Woot!

The lavender simple syrup is a grand success!! I’m drinking my own home brewed lavender soda as I write. It’s perfectly wonderful. I’m beside myself. Look, there I am. See. Beside myself. Hey… gimme that soda.

Cherry Darling

We lay in the grass in the yard while the sweet smell of hyacinth and other blooming things hover in the air. It’s private and quiet there, a little green oasis and respite from the world – though the world here is pretty quiet and private – it doesn’t require much escaping. Ed finished reading Speaker For The Dead aloud while I occasionally pulled a weed or pruned something. Secret played with her Jolly Ball, moving it about the yard like a soccer champ.

To speed things up, we went to see The Grindhouse. Vroooom, vroooooom.

Freedom's Just Another Word

I had the most fantabulous weekend. It kicked off with the first of a double-dose of the enchanting Cassie – who celebrated a birthday last week by the by – and we wandered a little mountain trail with our darling dogs. The wild flowers are in full array and the whole place is bursting with green. (Might I just say that I love her!!!)

In the afternoon, Ed’s best friend descended from Santa Rosa with his expecting wife and their son for a barbeque. After great food and a bit of chatter, they packed up and went home following a trip to the local, home spun, organic ice cream store (aptly named The Scoop.)

On Sunday I had the most perfect morning with my new old friend Ella, who I mentioned a while back that I recently ran into after losing touch for some fifteen or so years. I can’t even begin to tell you I much I adore reconnecting with Ella. There are some people who are just kindred playmates in this life – Ella is this for me. (Cassie is like this too, but in a different way – equally magical.) Ella is totally toys and sparkles (she has a whole ROOM for her inner child to play in her house!) We went to the Alameda flea market where I got a bitch’n new vintage personal-sized fan and she got (among many other fun things) plug-in light-‘em-up plastic deer lawn ornaments (which I named Stephanie and Winona, despite the fact that they have antlers… I haven’t been totally explicit with Ella that they’re pre-op transgender M to F’s… but they’re totally living with the girls now so they’ll be happy, happy, happy!) She gave me a Looking Good for Jesus change purse out of her collection of change purses (He’ll oogle if you’re frugal) and a typewriter key bracelet. I loooovvvveeee toys and presents and I’ve been eyeing a typewriter key bracelet online for months now. It was just so … joyful!

Then came the second dose of Cassie (with her girl-thing in tow this time), when she came to look at a house for sale in my little town. The house isn’t going to work, but it was lovely to see them out and about.

We moved on to the shoot ‘em up part of the weekend and went to see Shooter. Silly boy movie – big explosions, etc.

When Monday morning rolled around, the reality of Ed being out of work and my time clock counting down began to set in – in the best of ways, really. I began going through my files and packing up papers and materials to bring back into the office and recycling things I’ll never need to look at again. It had a real feeling of T-minus-something-and-counting. A feeling like the next part of my life is about to begin.

I Linger on Her Thigh

I linger on her thigh a fatal moment. - L. Cohen

I watched the Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man documentary last night and was simply not impressed. But my love for the man wasn’t tarnished. I could be happy being lulled to sleep by his resonant deep voice each night. He doesn’t sing, he preaches. You have the likes of Bono saying things like, he walks up to the edge of the abyss, looks in and laughs. He’s trying to be clever and yet I wonder if he’s ever listened to the man. Cohen doesn’t walk up to the edge of the abyss and laugh. He worships at the edge of the abyss. He goes there and grovels. It’s why he’s so desperately beautiful.

I had such a stellar weekend; it seems like counting pennies to retell it – all these shiny things. Yes they are good. I reconnected with an old friend, Ella, who I haven’t seen in forever and somehow we lost touch and I simply love her. I cannot express how good it was to see her again after all these years. She is the same yet even more beautiful, she is the same yet very different – deeper, calmer, lovely. It was such a prize to see her. She is filled with so much light and it reminds me to be happy just to walk with her. It’s odd. I used to think she was filled with sadness, but now I realize I misunderstood. It was me, I think. Not her. We will see each other again now.

I briefly mentioned a visit up the Coast to a vacation rental community with some friends a few months back. Two of said friends, heretofore shall be named Emma and Nigel, were married in a clandestine ceremony (aka eloped) in November. They were both to come up with Cookie on Saturday night for dinner and a show, an a capella performance I think I referred to previously by a local group called Solstice. (Since I’ve learned this is a very popular name for all women vocal ensembles – include derivations like Soulstice, etc.) Nigel wasn’t able to make it in the end, but without him we had a wonderful time. I made so much food I haven’t had to cook again all week and there’s still more to go – baked ziti with herb roasted chicken, creamy pesto and capillini, rosemary sour dough bread with fresh garlic and rosemary olive oil dipping sauces, a massive salad…. You know, all the heart healthy stuff.

