Suzy Says

Dad’s birthday weekend dawned sunny and surprisingly warm. It was the first really nice day of the year, and especially welcome after what seemed like a pretty tough winter, full of storms, power outages, and cold temperatures.

It happened that our friend Monica was hosting a wine tasting at a lovely inn in the Village:

Because this town so is small – sometimes, its teeniness can still surprise me – the inn used to belong to my friend Richard (the local one, not the San Francisco one*), but I hadn’t been there since the current owners took it over.

We were greeted graciously by Monica and the couple who I later learned owned the inn, and supplied with a glass of wine to go with an exquisite charcuterie platter:

I don’t think I had ever seen a salami rose before.

We headed to the beautiful garden:

which had a charming gazebo:

and enjoyed the wine and the sunshine and the view. We toasted Dad as he had asked us to, long ago: “The old man wasn’t so bad.” He wasn’t. And he would have loved to sit in the garden with us and feel the sun while enjoying a glass of wine. At least we have the memories, and he is always in our hearts.

*Though SF Richard is an older friend in terms of years of friendship, local Richard is older in years.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Celebrating Dad’s birthday.

TEN YEARS AGO: Enjoying time with friends.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The battle of the boxes.

I still hadn’t recovered from the horrors of the five day power outage immediately following Clyde’s death when I started hearing reports of still more storms heading our way.

Needless to say, they were scheduled to arrive over the long Presidents’ Day weekend, because long weekends are reserved for storms, heatwaves, and other disasters, not for recovering from the hamster wheel from hell that is working five days a week and still always being broke.

So I spent the weekend tensed up waiting for disaster, as the flowering tree outside my bedroom window blew sideways and the redwoods, which are hundreds of feet tall and alarmingly close to my crushable house, waved around in the gale force winds.

Astonishingly, the power stayed on that weekend, maybe because I kept all my devices plugged in, especially my phone, which is my alarm clock. I woke up to heavy rain on Tuesday morning, sighing as I headed to work, tired of driving in bad weather and living in fear of it. A couple of times on the long drive to town, I considered pulling over to wait for the rain to slow down, but decided to just get it over with.

I made it to work, but I also got an alert saying that the power was out at home yet again. Unsurprisingly, the cause was listed as “weather”, but surprisingly, the power was back on by time I got home. I am ready for winter to be over. Bring on spring!

A YEAR AGO: It was a snowy wonderland.

TEN YEARS AGO: A fun visit with Erica and Jessica, who now reside in the elegant environs of Pasadena.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A lovely visit to Golden Gate Park.

The day after we buried our beloved Clyde, a huge storm blew in, with torrential rains and high winds. It didn’t take long for the power to go out. And stay out.

On Monday, despite the still-bad weather, I attempted to go to work. The Ridge was carpeted in several inches of debris: twigs, leaves, bark, branches, small trees, pine needles, etc. A couple of times, I got out of the car to move small trees. There were several inches of debris, and I should probably not have driven over it, especially with a low-riding car.

I made it to the Albion River Inn in the pouring rain, only to find a PG&E truck across the road. The worker told me that many trees and power lines were down and that the road would be closed for some time. I made my way back to my cold, dark, Clydeless house, getting a branch stuck under my car as I did so. I was finally able to remove it when I got home, but it made a really loud and unsettling noise while it was stuck.

There’s no heat when there’s no power, and I was just dreading the long, dark night. I made it to work the next day, where I recharged all my devices, if not Self. I stopped by Megan and Rob’s place on my way home for a shower. It felt really good, and it was nice to shower under the skylight. I forgot to bring a hair dryer with me, though, so the total effect was not all it could have been, but at least I was clean.

The power outage dragged on. On the fourth day, I just sat on the couch and cried. I was so tired of the cold and dark and not being able to cook, and by then, the water in the water tank had run out, so things were a little more on the third world side than I was really comfortable with.

The lights finally came back on after five days of being out, and I ran around cleaning up and basking in the joy of heat and light. The next day, I was at the grocery store in town, chatting with an employee I know about how long our power had been out. When I told him that mine had come on the night before and explained where I live, a guy passing by said that he worked for PG&E and that he was the one who had gotten our power restored. So I was able to thank him in person.

We are supposed to get another storm next weekend. I really hope it’s not as bad as this one was. I am so worn out by the loss of Clyde and the stress of the last outage. I don’t think my solstice dumplings did a damn thing.

A YEAR AGO: Things were getting a little brighter.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Some snow days.

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting some rain.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Traveling by train.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: My first visit to Florida.

You never know what’s going to happen when you go to the Safeway. Maybe it’s because I tend to go before work, when the store is lightly populated, and much like when I worked market hours in San Francisco, the denizens tend to be those heading to early morning jobs or those heading home from late night partying.

