Suzy Says

Ready to go!

It was definitely time for girl night!

Unfortunately for Megan, she had to teach a CPR class that day, so I ventured to the Village to pick up a pizza from Café Beaujolais, where they create amazing pizzas in their wood-fired brick oven. Keeping in mind the line that defeated me a few weeks ago, I got there right as they opened, ordering a pizza with salami, capers, and red onions. I sat in the sun in the beautiful garden as I waited, and noted that there was an alarming line by about noon. So the secret seems to be out and the pizza place is apparently going to be the new Swan Oyster Depot, a place of legendary lines.

When Megan’s class was over, she came by and picked me up. We stopped in at the Gro to get caramel ice cream and ginger cookies, and then headed to Megan’s place, where I was enthusiastically greeted by Star, who I am convinced remembers that I was there the day she was rescued, and Stella, who I am convinced is just copying Star’s enthusiasm because it is clearly the thing to do.

As you can see in the photo, Megan had equipped us with a bottle of strawberry infused vodka for Girl Night™. Fortunately for us, there was also a freezer full of strawberries from the garden. Megan blitzed frozen strawberries with some lemonade, then poured it into a pitcher with the vodka and more lemonade:

It was magically delicious, and I think we now have the official cocktail of Girl Night™. It needs a good name, though. The Elle Woods? It is her signature color, after all.

We thoroughly enjoyed our girl-o-rama double feature of Sweet Home Alabama and 13 Going on 30, probably more than Rob did, though he is remarkably tolerant of the silly movies, giggling, and driving his sister-in-law home after a few Elle Woods, especially now this is 12 miles one way instead of a few hundred feet or a quarter of a mile, the way it was in the old days.

I’m already planning the next double feature: a somewhat more Rob friendly combo of One for the Money and My Cousin Vinny.

A YEAR AGO: What do you know? A fun evening with my sister!

FIVE YEARS AGO: A wonderful Thanksgiving.

TEN YEARS AGO: Baby Jessica! Even then, we shared a deep love of glamor.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Thanksgiving with Mom. In the hospital. It would be her last Thanksgiving. Miss you, Mom.

Tuning Up

Usually the arts seem to all be located on the magical south coast. This time, instead of heading south, I went north to the Big Town one fine Sunday afternoon (is it ever going to rain?). I arrived at the lovely auditorium, which was featured in these pages a few years ago*, a few minutes late for the pre-concert lecture. Being a small town, they told me to take a seat and come back later to pay for the concert.

I enjoyed the lecture, which gave a background on the musicians who wrote the music we were about to hear, as well as some history on the music itself. It was fascinating to learn all this right before hearing the music. The program included Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D minor, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony #3 in A minor, Opus 56 “Scottish”.
When the lecture was over, I went out and paid for my ticket, got a program, and went back to my seat to read it before the show started. The musicians were a mixture of local and guest musicians, and they were wonderful. I especially enjoyed the performance of a young guest violinist, who plays violin made in 1761 and whose performance had been described to me as “fiery”. I have to agree that is the perfect description. It was a joy to hear and see him.

The whole thing was a joy, really. It was wonderful to sit in a hall filled with my neighbors and friends and have the magnificent music wash over me. I really felt in the moment.

The orchestra received the standing ovation they deserved at the end of the performance. As I was driving away, I passed several of the musicians loading their instruments into their cars and waved at them, yet another little bit of applause from a very thankful recipient of their gifts. I am already looking forward to the next concert in February.

*In reading this, I realize that Flynn Creek Circus did not have their distinctive red and white striped tent then. This may be the only time I have seen them somewhere other than the tent. Who knew?

A YEAR AGO: Thanksgiving at Rio’s house. And a farewell to our much-loved Erica and Jessica. I still miss them. And life is a lot less festive without them.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Somehow Thanksgiving sneaked up on me while I was in San Francisco.

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting ready for T Day.

I noticed on the local message boards that there was a series of six hula classes being given at the Caspar Community Center at 4:00 on Thursday. I checked my schedule and decided that I could get there in time – Caspar is the next town south from the Big Town where I work, so it’s on the way home – and off I went in the darkening evening.