Cookie spent the night. He seems to stay up quite late and thus sleep in quite late. Ed and I were able to run a hoard of errands before he even knew we’d been gone and out to Terra Linda, San Rafael and back. Once he rose we took a promenade around town (he’d never seen it in the daylight before), picked up Honey Vanilla Lavender ice cream at the local parlor and ate while we strolled and then Gaye showed up for an afternoon hike. Ed whisked Cookie back to the City and stopped for a last round at the range (did I mention he loves the shotgun I bought him for the holidays? Come the revolution, those pigeons best watch their tails…)

Those are all the shiny things. It was a stellar weekend. Come Monday I was still content with the right amount of fullness and emptiness – the right balance of together and alone, new and old.

Lately, I’ve just felt like playing. It’s such a great little playground we have here… this planet, this life, this skin, these kisses. Like the man says, I linger on her thigh a fatal moment…

Untitlled

They joke about the status quo to break the ice. Once the ice is broken I hope they all fall through. (Let’s grow old and die together. Let’s do it now.) - Ani DiFranco

I’m still feeling happy and optimistic – we’re at the first ides, 1/24th of the way into the year and it’s still rock’n the free world. I was walking down Fillmore Street to Union today. It’s a crazy steep hill – they’ve had to turn the side walk into stair steps because the grade is so drastic – you’d probably just slip right down into the bay without the terracing. (It was so stellar, blue, clear way up there on top of the world. You could see Alcatraz clear as a bell and all the way to Canada if you squint.) I was thinking about something and it struck me, there’s a thought to record – a moment that moved me – and I was suddenly wondering about this need to record thought. To prove, maybe, that it happened? To document that I think and feel and sometimes do both at once?

I’m often frustrated because I don’t feel the stories in me, I don’t hear them, they don’t come out in some bounding explosive narrative that can’t be turned away from and erupt like a pipebomb, wiping out everything in such-and-such a radius. I guess what I’m saying is that I’d like to kill us all in one devastating sweep of profundity. I want to write but I don’t feel my story. I do write, but I don’t mean like that. I mean my fiction, my inner facts. But what’s true is that I do have these stories, but the ones that come all easy – they don’t count, you see. Unless it’s squeezing blood from a stone and all painful and oozy, it just doesn’t count. It’s not real unless it hurts. What bullshit is that? When really, I delight myself often with the stuff that comes light as the breeze.

There he was
Sleeping soundly
After killing giants all day
And there I was
Throwing stones that never hit the mark.

I love that and it doesn’t even hurt.

TYWWBTBFSTT!!

I think Chris Baty is fabulous (do we think he’s single, age appropriate and in the market?) I totally love his idea of the Adventure Log 2007 aka TYWWBTBFSTT (The Year We Will Be Trying Big Fun Scary Things Together.) I’m so there! That’s my kind of fun. Hold my hand, let’s jump! I don’t like, however, that people announce the big fun scary things before they do them. I think the rule should be that you only get to talk about them while you’re doing them or, in the example of base jumping, after you’ve done them. To me, adventure is the thing of action, not the thing of identifying the potential later action.

If I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, for example, I would sign up to take John Pomp’s valentine’s day glass blowing class for couples. (Doesn’t that sound like fun!?!?!!!) But I don’t.. /sigh. I don’t think it’s scary, but it does sound like big fun.

Yesterday I took my (relatively) new neighbor, Jaye, on a hike to Phoenix Lake. She and her husband have lived here several months and have yet to avail themselves of the mountain. I hope the trek made the mountain more accessible and less a mystery. It was nice to chat with her – cultivate a friendship. There’s not a big deep big click there, but I imagine, overtime, that might be possible.. there’s a little click. That’s good enough for a new circle in the ever widening eccentricity of circles that to me is community.

I’m so madly different than I was even five years ago.

Where'd You Get Those Boobs?

The only thing standing between me and greatness is me. - Woody Allen

Every day we must point out the lucky things that happen that make this the most wonderful and luckiest of all years. The year started out quite grand with Pelosi being sworn in as Speaker of the House and the fortunate events have continued. The sun rose again this morning, despite so many decries that the End is near. The wild lavenders continue to bloom in the kill zone of my driveway median, despite the encroaching cold (it’s supposed to go into single digits later this week! Absurd!)

There is a man who lives down the street who has always struck me as odd. I’ve never liked him. He makes me feel uncomfortable and he’s a bit touched, a bit off. This morning Ed saw him and when he returned with the Honey Bee following their morning sojourn he said, “you know that kind of odd guy that you don’t care for? He had boobs today.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, “do you mean man boobs?”
“Oh no, definitely not man boobs.” He replies, “But also not boobs that make physiologic sense with his body.”
“What do you mean?” I press again.
“Well,” he continues, “they were more like big giggly saggy sixty year old woman boobs that hang rather low.” He explains as he gesticulates with his hands, as though he’s cupping low hanging boobs in his hands and wobbling them about.
“Weird,” I respond. “I don’t like that guy.”
“He was on the other side of the street and further up, other wise I would have asked him where he got the boobs.” He said flatly and then left for work.