Recently, I came into the brightly lit Safeway from the rainy darkness, wearing my coat and the hat I bought long ago at the County Fair, which is my official winter hat. As I looked over the lychees*, a youngish guy walked by and told me, “You look adorable today!” It was a nice way to start the day. And just like when the guy tried to pick me up at the gas station a couple of years ago, I had to wonder if it was the last time that I would get a random compliment from a stranger. So I enjoyed it while I could.

My bank has a branch inside the local Safeway, which is very convenient. One day, I went in to take out some cash, and there was an older woman with a shopping cart standing in front of the ATM, but apparently working on her checkbook. I asked if she was using the ATM, and she said she wasn’t, moving her cart out of the way and saying, “I always feel like I’m in the way.” I got my cash and on my way out, apologized for disturbing her. She looked at me and said, “Every human interaction is a gift.” That made me stop and think. All day, I came back to that thought.

It made me think of Safeway Ray, the store employee who used to dance with me when I shopped there and made existing in Oaktown just a little more tolerable.

*I love lychees. They always remind me of my dear friend A and how we used to eat them walking down the street when we were young, feeling waifish. Also, they are delicious.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Seemingly endless power outages.

TEN YEARS AGO: A welcome visit from an old friend.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Random food-related thoughts.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: The ugly truth about cosmetic surgery.

The death of Her Majesty the Queen darkened the end of 2022. The shadow deepened with the sudden and untimely death of my beloved friend Melanie on a beautiful, bright May day. Just as 2022 will forever be the year we lost The Queen, 2023 will forever be the year we lost Melanie.

It’s also the year that Megan had surgery for her thyroid cancer. Her life changed forever that day. Recovery has been longer and more painful than either of us would like, and I can’t help being concerned that there were not clean margins. It seems super unfair that she should be going through this at the young age of 52.

On the bright side, Jonathan and Rio had some fabulous adventures on their first (but not last) trip to Alaska.

It was a long, cold, stormy winter, with lots of power outages, including New Year’s Eve, five days in January across two outages, two days in February, one in March, and a late-breaking outage in May, caused by a human driving into a power pole instead of the weather. We even got some snow this year, and for the first time I can remember since I have lived in California, it lasted a day or two. So weird to drive on snow!

I watched some great TV shows this year, including: Daisy Jones & the Six; Your Honor; Poker Face; Florida Man; The Last Thing He Told Me; and Beef. Perry Mason Season 2 and Bosch Legacy Season 2 were also excellent.

I read 124 books this year, beating last year’s 110 and my previous record of 118 in 2010. Standouts included: Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History by Tracy Borman; Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane; The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay; The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes; Desert Star by Michael Connelly; and Somebody’s Fool, by Richard Russo.

January: The crappy year started out appropriately crappily, with a power outage and a staggering rent increase. Unhappy New Year to Me! The hits keep coming, with giant storm after giant storm, including one that prevented me from getting home. They inspired me to stay in town for the dreaded monthly board meeting. A delightfully social weekend.

February: Winter was beginning to lose its grip. But it was still chilly. And winter wasn’t done with us yet.

March: Snow gave way to hail. Is there such a thing as torrential hail? The loss of yet another Queen, as Queenie closed her fabulous restaurant. This development did make me up my weekend breakfast game, though. My eggs Benedict and skillets are restaurant-worthy. A terrifying drive home in yet another storm. I never want to hear the words “atmospheric river” again. Celebrating Dad’s 92nd birthday with my family. A break in the seemingly endless storms inspired me to take a drive down the beautiful South Coast.

April: Celebrating some milestones in the middle of the week. A beautiful trip to Anderson Valley. My blog turned 22. Another lovely visit to the Valley.

May: My longtime friend Richard adopted a kitten! It was love at first sight for both of them. And we lost beloved Scout, Jonathan’s adorable mini cat. Truly, this was a year (and month) of loss. Melanie died on a bright, beautiful afternoon, just three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She left on her own terms, in her own way, and I am thankful for that. We will carry her bright spirit with us always.

June: Jarrett and Kalli got married at the family property. Megan had her surgery. The 13th seemed particularly unlucky this year. Megan started the long (and so far, not all that successful) recovery process. Jonathan and Rio enjoyed their Alaska adventures.

July: The Imperious Empress Audrey turned a less than sweet sixteen. Long may she reign. A heat wave for the long weekend. Visiting the local farmers’ market.

August: Real estate stalking is extremely unwise. Some miscellaneous updates. Missing Dad on the anniversary of his death. Getting my hair cut, and having some fun with Megan.

September: Garden goodness. My annual peach pie. Enjoying the County Fair. Attending a vineyard wedding.

October: A lovely staycation and dinner in town. Kitty updates, and a kitty intruder.

November: Megan’s and my outing did not go as planned. But we still had fun. I missed the annual family cider pressing. Megan and I shared a lovely evening. A quiet Thanksgiving.

December: Getting ready for Christmas. And getting prettier. Attempting to stave off woeful misfortune in 2024. I really, really, really hope it works. A quiet Christmas.

This year, I survived. Next year, I want to live.

