Suzy Says

Well, I survived the annual scourge of the work fundraiser. Barely.

It was as Sisyphean as I remembered. No matter how many hours I worked, I never got the things done I planned/needed to, making me feel both incompetent and stupider than usual, feelings I do not enjoy. And being loaded down with event-related duties did not excuse me from doing my (ir)regular job.

Once again, I logged between 50 and 60 hours of work and several bottles of wine in the week leading up to the event. I was in my stress sleep pattern: fall asleep exhausted for three or four hours, wake up and worry for a couple more, drift off as alarm goes off, so I was also sleep-deprived.

I would have been really glad when Friday came, if I didn’t have to work for free on Saturday. Sadly for me, I no longer had the iron clad excuse of working for money on Saturday to excuse me from working for free on Saturday*.

Fortunately for me, Megan’s plans for the day included walking her dogs on the beach and running errands in the Big Town, so she chauffeured me to the event site, giving us time to chat and for me to enjoy the scenery and not having to drive. We met up when my shift was over and did our grocery shopping together, and then headed home, where I took an unprecedented nap for two hours instead of answering my emails (which I will do soon!), cooking, or cleaning up the house as I should have been. Sometimes a girl just needs her beauty sleep.

*The new CEO of the jobette quit just a few months after taking the job, though in those months he managed to cost me my Saturday jobette and lost all of the staff he inherited except for one person. He is going back where he came from, and not a moment too soon.

A YEAR AGO: Just guess!

FIVE YEARS AGO: A midnight caller.

Megan and I had grand plans to see the Bolshoi Ballet performing “Sleeping Beauty”, but Mother Nature had other plans.

The appointed day dawned dark and dreary, and as the day went on, it got rainier and rainier. We already knew that the Road to Civilization was flooded and closed:

and that it was very likely that the river over which the Road to the South Coast passes would flood, too, effectively stranding us on the South Coast if we made it that far. We speculated on how we might possibly get home if we were marooned, and decided that we’d have to keep going south to Jenner until we could find a road to take us to 101, then to 20, then from the Big Town back to Hooterville.

Since this winding route would take several hours and Megan was scheduled to work that night, we decided to stay home, missing both the glories of a beautiful ballet and the joys of Thai food.

We aren’t imagining that we’ve gotten a lot of rain this winter. Our friends at PG&E, those fearless repairers of power outages, say it’s been the wettest January in 20 years ’round these parts. The local message boards say we have received 16 inches of rain in January so far. I well remember the winter of 1996-1997, when it rained every single day in January and February. I worked in an old building in downtown San Francisco with exposed brick walls, and the rain ran down the walls – inside. I had clear plastic draped over my computer to cover it from the inside rainfall.

I still have inside rainfall. The laundry room has flooded as per usual, and the usual leaks have sprung to life. On the bright side, though, the drought is definitely on the run for now.

With no Thai food on the menu for dinner, I started rummaging around the freezer for a Plan B. While in the midst of this icy exploration, Rob came by to hang up a picture for me. Hanging up pictures on curved walls takes expertise and patience that are far beyond my mortal abilities, but are no problem for Super Rob:

After he hung up the picture, Rob also investigated why my vacuum cleaner’s performance had been suboptimal lately, and discovered a clog in the hose, which he removed, allowing me to vacuum up cat hair and pine needles with abandon.

With the house in order and the rain falling outside (and in), I curled up on the couch with a Patricia Highsmith novel under my grandmother’s ancient quilt, a cozy way to spend a winter afternoon.

A YEAR AGO: Adventures in cooking. It takes a special talent to need three takes in making mashed potatoes.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Rob was fixing things up around here then, too. I wonder how often he regrets his ridiculous sister-in-law moving to Hooterville.

I finally got around to clearing up the worst of the storm damage around my house.

Several good-sized limbs had been removed from trees, and a couple of smallish trees were uprooted. I dragged the corpses out of the way and into the remaining woods. I didn’t rake up all the smaller fallen pieces, though, because we all know that there are more storms and more mess to come.

Speaking of mess, the clean up process was rendered messier and more challenging by Mark’s latest project. For reasons unknown to me, but presumably known to Mark, he decided to dig trenches to bury the electrical lines:

in the rainiest part of the year. This does not seem like a great idea to me, but then my knowledge of both trench digging and electrical systems is limited at best.

Burying the electrical wires that festoon our houses and surrounding trees does seem like a good idea, though, since they a) look terrible and 2) are more likely to come down in a storm, leading to further power outages. So I am willing to put up with the extra muddiness:

for now. Hopefully the mud will be graveled over when the project is finished.