I Squander That

It’s like, at the end, there’s this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth what I paid? - Richard Bach

Saturday Ms Cassie came for a stroll and in the evening Cookie arrived (quite late) to spend the night following a celebration for Hannah’s fortieth birthday. It was a great soirée – a potluck, eighties music, dancing, periodic turning up of the lights for words or song or what have you. It was an absolutely lovely event.

I’ve always erroneously believed a homophone was actually a homonym - me and my errant ways. It’s perfectly shameful!

In the afternoon, G drove out for another hike around Bon Tempe and I scurried home for a hot tub before an hour and a half massage with the magical Lomi Tati. I arrived home at 6 and I was like jelly. I skipped dinner (bad girl, no donut) and ate a whole package of Boursin fine herb and garlic cheese on cracked pepper water crackers. It was totally decadent.

Like Bach said, I gave my life to become to person I am. Is it worth what I paid? Or do I need to give my life to become something I value more? I think it was worth it to give my life to become what I became. And now it’s worth it to become something different. I’m merely having a difficult time reconciling some competing sets of values. I guess I know, intellectually, that art and politics, social change – they’re not really competing - indeed they can be incredibly complementary. The time I want to give them in my life and how I feel about them, however, is in competition – or maybe simply at odds.

I’m incredibly blessed and yet sometimes I squander that with my angst.

The Fun's Just Started

The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun’s just started. - John Updike

I’ve recently discovered Eddie Izzard and I love him. Maybe this is like my discovery of the reality TV show, Survivor. Everyone rolls their eyes, and I can actually hear them thinking “that’s so last millennium.” I suppose the result of not having a television is that I’ll never be a hip trend setter in the glamorous world of pop culture. If you don’t know what’s happening until it comes out on DVD, it’s hard to even feign being bleeding edge about such things.

I do in fact feel a great deal of optimism about the aught seven. It’s going to be a good year.

It’s been a terrific day. I woke to morning coffee – soft and lazy, blog reading, internet perusing like some people read the newspaper (but without the crinkly pages or newsprint on my fingertips.) LB called and asked if I wanted to hike today, so I took a shower, did a few loads of laundry, emptied and filled the dishwasher and dressed for a sojourn with the Honey Bee. It was a brilliant crisp blue perfect day. I took my camera but I wasn’t inspired to take pictures. After all was hiked and done I walked to the post office (tubes on the way, Alison!) and then to the bank and then home. Secret loves these little tool about town things. She walks about like she owns the place, little captain of her band of grrrrrrl gang.

I heated up some perfect chicken vegetable soup. Have I mentioned what a soup kick I’ve been on since the weather turned? Each week I roast a chicken and after a fabulous feast of that I start deconstructing the bird for all its pieces, the good meat in this pile for the soup, the stuff we don’t like for the Monster Girl, the carcass in a pot with an onion, three chile d’arbole, celery scraps, garlic, parsley, a whole mess of seasoning for a three hour boil and simmer into stock. The house smells brilliant and alive. There’s something about using the whole thing that feels so graceful. When the time comes the next day to add the potatoes, celery, carrots, corn and onion (when I’m feeling frisky a daub of chipotle paste for a kick) it feels wholesome and good. Anyways, that was lunch, a small bowl – a late lunch, around four.

After this I hopped on my mountain bike (which is in bad need of biannual maintenance) and road for a good hour up the back side of the mountain to five corners, from Phoenix Lake, down through Deer Park and then back home. I’ve been rather lazy and I haven’t done this trek in a while (I could tell.) My back (ouch) felt it more than legs or lungs (yes, I’m even optimistic I’ll lose that weight I gained when I stopped smoking frill’n three years now…) So after the last mile or so, which is a lovely coast down hill the whole way, I pulled up to the house, tossed the bike aside, tossed the clothes aside and plopped in the hot tub with a shot of top shelf Captain Morgan’s spiced rum and wallowed in the warmth under a quickly setting sun. Stars illuminated in a deep indigo blue night sky behind the silhouette of the towering redwood trees.

Once the heat had found its way deep to my marrow, revitalizing a kernel of me that felt spent and done, I dressed and LB and I went to my favorite fondue restaurant for a seven oclock reservation from which we just returned, just a shy bit before ten (talk about slow food!) It was awesome (as always.) I just finished folding the laundry of which I spoke earlier and I’m cozied up to the fireplace with a good book, a tall cool glass of blood orange Italian soda and that electric throw (which mom contends will give me cancer, but three cheers for the deadly electric throw! Every home should have several!) You know, if sort of feels like the fun just started….

