andrew garrett

Recreation

Sappho and Alcaeus

Sappho & Alcaeus, 2018

SF Marathon 2018

Team Sander, SF Marathon races, 2018

Driving at Laguna Seca

Driving the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca, 2017

Cooking • Most days I cook. Or bake: I used to make bread weekly, and pie often; now I more usually make crumble. I think I like peach-berry crumble best, but pear-ginger is pretty great too.

Felis silvestris catus • I spend time studying our cats. We've had five of these mysterious lovable creatures: Rex (alas no longer); Sam & Sophie (both sadly departed); and Sappho & Alcaeus (happily with us).

Hiking • I prefer day hikes. Places I've been in 2018 are Crater Lake, Mt. Tam, Tilden, and Yosemite, any of which I'd very happily visit any time. At other times I've hiked in the Olympics in Washington State (since childhood), on Mt. Lassen, and near Lake Tahoe — all also awesome. But some of my favorite hiking is in proximity to the ocean.

Islands • In alphabetical order: Bainbridge, Hawai‘i, Inis Mór, Kaua‘i, Maui, Sicily, and Skye. If you told me you'd send me to one of them tomorrow, probably I'd pick Kaua‘i, thank you.

Running • I took up running in 2015 and was surprised by how much I liked it. I've run two 5k races, three 10k races, a 10-mile race, and nine half marathons:

Most enjoyable was the 2018 S.F. race, which I ran with my sister, my brother, and two of his children. My nephew was sixth overall; my niece was fourth overall in the 5k race the same day. I was third in my age group, so it was all great!

Shoes • I like interesting shoes and brightly colored pants (and shirts). Unfortunately, the apex of my shoe obsession coincided with seeing that interesting shoes aren't all good for foot health (vide Running, supra). Nowadays, therefore, my shoe collection is mostly for study and special occasions. But you still might encounter me looking for brightly colored apparel in a thrift store.

Tracking • Sometimes I drive on a race track. This is not actual racing, but "tracking" (a nominalization I learned) at a track day or "high-performance driving school". I started doing this because I accidentally acquired a race car, which obviously wanted adventures. It's all about skill in the turns, I'm learning, not just about driving fast. You can click on the picture at right to watch a (not very) dramatic video I made at Laguna Seca, near Monterey. I've driven there several times, and at Thunderhill Raceway Park (once, on two successive days) and Sears Point (once).

Writing • From time to time I make books, usually fabular, mostly for friends and family. I've also made two for the public. One is called Cat Wrangler: An Epistolary Memoir (2018). This is an academic satire about a beleaguered department head at a university where faculty are cats, students are kittens, administrators are dogs, and staff are Pokémons (or sometimes squirrels). The setting is not unlike Berkeley, but I hasten to assure my real-life colleagues and students that it isn't really Berkeley, even though I, too, was a beleaguered department head. An eventual sequel will be called The Duchess Diaries. The other, Poetarum lesbiorum carmina pestilentialia ("Lesbian Plague Poems", 2020), is a satirical edition of poetry by Sappho and Alcaeus.