Arriving at the community center, I found the three teachers, who are all native Hawaiians, a few kids, and about 10 other grown-ups. Clearly, I was the only one coming from work, and I felt a bit silly in my faux adult attire, especially since everyone else was wearing pretty skirts. Not to worry, though. One of the teachers wrapped me in a colorful batik scarf. I took off my shoes, and we all stood in a circle holding hands. Pretty much everyone but me knew the chants that followed, but I just listened with my eyes closed, feeling my feet grounded and the warm presence of the other dancers as they praised their higher power and asked for guidance.

We started by learning a dance about shells. The kids joined in this one. I was interested to learn that every gesture has a meaning: shell; shore; island; flower; ocean, etc. Before starting the second dance, we learned some history about its origins and the place it was written so we could understand the story we were telling. I loved learning all the history. The dancing is harder than you would think by looking at it, but I did the best I could, with the encouragement of the teachers and the other dancers. I really enjoyed it, and it gave me the gift of really being in the moment.

At the end, we did the circle again, and I felt enfolded in the warmth of my sister dancers and the stories we had told together. I am looking forward to the next classes.

A YEAR AGO: The 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. Thank you to all who served and continue to serve.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Attempting to run errands in San Francisco, with varying degrees of success.

TEN YEARS AGO: Feeling like Sanford & Son.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A cold. And a piano.

It’s not really a garage. It’s Queenie’s.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and it seemed like a perfect day to have breakfast at Queenie’s. As I walked out to the car, I noticed that the quality of the light and the air were somehow different than it is in the summer. It’s hard to explain exactly how, but seasons are more subtle here than they are back east. Having said that, I was delighted to discover that the leaves on the tree next to the kitchen deck have changed from green to gold in a quite eastern manner:

Not many trees have color changing leaves here where temperature changes are too modest to inspire the annual display of brilliance found in places where it’s unbearably hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. It rarely gets down to 32F/0C in the winter, and while we get the occasional heat wave in the summer, it’s not usually excessively hot, either, and it generally cools off at night.The seasons are more like: rain; no rain; fog; rain again.

We were in a no rain period when I headed to the beautiful south coast. It was one of those postcard days, with the blue waves crashing into white foam against the dark rocks, the sun sparkling on the water. Arriving at Queenie’s, I was lucky enough to get a window table. Next to me was a table of four white-haired gentlemen, who were having breakfast together and enjoying an animated discussion. It was nice to see people hanging out together and enjoying each other’s company instead of being on their phones. I had the impression that this was a long-standing tradition for these friends. After they finished eating, they all loaded into one pick up truck and drove off laughing, with the windows down.

My breakfast was fabulous: potatoes with sautéed onions, roasted garlic, green chilis, and smoked Gouda, topped with two eggs. Queenie herself came out to say hello – we are acquaintances from the Ledford House bar* – and I was surprised she remembered my name. She said, “Thank you for enjoying the food!” and I said, “Thank you for cooking it!” It was nice to see her. And breakfast was excellent.

As I left, I couldn’t help noticing the beautiful view across the street:

I headed to the Village after breakfast, with the intention of getting a pizza from the ever-delicious Café Beaujolais. By the time I got there, it was 1:00 in the afternoon, and I really should have known better. There were 6-8 people in line, which I knew meant over an hour to wait for the pizza, maybe an hour and a half. So I went back to the car. On my way home, I thought how funny it was that 6 people in line here makes me give up on the whole thing, whereas in the city – say, at Swan Oyster Depot – I would be thrilled to find only 6 or 8 people in front of me. I would feel like I won the lottery. It’s all relative, I guess.

*That sounded kind of bad, didn’t it?

A YEAR AGO: Some updates. And not feeling too festive.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A lovely dinner with friends.

TEN YEARS AGO: A lack of enthusiasm for library book annotations.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Feeling a little under the weather.

As soon as the power came back on, I ran around hiding all the signs that it was ever out, madly washing dishes and putting away the lanterns. More than a week after the whole thing ended, I am still recovering from it emotionally. It’s not at all like losing power because of a storm, which is nature and an expected part of each winter. Having it wrested away from you for an extended period of time because of greed and negligence and having absolutely no recourse is not. And it’s super upsetting.