Rural Life

Yes, the meaning of life, the universe and everything came and went and I still haven’t divined the perfect party. But in the meantime I met a small cadre of friends for Mediterranean food (the restaurant was admittedly too loud, and I wouldn’t go back again for a soiree of that nature) and a terrifically valiant attempt at bowling (we were only able to bowl a single game before being casually kicked out of our lane in favor of a league of some sort.) It was fun while it lasted, even though it went by too quickly. My favorite people. Much laughter and happiness. I love my friends. They’re so fabulous each in their own right. Each mightn’t always appreciate the better qualities of the others – that’s not so much a prerequisite in my universe – but I, I see what’s marvelous in each of them and lucky for me, when gathered under a single roof, they remarkably get along just ducky for an evening now and again. Me. I’m blessed.

Beforehand, Ed and I took Secret Agent Dog to the beach for the day. He took the day off on Friday after a much heated argument on Thursday where he contended this wouldn’t be possible after all (after planning and agreeing to it several weeks earlier.) Oh, I think not. So we had a great time at the beach – Ms. Honey Bee ran to the point of exhaustion and slept like a rock. It’s great to see her genuinely tired, not just bored-tired. (With my feet in the state they’ve been this year there just hasn’t been even half the exhausted days that either of us require in order to be truly happy.)

I’d hoped to spend a day lazing in my garden, poking and pruning and the whatnot, but yesterday I felt a bit under the weather and largely just lounged like I rarely do. Sedentary isn’t my favorite position, but yesterday it suited me fine. I think I’m better for it today, but the garden isn’t.

One of the workmen, after a long hiatus, arrived today to continue efforts on the closet for the hot water heater. He’s off gathering supplies. One of Ed’s former co-workers from Petaluma (we went to a party at his house last weekend – much fun was had by all. Mountains of children and Secret Agent Dog with a ball. Singapore Slings. Need I say more?) arrived at the house this morning with his two year old daughter. The lot of them, with Secret, headed to the park so I’m alone in the house with the whir of the appliances – washing machine, dishwasher – hummmmm, buzzzzzzz.

The mother of my favorite twins on the planet rang this morning to announce the arrival of the latest addition to their fabulous family, Buster the brown-haired poodle puppy. She was seeking input on veterinarians and we did a bit of dog-mom chat – including the obligatory complaining about the farmer’s market ruining the lawns in the local town park.

We’re heading to the Peninsula in not too long, to have an early dinner at Ed’s mom’s house – hopefully George will have driven to the coast this morning and picked up shrimp and we’ll be having this amazing barbeque shrimp/scampi thing he does. I start to salivate just thinking about it. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Alright, so this entry ain’t so titillating. I’ll conjure some juicier bits later.

My Two Cents

About once a week I go to the post office. I have several packs of thirty seven cent stamps. I suppose I could walk in there with a whopping fourteen pennies or however many I need and get all those stamps to make the rest of lot legal, but I enjoy going to the post office. It's only a few blocks from my house, it's a nice to see the post ladies, tether the Honey Bee and watch her nervously through the window, maybe run into the random neighbor out doing their errands. But more than all that, there's something very satisfying about giving my two cents, quite literally, and getting that stamp. It's one of those rare times where my two cents are genuinely wanted - they're considered so valuable that I even get something in return!

There is precisely one perfectly clean room in the house - actually, between both cottages - just one. It's the mudroom. I cleaned it today. It was tremendously satisfying. Occasionally I go stand in it and pretend the rest of the house is equally shiny, dusted, windexed and smelling antiseptic - ammonia and laundry soap. Instead, I know in my heart of hearts that beneath the dishwasher lurks more rat poop. Rat poop I haven't been able to get at yet and sop up (SHIVER.) This preys on my neurosis like you can't imagine.

Today was a magnificent day because today LB and I went to Bon Tempe after she finished work and walked the Shady Side Trail with Secret Agent Dog and her best bud. It's been over two weeks and I'm not sure who enjoyed it more - me or her. I'll say me. She'll say her - or rather, she would say her if she could say her but she can't so she won't. Instead she says something like arf (but it comes out sounding squeaky.)

None of the workmen showed up today. What's up with that? They have been fastidious and fabulous and prompt and reliable. Today - not a word. Maybe they had premonitions about the rat poop and stayed away. I love them. I miss them.

I don't think I've taken the opportunity to say WAY TO GO, ITALY!!! That was a stellar World Cup match and no one, clearly, is more deserving. Shame on that brutish thug, Zindane.

More Later

I’ve been busy. No. That’s not it. Too many plans, people, things. I need my time alone – but not too much. I’m looking for that good in-between. I’m feeling crowded. I get pretty agro when I feel crowded. I like the time I spend weeding the garden, pruning, working the soil. Get down in the dirt with me. There’s plenty of room down here in the dirt.

