Suzy Says

Beautiful Anderson Valley

The weather has been a combo platter this week. We came off a string of grey, cloudy days, bemoaned by most but secretly enjoyed by me, to a couple of hot days by coastal standards, and delightful rain showers this morning.

It’s amazing how quickly I get sick of the heat. I came home, got out of the car, and thought, “Well, that’s unpleasant.” In the tent-like nature of my house, it was 82 degrees both inside and outside. I sighed and put the fans on. Clyde was melted on the stairs. It was not good weather to be black and furry.

Now, people think Clyde is a doofus – and I’m not saying he isn’t – but he is also smarter than he gets credit for sometimes. He lies right where the ceiling fan sends its breezes, ruffling his overheated fur. Audrey, of course, lounges in the shade on the balcony, and just like she can come in from the rain magically dry, she also never seems to get too hot.

Whereas I hate it when I don’t need a light sweater in the day and I have to sleep blanketless at night. Clyde joins me in my love of the comforter. These days, I have been folding it at bedtime and putting it on the rocking chair my great-grandfather made for my great-grandmother, and often Clyde jumps onto it before I can even get it on the chair. Then he sleeps there all night in comforter majesty, leaving me both blanketless and Clydeless.

This morning, I woke up to the happy sound of rain pattering on the roses on the balcony and Clyde purring beside me. The house is also humming with its civilized ration of electricity, which it was not at this time yesterday.

Megan barely made it home from her fourth night shift of the week yesterday morning before the power went out. And I was lucky enough to already be at work, because someone crashed into a power pole at 7:30 am on the Ridge, shearing it off so it fell onto the road, closing it to traffic until a tow truck could come and remove the old pole and our trusty friends at PG&E could bring and install a new one.

Power pole installation is a lengthy business. They were not finished until 5:30 that afternoon.

Megan and I left our powerless houses to go to a sale at a garden center in Anderson Valley, where we failed to find the pickling cucumbers of our dreams, but I was utterly charmed by a ceramic chicken:

On our way home, we naturally stopped at Libby’s to pick up dinner. We were rewarded not only by al pastor, but by running into Dr. Sue and her husband, who were having dinner there. We had such a good time chatting, and we promised each other that we would meet up properly soon and spend some time together.

A YEAR AGO: A new hairdo and a new play with old friends.