Suzy Says

We had a heatwave that lasted an entire week. It was a nightmare. Seven consecutive days of it being 90 at my house. Every day, I’d open the doors first thing to attempt to cool the house down, risking Dodge’s life and limbs in the early morning darkness. I had the fan on while I got dressed after my tepid or cold shower.

I closed up the house before I went to work, and closed what blinds there are in the hopes of staving off the worst of the heat. I had two fans blasting on high by my bed, but it was so hard to sleep with the heat and without a blanket. After a few days of this, I was a sleep-deprived zombie, and with no end in sight, I just sat on the couch and cried, wishing there were someone I could surrender to who would make it stop. I would not stand up under torture.

Temperatures inland were horrifying: 112 in the County seat of Ukiah. My boss’ daughter was slated to fly from San Francisco to Palm Springs during this nightmare, and her plane was unable to take off because of the heat (Palm Springs was scheduled to reach 120 that day). I did not know that was a thing.

This is so scary. I thought I was old enough that the planet would start burning down after I had shuffled off this mortal coil, but apparently it’s ahead of schedule. At least there’s air conditioning at work, where I spend most of my time.

A YEAR AGO: Audrey turns sour (not sweet) sixteen

FIVE YEARS AGO: The magic of the circus.

TEN YEARS AGO: My drive to work.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Want to trade?

TWENTY YEARS AGO: My summer wishlist

As far as the eye can see

Traffic is not usually one of my challenges, though I drive 50 miles round-trip to work and back, five days a week. I’m usually more concerned with wildlife and visibility than gridlock. But now is the summer of our discontent. One of the eleven (yes, that’s 11) bridges I cross to get to work is being worked on for no good reason.

This mess started in the spring, with 300 trees being summarily destroyed, leaving a huge scar on the eastern side of the road, and no visible way of stopping it from becoming a gigantic mudslide when the rains start again. I’ll let a disgruntled writer on the local message boards fill you in:

This disgusting project is being done in order to widen Jack Peters Creek Bridge in order to add a bicycle lane, a safety barrier for that lane & a walkway on the west side for pedestrians. This is being done in order to facilitate bicycle tourists & pedestrians traveling from the Mendocino headlands to the Russian Gulch headlands. The walkway will also enable people to take photos of the Pacific Ocean more safely from the bridge.

In order to widen the bridge, it is having to be moved a bit to the west. In order to do this it is necessary to move some of the road itself, both north and south of the bridge. In order to do this, trees have to be removed & the slope cut back on the highway right-of-way. Since very large machinery is needed for construction, a new pole for the electrical lines going into Mendocino had to be installed. This new pole had to be extra tall in order to accommodate the machinery. I guess that anyone taking another meaningless selfie from the bridge will simply shoot to the side of it.

Tourist season has made traffic worse than ever, and since so many cars are backed up, when you get to where there are two lanes and it’s your chance to get past the people driving 30 on the highway, you can’t get past them all before the road narrows to one doomed lane again.

I am sorry to say that this is slated to go until September 2025. Yes, the end of NEXT YEAR. In the meantime, I have to find some way of being more zen about sitting in traffic. Or less homicidal.

A YEAR AGO: Megan was recovering from surgery and Jonathan was on the road.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Dodge defenestrates.

TEN YEARS AGO: A reading at the local bookstore.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A rude awakening

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Enjoying some eavesdropping.

I still hadn’t recovered from the horrors of the five day power outage immediately following Clyde’s death when I started hearing reports of still more storms heading our way.

Needless to say, they were scheduled to arrive over the long Presidents’ Day weekend, because long weekends are reserved for storms, heatwaves, and other disasters, not for recovering from the hamster wheel from hell that is working five days a week and still always being broke.

So I spent the weekend tensed up waiting for disaster, as the flowering tree outside my bedroom window blew sideways and the redwoods, which are hundreds of feet tall and alarmingly close to my crushable house, waved around in the gale force winds.

Astonishingly, the power stayed on that weekend, maybe because I kept all my devices plugged in, especially my phone, which is my alarm clock. I woke up to heavy rain on Tuesday morning, sighing as I headed to work, tired of driving in bad weather and living in fear of it. A couple of times on the long drive to town, I considered pulling over to wait for the rain to slow down, but decided to just get it over with.

I made it to work, but I also got an alert saying that the power was out at home yet again. Unsurprisingly, the cause was listed as “weather”, but surprisingly, the power was back on by time I got home. I am ready for winter to be over. Bring on spring!

A YEAR AGO: It was a snowy wonderland.

TEN YEARS AGO: A fun visit with Erica and Jessica, who now reside in the elegant environs of Pasadena.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A lovely visit to Golden Gate Park.