While I was out there, I took a peek at the rest of the garden. The daffodils are beginning to poke through the soil:

as are the tulips:

I think I planted the tulips too late again – I should have done it around Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. I always want them to bloom in February along with the daffodils, but they really show up around March. Though March is the secret winter month no-one ever talks about.

The camellias still don’t have flower buds. They have never bloomed. I must be doing something wrong here. The main point of having them is to have flowers in the winter. I should ask Lichen about this. On the bright side, though, both of the orchids have flower spikes:

so they should be blooming pretty soon.

All in all, the garden came through the storms pretty well. Hopefully the rest of the winter won’t be too bad.

A YEAR AGO: A couple of coincidences.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Gorgeous shoes to covet.

On a sunny Saturday morning, Megan and I headed to the Big Town to see the fine woodworking show. Rob, who is a pretty fine woodworker himself, was unable to accompany us due to other pressing wood-related matters, like gathering more firewood before it started to pour again. I missed his insight and perspective – he has a unique way of looking at wood, and the world – but Megan and I had fun together, as we always do.

Last year, we made the mistake of going on the opening night reception, and it was severely overpopulated, to the point that Megan took one look and fled to the car, and Rob and I were barely able to move around. Also, whoever set it up thought it would be a good idea to stage the booze and food at the entrance, thus creating an instant traffic jam. It wasn’t.

This year, however, we had the place to ourselves and were able to meander freely among the lovely pieces on display. People come from all over the world to join the fine woodworking program here, and it is a highly demanding program, both in time and dedication. But the results are worth it.
This lovely cabinet has a wonderful wave shape, perhaps a little hard to tell from the photo:

This one was like a magic box:

Revealing layer upon layer:

I loved the texture of the wood on this shelf, looking rustic while being satin smooth and catching the light:

This rendering of a vintage radio was so clever:

It was so nice to enjoy the beauty of these pieces in the light and bright space. It is amazing how talented these artists are. They look at a piece of work and see an art form instead of a piece of tree. Michelangelo used to say that he released statues from marble, and maybe these artists feel the same about wood.

A YEAR AGO: Things were a little on the absurd side.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Power outages and a PC for work. Which is worse?

Cheers!

Megan wakes up after her long night shifts on Thursday afternoons, and I get home from my day shift just a little later than that, so we decided to head out to the Ledford House to enjoy the sunset together, even though it was a school night for me and Megan had just finished her coffee. One of her super powers is the magic ability to switch effortlessly from coffee to wine.

The bar was bustling. Apparently many of our neighbors and visitors (I heard French and Russian being spoken) also didn’t care that it was a school night. Or maybe they were just glad that the days-long power outage was over. Megan and I decided to try a “Cerise Noir”, which you see above.

To make this delicious libation, the delightful bartender spoons some house-macerated dark cherries into a champagne flute, then adds cherry vodka (who knew?) and tops it off with local sparkling wine. It is a sunset drink to sip while watching the sun set over the ocean:

I’m afraid its deliciousness inspired us to have another one, which inspired us to order a little food to go with that second cocktail. Just being a responsible adult, you understand. We ordered a cheese and charcuterie plate:

It consisted of Dad’s favorite Stilton, Brie, and Manchego cheeses, along with salami, coppa, and prosciutto (auto corrected to “prosecution” – I didn’t go that crazy on a school night), served with house made Meyer lemon marmalade and spicy mustard, along with spiced olives and house made bread. It was all so good, and the marmalade was to die for. The owner makes it, and I told him he could sell it. He laughed and said, “I just did!”

It was a delightfully civilized break in the work week. On the way home, the full moon was blazing, so we got to enjoy both the sun setting and the moon rising.

A YEAR AGO: First engine light appearance of the new year! And cameo appearances by Bobbie Gentry and my old Mustang Josephine.

FIVE YEARS AGO: It was cold and hadn’t rained since Thanksgiving. We have more than made up for it now.

Twelfth Night fell on a Friday. I left work early that day to go to Angelika’s little salon in the big woods. Among my Christmas gifts this year was a gift certificate to get my hair highlighted, so off I went to get both my hair and my spirit refreshed.

Not only does Angelika do an amazing job, applying utterly natural looking highlights and cutting my hair so well that it never loses its shape, even after months, but she is an inspiring person to be around. She is always so positive that I kind of bask in the glow of her presence.