Well, it’s been quite a winter.

Once the snow finally melted, we had hailstorms. It was like very heavy, torrential rain, only with hail. I have never seen it hail so hard. It sounded apocalyptic. The cats were completely freaked out by the racket, and I can tell you that the Help was, as well. I wondered how loud it must have sounded at the old house, with its total lack of insulation and curved roof/walls. Even rain sounded really loud there.

Here’s one of the hailstorms (there were two) in progress, taken from my front door:

The aftermath was quite snow-like in its appearance:

Like the long-lasting snow, having this much hail, especially two days in a row, was a new one on me. We are slated to get yet another “atmospheric river” (Meteorology-speak for “power outages”) over the next few days, and the forecast looks distinctly dreary:

Maybe the Groundhog was overly optimistic?

A YEAR AGO: A lovely visit to B. Bryan Preserve.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Rob’s amazing artwork.

TEN YEARS AGO: A check up for our beloved Schatzi. We still miss her.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The challenges of feeding kittens.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Checkups for our kitties.

Winter Wonderland

Somewhere, a groundhog is laughing, with or without a top hat on. The additional six weeks of winter he ordered have been extra wintery so far.

Storms took the power out on February 21 and 22, making it cold inside and out and wearying our heroine’s spirits. By my count, this makes 8 powerless days so far in this relatively young year. I have to say the apparently endless storms and power outages are beginning to get to me. I was surprised to discover how quickly I miss having a hot meal at the end of the day.

On my way home on Thursday, I drove over a branch that had been blown off a tree in the gales earlier this week which had also taken out the power for two days. It got stuck on something under my car. I parked in the middle of the Ridge, got out, and was finally able to dislodge it and pull it out. It was almost as tall as I am! My hands were sticky with pine tar. But the power was back on when I got home. It was nice to eat hot food and have the heat on.

The following day, I woke up to a winter wonderland. It was 31 degrees, with a heavy blanket of snow. Here’s my back porch:

It was beautiful, but also alarming. I drove to work slowly. I have very little snow driving experience. Once I got caught in snow on the Donner Pass on my way back to San Francisco, and it was nerve-wracking.

Without consciously thinking about it, I immediately recognized the distinctive white light in the house that comes from daylight reflecting off the snow, and the sound of tires driving on the snow from my faraway girlhood in faraway upstate New York, without consciously thinking about it. I guess things like that are just ingrained in your psyche.

Unlike the last time it snowed, this time it hung around. I was amazed to find it still there when I got home, and it didn’t melt completely until the afternoon of the following day. This is still California, right?

A YEAR AGO: Recovering from dental surgery.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Quite the day at work.

TEN YEARS AGO: Jonathan took a flying leap.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Million dollar shoes. Sadly, not worn by Me.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: The view from the treadmill.

I noticed on my home yesterday that the first daffodils of the year were in bloom:

They looked so bright and sunny against the dark tree trunk and the cloudy sky, a reminder that our short California winter is moving slowly toward the spring, with the solstice a month behind us.

This also means that we are running out of rainy season. We started off pretty well, and have gotten about 29 inches so far, but it’s been a while since we had any rain, and I don’t see any in the immediate forecast:

It’s beautiful, but also a little concerning, since the less rain we get now, the more our wildfire risk is later.

Arriving home, I noticed that the orchid on the back porch has a flower spike:

It looks like this when it blooms:

It used to always bloom in February, but over the last few years, it can be as late as March, no matter when the buds appear. Whenever it decides to bloom, it’s something to look forward to, and a sign that spring is on its way.

A YEAR AGO: Getting to work was a bit of an adventure.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Enjoying the fine wood-working show.

TEN YEARS AGO: Power outages and other things.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Yup, I’m lazy. What can I say? Idle rich really would have been my perfect career.

Still Standing

I may have been early in putting up my tree, but I am late in taking it down. Twelfth Night, aka The Saddest Day of the Year, has come and gone, but the tree is still standing, and I am still enjoying its comforting glow when I come downstairs on these dark winter mornings and during the long winter evenings*.

I was planning to take it down late, anyway, but it’s a longer reprieve than I expected. My plan was to take it down on the 8th, and at the same time do at least some preliminary organization in the Closet of Doom, starting with putting the holiday ornaments in the back, under the stairs, the least accessible part, and then assessing where the rest of the stuff should go and what could go up in the water tower.

Instead, I ended up in dental hell, where they are going to start charging me rent if I don’t look out.

Late on Friday afternoon, it started to feel like something was brewing on the right side of my mouth, the side most popular for crowns and root canals. Do I have any undoctored teeth left there? Apparently I do, because by the time I got home, it was screaming. I had taken Advil when I first felt the grumblings, but unlike during my other dental (mis)adventures, the pain just laughed at it and suggested it try again later.

Liver be damned, I took more Advil, but the pain was undefeated. At this point, I was actually crying with the pain. I texted my doctor, who responded that she would call in a prescription for antibiotics, but since the pharmacy was closed, I would not be able to get it until Saturday, aka the day I was planning to deal with the Tree and the Closet.