The day after we buried our beloved Clyde, a huge storm blew in, with torrential rains and high winds. It didn’t take long for the power to go out. And stay out.

On Monday, despite the still-bad weather, I attempted to go to work. The Ridge was carpeted in several inches of debris: twigs, leaves, bark, branches, small trees, pine needles, etc. A couple of times, I got out of the car to move small trees. There were several inches of debris, and I should probably not have driven over it, especially with a low-riding car.

I made it to the Albion River Inn in the pouring rain, only to find a PG&E truck across the road. The worker told me that many trees and power lines were down and that the road would be closed for some time. I made my way back to my cold, dark, Clydeless house, getting a branch stuck under my car as I did so. I was finally able to remove it when I got home, but it made a really loud and unsettling noise while it was stuck.

There’s no heat when there’s no power, and I was just dreading the long, dark night. I made it to work the next day, where I recharged all my devices, if not Self. I stopped by Megan and Rob’s place on my way home for a shower. It felt really good, and it was nice to shower under the skylight. I forgot to bring a hair dryer with me, though, so the total effect was not all it could have been, but at least I was clean.

The power outage dragged on. On the fourth day, I just sat on the couch and cried. I was so tired of the cold and dark and not being able to cook, and by then, the water in the water tank had run out, so things were a little more on the third world side than I was really comfortable with.

The lights finally came back on after five days of being out, and I ran around cleaning up and basking in the joy of heat and light. The next day, I was at the grocery store in town, chatting with an employee I know about how long our power had been out. When I told him that mine had come on the night before and explained where I live, a guy passing by said that he worked for PG&E and that he was the one who had gotten our power restored. So I was able to thank him in person.

We are supposed to get another storm next weekend. I really hope it’s not as bad as this one was. I am so worn out by the loss of Clyde and the stress of the last outage. I don’t think my solstice dumplings did a damn thing.

A YEAR AGO: Things were getting a little brighter.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Some snow days.

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting some rain.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Traveling by train.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: My first visit to Florida.

The storms kept kicking our collective asses. Rain, wind, thunder and lightning were an unlovely cocktail, and even when the power was on, I feared it would go off, stripping my life and house of its very thin veneer of civilization and plunging me into cold and darkness yet again.

The dreaded monthly Board meeting, which in my menopausal years has replaced my period as the thing I look forward to least each month, was looming on the horizon. They are done by Zoom, as so many meetings are these days, so I was concerned that my internet would go out before or during the meeting.

I decided to stay in town, at a hotel near work. Fortunately for me, I have friends in high places. Well, a friend. He manages some of the nicest hotels in town, and let me have a room at a prix d’ami. He also told me that many PG&E workers were staying there – they have a staging site set up near the coastal trail in town, and have brought sufficient generators to power the downtown part of the Big Town – so I figured if the power went out, it would be restored more quickly there than at home.

It was nice to swap a 40 minute drive for a 2 minute one, and I enjoyed the room:

It had a kitchenette, which was nice:

and a lovely view of the stormy harbor, by day:

and night:

I missed the cats, but it was nice to have reliable power and a shorter commute for a couple of days. I was glad to get home to the kitties, though, and even happier that so far, the power has stayed on. For now.

A YEAR AGO: Stopping to smell – well, admire – the flowers.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Sometimes, getting home isn’t easy

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting a photo taken for work.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: The joys of visiting Chicago.

I think it’s safe to say I was too late in my dumpling consumption, because the hits just keep on coming. We have been hit with violent storm after violent storm, and the power has been out more than it’s been on. It’s scary and exhausting. I wish there were someone I could surrender to in order to make it stop.

Last Wednesday, I was unable to get home because of the storm. I found the Ridge blocked by a fire truck. Getting out of my car, I was greeted by my friend Erin’s husband Jaime, who is a volunteer firefighter. He gave me a hug and told me that the road was closed because of fallen trees and downed power lines. They didn’t know when the road would be passable, and the storm was still storming.

I drove to Megan and Rob’s place, where the power never goes out. I got a text from my landlord Danielle saying that she was able to get through, so I tried again, only to find that the road was closed again, or still. I don’t know how she got through, but Danielle is a force of nature almost as strong as the storm. So I headed back to the family estate.

Megan wasn’t expecting company, but she rustled up some pasta with garden sauce for dinner, raided our brother’s place for a bottle of wine, and we settled in to wait out the storm. Being in a trailer in winds gusting up to 75 to 100 miles per hour (reports vary) was…interesting. Makes me wonder how mobile home dwellers in Florida ride out the inevitable yearly hurricanes.

