alas, mine is not signed.

After that disappointment, I was determined to make it to my felting class with my friend Michelle, two days later on Thursday. The teacher, Olga, had scheduled it over a month ago, reserved a room at the wool shop specifically to accommodate our schedule. There were only 4 of us, so I didn’t feel like I should cancel at the last minute. But obviously, I didn’t want to go if I was still contagious.

Turns out I was completely fine by Thursday, yay! The wool shop is literally walking distance from my house, and the weather is amazing right now. I had a pleasant walk over in the sunshine, while chatting with my sister on the phone.

We had all just gotten settled around the art table, and Olga had started giving instructions, when my phone chimed. I apologized, “Let me just turn this off,” I said. But as I opened it to switch it off, I saw this text from Laura: “We just got a tsunami warning, I guess there was a pretty big earthquake off the coast near eureka. I’m at Meta, which is right on the bay, so my coworker and I have gone up to the second floor of the building, though nobody else seems to be reacting at all”

I’m a speed reader, and all I saw was “tsunami…earthquake…right on the bay…gone to the second floor.” My mind pretty much exploded at that point.

Remember the horrible tsunami that hit Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand in December of 2004? That was just two months after Laura and I had been to coastal Thailand. The section of coast where we had stayed was completely devastated. I tried, but failed, to find out whether or not the family who owned and ran the restaurant and four bungalows where we stayed had survived. When I googled the small town, the news reports carried horror stories of bodies in trees. When I went back some years later with John, the little set of bungalows had been rebuilt and expanded, and no one would tell me anything that wasn’t both vague and positive (that’s the Thai way).

And remember the horrible tsunami and reactor meltdown in Japan in 2011? Yep, Laura was in Japan during that entire, drawn out catastrophe. She wasn’t exactly in that same area, but not all that far away. What is it with my daughter and tsunamis?

Typically she works at home in Santa Clara, well away from the bay. But not today. Today she was right smack on the bay.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Menlo+Park,+CA+94025/@37.4856429,-122.147099,892m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x808fbc96cee50b3f:0x4a186d43719c540f!8m2!3d37.4856429!4d-122.147099!16s%2Fg%2F11kjjw02xn?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIwMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

One could imagine the far south end of the bay is super protected, but tsunamis are weird and are often at their worst – highest waves – in the narrow inland sections of the back bays, because that’s where the bay gets shallow and constricted, leaving nowhere for the masses of water to go.

Laura said the tsunami would hit in one hour. What does one do when disaster might happen in an hour, or might not? Should she try to evacuate? If everyone tried to evacuate, it would immediately become gridlocked. Everyone’s phones had alarmed with the tsunami warning, but there was no further instructions. How are we supposed to know how seriously to take these things? Sometimes everything’s fine. Sometimes thousands of people die.

So I interrupted my teacher, gave my apologies and dashed outside to call Laura. I must have said something about tsunamis and her being right on the bay, because I remember as I headed out someone in the room called to me, “What bay?” And I’m like, “San Francisco!!”, and I was out the door.

First I called Laura. She seemed fine, a little bemused, not sure what they were supposed do. She and a coworker were hanging out upstairs instead of the ground floor. Most people weren’t reacting at all. What are these alarms for, if we’re not supposed to do something?

I didn’t talk to her very long because I figured the last thing she needed was to have to calm down her panicking mom while she tried to figure out whether she needed to evacuate. Then I tried to call John, but John is so darn hard to reach in the middle of the workday. This frustrates me to no end. So then I called mom, who is always ready with a prayer. Not sure how much that helps, but it’s definitely more useful than me just stressing out.

Then I decided to go back to class, where the teacher patiently helped me pick out colors and got me caught up. They offered to let me reschedule, but what was I going to do, walk back home just to pace alone at home? I stayed and listened distractedly and tried to follow instructions. Luckily nuno felting (wet felting) is a forgiving art form and we had a good teacher.

Shortly before it was time for the tsunami to hit, they canceled the warning.

We each made a wool beret. It only took 3 hours and our berets turned out amazing. We’re going to do another class in January to make scarves.

Here’s a picture of mine:

Michelle said it looked like the ocean, which is a lovely thought but also a little strange given that the majority of my mind was on an impending tsunami. I had not made the connection.

The berets can also be worn inside out. Here’s the inside of mine:

Here’s Michelle’s. Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s the inside of Michelle’s:

Another student named Liesl made this one, which looks fantastic with gray hair. She was making it for a friend who has gray hair, touched with pink highlights.

The underside of liesl’s:

Liesl has a glass studio, which we’re all excited about, because she says after the holidays we can come over and try a few things. She does mostly slumping with frit, not glass blowing with a torch and a glory hole. I would not want to do glass blowing; I’m too timid. But I love glass art and would love to learn how to slump frit in a kiln. Frit is little bits of colored glass, which can be layered on a mold to make plates and pictures. It’s heated in a kiln and will slump (melt) over the mold. Glass blowing is much more difficult.

Wet felting seems way easier to do at home than anything with glass, and lots cheaper too.

Here’s a few more pictures of my beret.