The first thing that you notice about our house is the light. Or, that is to say, if you came to visit it might not be the first thing you'd notice, you might think oh this is Johny's new house, or you'd pet the dog, but if you were thinking about buying a house as of course we were when we saw it for the first time, the first thing you'd notice is the light. I'm not sure if it's the time of year or the location in the East Bay or the house itself, but the first time I saw it I thought oh yes when people talk about some place having great light this must be what they mean, it's really very distinctive and pretty. We have a skylight that you open with a special pole, and I really like opening the skylight with the pole, except we've been leaving it open because it's been warm here, otherwise I'd be opening it and closing it and opening and closing it all the time. But warm isn't hot; it was 106 in Woodland last weekend, but only 82 here. It's foggy in the morning some days and then a bit warm in the afternoon, not too hot to walk the dog but hot enough that he's sort of tired and panting by the end. I guess me too. Then cool in the evening. Our house isn't very big, at least not for a house. We have a living room a dining room a kitchen a bedroom a bathroom and then another room, but it's still smaller than our other house, and we have things like the Farfisa and Juliana's enlarger that we don't know what to do with, which is not including the pink piano that we really don't know what to do with and is still in the other house, which we haven't sold yet.

In the old house the cats lived upstairs, and Mingus came down when he felt like it, Cosmo when Norman was outside and Tim entered a sort of Norma Desmond period when she never came out except for meals. This house has been divided into a cat half and a dog half. The southern half, with the living room, dining room and kitchen is Norm's and the cats have the northern half with the bedroom, bathroom and the other room. Tim seems to have overcome her agoraphobia or concern for paparazzi or whatever it was has actually been out enjoying the sunlight, whereas Mingus, who is not afraid of Norman and prefers to take his meals in the kitchen has been spending long periods of time under the covers in bed.

One of the rooms, the living room, was already green, and Juliana has painted the bedroom and bathroom each a different green, and the dining room she wants to paint one of the same greens, I forget which one. I'm not very good with color names, and Juliana always gets mad when I try to identify colors because I don't say them right, but the bedroom, even though it's just one paint color, it's called Goat's Beard on the paint can, is different colors in the room. It's that famous light. In the corner that's not so well-lit, it's sort of olive, almost like the cover of the Brothers Twain album, but the back wall with sun on it is much yellower, maybe like a goat's real beard. Anyway I'm not very good with describing colors, but the house is mostly different shades of green and white, except the back room where we stashed all our stuff which is the blue of a malted milk bird's egg and the kitchen which is all white. The kitchen, like I suppose the house as a whole, is beautiful but small. It seems more like a kitchen you would want to hang out in than cook in except that I do want to cook in it. It has a lovely old-fashioned gas stove with a warmer and everything, but there's no counter space and little storage space. I had to give away my stacking bamboo steamers since there was no place to put them, but I never used them anyway.

The train runs, oh I'm terrible with distances, but maybe a quarter of a mile or maybe it's more, half a mile from our house, and I suppose it's the sort of thing you might find annoying, but I don't at all, I find it sweet and sort of romantic. Juliana says it always makes her think of the Sleep Train commercial. I don't know if they show that outside of California. Your ticket to a good night's sleep. There's also a very nice little church right on the corner, Saint Ambrose, so we can hear the church bells which I always like. They chime on Sunday and then at other times I can't quite figure out, noon probably and evening. Saint Ambrose himself apparently wasn't really my kind of guy, being as he was a staunch opponent of Jews and fornication. At least that's one Saint Ambrose; I'm sure there are a few of them and maybe the church is named for a different one than the chaste anti-Semite. I have the Butler's that Stephen gave me unpacked and shall have to research.

We have a fenced-in yard so that we can leave Norman out during the day, and it's really a wonderful yard. Everyone in Berkeley has gardens more than yards. You walk down the street and everyone has rose bushes and lavender and flowers I don't know the names of, but not so much the well-tended lawn, which suits me fine since (sorry Firestone) a well-tended lawn has always seemed uncomfortably bourgeois to me but a garden, a garden is really fine. I don't know very much about flower gardening, I know a little about vegetable gardening but hardly anything about flower gardening, but we have this sweet garden both inside and outside the fence, which I'm hoping to keep healthy. I talked to the people who lived here before us, they obviously cared a lot about the garden, and they said, oh, you just need to water and weed, and then the four or so rose plants do require special care, you should spray the leaves with soapy water if they've been eaten by bugs and with water mixed with baking soda if they've been attacked by mildew. Our roses, few as they are, seem to have been attacked by both, so I suppose I shall have to mix water with both soap and baking soda.

There's not really room for a vegetable garden, which I'd prefer, but on the other hand there is fresh produce for sale all around. There are three farmer's markets in Berkeley every week, and two in Oakland and probably some in El Cerrito and Albany and Richmond too, and a really beautiful greengrocers about a ten minute walk from here, and the Berkeley Bowl which everyone tells me is the place to go and Andronico's, which is an upscale chain like Dean & Delucca's. I can't remember if my fascination with fresh vegetables started before I moved to California where they're everywhere or of it coincided with my vegetarianism, but I think the former. Maybe not but I think so. I think I liked buying vegetables at the Halle de Rives, I just like it more now. I'm like some people are with garage sales, if I see a produce stand I want to pull over. I'm glad there are so many fresh vegetables for sale in Berkeley.