I texted Megan, who magically, somehow, came up with antibiotics and pain reducers (I know now that painkillers do not in fact kill pain, only reduce it, which is one of the major disappointments of my adult life), and went to meet her in town outside the ER to get them. Knowing her sister’s silliness, she also provided me with written instructions and the advice to eat something and get some ginger ale in order to keep all the pills swimming in my stomach.

It was a long night with the terrible pain – worse, somehow, than when my face was giant – but after the second dose of antibiotics, I began to feel semi-human again. A trip to the dentist revealed that the culprit was my wisdom tooth, which apparently needs to be evicted, a horrifying prospect. Stay tuned for more on that.

So far, I am unimpressed with the New Year. It needs to try harder.

*I have noticed that it’s not pitch dark at 5:30 anymore. We are returning to the light!

A YEAR AGO: An unappreciated visitor.

FIVE YEARS AGO: In the midst of a long and cold power outage.

TEN YEARS AGO: Some technical difficulties.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Carrie’s new baby. Who I now realize is, uh, a grown-up.

I was surprised that the drink consumption, especially merrily mixing varieties of alcohol, did not result in a head-crushing hangover the next day. In fact, I actually felt well enough to tackle the Closet of Doom! Alert the media!

It’s a little embarrassing to admit that more than a year after Rob installed shelves in the Closet of Doom, it remained a chaotic and overwhelming mess. You know how it is. You look at the mess, it’s horrifying, and you think, “I’ll just deal with it later.”

Later finally arrived, though in the mysterious way of all huge cleaning projects, it caused more mess on the way to cleaning up. I hauled a lot of stuff out of the Closet of Doom, leading to that coveted “just moved in” look for the rest of the house. I threw some stuff out, and grouped things together: teas; canned goods; baking supplies; Asian cooking ingredients; pasta; cat supplies, etc.

At least I can actually walk in there now:

There is more work to do, of course. I still need to haul stuff out from under the stair part of the closet and assess what’s there and will end up being stored there. I’m thinking things like my Dad’s letters and the box of family photos could go near the back, since I don’t need to access them all the time. I need to find good places for things like the vacuum cleaner and the power outage box, which I (sadly) need to access more often. I’m planning to group things like cleaning supplies, automotive supplies, laundry supplies, etc., and put them in trays on the floor under the bottom shelves. Hopefully it won’t take me another year to get those things done!

A YEAR AGO: Lights in the darkness.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The delights of Candlelight Shopping.

TEN YEARS AGO: Roadside assistance.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Glimpses of city life.

Some more updates in our heroine’s life.

Dental:

I finally got the crown on the tooth with the outrageously expensive, out of town root canal. I’d say the worst parts were the shots and the drilling that vibrated my whole head and possibly scrambled my two remaining brain cells. That might have been needed to install the post to support the crown. The dentist has a magic machine that makes the crown right there, so there’s no need for a temporary crown and two appointments. It took an hour and a half, but I did it at the end of the day and just went straight home afterwards. It was already getting dark and raining when I got home. Time for tea and my favorite scented candle, along with an episode of Ellery Queen. I can never guess who did it, even before my brain cells got scrambled.

Rain:

We are getting more of it. The night of the crown installation was stormy, with pouring rain and blowing winds, so I sadly took out the power outage box from the resolutely untidied Closet of Doom, preparing for the power to go out, which seemed inevitable at that point. I am pleased to report that the power stayed bravely on, possibly because I had prepared for it.

It was still raining when I set off to work in the foggy darkness, and I had to get out of the car twice to move trees out of the way. The Ridge was covered with pine needles, lichen, and fallen twigs, and I drove pretty slowly. Megan told me that before that storm, we had already gotten 14 inches, so that’s good. The storms can keep coming, even if they take the power with them.

A YEAR AGO: Megan started her job at Stanford. Still going strong and doing well!

FIVE YEARS AGO: The horror of hitting a dog with my car. He is still doing great. He and his owner recently moved to a farm, where they are very happy.

TEN YEARS AGO: A country Saturday.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Fun in the <City.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: A delightful evening with the delightful Brian. He and his wife Candi are so wonderful. Can’t believe we have known each other so long!

Whether the power is off or on – and it has been staying on since the last weekend outage* – it’s been good cooking weather lately.

My current kitchen is much more functional than the one in the old house, which had maybe three feet of counter space. Yet I managed to make some memorable feasts in that teeny kitchenette. And even though my “new” house is so beautiful and much more reasonable than the old house, I still retain a nostalgia for the old house in all its craziness. I realize this makes no sense, but although I am many things, sensible is not one of them.

The new house has a big window in the kitchen, so I can watch the passing wildlife and birds while I cook. I especially enjoy looking out the window while doing things like making bagels or rolling the dough for har gao.