Even though she only colored in the front part of my hair, the whole process took about three and a half hours. She is a perfectionist. And I actually had somewhere to go and show off my new and improved ‘do.

I went home, fed the kitties, turned on some lights, and headed out to Rio’s place in the rainy darkness. The traditional Twelfth Night Christmas ornament removal would have to wait.

Arriving at her house, I found my siblings, Rob, and our dear friend Lu, back from her adventures fighting the good fight at Standing Rock. I also found a pot of my brother’s split pea soup on the stove. It is almost as famous as my cheese biscuits, and rightly so. To make it, he had to cut the Hamzilla bone in half with a hacksaw before making the broth. Like my hair, it is a lengthy but worthwhile process in the hands of a true artist.

With the soup, we had our hard cider, now approaching a perfect balance of apple-ness and dryness, and garlic bread. There was a fire burning merrily in the Franklin stove as we ate dinner together.

After dinner, we gathered around the 1950 Philco Predicta. You may remember that my brother got it in non working condition, but a guy who also made a non working NASA worthy telescope work had no doubts that he could also make a nearly 60 year old TV set work. And he did:

Somehow, he also managed to hook up a modern DVD player to the antique TV set, so we were able to watch a delightful retro program of Honey West, The Outer Limits:

and a chaser of Peter Gunn while we ate ice cream topped with strawberries from the garden that Jonathan had made into a sauce. It was nice to have a taste of summer in the depths of winter. And it was a wonderful evening.

A YEAR AGO: Consulting the experts.

FIVE YEARS AGO: You just never know where you’ll find Rob’s artwork!

It was sleep in your sweater night at stately Suzy Manor last night!

I accessorized my sleep sweater with the latest in sleep hats. It is so wrong to see your own breath in your own house.

The power obdurately continues to be out. We are solidly in Day Three now. Not only that, but we are also in the throes of Giant Storm II: the Sequel, with rain and wind bashing away relentlessly at the roof/walls even while we are still suffering the aftereffects of Giant Storm I. It’s like déjà vu all over again!

I don’t know when I will be able to post this, but I am writing it on Tuesday morning, when I should be at work. I took one look at the storm and texted my boss that I would not be braving the elements today. I’m not the only one. Yesterday, the local schools announced they would be closed today, and we moved our regularly scheduled Board meeting to next week. The Sheriff asked residents to stay home and off the roads if at all possible.

So I am sitting in bed under all the covers, wearing the hat, two sweaters, and two pairs of socks while my delicate pale breaths wreathe my delicate pale features.

I did make it to work on Monday despite the many downed trees on the Ridge, delightful surprises in the early morning darkness. I headed straight to the gym, where I took a hot shower and applied makeup and the other accoutrements of the convincingly faux adult. I guess we know what it takes to get me to go to the gym.

Even though I left home at 5:30 am, I didn’t get to work until after 7:00 am, so I clearly underestimated the amount of time needed to complete the grownupization process.

Our friends at PG&E have steadfastly declined to give an estimated time of restoration since long ago Day One, even while my coworkers all have power and I have seen on the local message boards the lights wink on across the county, just not in Hooterville. I think we are low priority, since we don’t have essential things like Safeway and the DMV like the Big Town does, and we aren’t a tourist attraction, like the Village. Also, so few people filled out their census forms last time that the official population of our town is 169. The PG&E map shows that 78 people are out of power in Hooterville, but I’m guessing it’s more like 1,000 or at least several hundred. When I drove home last night, the only lights I saw were on at the Gro.

At least I did a lot of cooking on Saturday and can heat up food on my (thankfully) gas stove, and spend some time with the cats and library books. Anyone want to make a bet on when/if the power will come back on, and whether it will remain that way once it does?

[Update: Power finally back on Wednesday morning. Hello, heat and light!]

A YEAR AGO: Consulting on Rob’s crumbling spine.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The technology problems continue. Rob gets a date for his disability hearing at last.

Stormy Saturday to you! The wind is howling, the glass wind chimes are tinkling frantically, the frogs are peeping with joy at the pouring rain, and I’m waiting for the power to go out. It has already blinked off and on again twice, so I’m writing on borrowed time.

[Update: Power went out at 6 am. No estimated time of restoration as of Monday at 7:30 am.]

Today is the saddest day of the year: the one when I take down the Christmas ornaments and lights, leaving the house looking stripped and dreary after a month of sparkle and shine. There should be another winter festival that calls for lights and fun in the depths of darkness. Ideas, anyone?