The wind howled and the rain blasted. Even though I was really tired, I couldn’t sleep. Also, sleeping with dogs is completely different from sleeping with cats. The dogs manage to take up all the bed, pin down the covers, snore (awake or asleep), and bark in their sleep. They step on your hair and bonk you in the face with their heads and paws.

When it was finally light out the next day, I ventured home again. Third time’s the charm! I was finally able to get home. I wish I had taken more photos, but I was so nervous and freaked out that I just wanted to get home. Here’s the remains of the trees that blocked the road:

Of course the power was off when I got home, so the house was cold and dark, but the weather was so bad that I was afraid to go to work, so I stayed home that day. The power was out from 8 am on January 4 to 3 pm on January 7. It went out again all day on January 9. I had yet another adventure that day, trying to get to work. A huge eucalyptus tree had fallen across the highway, blocking it. I went back home, and on the Ridge, met a fireman who told me it would be cleared soon. So I went home, waited an hour, and then tried again. This time, I was successful. It’s been a pretty rough year so far.

A YEAR AGO: Dental problems. Ow!.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The truth about cats and dogs is not always pretty.

TEN YEARS AGO: Be careful what you wish for.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Delicacies by the Bay.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: More adventures in dog-sitting.

Gloomy New Year to Me!

My New Year’s Eve plans were, admittedly, modest. Watching the Leafs play; watching the ball drop in Times Square; having tourtière for dinner; and drinking some sparkling wine was just about all the excitement slated for Chez Suzy that evening. But not even those small goals were achieved, because the power went out at 5:00 pm and stayed resolutely out until well into New Year’s Day, making celebrating of any kind pretty much impossible.

Not that I felt like celebrating even after the lights came back on. My landlord Danielle came by on New Year’s Day to inform me that she is raising the rent $300 a month. Between that and the payment for the car I had to buy last month, I will somehow have to come up with an extra $500 a month. Not sure how I am going to do that, or if it’s even possible.

My good friend A told me that in her native China, if you didn’t make and eat dumplings on the Winter Solstice, you were risking woeful misfortune for the New Year. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get that newsflash until the Solstice had passed. A thought that if I did it soon thereafter, it would still stave off the woeful misfortune. So I made and ate my dumplings a couple of days late, but the gods do not seem to allow for a grace period when it comes to woeful misfortune. I have marked Dumpling Day on my calendar for later this year, so maybe 2024 will be better. Assuming I make it that far.

A YEAR AGO: A better and brighter New Year’s Eve.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Welcoming the New Year.

TEN YEARS AGO: Greeting the New Year in San Francisco.

Twenty YEARS AGO: The perils of dog sitting. Maybe not what you think.

Following Wednesday’s sudden demise, I had to start looking for a new (to me) car. Unlike the rest of the world, I do not get excited by new cars, appliances, or technology. They are a) expensive; and 2) a hassle, which is why I tend to use things until they break. Of course, this philosophy also means that you can end up with no car, and, in my case, also a phone that only works if it’s plugged in. So within a few days, I had to get both a car and a phone. That green tsunami you saw was me hemorrhaging money. FEMA seems to be unconcerned.

I had to cash out a large proportion of my 401(k) plan for the down payment. Even then, I underestimated the fees and taxes, and of the $12,000 I took out, I ended up with $8,500. I added another $500 to that for the downpayment, and I still have a whopping $11,000 to pay off on my meager non profit salary.

I had hoped that I would have enough left over for a little cushion, but the taxes made sure that didn’t happen.

The car is a 2014 Mazda 3 Grand Touring. It is a hatchback with a sun roof, and is a cheery red:

It’s pretty fancy, all leather inside and with a push button starter. I venture to say, a little too fancy for the technologically challenged, like Self. I have not been able to figure out the stereo yet. But I really like the heated seats, especially when it’s 32 or less in the morning. For some reason, the windshield never frosts up. So I’m getting used to it. I picked it up on 12/12/22, so I’m trying to see that as lucky.

Less lucky was the fact that my phone started dying as soon as I unplugged it. This is not practical. I ordered a refurbished iPhone 11, in a lovely shade of lavender:

It should arrive soon. I hope it’s not a hassle to transfer my info and to get used to the swiping thing instead of the home button.

A YEAR AGO: You will be amazed to learn that the Closet of Doom remains resolutely disorganized. This may never change.

TEN YEARS AGO: John was headed to his father’s memorial service.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Some updates.

One morning, I fired up the car and heard a strange clunking noise. I hoped it would go away, and headed down the Ridge in the early morning darkness, but not even Iggy Pop’s best efforts could disguise the alarming noise. I turned onto the highway, and felt that the engine was losing power, so I turned around and went back the way I came, worried that Wednesday would not make it up the hilly Ridge and wondering why on earth I thought it would be a good idea to attempt to drive to work with an Iggy Pop defying noise in my car. Something was clearly wrong.