Speaking of har gao (as one often does), I might be making more this weekend. My good friend A recently sent me a recipe for pork and chive dumplings, using the same dough as har gao. She mentioned that she had a fair bit of filling left over. So my tentative plan for this weekend is to make half the pork filling and use the batch of dough to make some har gao and some pork and chive dumplings. I’ll use the rest of the ground pork to make lumpia Shanghai. This may seem like a less appealing prospect when Saturday actually rolls around.

Suzy’s Asian Kitchen has been open for business lately. I made a great batch of faux pho:

Instead of beef, I used chicken, and I poached it in Campbell’s broth with a bunch of spices. I strained it, took out the chicken and sliced it up, and served the soup with garlic-chili-sesame oil, bean sprouts, cilantro, green onions, and lime.

On the whole, I think Asian or Asian-ish food might be my favorite. It’s certainly been my default lately.

Last weekend, I made a Porchetta style pork roast. You make a paste of lemon zest, garlic, olive oil, fennel seeds, sage, and rosemary, score the skin of the pork roast, and then rub the paste in. Let it sit overnight and then roast it at high heat for half an hour and then at low heat for a couple of hours more, and it comes out like this:

I had it with mashed potatoes and a salad dressed with home-made maple balsamic vinaigrette, and it was delicious if I do say so myself.

As the great Jacques Pépin would say, “Happy cooking”!

*When power outages happen on the weekend, I always feel like some of my valuable time off got stolen.

A YEAR AGO: Haha! The power was off and I was project cooking then, too. ‘Tis the season?

FIVE YEARS AGO: The joys of Thai food and ballet.

TEN YEARS AGO: A beautiful Fall.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The unforgettable Hotel Hell in Detroit. ~Shudder~

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Feeling sleepy.

That always reminds me of Rhoda’s apartment, which I thought was just about the coolest place ever. I still do. I would love to have that place with the terrace and the Franklin stove in New York City. I also think Rhoda had such great style. But then, you all know that I’ve always been Team Rhoda.

You can file this entry under “Miscellaneous” (though I don’t have a “Miscellaneous” section on this blog. Of course, I don’t file very often, either, other than my nails. I was looking something in my file pile the other day, and discovered that there are some documents in the teetering stack that date back to 2019), since it’s just some random things and stuff that have happened lately.

Rain:

While we were all pretty excited to see the rain, its novelty was swept away in another atmospheric river, which also swept away my power early on Sunday morning, when it still looked pretty much like nighttime, no matter what the clock said. And when the power went out, the clock wasn’t saying much of anything.

Ever since the ordeal of the PSPS, I have found that power outages get old fast, with their coldness and darkness. I definitely feel more sadness and reaction to outages than I used to. I seem to be somewhat in denial, too, since I found I was a little unprepared. I could only find one lantern in the Closet of Doom (spoiler alert: I still haven’t cleaned it out or organized it), and it needed new batteries. At least I could find my book light and it was still functional, allowing me to finish reading Alice Feeney’s twisty and suspenseful Rock Paper Scissors in the dark and silent house.

Outside, it was simply tipping it down, as my stepmother used to say. Megan was keeping track of the rainfall:

As you can see, we got more than six inches (!) in one day, and we are already at more than 12 inches for the season. The good news is that we are at about 300% of whatever “normal” is for this time of year. I’m hoping for a rainy winter, but not more power outages.

Car:

I was leaving work one day when I noticed a sort of scrapy sound as I exited the parking lot. Arriving home, I investigated Wednesday for the source of the noise, and discovered that something had come unstuck or unpinned or something on her undercarriage:

I texted the photo to Megan so she could consult with Rob. His opinion was that he could fix it, so I headed to the property after work one day. On my way, I stopped in at the post office, and on going back to my car, I was stopped by a kindly woman who alerted me to the unseemly fact that Wednesday’s underwear was hanging out. I thanked her and explained that I was on my way to my brother-in-law’s place to get it repaired. I feel lucky to live in a place where people care enough to tell me that something’s wrong with my car.

Rob set to work on Wednesday while Megan and I hung out in the garden and watched Stella and Millie play together. Millie has come a long way since her arrival a couple of months ago. She now plays with Stella, but is still basically horrified by every human other than Megan, and as a Plan B, Rob. The rest of us she eyes with deep suspicion. Not sure if or when she will get over that, but at least Stella finally has the playmate of her dreams. Star didn’t play with Stella, so she’s been waiting for someone to play with for a long time. Star’s absence is still felt strongly, but it’s good to see Stella happy and her goofy self again.

Crime:

So far, no more sightings of Redbeard, unless you count this Halloween decoration on the Ridge:

Let’s hope it stays that way. The police cameras are still active, and there’s also a Ring camera. I wonder if passing deer and other wildlife will cause more Ring notifications than they’d like, but hopefully it help to keep the miscreant away, too.