So it was in a state of emotional fragility that I woke up last Saturday morning and went downstairs to make coffee only to find both of the kitchen sinks full of raw sewage. Yes, the power was back on, but the septic system was on strike.

I let my landlord Danielle know, and while I was waiting for her arrival, discovered that the seepage was also in the closet where the washer and dryer are. I pulled everything out of there, and Danielle arrived with cloths to sop up the closet, along with a very long snake and an industrial Shop Vac to deal with the septic situation. Her son Alex, who lives in the house next to me, joined her on this mucky and unpleasant operation. They were both remarkably cheerful about it.

It took a while to deal with it, and Danielle told me that the issue is that the septic was put in many years ago, and now the redwood roots are beginning to encroach on it. Eventually it will need an overhaul, but hopefully not in the immediate future.

Once everything was done, Danielle scattered a lot of wood ash outside and I started bleaching and cleaning inside. I was very thankful that there were no dishes in or even near the sink. Everything was thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed. By that time, I was both hungry and disinclined to cook anything, so I jumped in the car and headed for Queenie’s, where I had a wonderful grilled Reuben sandwich on rye bread made just for Queenie’s. It was everything a Reuben should be.

The clocks went back an hour that night, just adding to the weekend’s weirdness. And making my sister, who had the bad luck to be working that night, have to work an extra hour.

A YEAR AGO: The state was burning up. It was scary.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The horror of looking for a job.

TEN YEARS AGO: My deer neighbor.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Viva Las Vegas!

Hi! I’m back! You may have heard about a little something they’re calling the Public Safety Power Shut Off (PSPS), which was inflicted on the unsuspecting residents of our huge, underpopulated and underfunded County by Their Satanic Majesties, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

Now that you’re up on your California-related acronyms, let’s talk power outage, or outrage, as the local message boards quite appropriately call it.

Out of the literally clear blue sky, PG&E decided that they would cut off the power to millions of people with very little notice or time to prepare. Nor did they deign to tell people which counties or cities would be affected. They did not update their online maps or website (which crashed anyway), or realize that having a website be your prime source of alleged information when there is no power or internet is ridiculous.

Also ridiculous is my landlord receiving a call THREE DAYS after the power went out telling her that there “might” be an outage.

We had no idea how long it would last as it dragged on day after dark, cold day. I had no heat – and the temperature was below freezing on some of the days – and no light on these short days. I was so tired of the cold and dark. I went over to the family estate to shower, recharge my laptop and phone, and use the internet in a vain attempt to find out if or when the outage would ever end. My siblings are wise enough to live off the grid and rely on sun power and their own ingenuity.

Supposedly, the power was shut off because of high winds creating fire risk, but there wasn’t a breath of wind on the Coast and we were nowhere near the places that did have high winds. So there was no reason to do this to us. And the fires that did occur were once again caused by PG&E, just like the ones last year and the year before. They chose to give their shareholders $4.5 billion (yes, that’s “billion”, with a “b”) instead of maintaining equipment, cutting back brush, and burying power lines as they were supposed to do.

Basically, they chose to spend money on executive salaries and bonuses instead of maintaining their equipment and keeping the public safe. They cost the homes and lives of people who lost everything in the fires PG&E caused. Again. They cost us on the Coast thousands of dollars in lost wages, food that rotted in refrigerators, businesses that didn’t have a generator and couldn’t stay open. My cell phone doesn’t work at my house and the landline didn’t work as it usually does in a power outage, so I had no way to communicate with the outside world. If I needed to call 911, I was out of luck.

One of the therapists at the clinic where I work told me that knowledge being withheld and the knowledge that information is being withheld is very traumatic for human beings. And I can honestly say that it is. I was relieved to hear that it wasn’t just me who was traumatized by the ordeal of five days without power.

I still can’t believe it happened. And I think we are all still recovering from it in many ways. Something has to change.

A YEAR AGO: There was power. And family dinner.

FIVE YEARS AGO: There was power. And the Giants were world champions!

TEN YEARS AGO: There was power. Rob Suzy proofed the house after I fell off the sleeping loft. Thank you, Rob!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The power was on. And I was a bad hostess.