I made it back home and borrowed a car to get to work, and then notified my personal mechanic of the automotive problem.

Rob made a house call, and the news was not good. It appeared that Wednesday had a secret oil leak somewhere, or that I had neglected to keep the oil coffers sufficiently full, because Wednesday was essentially out of essential oil, which had, in the words of Jonathan, irreparably damaged the engine. Rob tried to rescue it by applying oil to the situation, but the sound persisted, notifying us that Wednesday’s driving days were over.

Though thankful that I have a loaner car to get me to work and back, I was horrified by the necessity of having to get a new (to me car) unexpectedly and with basically no resources. It is humbling and embarrassing to be so lacking in resources at this age. It’s hard not to be angry with myself for the bad decisions and bad luck that have led to this situation. Maybe that’s my purpose in life: to be an Awful Warning. Kids, don’t try this at home!

A YEAR AGO: Hitting a culinary snag.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Getting ready for the rainy season.

TEN YEARS AGO: A lovely evening at the theater.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Jed the Wonder Dog had a little accident.

My brother once observed that the lights on the car dashboard are not there just to look pretty, and I would add my own observation that they are there to be expensive. No good ever comes of them.

One morning, I was setting off for work in the early morning darkness when the light came on saying “Brake Fluid Low”. I don’t know much about cars, but I’m pretty sure that brake fluid is not something I need to refill, and that it being low was probably bad news.

I drove carefully to work, unable to stop looking at the ominous light every few minutes, even though this did not help and just made me feel even more nervous than I already was. I took Wednesday to my friends at North Coast Tire, where they refilled the brake fluid, checked Wednesday’s tire pressure, and observed that there was a streak of leaked brake fluid on the passenger side tire. Unfortunately, they did not have the manpower to fix it for a couple of weeks, and they warned me not to drive it until the leak was repaired, since it meant that the brakes would work until they didn’t, with no warning.

So I found another place to fix it, and they opined that it would cost about $500 to fix. When they got in there to fix it, they discovered that the brake pad was disintegrating from the leak – they showed me the crumbly remains when I went to pick up the car – and with that and various other things and stuff, it came to $700. But I was grateful that Wednesday and I were unharmed, the problem was fixed, and that the car could stop, since, as my brother says, the most important thing a car can do is stop.

A YEAR AGO: Some successful cooking experiments.

TEN YEARS AGO: The money fairy came by. Come back!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: There can be such a thing as too much politeness.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: The ideal job.

Happy Solstice!

We are well and truly into the madness of the spring time change, aka the hard one, when they steal an hour of sleep from you and plunge you back into darkness, just when there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the morning. It makes me indignant every year, especially when facing the seemingly endless barrage of oncoming traffic, most of whom can’t seem to grasp the concept of turning off their high beams to avoid blinding other motorists.

A few years ago, Californians voted overwhelmingly in favor of stopping this senseless ritual. No one knows why it started or why it persists. Even if it’s entirely apocryphal, I love the story that Native Americans say, “Only the white man would cut a strip from the bottom of a blanket and sew it to the top of the blanket and think that makes it longer”, or something like that. But for some reason, the banishment of Daylight Saving Time has stalled somewhere in the lawmaking machinery, and we are stuck with the craziness and feeling jet lagged for days. Thanks, politicians!

The renewal of the morning darkness makes me appreciate even more the moonlight on the ocean, Venus beaming in the east, and the fact that Ledford House has kept an outside tree lit up long past the holiday season, where it can spark a little joy as I drive by on my way to work on a dark spring morning.

Little River Inn has kept its roofline lights aglow, a welcome sight as I crest the hill into Little River. And I look forward to the handful of scattered lights in the Village and the beams of light from the Point Cabrillo light station. Light in the darkness is especially beautiful this time of year.

A YEAR AGO: Jonathan and Rio’s desert adventures.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Remembering Dad.

TEN YEARS AGO: A look around my springtime garden.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Waiting for the cable guy. And waiting. And waiting…

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Brush with fame! A brief encounter with my former neighbor, Nicolas Cage.

Still Standing

I may have been early in putting up my tree, but I am late in taking it down. Twelfth Night, aka The Saddest Day of the Year, has come and gone, but the tree is still standing, and I am still enjoying its comforting glow when I come downstairs on these dark winter mornings and during the long winter evenings*.

I was planning to take it down late, anyway, but it’s a longer reprieve than I expected. My plan was to take it down on the 8th, and at the same time do at least some preliminary organization in the Closet of Doom, starting with putting the holiday ornaments in the back, under the stairs, the least accessible part, and then assessing where the rest of the stuff should go and what could go up in the water tower.