A YEAR AGO: John’s cat Willow and her kittens! Kittens Daisy and Peach are all grown up now, but as cuddly as ever. John continues his rescue work, neutering and fostering, getting homeless cats adopted as much as he can.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Making cider from our very own apples.

TEN YEARS AGO: My newest neighbor was a horse.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Curious about my readers. It was one of those posts where the comments rapidly devolved into something else. Sometimes, I miss allowing comments.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Getting my beautiful diamond watch repaired. Amazingly, the photo links still work, though they are on the teeny side. Note to Self: I should wear it more often. It’s gorgeous.

My good friend A was born on Valentine’s Day, an unfortunate date for a dedicated foodie like her, one of the top restaurant reviewers in London on Zomato. On Valentine’s Day, restaurants are full of amateur eaters, there is scarcely a reservation to be found, and you are likely to be presented with a “special” menu instead of the regular one. I’m sure she also receives the dreaded combo gift, much like those who are unlucky enough to be born anywhere close to Christmas. All right-thinking people know that a birthday gift is separate from a Christmas gift. I am lucky that my birthday is situated six months from Christmas, for optimal gift-giving. I have always found my birthday to be completely satisfactory.

On these Valentine-adjacent days, I look back and realize that Love is not something I am particularly good at. I was never one of those bridey girls, with wedding fantasies and dreams of gowns and bridesmaids. I never wanted to get married. I believe that you should be with someone until you don’t want to be, and that involving the state and/or church and/or everyone you know with unrealistic promises of forever is setting yourself up to fail. So it’s probably not all that surprising that I ended up getting divorced, though it may be surprising that I stayed married for 14 years or so.

I don’t consider that a failure. John and I had many happy years together, and he is a very special person. I am still his emergency contact, and if he called me in the middle of the night and needed me, I would not question it as I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I will always love him in my own way. I have no idea how he feels about me, since we don’t talk about that kind of thing, even though we are in regular email touch, especially since he keeps me updated on my new love Frank and the happily flourishing kittens.

When I was young, A, who has been my best friend since we were about 17, was a model, so I was around a lot of guys who liked hanging around models. I was never intimidated by the models. I knew what they looked like without the makeup and lighting, and also I just enjoyed them, like flowers or pretty scenery. I still got a lot of male attention in those days, and my general strategy was to go to the guy’s place so he did not know where I lived, in order to avoid his showing up again. I rarely, if ever, spent the night.

I did have a couple of guys who stalked me, one of them showing up at my job when I wouldn’t call him back and the other one not only doing that, but standing outside my house and also telling me places he had seen me. Unfortunately, Guy Two and I had crazy chemistry together, so that drama went on longer than it should have*. He stood me up one Valentine’s Day, and my next-door neighbor at the time, who happened to be A’s ex-boyfriend (her way of breaking up with him was to move to Europe. Neither of us were good at ending relationships) came by with a heart-shaped piece of coke to cheer me up. Hey, it was the 80s!

Looking back at my extremely checkered (to the point of being tartan) past, it’s clear that relationships are not my forte. We can’t all be good at that kind of thing. At least I had the sense not to have kids. Can you imagine?

*He also got into a fist fight with one of the vice presidents at my office Christmas party once. I don’t know if it’s more amazing that I didn’t get fired or that I didn’t break up with him then.

A YEAR AGO: A power outage and a sink full of sewage. How romantic is that?

FIVE YEARS AGO: Driving around with boys.

TEN YEARS AGO: The excitement of snow! Probably not exciting to those of you where it’s a regular occurrence.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Walking the lovely Rita in the park. I miss her.

I noticed this morning that I could actually see the ocean as I drove past Van Damme, so the madness of the twice-yearly time change can’t be that far off. It took me a while to realize that the entire goal of said time change is to plunge me back into morning darkness at the first sign of a ray of hope of morning light.

It also makes me realize that despite what the Groundhog says about the winter (maybe his predictions only apply to his neighborhood), there isn’t that much left, and our rain opportunities are running out. Cherry trees are in full pink bloom, calla lilies have begun to unfurl their waxy white blossoms by the side of the road, and spiky iris leaves have joined the happy yellow daffodils.

So far, we have only received about 14 inches of rain this season. Some of the fields have not completely changed from their “golden” summer coast to their green winter wear. Not that I’m complaining, but we haven’t had any power outages so far this season, since there haven’t really been any storms. I am not in the correct mental state to face a power outage – that PSPS seems to have scarred me for life – but I am also worried about the lack of rain and what it means for the upcoming fire season. We should get more like 50 inches of rain in a winter, and I don’t think we are going to make it up in what remains of the winter, even if the Groundhog is right in his predictions.

A YEAR AGO: A confession.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A delightful day in Point Arena with good friends.

TEN YEARS AGO: The first week at the jobette.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: You have been warned.

Welcome rain

I ignored the arrival of the New Year and the departure of the old one, even though I was equally happy to see the old one leave and the new one arrive. I hope my being a bad hostess doesn’t mean that 2021 will be worse than 2020. The sequel is so often worse than the original.

