Suzy Says

It may be appropriate that the days leading up to Dad’s birthday had such English weather, raining like crazy one minute, sunny the next, then hailing. Inland, there was snow, and it seems that all this late season precipitation may help to keep us from drought status.

Fortunately, the sun was peeking through the clouds when Megan and I arrived at our favorite seaside bar, which had been closed for nearly a month to repair its floors and opened just in time for Dad’s birthday eve. Strawberry margaritas were the special of the day, and what could be more festive than that? Especially since they were the size of young swimming pools:

Dad’s birthday fell on a Saturday this year, the perfect day for family dinner. I seemed to be feeling the occasion this year, since I polished the silver napkins which are engraved either “Madame” or “Monsieur”, and Megan hauled down both the big chest of Grammie’s ivory-handled silver and the little chest containing the ivory-handled fish set. The fish set was presented to Grammie by Daddy’s Daddy on the Christmas before their wedding. There is a little slip of paper inside which reads, “To Marjory, from her loving fiancé Ernest. Christmas, 1923”. I treasure that little piece of paper*.

I put all this, the grocery shopping I had done for dinner, and the first two seasons of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” into a box to bring over to Rio’s place, where the party would be held. Jonathan really wanted to watch the Hitchcocks on the Predicta after dinner. We made our way through the winding woods to Rio’s place, where I set to work as Jonathan and Megan fetched home-made cider.

Here is the menu.

Not listed, but still appreciated, were the tarts Jonathan and Rio made from the peaches we grew and froze last year:

They were as delicious as they look.

Rio’s kitchen is much more reasonable than mine, and although it was unfamiliar, it was pretty easy to make dinner there. Also, the kitchen is open to the living and dining areas of the house, so we could chat as I cooked and asked where things were as Gilbert & Sullivan played cheerfully in the background. Dad loved G&S, and used to sing it merrily despite being tone deaf and having a singing voice to match. He was actually removed from music class at school and sent to learn woodworking, which was more useful to him (and us), since he built bookshelves in every house we ever lived in.

Here’s the salad, with a fork from Grammie’s fish set, along with the napkin rings and the regular silver:

And here is the pilau, in progress on the stove:

It was a good dinner. I was glad to cook from Dad’s cookbook and to enjoy the company of my much-loved family while reminiscing about Daddy. The old man wasn’t so bad!

*When Dad and I were in Russia in 1992, his wallet was stolen. Dad kept all of his money in his money in a money belt when traveling abroad, so the thieves only got a credit card which Dad promptly canceled before they could use it**. But the wallet did contain a little hand-written prayer that his mother had given him on the day he went off to university, and that he had carried with him ever since. That was all he cared about.

**He once had a credit card stolen and waited a few weeks to report it, since the thief was spending less than my mother did.

A YEAR AGO: Celebrating Dad’s birthday in many different ways.

FIVE YEARS AGO: An early start to Dad’s birthday. And some cooking, of course.

TEN YEARS AGO: A menu meal for Dad’s birthday.

I thought you might enjoy a look at some of Rob’s most recent ceramic works. He has been taking classes at the local college, and I think it has really kicked up his skills a notch. His work has always been beautiful and as unusual as Rob himself, but I think it has achieved a whole new level.

I am enchanted by this fish, which swims above Megan and Rob’s kitchen sink. The colors and details are remarkable. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but he hand-textured all the scales. I love how the tail is bent forward toward the viewer.

The clock is also in their kitchen. The hands glow in the dark. It has a sort of crackly glaze over the strongly geometric pattern and the numbers are hand-painted in a deep blue.

Rob surprised me with my own clock for Christmas:

As you can see, he like geometric shapes, and has always enjoyed the work of MC Escher*. But this tile was not made from a mold – he made all the shapes by hand:

These penguins are utterly adorable:

They are so cute that Megan refused to part with them. I can’t say I blame her!

*My friend Alice’s husband Claude, who is Dutch, has a letter from Escher. He was from the same village and Claude’s dad bought 4 originals when he was unknown for about 80 Euros. He sold them when they were worth 800 Euros, but should have kept them because they are worth a lot more now.

A YEAR AGO: A cold and windy day for the annual Polar Plunge, but our hearts were warm.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Experiencing a few technical difficulties.

TEN YEARS AGO: A recap of the Film Noir Festival in San Francisco.

It was the smallest of small town days.

The tone was set right from the start, when I arrived at work to find Megan’s car already there. Knowing she had just finished the third of her 12 hour night shifts for the week, I wondered what she was doing there.

She was planning to finish working on a chart for a patient who had a visit that day, thinking it would only take a little while, but of course, Technology had other plans. By the time she left, she had been awake so long that I asked her to text me when she got home. You will be as glad as I was to hear that she did.