So today I’ve extracted a quiet day (so far) off the loom of them. Somehow the alarm failed to go off at 7 am, so I rolled off the bed at 7:11, not as pleasantly as I’d have preferred. Pulled on my sweat pants and FBI glow-in-the-dark T-shirt (at the aiport Kiosk store in Washington Dulles, United terminal, near gate C17), brushed my teeth, rolled up my yoga sticky matt and out the door to meet Kaye, the neighbor lady. We do yoga together on Saturday mornings. Actually, it’s her routine, I just encroached myself into it. She’s been welcoming. We ladies stretch together.

After an hour or so of contorting, pushing, pulling my body every which way till Tuesday, I stopped at the coffee roaster enroute home for a nice cup of organic Mexican Jose (aka Joe.) After I’m all slippery and loosed up, the caffeine goes down smoother, surer. While I waited for Ed to more fully awake, I continued fertilizing the lawn – there still more to go, but enough for the morning.

And then we hopped on the mountain bikes and road the ten miles to Larkspur. Ed went out drinking (bad man – I hate it when he drinks, he promised he’d stop, dog house and all that rot) and took a taxi home from The City – leaving the truck at the ferry building. However annoying that is, it’s better than irresponsibly driving drunk I suppose. And admittedly, it was a beautiful morning for a ride – a light breeze, still early enough to escape the heat of the day. We had to stop at the Pet Food Cottage to pick up the Honey Bee’s chow before turning back home.

Swooping into the cottage, we off loaded the dog food and bike, did a quick change of clothes, scooped up Ms. Secret Agent Cookie and road the bikes up to LB’s house to watch the US v. Italy World Cup match. And what a stellar showing by the US. (LB says, “we must believe.” I say, “believe what, that Italy is going to kick their ass?” She says, “no, that they’ll win.” “Hmmmm… The World Cup, or just this match?” I ask. “Let’s just start with the match,” she says.) But really, coming up with a draw when the US is two men down is about the same as Italy losing, really. They should feel shame.

We’d intended to go to the beach today, but we’re bagging on the idea. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon, there’s more gardening to do and yet I feel like I’ve done enough today.

As much as I do, I don’t want sustainability and environmental issues to be the it girl of this era. I’ve been thinking about this quite abit. I’m in a hot spot, again, of a movement. But this time I’m dabbling around on the fringe and not wanting to jump in. Or I do, but not holding hands with a crowd. If I wrote about that, that would be an entry.

Of course, I think Hedgehoggy would want to hear about what’s on my feet to make it real. Right now, there is Rhythm and Blues polish on my toes – just an exciting electric blue making them glow like crazy. And then there are the rather mundane white cotton socks. My shorts are army green and my tank top is mottled black with bleach streaks from when it went in the wrong load. The royal we (that’s me and Ed) are reading the Horse and his Boy or the Boy and his Horse (whatever-the-hell-it’s-called) – the third in the Narnia series (the first being my favorite thus far.) There’s a box of stewed tomatoes in the middle of the living room floor – for the life of me I don’t know why.

Oh yeah, we went to a monster yard sale in between things this morning. I found nothing to buy, yet like a seedy back-alley character the neighbor man showed me his etchings lamps and gave us three, for free. They’re sweet and lovely. I think many of the neighbor’s raise their brow in pity and wonder at our lack of furniture. I took the lamps but they’re table lamps and we have no tables.

The other day it rained, a few scattered sprinkles, during a walk on the mountain. This is nearly unheard of in this part of the world, in June. It made me happy. I loved, loved, loved it. I loved it as much as Fondue and riding my bike along the canal on a breezy Saturday morning. Things that make me happy: In addition to those things… wood ducks, wild native grasses, the twins.

More later.

Pronoia

I know, I know, I’ve been terrible about updating here. Things have been going along swimmingly, yet quite busily as well. (Is busily a word?)

I love that when touched by Ithuriel’s spear, the true form of evil is revealed. So occasionally I pick the flower and hold it, waiting for something to change – wondering if the evil that lurks in me will suddenly become revealed in some striking form. As long as I look pretty much the same, at least we can assume I’m not cloaked – you get what you see – fangs and all (wink.)

For those who remember the Hell’s Kitchen saga of last year, what you mightn’t know is that the saga never ended. There remained a built-in dishwasher that never had a cabinet to build itself into. Without said cabinet, the dishwasher, when opened to be loaded or unloaded, would become front-heavy and tip. Hundreds of dollars of broken dishes later leaves me restless. The floor has never been quite finished, trim was never trum. And what’s gone unmentioned is that we haven’t had a bathroom – for the past year it’s been all sub flooring and a teetering toilet. To shower we go use the back cottage and the sink has been shut off for a year given a leakage problem. The little room can hardly be called a bathroom, and more suitably called a rather undignified toilet.

And there’s the problem of contractors/skilled labor in this part of the world being invariably (though not universally, as I’ve recently discovered) unreliable. Well, suddenly and without expectation a guy called me who’d gotten my name from a neighbor and through a rather whirlwind chain of events demolition began on the bathroom last Friday and has been proceeding at break neck speed ever since.

