Suzy Says

It looks like the rain is over for the season, and that’s good, because I am over it! We got close to 50 inches outside, and quite a few inches inside, due to the ever-increasing number of leaks in my aging hippie hovel. But the rhododendrons are in bloom and I have switched to my spring/summer perfume from my fall/winter one, so spring is here!

On a beautiful but windy spring day, Megan, Lu and I piled into Wednesday to go to the South Coast. It was Lu’s first time driving my car, so she had to get used to the eternal engine light and the gangsta dark tinting which renders the rearview mirror pointless. But she’s used to driving an ambulance on the South Coast roads, so it was no problem for her. It’s always nice to know you have EMS with you.

Not driving gave me a chance to appreciate the deep turquoise ocean with its white crested waves and the occasional passing whale. Trees were hazed with new leaves, that poignant color they only have this time of year, the rolling hills were still green from all the rain, vibrant with drifts of white, yellow, and purple wildflowers, starred with flaming orange California poppies. This has been a banner year for wildflowers across California.

Arriving in Point Arena, we stopped at Franny’s, as you do if it is a day they are open:

I invested my hard-earned allowance in a lemon champagne cupcake filled with lemon curd and topped with blueberry icing and candied lemon slices; a cinnamon twist; and a sea salt caramel pecan brownie:

We continued south to the Point Arena Lighthouse:

Where we could barely get out of the car with the wind blowing so hard against the car door and whipping up the waves:

It’s no wonder we didn’t spot the lighthouse cat:

Cats have too much sense to be out in the freezing cold wind, unlike silly humans. We later learned that the wind was gusting up to 40 miles an hour and the lighthouse had to be closed so that unwary visitors would not be blown from the balcony.

The lighthouse does tours every full moon. One of these days we have to go and check it out.

On this occasion, we were there to see Katy Tahja talk about female lighthouse keepers:

Katy’s ancestors were early settlers in this area, and she has written several fascinating books about local history, on which she is an authority. She is also delightful and charming and kept the audience rapt for over an hour. We gathered in the signal room, beside the beautiful Fresnel lens:

She regaled us with funny, tragic, and astonishing tales of the 142 women who kept the lights across America, starting during the Revolutionary War. Three generations of women were lighthouse keepers in the country’s first cast iron lighthouse, in Mississippi. Another’s fog horn broke during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and she struck the bell by hand for more than 20 hours. Her mother was a former socialite who became a lighthouse keeper near Monterey at the age of 50, bringing her French poodles, antiques, and art with her.

While male lighthouse keepers had a uniform, female keepers did not, and improvised their own. In addition to their lighthouse duties, these women gave birth, raised and sometimes educated their children, as well as growing and preparing food. Many women kept these jobs for decades. When one female keeper retired after half a century of service, it took three men to replace her.

After this inspiring talk, we headed to Anchor Bay Thai, where we had a wonderful dinner and of course got take out as well. It’s a tradition! All in all, it was a wonderful and memorable day.

A YEAR AGO: Bookstore, cats, cocktails: what else does a girl need?

FIVE YEARS AGO: A wonderful visit to the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

TEN YEARS AGO: Thinking of moving. I’m glad I eventually did.

My blog turns 18 today. And Jessica turned 16 five days ago.

Somehow, it never occurred to me that my blog was older than Jessica. I guess those pre-Jessica days are just the Dark Ages. Certainly, life has been a lot more fun since she arrived.

I was pleased to see that she actually wore her birthday card/tiara:

I hoped she might, as someone who was always happy to put on the hat from her Christmas cracker. Erica says that Jessica hasn’t taken off the key necklace since she opened it, so it’s good to know that she enjoyed her gifts – and that they got there on time. She is such a great kid.

Happy birthday to my silly blog, which is older but not wiser, and to Jessica, who has always been wise beyond her years.

A YEAR AGO: Happy birthday to my blog!

FIVE YEARS AGO: In which I finally realize my blog’s birthday falls on 420. A little slow on the uptake.

TEN YEARS AGO: A scorching birthday for my blog. 96 degrees at 5:30 in the afternoon is both inhumane and unacceptable.