Meanwhile, back at work, I received an email with a patient issue. Emails sent to our website come to me, and I try to get the questions resolved as soon as I can. This one turned out to be from the same person whose dog I hit with my car (and who looked like his old and handsome self when we had lunch recently). I got her issue taken care of quickly and she was very happy. Truly, I do this for every patient when it’s possible, but it is a little nicer when it’s someone you know. Also in keeping with our small town theme of the day.

Unrelated to my attempted murder of a local celebrity dog, Wednesday has been having some issues of her own. When I last had the tires rotated, the tire guy mentioned that I needed to have the brake pads replaced. So I ordered those, and in consulting the little orange notebook that details the adventures of Wednesday, I noticed that she was also overdue for an oil change, so I bought oil and filters. Needless to say, the car parts guy asked me which kind of filter, and as usual, I had no idea, so he sold me both and said I could bring back the runner up.

I gave all this stuff to my brother, and reminded him about the eternal engine light. He and Rob changed the oil no problem, but noticed when applying the new brake pads that the rotors needed to be smoothed out (or something). He jetted into town to get this done so he could continue to work on my car, and when I picked them up later that day, I noticed that the name immediately ahead of mine in the handwritten book of jobs to be done was that of one of my coworkers.

With the manicured rotors safely in the car, I headed for the library, where I found Rob pulling up across the street from me just as I arrived. I asked him if he was interested in some previously enjoyed rotors, and fortunately for me, he was, moving them from my heap to his. Now all we have to do is wait for the parts Jonathan ordered to arrive to complete the brake repair extravaganza. In the meantime, we are a little car-challenged, but we’ll work it out.

A YEAR AGO: Stormy weather.

FIVE YEARS AGO: An update on Jarrett’s puppy, Archimedes, aka The World’s Cutest Puppy. They are still each other’s best friends.

TEN YEARS AGO: Taking a break from Oakland’s homicides for the peace of Mendocino County. Moving here was one of the best decisions I ever made!

After my garden tour on Sunday, I went over to Megan’s house, where I admired and petted the magic pelt of the beautiful (and ancient, at 17) Harriet. Harriet the Spy sightings are rare, but always welcome.

We were headed to the ballet in Point Arena, and this time we had a special guest with us, our brother Jonathan’s girlfriend Rio. We hopped into Rio’s car and off we went. Being liberated from her designated chauffeur duties allowed Megan to enjoy the scenery for once. The ocean was a pale aqua that day, contrasting with the electric green of the fields and hills. Rio said, “Ireland has nothing on us!” Yellow acacia flamed among the dark, wind-swept cypresses.

Our first stop was Anchor Bay Thai, where we all ordered dinner to go. I for one would be very glad of this later, since we didn’t get home until nearly 6 pm, after leaving the house at 11 am. Arriving back in Point Arena, we had a little time before the ballet started, so we headed down to the pier, where we got sandwiches and watched the intrepid surfers in the cove. They wear wetsuits in our chilly clime, and it is a joy to watch them skim over the mighty, curling waves as they sweep toward the rocky shore.

There are no visual aids because true to the old adage “Red in the morning, sailors take warning”, the beautiful dawn had given way to rain. It didn’t seem to bother the surfers at all, but I was disinclined to venture out in the rain to take pictures of them.

We ran back to the car and headed to the movie theater, where we found our favorite balcony seats were available. We even had an escape route available, not that we needed it this time. It was a beautiful production, from the costumes to the sword fights to the romantic pas de deux, and of course, the tragic finale.

Megan took over driving duties on the way home. After many years of night shifts, she doesn’t mind driving in the dark, even with rain blowing sideways, as it was that night. On our way home, she regaled us with tales from her ambulance days, which are always fun. It was so nice to have Rio share our pleasure in the ballet, and I hope she will come with us to see the last two of the season.

A YEAR AGO: Plans to see the ballet were foiled by the weather.

FIVE YEARS AGO: File under miscellaneous.

TEN YEARS AGO: Attending the SF Noir Festival.

Surveying the hellscape of 2017, I can’t say I’m sorry to see it end. Including a nightmarish government, a seemingly endless plague of disasters, natural and otherwise, and the deaths of those too young to die, it was just one bad thing after another. The word “apocalypse” crossed my mind more than once.

In the midst of all this despair, there were bright spots, like a visit from our beloved Ben.

I failed to note it in these pages, but this October marked the 8th anniversary of my move to Hooterville. It’s one of the few good decisions I have ever made.

I read 114 books, surpassing last year’s 103. Standouts included Richard Russo’s Trajectory, a collection of short stories set in a small town, where Russo’s gifts for language and storytelling shine; The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, about a dysfunctional family in Montreal which manages to be funny, heart-breaking, gritty, and poetic all at once; The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery, which uses a combination of old and new technology and logic to unveil the identity of a man who murdered his way across America in the early years of the 20th century; Little Fires Everywhere, an engrossing and beautiful novel about families and how choices we make can have far-reaching and unforeseen effects; Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas, showcasing the fascinating and sometimes tragic lives of the women who inspired some of his great work; Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption, a haunting book about a wrongly convicted man who never gave up trying to prove his innocence from the depths of prison; and the truly astonishing Blood In the Water: The Attica Prison Riot of 1971 and Its Aftermath. I couldn’t put it down, and it haunted me for weeks afterwards. I will just say this: the riot was the least of what happened there.