Instead, I ended up in dental hell, where they are going to start charging me rent if I don’t look out.

Late on Friday afternoon, it started to feel like something was brewing on the right side of my mouth, the side most popular for crowns and root canals. Do I have any undoctored teeth left there? Apparently I do, because by the time I got home, it was screaming. I had taken Advil when I first felt the grumblings, but unlike during my other dental (mis)adventures, the pain just laughed at it and suggested it try again later.

Liver be damned, I took more Advil, but the pain was undefeated. At this point, I was actually crying with the pain. I texted my doctor, who responded that she would call in a prescription for antibiotics, but since the pharmacy was closed, I would not be able to get it until Saturday, aka the day I was planning to deal with the Tree and the Closet.

I texted Megan, who magically, somehow, came up with antibiotics and pain reducers (I know now that painkillers do not in fact kill pain, only reduce it, which is one of the major disappointments of my adult life), and went to meet her in town outside the ER to get them. Knowing her sister’s silliness, she also provided me with written instructions and the advice to eat something and get some ginger ale in order to keep all the pills swimming in my stomach.

It was a long night with the terrible pain – worse, somehow, than when my face was giant – but after the second dose of antibiotics, I began to feel semi-human again. A trip to the dentist revealed that the culprit was my wisdom tooth, which apparently needs to be evicted, a horrifying prospect. Stay tuned for more on that.

So far, I am unimpressed with the New Year. It needs to try harder.

*I have noticed that it’s not pitch dark at 5:30 anymore. We are returning to the light!

A YEAR AGO: An unappreciated visitor.

FIVE YEARS AGO: In the midst of a long and cold power outage.

TEN YEARS AGO: Some technical difficulties.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Carrie’s new baby. Who I now realize is, uh, a grown-up.

The Bathmat Boys

Here you see Clyde (left) and Dodge, watching me get ready to go to work. Not pictured: Audrey sitting on the windowsill, giving the Bathmat Boys the Laser Glare of Death, which they are calmly ignoring. I think Audrey dreams of a boy-free life.

Later that morning, with the cats fed and treated and my faux adult armor dutifully applied, I set off on the long drive to work. It’s like driving through a horror movie, and it seems pretty long these days. I am driving more slowly than my speedy nature enjoys on the dark, foggy roads, fearing the appearance of unexpected deer in the headlights. I managed to avoid hitting two of them on this particular morning, and I was also completely charmed by the sight of a frog leaping gracefully across the Ridge in the pool of light from my high beams. This time of year, the frogs are singing joyfully to welcome the annual rains. I love sitting in my bed on a weekend morning and listening to their song. It’s like the winter version of summer crickets.

My plans for weekend cooking went awry, and I am blaming Amazon for it.

I wanted to make more har gao and chive dumplings, so I ordered the necessary starches from Amazon. They were due to arrive on Friday, and I had them sent to the house instead of the post office box, so I could get cooking on Saturday morning. The box was waiting when I got home from work on Friday night, and I thought all cooking systems were go.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up the box and discovered…a tube of epoxy glue.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Even inexperienced cooks can see that glue is not an effective substitute for wheat starch or tapioca starch, or any kind of starch, really. Nor is glue a helpful ingredient in dim sum. I took a dim view of this.

I ventured to the Village the next day to see if I could locate the necessary ingredients, without much hope, and in this, I was sorry for once to be right. I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I reordered from Amazon after getting a refund for the original order. I tried to shop local!

I picked up a pizza for dinner instead, and hopefully I will be making deferred dim sum next weekend.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Food is love, even at work.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Have a seat.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Selecting Beaujolais Nouveau for Thanksgiving.

Cooking:

I did follow my plan of making har gao, chive and pork dumplings, and lumpia Shanghai. They turned out amazing. These are the pork and chive dumplings (triangle) and har gao (little bundles):

Here are the lumpia Shanghai:

When I sent these pictures to A, she responded, “Totally impressed by your dim sum spread. Suzy’s Dim Sum Palace.” I love thinking of my house as Suzy’s Dim Sum Palace.

I have already had to order more of the tapioca flour and wheat starch so I can make them again. They were definitely a big success. The pork and chive dumplings are easier to shape than the har gao, and they are both delicious. Cooking win!

Crime:

I am pleased to announce that Redbeard has finally been caught! I am less pleased to announce that he was caught in the environs of the family estate, which is the first driveway after the “doughnut shop” referred to in the press. For fans of Krispy Kremes and Dunkin’ Donuts, don’t get too excited. Rather than a pastry emporium, the Doughnut Shop in Hooterville is actually a big pull out where kids do doughnuts in their cars. It’s also a favored place for miscreants to deposit their heavily-used RVs and furniture, instead of taking said objects to the dump*. So maybe it makes sense that he was caught at or near such a hotbed of local crime. I’m just glad that he was not caught on the family property itself, and that no one was hurt. I hope we can go back to our sleepy, low-to-no-crime existence again.