Sure, there was a trip to LA before that that failed to get mentioned here I believe, and last weekend a trip to DC. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. What’s important is that this bathroom is finally coming together and every discovery has been great news! The walls and floor were ripped up to unveil NO dry rot! This is absolutely amazing (and what one gets for having a house built of precious woods!) An area that has been cause to suspect a roof leakage problem reveals itself to be a sink that drains under the house… as opposed to in a drain (!?!??!) It was easily connected to a drain and suddenly this likely means that there is/was no roof damage!

And all this news leads me to a notion called pronoia. It was first coined by a lyricist for the Grateful Dead. It means nearly the opposite of paranoia. It is a notion that there is a conspiracy by the universe to shower you with blessings. That by 10 am, an hundred things in the universe have conspired to go right, just for you. It really seems to be happening that way, if we pay attention.

There’ll be more later… but for now, if we touch ithuriel’s spear to Hell’s Kitchen it’s looking much better.. and the bathroom, the bathroom, the bathroom… ah.. what more can I say about that bathroom? It commences… love, love, love!

My Normal

Well, the good thing about Ed being home/around is that he can pick up extra dog-walking duties. Don’t get me wrong – my favorite thing to do each day is to walk the dog. I totally love that – not only do I like the hike for me, I also get to see her in her most joyful moments. It totally rocks. But I had to go into the City yesterday to be fitted for and pick up my orthotics (yahoooo!!!!)

That endeavor involved a ten mile bike ride to the ferry – a half hour on the ferry each way, forty-five minutes in bus rides in the City (both ways) and then the ten+ mile bike ride back home. I left the house at eleven and returned home at five, but/and that involved having to wait an hour in the City for a ferry back (poor me, so I just had to stop by the Scharffen Berger chocolatier at the ferry building.)

I actually arrived back at the Larkspur landing at 3:30-ish – but took my sweet time coming home. Honestly it’s usually just a thirty minute bike ride – ten miles doesn’t take so long and it’s mostly on a bike path, aside the creeks and canals that run to the Bay. It was so lovely outside, however, that I decided to come up the back side of the mountain on the way home. Wow. I haven’t done that in awhile. Wiggly. I can’t believe I made it, with a backpack of shoes, a change of clothes and er… all that chocolate even!

The best part of huffing and puffing up the mountain is that from the peak all the way to my house it’s downhill. I descended into the soccer field where all the trail heads converge, and there in the middle were all the ladies with their dogs. I stopped and chatted while the dogs ran crazy around the field and everyone asked after the Honey Bee.

Ed was still gone with the Secret Agent Monster as I rolled up to the house, tossed the bike in the back, stripped and plunged into the hot tub, still covered with mud even. I tried to hose some of it off, but it stuck. Indeed, there was still mud stuck to my legs when we were out at the fondue restaurant, celebrating the several job offers Ed’s received and discussing the pick of the litter. Have I mentioned how much I love that fondue restaurant? It’s the bomb. It’s also a franchise, so it’s possible you could check it out (The Melting Pot), albeit a bit pricey. All hail fondue!

What a far cry from where we’ve been. When Ed and I first started seeing one another, he was an under-educated and under-employed boy of twenty-something - constantly broke and unemployed. He worked odd construction and labor jobs –boat building, maintenance repairs, work in the shipyards, as a painter, etc. etc. There’s been many years between now and then, we’ve gone from those days of $15/hour service and construction jobs to debating over fondue which six figure salaried position has the best benefits and equity packages. I’ll take these days over the past any time.

We’re happier too now – even through my complaining. Even though some days I do feel so totally done with us. I wonder if that’s normal. If there’s just some days everyone, no matter how committed, just feels done – doesn’t want another day of the same face, body, problems, etc.? I don’t know what’s normal. This is normal for me. What is, from day-to-day, that’s my normal. And right now, it’s okay. Right now, it’s good.

Coupling Over Spirits

In addition to my ritual walks with Secret, I went on an amazing bicycle adventure yesterday. While only a mere fifteen mile ride, the terrain likely adds double to that, at least, in terms of difficulty. If words could describe adrenaline, sweat, dirt, wind, water, mountain and whir of bike through the dusty trails I’d no doubt have a better tale to tell. But words fail. Today my legs are wobbly and sore and I’m taking it easy while the muscles knit themselves together again. (I imagine them in pieces like heartbroken strangers coupling over spirits in a tawdry dark bar…)

The absolute physical exhaustion of yesterday was awesome. My mind quiets, my heart beats in smooth steady rhythm – I feel right as rain. And that contentment lingers into today just like the fog that ventured over the coastal mountains and now nestles in my sleepy little town tonight – bringing a crisp cool air (curling twice around the house, yes? And then to sleep?)