My absentee landlord appeared as suddenly as he left, and with the same amount of notice. One day he appeared at the “front” door, which is actually at the side of the house. I couldn’t open it, though. That was one of the things I had emailed him about a few months ago, along with the alarming increase in the puddle population (in the foyer, above the refrigerator, the windowsill where Dodge sits) and some recently discovered termite damage.

I went out through the bathroom door so we could chat. It appeared that the main purpose of his visit was to shepherd the bank appraiser around the property. He is trying to get a loan using the property as collateral. Supposedly he will use the loan to fix things like my increasingly leaky roof and the driveway, which is now about 85% potholes and a joy to drive, even at 2 miles an hour, but I have my doubts about this and whether he will be able to repay the loan in a timely manner.

I kept these thoughts to myself, along with the fear that Mark’s overextending himself financially might lead to my living in a tent on the family estate. He claimed that the assessor was supposed to show up at 11 am on Saturday, but it was more like 12:30 before he appeared. He was somewhat surprised by having to come in through the door that leads from the bathroom to the back porch. Doesn’t everyone have an outside door in their bathroom?

He was an unprepossessing individual, to say the least. It was hard to imagine that he had ever seen the inside of a bank, let alone work for one. Let’s just say that I would not have picked him up if he were hitchhiking. It was quite unpleasant to have him looking around my house, and it gave me a creepy feeling as he measured things and poked around. I was reminded of having the appraiser at my now million dollar apartment in San Francisco making me feel like the place was a total dump.

Dodge disagreed with me, performing his patented jump while rubbing against the guy’s grubby jeans. Dodge is lucky he didn’t get a bath afterwards. The appraiser opined that Siamese cats were crazy, which did not improve my opinion of him, though Dodge’s opinion remained unchanged.

Eventually, the guy left, taking his creepiness with him. Now it’s a waiting game to see if Mark gets the loan and whether he can pay it back if he does.

A YEAR AGO: An exhibit of cookbooks, and some tales from the past.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A late season power outage for me and an unpleasant trip to the dentist for poor Rob. Is there any other kind?

TEN YEARS AGO: Jessica’s sixth birthday. Those among you who are not math challenged will realize this means she is now 16. SIXTEEN!

The day of my crowning arrived appropriately gloomily. As prescribed, I had taken the Valium the night before, though I failed to sleep like a baby as promised, unless babies wake up every two hours worrying about doom. Maybe they do and that’s what fussing is all about.

I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the Valium I took for the actual procedure just made me feel messed up while leaving the anxiety in full control. So I was nervous in my body and stoned in my head, which is not an enjoyable combo platter, at least not for this girl. It somewhat saddens me that drugs are not fun for me. I hated how the Vicodin made me feel when I had the toothache from hell (and indeed, Advil was much more effective at handling the agony), and the same goes for the non-pain killing pain killers I took after falling off the sleeping loft onto the unsuspecting floor below. I have never enjoyed Mendocino’s most famous product. It just makes me paranoid. Give me a glass or three of wine any day or a cocktail at my favorite seaside bar. I’m old school like that.

Fortunately for Self and the public at large, I walked to the dentist’s office just a couple of blocks away. The lengthy appointment was as delightful as I expected. It seemed that they took about a thousand goopy and gag-inducing impressions (Why? Why? I was in no position to ask), and of course there was the fun of smelling burning bone as they sawed away at my root canaled tooth.

Theoretically, since the root or whatever had been removed, I wasn’t supposed to feel anything, but I did feel the post installation and whatever crap they were doing inside the tooth before closing it up for what is hopefully posterity. I have come to the sad conclusion that I can never be completely numbed and that going to the dentist is always going to be horrible, especially since the daytime Valium does not seem to help.

And because reality bites, and usually bites me in the wallet, I do owe the old dentist $740 and I will probably owe the new dentist about the same for the unpleasantness listed above. Once again I am mystified by how I can (or will somehow have to) come up with $1,400 in dental fees but not, say, to go to Hawaii. Would anyone like to buy a soul? Only slightly shopworn?

As they merrily sawed and gooped and drilled away at me, the dentist and his assistant compared the vacations they had just returned from in Cozumel and Oahu respectively. Not for the first time, I have the feeling I’m in the wrong line of work.

A YEAR AGO: The end of the mattress fiasco.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A day at the beach.