*Speaking of the dump, the guy who works there posts some hilarious stuff about his job there on Facebook. You’re welcome.

A YEAR AGO: Heater problems. Appliances hate me. I am pleased to announce that the heater is still working. So far.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A happy Halloween with Jessica. I miss those days, and I miss her.

TEN YEARS AGO: A country Saturday.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: City scenes.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: I have never been a fan of this twice yearly time change nonsense.

Our little corner of the world, while not crime-free, is pretty close to it. At the old house, I used to leave the doors open when I went to work, and none of the doors had locks. My current house does have locks, but they are unused. We leave the keys in the car at home (though not in town). Generally, it’s not something I worry about day to day. So it was big news that there was someone breaking into empty vacation rentals around here* and stealing food, booze, and miscellaneous items.

The miscreant was identified, and generally referred to as the “Red-Bearded Burglar” or “Redbeard”. There were sightings and incidents from Elk (home of Queenie’s and the fabulous Eggs Benedict) to Albion (home of Self and entire family). Redbeard shot at law enforcement, and was caught on camera entering houses with a camera in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Although he started his one-man crime spree in May, and has been within sight (and shooting distance) of law enforcement, he remains uncaught.

Not long ago, my sister told me that someone had gone through all the mail in their mailbox, but had left it there. She suggested that I ask on the message boards if anyone else had experienced that problem. It appeared that no one had. A couple of people unhelpfully (and somewhat snottily) suggested that we get a post office box, which we have had for decades, but no one admitted to any malfeasance in their mailbox.

Soon after that, our brother noticed that there were odd arrangements of stones and twigs on the pathway that goes between the property driveway and the haul road, like crazy art installations.

And a little later after the discovery of the impromptu al fresco art exhibit, Redbeard hit.

He took cigarettes and candy from the cars, and canned and preserved food from our brother’s van, which Jonathan was readying for a road trip. He also took Jonathan’s silk long underwear, Smartwool socks, and nearly all of the pesto, chicken, and garlic butter from the body freezer in the carport where the mechanic’s pit and washer and dryer are.

So it seems that he started by digging through the mailbox, then presumably watched for a while, and then struck. It’s scary to think of him spying on my family, especially knowing that he is armed and has used a weapon against the sheriff’s office. It seems that he is very comfortable in the woods, and gets around on a bike. So I guess he had quite a feast in the woods with all our food. The pesto is irreplaceable at this time of year. No more until next year.

My siblings called the sheriff’s office, and they responded in force, an unusual sight:

This is probably half the law enforcement on the coast. They put up cameras, but didn’t catch him. So far, he has yet to return, and I hope he never does. I’m beginning to wonder if they will ever catch him. I would feel a lot better if he were behind bars.

*Of which there are many. There has been a debate raging on the local message boards lately about how there are so many vacation homes here but so few rentals available to locals.

A YEAR AGO: The weather said summer, even if the calendar said fall.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Road Trip!

TEN YEARS AGO: Celebrating my second anniversary in Hootervile with my sister and our beloved Schatzi. I miss her and Star so much.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The Lovely Rita was busy charming all and sundry. It was her superpower. I miss her, too. Side note: I notice all my past dogs are girls.

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Missing my Sunday morning emails from Dad.

And suffering…

I once again had dental pain, though no swelling. I went to the dentist, where they took an x-ray and things looked suspicious. The suspect in question is a tooth that already has a crown on, which I naively thought meant it was sealed off from further dental horrors, but I was, as is so often the case, incorrect about this.

They gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and maybe it was all in my head in more ways than one, because I began to feel better after the first dose. I took them for the prescribed week. But a week after I finished the pills, the pain woke me up in the middle of the night*.

I got another prescription and the sad news that I needed yet another root canal, and you know how much I enjoyed the first one. The further bad news was that my dentist could not do it until October 28, and the even further news was that the dentist he referred me to was in distant Santa Rosa, meaning 5 hours of driving on top of the lengthy procedure. Also? Santa Rosa Dentist is super expensive.

What’s not to hate?

But I had no choice. It was a glorious day as I drove through the redwoods and the idyllic wine country. It would have been lovely if I weren’t scared out of my mind.

At the dentist’s office, I was greeted by the sad and shocking news that I would have to pay $1,700. Yes, you read that correctly and it’s not in some strange foreign currency where 1,700 actually means $5. It took everything in me not to cry.