We're Leaving For The Beach In An Hour

Yesterday Ms Cassie and I hiked to the second waterfall at Elliot. It’s an amazing trek with spectacular vistas and I just love coming out of the thick dwarf forest and descending on to the valley with the second waterfall. It’s like a moonscape and there are these little oasis’ of waterholes, tadpoles abound in the stream and little baby frogs, smaller then dimes, are kicking about. The wild tigerlilies have stalks and huge green buds that emerge past their bloom - recovering from bursts into brilliant splays of orange.

Secret loves to swim. We’re going to Bolinas today. It’s supposed to be 105 degrees inland – which either makes the coast a perfect idea or a mad disaster. The microclimates in The City are amazing. The temperature can vary greater than 10 degrees from one neighborhood to the next – less than a ten minute walk. The Avenues are nearly always socked in with fog while if there is going to be sun anywhere in The City on a given day it can be found in the Mission. The Mission was about a ten or fifteen minute walk from where I used to live, on Haight Street, which was invariably a cold windtunnel of fog straight off the ocean. You could turn a corner from a side street on to Haight street and just be slammed with a woosh of cold, wet, damp air. Ah.. summer in San Francisco.

Oh wait, I wasn’t here to tell tales of the weather. We’re going to Bolinas today (I’m not driving.) Perfect idea or mad disaster.. right then. The hotter it is inland, the more likely the coast will be cold and foggy. This is why The City is so cold all summer while the Central Valley swelters. So while it’s all well and fine to escape the heat by going to the coast, it’s common to walk out of 105 degree heat onto a 60 degree beach, socked in with fog and a bitter, fridged cold whipping wind. So we pack up as the heat of the day descends and it’s strange to be bringing extra blankets, sweaters and jackets while the back of your neck is being singed and the sun beats cruel, pitiless and relentless. But then we might strike that balance of heat where the fog is somehow kept back off the coast a bit and burns off every time it tries to get near shore. Or there are those days when it’s a battle.. this moment cold and overcast, the next hot sun beating back the sky. It’s very surreal and beautiful and strange.

And we go to this place well known to be one of the feeding grounds of the great white sharks – cool, murky, seal-laden shore waters of the pacific. It’s where we go to play, in these dangerous places.

After the weeding and the whatnot I showered and readied for an event in The City, a Best of the Bay party, honoring the Bay Guardian’s picks for Best of the Bay and Local Heroes and the whatnot. I went as the guest of a Winner (Are you with a winner? The Bay Guardian staff inquired at the reception sign-in desk. I’m not a winner, but I’m with a winner. Story of my life??) Also, Cassie exgirlfriend was a winner too, for the most tawdry stage act, and she was there with her crew, dressed in festive pink and sparkles and more sparkles and more sparkles – very fun. I said hello but didn’t linger. We didn’t stay long.

Back at home I took the Honey Bee to the park and tossed the ball until night fall. The stars were brilliant. Jugglers juggled, teenagers showed off for one another and giggled and shook their tale feathers, children picnicked with their parents – we shared our blanket with a little girl and her mom. And when the world went to sleep we were snoring softly with her.

And today, today is a new day.. and we’re leaving for the beach in an hour.

Today, the Deep End!

I have news AS exciting, as big as 2003 UB313! Hey, is that 2003 UB313 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Okay, okay. I DID IT!!! I DID IT!! I DID IT!! I DID IT! I drove to Bolinas yesterday with the Honey Bee. ME. I DID IT. From here to eternity. I DROVE to Bolinas. I drove to Bolinas!!!

For the average onlooker this is no feat. Anyone who understands my paralyzing fear of driving will recognize the magnitude of this endeavor and sit in awe and wonder (and a bit of relief that you either weren’t on the road yesterday or weren’t aware of the monster threat on the road that was me. What you don’t know can indeed hurt you total your Mercedes McLaren.)

Me. I did it. Me!

Vanilla Honey Lavender

I met Illeni yesterday morning and we went for a hike on the mountain. She’s one of Baby A’s moms and it seems we have a hoard of mutual friends from another life. We bump into each other on occasion when she’s out with Baby A and I’m out with the Honey Bee and as occasion put us together we plotted to be more deliberate and intentional – so we planned a hike. It’s strange making new friends, having to draw maps and diagrams for one another of who we are and how we think. It was nice-strange, however – it was nice to start a new relationship in this town.

I’d had such a long tenure in The City, along my usual routes of transport I knew cads of people, at least casually. And in my neighborhood I mightn’t have known my neighbors but I did know, at least superficially, the packs that ran there – and found my points of intersection.

Here it’s so different. I know all my neighbors, at least superficially. And what I call superficial, in The City would have been called a long-term relationship of the kind you might conjure in the Barbary Coast in some Tale of The City. Here we chat over fences. The young man who would have been a rock star wanders by the house to talk about the flowers he’s just planted and chat about irrigation systems and watering schedules. The Englishman who runs the mountain trails with his little dogs is putting in a native garden and we call our greetings as he waters his poppies. Secret Agent Dog literally squeals in delight when she sees the twins’ mom stop the SUV in front of the house to say hello. Hearing the kid’s voices she tries to jump the fence to be nearer to them. She just loves those kids. We went to their third birthday party weekend before last.

