Suzy Says

Last Friday, I left work early, went home, and lured all the kitties into the house with treats and dinner. Then I turned lights on inside and out* and headed for the beautiful South Coast.

Even though it was an overcast day and the Pacific was living up to its name with millpond flatness, the South Coast was as beautiful as always. There’s something magical about it to me, though I can’t explain why. It seems wilder somehow and the drive prettier than the northbound one I do nearly every day. Maybe it’s because I don’t drive it as often that it seems more special.

I headed to Anchor Bay for delicious Thai food. I was pleased to note that the restaurant was full at the Floridian hour of 5:30. I ordered sparkling fresh spring rolls, which arrived with a sweet, yet spicy dipping sauce, and an order of Panang curry, which is scented with kaffir lime leaves, Thai basil, and peanut sauce. There was enough left for me to take home with me for dinner another night.

Wednesday and I turned around and went back the way we came. After a couple of curvy miles, I heard a fire engine screaming, and I began to look for places to pull over, not an easy task on narrow and winding Highway One. Eventually, I located someone’s driveway and cowered by the mailbox as the fire truck raced by.

The fire truck may have raced by, but traffic soon ground to a halt, reminding me of the mysterious episode on the Ridge the afternoon before (I still don’t know what happened, and no-one else does, either). I began to worry that I would miss the movie in Point Arena as I turned the car off, though I tried to comfort myself that there would be endless, horrible ads** before the movie.

After several minutes, cars started to move again, and I came across the cause of the pause. A truck had blasted into a fence on the southbound side of the road (though facing north), and a car had smashed into the hill on the other side of the road, also facing north. It was completely crumpled. Things seem to have been a lot more eventful on the roads lately than usual in our little corner of the world.

I made it to the lovely theater in time for Love & Mercy, a new film about the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. Brian has had a fascinating and sometimes tragic life, and the film chose to focus on two different facets of it: when the Beach Boys were tremendously successful but Brian wanted to try new things musically, and later, when he had a nervous breakdown and fell into the thrall of the evil Eugene Landy, who overmedicated him and cut him off from his family. Brian was played by Paul Dano in his young incarnation and John Cusack in the older one, and both actors did a fine job, though Cusack looks nothing like Wilson. It’s flawed, but worth looking for if you can find it – the film has not been widely released, despite buzz for Dano as a possible Oscar candidate.

I’m pleased to report that the drive home was uneventful. I went to sleep with Wilson’s divine harmonies dancing in my head and the cats cuddled up beside me.

*Sorry, ecology! But it was after 10 pm and totally dark by the time I got home, summer or no summer.

**How right I was. There was a lengthy and embarrassing ad for a new Meryl Streep movie, and another for some animated movie which was so bad that it ruined “More Than a Feeling” for me, the song blasting in the background during the visual torture of the trailer. And I love that song!

A YEAR AGO: Kalli’s birthday camping party was in full swing.