The procedure was as grueling and unpleasant as you would suspect. You’d think for those Cadillac (Rolls Royce? Bentley?) prices, they’d render you unconscious, but alas, this was not the case. I tried to focus on my breathing and think about being in Maine when I was little.

Eventually, it was all over, and I was given my third prescription for antibiotics this month, this time to be taken three times a day, along with a prescription for Motrin. I took it to the nearby pharmacy, a little mom and pop shop called Tuttle’s, where the pharmacist asked, “Are you really from all the way up there in Albion**?” I admitted that I was, and he said how much he enjoyed going to Ledford House, so it seems that Megan and I are not the only ones who enjoy going there.

Sadly, I will need a new crown, since the old one was destroyed in the root canal process. Why can’t I collect the sparkly diamond kind of crowns instead of the painful dental ones? They cost the same.

*Why does dental pain always strike at night and/or on the weekends?

**Which he pronounced “Al-bee-YON”.

A YEAR AGO: Getting some computer repairs.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Audits are so fun! Also, happy birthday to Rob!

TEN YEARS AGO Little Clyde was a little under the weather. And the weather was hot.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: The joys of air travel. ~Shudder~

TWENTY YEARS AGO: Sleep mysteries in a world gone mad.

What makes a Monday Mondayer? Getting a crown installed!

Faithful readers may recall that I had a sudden and inexplicable hole appear in my tooth last month, revealing its ancient silver filling. Fortunately, it did not hurt. Unfortunately, it required a crown, bringing my personal collection up to three. Crown One: a filling fell out right before a) a national holiday; and 2) a trip to Detroit to testify in front of the Grand Jury. Spoiler alert: the crown was the fun part.

Crown Two: following the first (and I hope, last) root canal of my life, so expensive and upsetting that I cried afterwards. Again, the crown was the fun part, but to be fair, almost anything is fun compared to getting (and paying for) a root canal. I also learned that getting a crown is the inevitable result of getting a root canal.

Crown Three: this one. As I have learned the hard way over the years, I never really seem to get numb. I always feel part of whatever they are doing to me. I followed Dr. Megan’s prescription of taking an omeprazole every day for a week before the procedure, but I still felt the poking around and post installation like I did last time. I flinched and made a noise of discomfort, and the dentist genially said, “It must be waking up!” Dentists are masters of understatement. When I used to get my braces tightened, the dentist would tell me that it would “be a little tender” by dinner time. Translation: it will hurt like hell before school ends, and if you’re lucky, you might be able to eat Jell-O for a week.

But the post’n’poke was a total joy compared to a new sensation called a “heart race”. Have you ever had or heard of one of these lovely things? The dentist accidentally got a vein with one of the four shots of anesthetic, and told me that it was perfectly normal to feel the way I did. Which was like I was having a bad panic attack. My hands were shaking, I was freezing, and I was freaking out. I tried to calm myself by watching the bees in their hive through the operatory window and breathing deeply. Eventually it passed, but man, it was horrible.

So far, the third time has been the worst, rather than the charm.

On the bright side, the technology was great. Instead of making me gag by jamming countless containers of glop into my mouth, they took about a million pictures in there with some kind of space age looking thing. This was translated to a sort of 3-D mill that shaped the crown. On the screen, I could see the progress (just 12 minutes!) and it was very accurate. It just needed a little tweaking to fit perfectly. The dentist said that crowns made like this were much more accurate than the old, gloppy way.

He put the crown into a kiln to be baked and hardened, again showing the progress on the screen (15 minutes!) and then cemented it in. No temporary crown or extra visit. I was back at work in less than two hours. So maybe the third time did have some charm after all.

TEN YEARS AGO: Coming home from San Francisco.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: How to get nowhere.

It was a perfect sunny day – the perfect day for a mini road trip. The sky was a cloudless, deep blue (I always think California skies have a certain depth and strength to their blueness that is special to the Golden State), with that clear, golden light of fall.

As I left the house, I noticed that Mr. Bear has a new technique:

He gets extra credit for creativity, but it’s less effective than his usual method. At least it left most of the trash in the can, instead of spread out everywhere. On the other hand (or paw), there is a bear-induced hole in the garbage can. I really thought he would have moved on by now, but some guys seem to find it hard to let go.

Putting ursine thoughts and destruction behind me, I made my way to the beautiful Valley through the ancient redwood trees. Sunlight filtered through the branches far above as I wended my way to wine country, where the vines were turning red, orange, and yellow, our version of fall color:

This time, I finally stopped to take a photo of this sign, which I have admired for years:

I don’t know who Art is or was, but I love his sign, which I consider to be art.

I headed to the General Store in Boonville, where I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and a lemonade and repaired to one of the wooden picnic tables overlooking the main drag:

I watched cars, people, and dogs go by in the balmy sunshine. It was probably around 80 degrees, a beautiful day to enjoy the warmth of a late fall day.