TEN YEARS AGO: A veritable mountain of boxes.

Little Dodge is adjusting well to his new life at Stately Suzy Manor, hopefully a step up from the mean streets of town. It didn’t take him long to stop hiding, or to appreciate two high quality meals a day. He has also learned to love treats almost as much as Clyde does. At first, he didn’t seem to know what they were or what all the fuss was about, but he figured it out quickly and now is right next to Clyde when it’s time for the going to work or the welcome home treats. He has also picked up Clyde’s habit of getting underfoot to the point that I fear a feline-induced Calamity Suzy episode.

Dodge has kept his adorable of quirk of jumping up while he rubs against your legs. I love that. He also looks searchingly into my face when I get home, and carefully sniffs my hands as if trying to figure out where I’ve been. He is very curious and has an endearing way of moving his head around as he observes and tries to figure things out, something like those bobbleheads you see in the back windows of cars.

He was briefly mystified by the cat door to the studio. I showed him a couple of times how it worked, and he was a bit suspicious about what or who was on the other side, as befits someone who lived by his wits for an indefinite length of time. Eventually, he decided it was acceptable, but before he goes through it, he always taps the flap a couple of times, always with his left paw, before committing to go through it. Can cats be left-pawed?

He is also the most playful of the cats. He loves toys, and if there isn’t one, he makes one, happily playing with a piece of paper, a sock, or a rolled up shopping bag. Unfortunately, his playthings have a habit of vanishing. Monica gave him this beautiful embroidered toy, which I found a delightful object:

but it has been played with into oblivion. Same goes for a couple of little catnip mice. I got him these and am hoping the brought color will help me locate them:

When he’s not playing, he is often napping with his adopted big brother Clyde:

or contemplating what trouble they can get into together:

I think having Dodge around has been really good for Clyde. I think he was lonely after losing his brother Roscoe, and I didn’t realize it. He definitely likes having Dodge to play and cuddle with. Audrey despises them both and still growls at them, even though she has lived with Clyde all his life. Audrey will always be Audrey.

A YEAR AGO: More like April storms than April showers.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A lovely evening at the theater. I see that five years later I have still not removed the tinting from Wednesday’s windows. Also the engine light is still on. Inertia, my friends.

TEN YEARS AGO: How I’d like to be remembered.

I found myself at an unexpected funeral one sunny day. One of my fellow library Board members died suddenly just a few days earlier, and I received an email one afternoon asking that I attend her service the following day. I later learned that she was Jewish and that they do not believe in embalming, so funerals happen a little more quickly than I am used to.

Fortunately, my boss let me take time off, though wrapping up details at work made me late for the service. That, and the fact that I thought it was at the cemetery overlooking the ocean when it was actually the one in town. Its entrance is not well marked or marked at all, as far as I could tell. When I arrived, I could see things were already in process. I parked Wednesday under a tall tree and made my way toward the group as quickly as I could.

The rabbi was speaking about Jennifer, and it was funny and delightful. I think she would have approved. Others spoke, and there were tears and laughter both. I couldn’t understand the Hebrew prayers, but they sounded beautiful and I could feel the centuries-old tradition as I did at that long-ago bar mitzvah. A lone raven wheeled slowly overhead, the sun glistening on his dark feathers as he surfed the air currents. I felt the sun warming my back and smelled freshly cut grass as I tried not to stare at the simple, pale wooden box poised over the grave.

I don’t think I have been to an actual burial since my grandparents’, 42 years ago. It was a little shocking. The rabbi said that it is considered a final gift to the deceased if you help to fill in his or her grave, since they cannot cover themselves. So I got in line with the other mourners and when the time came, I took the shovel and as gently as possible put the dirt in her grave, where it made that terrible, hollow sound as it hit the coffin. That’s a sound you never forget. Some people used their hands instead of the shovel, perhaps feeling a little closer or more personal that way.

At the end, the rabbi asked us to stand in two lines along the path leading to the grave, and as the family passed by, they clasped our hands and we each said, “May you be comforted.” It was really beautiful. I was glad I could be there.

A YEAR AGO: Silly Suzy! Could it be spring fever? Or only having two brain cells?

FIVE YEARS AGO: The naughtiness of Clyde. I am pleased to say that he seems to have reformed.