I crept about my routine at the cold Airbnb, bringing my tea up to my room and putting on the space heater. I had finished Empire of Pain and was into The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner.

Later I met Suzanne on my way out the door.

“You’re so quiet,” she commented.

“Well.” I didn’t know how to respond to this.

I walked along the lovely streets: The Alameda, Capistrano, Colusa, San Lorenzo, Tacoma, Solano-“everything here is three blocks away from everything else”– and ended up at Mary-Ellis’ House of Whimsey. I should clarify that it’s not just the house that’s whimsical. So is my friend. I remember her at Whitman as being almost magical to me, coming as I did from a grim and oppressive upbringing.

I said as much to Phil as we gathered at Berkeley Espresso on Shattuck Ave for a morning cappucchino (Phil), green tea (M-E), black tea (me.) We talked about a mutual fondness for Perry Mason, the old television series that inspired so many attorneys of our generation even though the courtroom scenes are comically unrealistic.

“I DID IT!!. I killed him. I killed him because, because.  .  . I LOVED him!!!” Breakdown, sobbing, sober looks all around, dramatic music.

I heard the story of Phil and the giant speakers that Mary–Ellis hates. Phil likes a refined sound for his classical music and the two speakers are trained exactly on his spot in the living room. Mary-Ellis says she stumbles on them and they are ugly. I didn’t help by saying I hadn’t noticed them but then I had been still swaying from the train and lack of sleep.

M-E and I continued our day with a visit to the Berkeley City Club, of which she and Phil are members. I have friends in Seattle who seemingly would not stop talking about the Berkeley City Club from the moment I bought the train ticket three months ago.

“You have to see it! It’s spectacular. Oh, and the pool. And see if you can see what a room look likes. It’s like stepping into the past.”

They were correct. The building was designed by Julia Morgan in 1929 at the same time she was designing Hearst Castle. Originally The Berkeley Women’s City Club, it was a women’s residence. Two elderly residents continue to hang in there. The rest is rented out and used for functions.

Inside we were looking at a blend of Romanesque, Gothic and Moorish designs with exquisite attention to detail, which recollected a slow and gracious past. The pool is indeed beautiful with a rounded ceiling like a London train station.

Lunch at The Musical Offering Café on Bancroft Way where I had a cauliflower soup so good I quizzed the chef about how to make it. And I don’t much care for cauliflower. I think as my appetite was coming back combined with the pleasure of good company, I ate like a half-dead person coming back to life.

We walked to the Berkeley Campus (University of California Berkeley) through the Sather gate past the gnarled and pruned London plane trees just beginning to leaf and to the Campanile tower. Falcons in the tower can be watched 24 hours a day on a web cam but once up in the tower you can only see their poop on the window ledges underneath their abode.

Besides falcon poop, there is a magnificent carillon up there. We were there in time for the noon concert. I watched the young woman go at the keys and the pedals for “Bonnie Doon” with my fingers plugging my ears. I never thought I could have an experience like that outside of Europe.

Carillon, Campanile Tower, Berkeley

M-E dropped me off at the Airbnb and I fell asleep over The Lost Apothecary. Late afternoon I walked back to the House of Whimsey where M-E had an apron tied around her as she prepared what could have been a post-operative supper for me: broiled rockfish, unadorned white rice, steamed carrots and kale and potato. She and Phil ate apple crisp and I got a baked apple sans skin. Again it all tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten in my life.

We watched The Gift Horse, a Frasier episode where Niles and Frasier compete with each other for the best birthday gift for Martin. Frasier ended up buying a big screen TV, which loomed over his apartment. When the four ten-foot speakers were wheeled in, M-E and Phil laughed. Phil’s speakers did not join in the joke; they weren’t quite that big and there were only two.

Sunday morning, I got together my breakfast and settled in the breakfast nook. Suzanne called from somewhere in the house, “I HEAR you!” and made me smile.

I accompanied M-E to U.C.C. First Church where I was welcomed into the choir, directed by Derek Tam, a young man I was eager to meet. Early in the pandemic, Derek made a virtual choir video of his other group, the Vallejo Community Choir singing “We’ll Meet Again.” I have used that video for the goodbye song for my All Present zoom singalongs for two and a half years. I have watched the faces of the people singing and have made up stories about them, have tried to imagine which voice was sticking out on this note or that phrase.

I have admired Derek in one square, accompanying and in another square, singing, knowing that he also put the whole devilish virtual choir video together. I have never stopped being grateful that I did not try to learn how to do the same. If I had attempted to scale that learning curve, I now would be scratching plaster off the walls of my house and eating my hair.

It was fun being in the choir. I didn’t have to accompany or direct. I didn’t have to know every part in the music. I didn’t even have to know the part I was singing, having run through it for the first time the night before. I enjoyed the knowledge that M-E next to me would grab any note I wasn’t sure of. Most of all, I liked watching a director at work, watching what he did and how thought about the song we were singing.

That afternoon, M-E and I saw a performance of Octet at Berkeley Rep. The play centers around an Internet Anonymous group that meets in a church basement. They leave their phones at the door and take turns speaking up except all the speeches were a cappella compositions. I loved it even though I took my habitual twenty-minute doze.

I went to the Airbnb and slept some more. Supper was more of my post-operative diet. I heard the funny story of how M-E’s and Phil’s son and fiancé had tried to get a marriage license, zooming with the justice. When it was all over, they realized they hadn’t just got the license, they had actually got married. They had to hold another ceremony later to satisfy the family’s thirst for a wedding. They have to have a Persian ceremony this summer to satisfy the in-laws.

So that night we watched The Ring Cycle, the Frasier episode where Niles and Daphne get married three times to smooth over all the familial difficulties.

“Your life is a Frasier episode,” I said.

Mary-Ellis walked me back to the Airbnb. Thus ended Day #3

Elena, Berkeley campus

Mary-Ellis, Berkeley campus