When I relax, I relax into myself and it’s a good place to be. When given the time to be myself, cultivate the life and relationships that I naturally cultivate, I love life, where I am, who I am, what I am. Everything isn’t perfect - but that’s not the point. I like who I am. I like that I’m able to be part of and inspire some sense of community here. I like cozy conversations over fences, coffee and wildflowers. I like that the local ice cream shop has four standard flavors of organic ice cream – vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla-honey-lavender.

Monday

Just like millions of others, our new Harry Potter arrived in the post on Saturday morning. The day was spent lounging on the lawn while Ed read aloud. On Sunday I remembered I was capable of multitasking and while we plowed through another few hundred pages I weeded, pruned, preened and otherwise beautified my sorely neglected garden. It looks so content and cared for right now – it’s just magnificent. With all the bother over Hell’s Kitchen, my lovely yard and garden has taken a back seat. It took Harry Potter in the side yard to provide a window for this clever endeavor. Not only did I not mind doing chores while I listened, it was immensely gratifying to take a project from start to finish and see relatively immediate results. Quite happy making indeed!

It’s taken two weeks for me to sink into a routine of nothingness – of waking, of puttering, of dabbling, of drinking coffee and surfing about on the internet, checking in to read my favorite this-and-thats. This is the week I’ll begin adventures and the whatnots - you just wait and see!

Snow Globe

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says. “I’m coming.” - Virgil

I was home for a day and a half and then off to Cleveland. That was nearly a month ago now… has it been that long since my last confession, regression, reflection? I don’t think I’d ever been to Ohio before. I can’t really say I was in Ohio. I was for a day and a half. And it snowed. I sat in the meeting and stared out the windows from time to time, musing at the courtyard as the first snow descended. What a magical time to be anywhere, during the first snow.

It was clean and white and relentless. I’d been reading Alice Sebold’s new book Lovely Bones on the airplane and it begins with a little girl lamenting the fate of a scarf-clad penguin in a snow globe. Not to worry, her father assures, he’s just trapped in a perfect world. And I’d laugh a little to myself as the day progressed, thinking about how we’re all just trapped in a perfect world. I need to remember that.

The day I left Cleveland, I’ve decided, is among the worst days of my life. Which is a testament to how my life hasn’t really been that bad and perhaps also a sad commentary on my yardstick of personal suffering. The meeting went just a bit long and the taxi was just a bit late. I needed to go to the bathroom. I needed to pee, but I figured the airport was a mere fourteen miles away and I didn’t want to risk missing the first taxi and logic informed that I should wait. I waited and indeed got in the first taxi which promptly was stuck in traffic due to that perfect world of a first snow. It took two and half hours to make that sojourn. The taxi stopping and starting, vibrating and the cold making me shiver even more. My bladder ached – it’s all I could think about for two and half hours… counting the seconds which crawled on their belly. Talk about the notion of ever lasting life. If every two and a half hour segment of time moved as slowly as that one I’d say it would feel like we lived forever. Maybe salvation is living wholly in the present in excruciating discomfort.

Trapped in a perfect world…

I think it is interesting that indeed I’ve experienced the loss of those I love, the death of those who died young and terrible deaths. I think it’s interesting that I don’t count those losses as paramount to the discomfort of sitting in a taxi cab for two and half hours whilst needing to pee. I reflected on this and muse that perhaps those losses are still happening on some level. Or maybe, in fact, they have stopped happening on some level. When someone we love dies, although the act of their dying may take place in a split second, we divide the grief of their death up over time. It’s like it’s not an acute event for us, the living. That needing to pee had a beginning, a middle and an end, like a short story. But death and loss is not. It’s more like a marsh - there are no clear borders where one world starts and the other stops.

Trapped in a perfect world…

It’s sometimes hard to hold, isn’t it, that these things are all constituents of a perfect world? I find this interesting about me too. Some of the things that people enjoy about me are my insights, my perspective and the way(s) that I articulate these things. It’s also these same things that people want to shut up and down. But it’s the same people. They at once want and don’t want, love and loathe, my gifts. As though we can all have it both ways. The double edged sword – it can cut the vines to clear the view and your heart all at once.

Trapped in a perfect world…

Are you following my metaphors? Sliding down my similes to a perfect sibilant yes? There are things beneath the things, hiding snuggly under the covers.

Trapped in a perfect world…

I got a library card yesterday. I leafed through an Annie Liebowitz picture book called Women with a forward by Susan Sontag. A woman I once knew was photographed for the book. I cannot begin to express how dissed I feel by this woman. How insignificant and invisible in history some people can make us feel. And I wonder, does it matter? Does it change anything, what is spoken and what remains silent? As I look through the mirror, darkly, I see myself lurking in time and I see time lurking in me too.

Trapped in a perfect world…