At the Winchester Mystery House, up a flight of stairs, was a door that went nowhere. Nothing.

Visiting that place as a school kid, the grand ball room with its parquet floor and all that crazy stuff, it was on a par with the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, and vaguely exceptional, in the way of freak shows that travel with circuses. It was somewhat redeemed by not being squeaky clean. But otherwise dull, relieved only by the ambient excitement of chattering tourists.

Confronted with literal bafflement. . .



Through our back porch door comes a bee, buzzing into the kitchen to hover near the compost bowl. It had been to the sunflower bloom, but now the yellow petals are drooping. Do bees like coffee grounds?

I decided to empty the bowl on the compost. The bee would come along. But no. So we are going to have to get used to each other.

This is a single story house, not a beehive, thinking of skyline towers where the drones live in a favorite background shot for the evening news at weather report time, fog creeping in over the golden gate bridge. How interesting is chopping broccoli?

Time to crack the egg.

But now the bee is gone. Out the door to . . .