On my way home, I stopped in at Gowan’s farmstand:

It was brimming with pumpkins, apples, squashes, and other autumn produce:

I picked up some fresh walnuts, almonds, and sweet apple cider to take home with me and remind me of a perfect day in the beautiful Valley.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Oh, Roscoe. You were such a little rascal. I miss you every day.

Endless summer continues. I guess that’s what endless things do, and its key to endlessness that you keep on keeping on. It’s still around 70 at the ocean, 10-15 degrees warmer than it should be, and in the 80s at Chez Suzy, where I personally would prefer that it never went above 70, or 75 at the outside limit of endurance.

I realize this probably sounds pretty good to those of you who are already bundling up and staring down the barrel of six months or more of winter. You might be both surprised and envious that I had the air conditioning on in the car on the way home from work this week. It does cool off in the evenings and at night. It’s probably around 50 degrees when I head to the car to go to work, checking for signs of the Bear’s having paid me a secret overnight visit (and glad when he hasn’t, since those visits tend to be messy and more enjoyable for my ursine caller than for me). When I walk to the car in the mornings, everything is still but the crickets and sometimes a neighboring rooster. The stars and planets are blazing in the clear, dark, sky, and I have to stop and enjoy the stillness and the glory before getting on with my day.

One day last week included a visit to the dentist. It seems that a piece of my tooth came off – without my noticing – and an ancient silver filling was now exposed. Happily, it didn’t hurt, but unhappily, I am facing yet another coronation. One was enough for the Queen, but apparently three time’s the charm for me. I hope this is the last time I have to face this expensive and unenjoyable procedure. At least I don’t need a root canal this time (as far as I know). Apparently, they now put in the permanent crown the first time, instead of making you get a temporary and then come back for another appointment to get the permanent one. The downside of this is that the appointment will take an hour and a half, which I think we can all agree is a long time to sit in a place no-one ever wants to be.

That hour and a half will cost me around $700, even though I have insurance. I will be able to pay it off in three installments instead of all at once, which is a big help. I was so taken aback by the crown diagnosis that I forgot to ask them for what my stepmother used to refer to as “tablets”, her term for Valium and its soothing cousins. Last time after the root canal débâcle, I took a tablet before I went for the crown, but it had the unpleasant effect of making my brain (or its two remaining cells) foggy while my body remained super nervous. So I’m not sure if I really want to try that again, or if it will be much worse without it. I have a month to figure it out, since the fateful day is November 23, unless my injured tooth starts complaining.

In the meantime, I’ll do some complaining: Why can’t I have a tiara instead of a crown?

A YEAR AGO: Even buying a couch cushion can be a thrilling adventure if I’m involved.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Vertigo, and not the fun, Hitchcock kind, either.

TEN YEARS AGO: I was super helpful.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Wildlife, even in the heart of the city.

Megan got very little sleep during the blistering hot plague. It’s particularly difficult to sleep during the day when your bedroom is likes its very own little oven, even when you have just worked twelve fun-filled hours in the ER.

Megan got maybe three hours of sleep, and decided that she was too impaired by lack of sleep to go to work that night. She agreed to be on call, hoping that nothing would happen. Of course, something happened.

A car turning off the highway was rear-ended, and the force of the rear-ending pushed it into oncoming traffic, with predictably unpleasant results. One of the people involved was flown out from the scene and another was brought to the ER to be packaged up and flown out in turn. There was blood and chaos. The road was closed for some time as well.

Fortunately, that was Megan’s last shift of the week, and the next day, she suggested that we go to our favorite seaside bar for a well-earned drink or two.
We sat at the shadiest possible table, right outside the restaurant door, hiding under an umbrella. I was wearing SPF 100, just in case. I’m like a vampire. It’s surprising that I don’t burst into flames upon exposure to the sun. We still had a lovely view of the ocean, though I am sorry to report that it was a completely unreasonable 83 degrees. By the ocean, people. Where it should be 65 with a sweater-requiring breeze.

Although we’re not normally bourbon drinkers, we were unable to resist the blackberry bourbon smash:

It was inspired by the abundance of local wild blackberries. They are muddled and then bourbon is poured over them. The mixture infuses for four days, and when it’s cocktail time, simple syrup, a dash of lemon, and some soda is added. Garnish with mint leaves. It was delicious. I would like to try making it with vodka. Maybe even berry vodka! We could also throw in some of the raspberries from the garden. The cocktail shaker awaits!

FIVE YEARS AGO: Everyone needs a drink after a visit to the dentist. Maybe before, too.

TEN YEARS AGO: It was hot and heinous.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Riding the bus was educational, to say the least.