The new year did bring us some much-needed rain. We are at about half of what we should have for this time of year. Although I live in a water tower and my landlord Danielle assured me that they had never run out of water on this property, even in a drought, that is what happened recently.

Danielle is in Hawaii, so that left her son and my neighbor Alex to deal with the water issue. He primed the pump and did other things that are beyond my extremely limited ability to understand, and although I needed to use bottled water for one day, the water did come back. It never occurred to me to have buckets at the ready, like I used to at the old house, and hopefully it will still not be necessary. I’m glad I had the bottled water leftover from the nightmare of the PSPS, though.

As I drove across the Salmon Creek bridge on New Year’s Day, I saw a rainbow hovering above the old Ridge, and I like to think that was a good omen for the year ahead. I got the vaccine on the first working day of the year, and that seemed like a good omen, too. I hardly felt its application, and have suffered no ill effects so far. I have not turned into a pumpkin or a werewolf, and my arm doesn’t even hurt, as I had been warned.

Here’s hoping that the New Year is kinder to all of us. Or, as a wise friend put it, “Happier New Year to you.”

A YEAR AGO: Welcoming the new year. Little did I know.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Starting the year with a power outage.

TEN YEARS AGO: Putting away the decorations for another year.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Recapping 2005.

I am excited to announce that Megan is working for none other than the extremely prestigious Stanford University!

While not one of the Ivy League schools, it is very highly regarded worldwide and counts among its alumni one US President (Herbert Hoover, for the curiously inclined), 74 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. 85 Nobel Laureates have been students, teachers, or staff there. So she is in good company.

Megan works part time at the clinic where I work full time (and sometimes more), and one of the nurses who also works there thought Meg might be interested in working on a project related to health outcomes for local diabetic patients. As you know, Megan’s husband of nearly 30 years is a Type One diabetic, and through that and many years of working in emergency medicine, Megan knows a thing or two about diabetes. It is something she really cares about as well.

So Megan applied for the job, went through some Zoom interviews and email exchanges, and voila! She was hired, at an hourly rate significantly higher than any of her other jobs, to work on this project.

Stanford is a couple of hundred miles away, and the focus is on patients in our community, so she will be working from home. This means that she needs much better and more reliable internet at home than she currently has. The same folks who valiantly installed the internet at my new-ish house are due to investigate the family estate soon, with an eye to installing it there as well. I am hopeful, because they also managed to somehow install internet at my old house, about a quarter of a mile way and in obviously similar terrain. I think Mark did something creative with repeater boxes and other things I don’t understand to make it happen, but hopefully this can also be done at Megan’s house.

Despite the technical difficulties to be solved, I am really excited for Megan. It’s interesting and valuable work, and it will look great on her resume, too. I am hoping it might lead to more work like this for her as well. I am even prouder of her than usual!

A YEAR AGO: Recovering from the PGE-inflicted power outage and septic system-inflicted grossness.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The pleasures of First Friday in our small town.

TEN YEARS AGO: Walking the dogs at Big River.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Some sporty musings.

The only source of heat in – I guess I shouldn’t call it the new house after more than a year and a half of living here, but I lived in the old one for a decade, so the new one still feels, well, new – my current abode is a heater impersonating a wood stove. It has faux logs and is powered by the ever-expensive propane. It also needs electricity to work, just like the cooking stove, rendering it completely useless during the inevitable power outages. You may recall that I pretty much froze my butt off during the extended outage inflicted on us with apparent impunity by the dictators at PG&E.

When I first moved in, it was late May, but there were a couple of chilly days. I could not get the heater to light, and since Rob is now 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes away, I had to resort to asking my landlord for help. To be fair, I did count on Rob for help with things that my actual landlord should have handled, but Rob tended to be more responsive and have better solutions to my problems. So in my relatively Rob-less, relatively new house, I have to call on Danielle.

She came by, and before investigating the situation, asked, “You aren’t very handy, are you?” This was before she used about a hundred matches trying to light it and finally contacted the repair guy. Of course, it was the Memorial Day weekend, so he wasn’t immediately available. I think she was a bit embarrassed. While it’s true that I’m not handy, this was not really proof of that fact, since she also could not get the heater to light, and when the repair guy appeared, he couldn’t, either. He had to order a part and then come and install it. After that, it worked fine all winter.

Our seemingly endless summer has seemingly ended, and with a hard frost warning and cold winds blowing around the house, it was time to turn on the heater. But it refused, sitting there dark and cold and stubborn. I had failed to notice that the pilot light was out on the heater until I wanted to actually use it. I should have noticed, since the pilot light keeps the top of the heater pretty toasty, and it’s Dodge’s favorite place to hang out unless it’s very hot outside. He hadn’t been lying there lately, now that I thought of it, so the pilot light had probably been out for months without my realizing it.