I had one less ornament to put away, since Clyde smashed the glittery heart shaped ornament to welcome the New Year. I went to the shop where it was bought to see if I could replace it, but like me (and Clyde), it’s one of a kind. I looked around the shop to see if I could find something else I liked as much*, but I couldn’t. As I left the shop, though, I saw whales spouting in the ocean on their annual migration to Mexico, and I wouldn’t have seen them if Clyde hadn’t broken my heart.

I wasn’t really intending to put the heart ornament away, but now I had a hanger with no ornament. I decided to hang the little bird ornament on it**:

If Dad’s bird can be on the eternal Christmas in Dark Gulch all year, surely the matching one I got can be on display in my house most of the year. I will move it to the tree when I put it up eleven months from now***.

A YEAR AGO: Appreciating the magic moments.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Technical problems reared their ugly heads.

*I told the giver about my failed attempt to replace her lost gift, and she said that although the shop had lots of lovely ornaments, that one was the only one that looked like me. And she was right.

**The little card with it says “Bonne Année”, or “Happy New Year”, so I don’t have to put it away just yet.

***With Rob’s help. He worked on the tree after I took off the adornments, so that all the branches will fit on it and it will look much better.

Nothing like a bad night’s sleep to set you up for a weird day at work, I always say.

Clyde the cat decided the middle of the night was an excellent time to leap on my unsuspecting form. Like most males, of the feline persuasion or otherwise, he is decidedly pro-boobs*, persistently making them both his landing place and launching pad, to their owner’s varying levels of discomfort. In this case, I was unable to brace for impact, and my reaction affected his dismount, in which a back claw scratched the hell out of my nose. The Russian judge gave him a 1.0 and I applied Kleenex to the surprising amount of blood. Anything on your face just bleeds like crazy.

Despite my justifiable annoyance and Clyde’s characteristic insouciance – he was equally unperturbed when he celebrated the arrival of the shiny New Year by smashing a shiny new gift which had every reason to be on the shelf where he had no business being – I tried to get back to sleep. I was just beginning to drift away when I realized I was perfectly positioned to take full advantage of the leak in my ceiling. Given the height of the ceiling, the drips were able to achieve maximum velocity, and were able to achieve positively Clyde-like results of surprise and impact. I got a towel to catch the drips and relocated my head to other side of the bed.

Clyde, of course, was fast sleep through all of this. And the alarm.

The next day, I arrived at work to discover that my boss’s sidelight window beside her office door had been shattered by a person or persons unknown. I also had a phone call from the landlord of one of our doctors, complaining of, shall we say, some hygiene issues.

In disposing of lint from the dryer – they share laundry facilities and live on the same property – she discovered a very large and very dead rat in the garbage can. In addition to this non-paying rodential guest, he has failed to take out the garbage for months and his collection of detritus in the laundry room/garage/morgue features a moldering animal skin, or possibly skins.

When asked about this, he said that an injured deer had died near the garage. As anyone would in coming across free roadkill on the premises, he had butchered it and put the meat in the freezer. He considered the problem solved. I explained that memories of the deer remained in the skin and that it, the garbage, and rodents of any kind, alive or dead, needed to be removed from the premises before his landlord removed him. He promised to talk to his landlord.

It is amazing to me that he got through medical school. Though not that his daughter is a vegetarian.

**As Xander Harris aptly observed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Men like sports. Men watch the action movie, they eat of the beef, and they enjoy to look at the bosoms.”

A YEAR AGO: Feeling powerless. ‘Tis the season!

New Year’s Day arrived with a bang at Suzy Manor – literally.

Clyde was exploring the impressive collection of Christmas cards on the shelves by the tree, and in his excitement, he managed to knock off and smash the beautiful little ornament which was one of the gifts I saved to open on Christmas evening:

I vacuumed it up sadly. Clyde, of course, had no idea that he had upset the help along with the ornament. I will ask the giver where she got it and see if I can replace it. Not a great way to start the new year. I hope it’s not an omen or anything.

On the bright side, I failed to have a hangover, despite my best efforts on New Year’s Eve. Megan came by and we drank champagne and Cointreau as we watched “The Princess Bride”. It had been a long time since I’d seen it, and it was as delightful as ever.

We paused the movie to watch the ball drop in New York, marveling at the crowds, the utter lack of restroom facilities in Times Square, and the ugliness of the official hats. We also watched the new year arrive in San Francisco, with fireworks over the Bay. It’s been a while since I stayed up late enough to see the new year in on both coasts.

A YEAR AGO: I was much more industrious than I was this year.