In my seventh California spring, I finally remembered to take pictures of the cauliflower trees. These are behind a fence, perhaps a rabbit-proof one? I love these trees because they are a sort of combination of California and Texas, a giant-sized version of a healthy food. As the Internet has taught us, a picture is proof of reality. Can you deny that these are real?

As I approach retirement I find myself more willing to waste time, almost as though this is the goal of retirement, and perhaps it should be. I find it utterly thrilling to spend most of a day on something completely purposeless, often a jigsaw puzzle or a math game, and feel deliciously relaxed afterward. Chores, however, seem increasingly onerous; I really don’t want to organize any closets or drawers, although I fervently wish they were organized. Where is Mary Poppins when you need her? I do have some success in gamifying dishwasher loading, which has some similarity to Tetris. Have you ever devised a dinner menu based on which vessel(s) you need to complete a dishwasher load? I have.

Although I’m sedentary when working on a game, I also enjoy wasting time in physical activities, which when combined with a shower can easily mop up several hours. What’s more fun than a Zumba class at the gym? I walk with friends several times a week, and hike with a Meetup group at least twice a month. Last week, in the hills above Wilder ranch, the trail had been moved, allowing us a rare glimpse of a wood rat nest. Neither wood rats nor their nests are actually rare, at least not according to my fellow hikers, but their nests are usually hidden farther from people paths. This one is about three feet tall and has a visible entrance, and probably also a back door.

I just finished lightly skimming/skipping Greg King’s depressing book The Ghost Forest, about the mostly losing fight to save virgin growth redwoods in California between the 1850s and now. For most of that time, the California Department of Forestry and the Save the Redwoods League, both ironically named, collaborated with corrupt politicians, notably including Dianne Feinstein, to cut the vast majority of ancient stands of redwoods in the state, and the efforts continue today, albeit at a slower pace; after all, there aren’t many gigantic trees left. Meanwhile, the FBI, assisted by northern Cal sheriff departments and, oddly, the Oakland police, harassed and on once occasion bombed preservationist protestors while refusing to enforce either pro-environment laws or free speech rights. A single virgin growth redwood can provide more than a million board feet of straight, knot-free, fire-resistant, rot-free lumber, used for everything from home building to water mains.

So now you don’t have to read that. I’m also going to reverse recommend (spoiler alert!) Eleanor Catton’s novel Birnham Wood, which, while well-written and fast-paced, devolves quickly from a light-hearted hippie-style nature restoration story to a full on horror tale with a rapidly mounting body count that doesn’t even resolve at the end. The villain is a tech billionaire bro gone wild, which is neither as funny nor as improbable as it may sound.

Someday I will get its more egregious images out of my head. Mindless twiddling combined with declining memory should help.