Another call to Danielle. Despite her handiness – she milled the wood for the house and built it – she could not get the heater to light, though this time she refrained from editorializing on my (quite genuine) lack of handitude. Once again, she had to call a repair guy. This repair guy talked to himself as a sort of running commentary, so I never knew if he was talking to me or not. He basically dismantled the whole thing and was doing a lot of clangy things. When he took the top of the heater off, there was a mat of Dodge hair, like dryer lint. My contribution to the repair process was to remove the mat and dispose of it.

Eventually, he had it going again. He did say that if it continued to go on strike, Danielle was planning to buy a new heater, which would have to be located against an outside wall. This was a little alarming to me, since it would have to be placed to one side or the other of the back door, this ruining the room’s symmetry, though another option would be next to Rob’s bookcase, below Saffron’s glorious paintings:

which would look better, but would be less efficient, since it would be in a corner. The current heater is about 25 years old and apparently heater technology has improved during that time. But I’m hoping we can just keep it going for now, especially since winter is here.

A YEAR AGO: The horror of the PSPS. I hope that never happens again.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A foggy Halloween.

TEN YEARS AGO: A beautiful way to remember lost loved ones.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: What to do with that pesky leftover wedding jewelry.

It had been far too long since I had seen my brother Jonathan and his girlfriend Rio. In fact. The last time may have been our slightly late and slightly power outaged Thanksgiving. It’s a bit shocking, when you think that we live in the same minuscule hamlet and are two of the three siblings.

But our schedules are different, I live further away now – it’s about a 20 minute drive instead of a two minute drive – and Rio was busy with business and family things in her native LA. But one day, Jonathan texted me and asked if I was free for dinner the next day. As it happened, I was, though Megan wasn’t – her schedule has been odder than ever lately – so I wended my way over the river (and creek) and through the woods to Rio’s house.

I immediately noticed that the big brick hearth was missing from the living room. It had a wood stove perched on it at one time, and the hearth itself took up a lot of the limited floor space (Rio reckons that her house is about 700 square feet). Without it, there’s room for two chairs next to the couch and it really opens the room up. They kept the brick on the wall, which looks nice.

They also converted part of the cider house into a guest room. Our friend Clayton came up to professionally tape and mud the drywall Jonathan put up, and it looks great. There’s even a little deck off the room, overlooking the woods.

We had chicken curry for dinner, accompanied by this year’s cider, and they were both delicious. Jonathan has made a still, which is now being tweaked and is hopefully in the final stages before the cider he set aside for this purpose can be transformed into apple brandy. He said that making his own still has made him realize how very unrealistic the one was on MASH, adding that they do not pump out unlimited amounts of perfectly clear booze on demand. Once again, reality disappoints. But I am looking forward to this science experiment.

We had home-made chocolate ice cream for dinner, a change from home-grown fruit sorbet. The garden is just beginning, with lettuce and green onions in the greenhouse along with some starts.

It was a wonderful evening. Rio is heading to LA for the birth of her fourth grandson this month, and I think my brother and I should cook dinner together while she’s gone. And get together more often when she’s home.

It was an unromantic and unenjoyable Valentine’s Day at Chez Suzy.

Once again, my sinks were full of sewage (but empty of dishes). Once again my landlord Danielle came to the rescue, helping to clean up and, perhaps more importantly, calling the septic surgeon and pleading with him to come and operate on the wayward septic system.

It’s pretty hard to say no to Danielle, and the septic wizard was no exception to this rule. It’s reassuring to know there are some things in this crazy world that a girl can count on. Whatever the septic wizard did, it fixed the situation, and he apparently needs to come back and do something to clear the roots out for good. With my limited understanding of this subject, it sounds like the issue is partly that my house is far away from the septic tank and leach field, located near Danielle’s house, and partly that the redwood trees, while beautiful and majestic, have serious roots which are seriously encroaching on the pipe leading from my house to the septic tank. So the experts will have to ream it out somehow. It sounds both icky and expensive. What’s not to hate? I’m just happy I can flush the toilet again.

It’s the little things in life.

While cleaning up the aftermath, the power went out, despite the clear skies and complete lack of wind or anything else that usually leads to power outages. It was either someone driving into a pole, which seemed unlikely, given how far down the road I live and how lightly populated it is at this point (at least by humans), or inept tree fellers employed by our frenemies at PG&E, which seemed more likely. In an attempt to restore their popularity after inflicting the days-long power outage on us, they are starting to cut back trees and do the work they should have done years ago. And in order to do this, they have been hiring people who are not as skilled as they should be.

I discovered that 30 people were affected by the outage, which made me feel really special. Later I learned the pole in question was just outside my gate. Fortunately, heat and light were restored before darkness fell, and it was high time for some sparkling pink wine. Here’s to working plumbing and electricity!

A YEAR AGO: The seemingly endless loop of being sick and the power going out.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Farewell to the jobette.

TEN YERAS AGO: The many joys of the Citrus Fair with Megan, Lu, and Jessica. Jessica was so little! And I miss her so much.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Some Florida lessons.