Standouts in TV shows ranged from the regal (Victoria and The Crown) to the retro (The Deuce and Feud) and the truly excellent Ozark.

Power outages: I lost track. One of them lasted for days, and we were still having them in May. May, my friends! The same goes for rain, though it was around 70 inches. Or more than 6 feet. I thought we had the drought on the run until this season’s paltry 10 inches so far. If only we could get the hideous heat waves on the (permanent) run. I don’t think I will ever really recover from The Worst Long Weekend Ever. I may be one heat wave away from moving to Alaska. Look out, Tim! And keep your bail money handy.

January:

The new year arrived with a bang. Day One of a lengthy power outage. Overcoming the annual bummer of Twelfth Night with a new hairdo and an old fashioned party. A civilized break in the work week. Enjoying the beauty at the fine woodworking show. It was too floody to go and see the Bolshoi’s “Sleeping Beauty”, to my everlasting regret. I once more survived the horror of the annual fundraiser.

February: I came home from work to find a new refrigerator had taken up residence. Meeting the girls at the bookstore. A delightful (though rainy) Valentine’s Day. Guess what? Yes, the power was out again. A strange, but memorable baptism.

March: Time for the Polar Plunge! Feeling under the weather in still more bad weather. Possibly the world’s cutest new neighbor. A hail storm. Why not? Celebrating Dad’s 86th birthday. A delightful surprise encounter with Erica and Jessica.

April: A fun evening at the theater with Megan and Lu. Remembering Mom on her birthday. Family dinner with Clayton. Buying tires again for Wednesday. Jessica’s birthday, and my blog’s. I actually remembered this year! The joys of taking a day off.

May: A very sad, and upsetting memorial service. A sense of place. Yet another power outage made it impossible for me to revel in the glamorous joys of the Kentucky Derby. A fun outing on Bookstore Day. The adventure of the flat tire. Going in style and in good company to family dinner. The adventure of the dog in the night.

June: A good start to my birthday week. A completely perfect birthday, part one and part two. A peek into the past, my favorite place. It was hard to tell one job from the other one Saturday. A wonderful visit with Jarrett and Kalli. It’s Rob to the rescue yet again, adding a new shelf to the kitchen when the old one is displaced by the sudden appearance of a new and unimproved refrigerator. The month ended with a perfect Junapalooza.

July: There was much to celebrate. At last! A sleepover with Jessica! An unexpected visitor after a long day at work. Rob the artist. A less than stellar week. A summer Saturday. The annual horrorshow. But hey, I survived!

August: My Junapalooza gift appears, along with a former Jay (hint: Not Alex Rios). A lovely visit with our friend Carrie, her daughter, and her oldies- singin’ posse. The sudden loss of a coworker. I still miss her smile. Plumbing problems. The anniversary of Dad’s death rolls around again. I will never stop loving and missing him. A lovely sunset drink. My brother’s eclipse adventure. The beginning of the hellish heat wave.

September Celebrating my last working Saturday with a delicious dinner at Rio’s place. The Worst Long Weekend Ever will live on infamy. My brother’s birthday party. A visit from our beloved Ben. At the County Fair, no less! Playing tour guide. We all enjoyed seeing Ben again. I hope this becomes an annual tradition.

October: The eternal trenching project rears its interminable head again. The local message boards are as eccentric as ever. Awakening to find the worst wildfire in California history was raging, in our County and our neighboring counties. Devastating and heartbreaking. As always, our community reached to help the evacuees, but it’s going to be a long recovery. A couple of reasons to celebrate in these dark days. A look at some lovely gardens. The ballet season begins.

November: Halloween with our favorite kidlet and her precocious BFF. A chilly day for cider pressing. You can’t go home again. Or at least you shouldn’t. Car problems, which preoccupy my limited brain space when I should be worrying about Thanksgiving prep. An unexpected Thanksgiving without Erica and Jessica. Thanksgiving II: the sequel. Christmas – or at least Christmas decorations – arrived a little early.

December: Enjoying the always spectacular (though not very Christmassy) Festival of Lights. File under miscellaneous: lingering car malaise; the endless project; and hanging out with friends. Another delightful annual tradition: Candlelight Shopping Night. A successful office party. And a little mini-break was the perfect thing after all the party work. A very odd version of Peter Pan. And a very happy Christmas. A trip north to Eureka did not turn out exactly as planned. But it was still fun.

No resolutions have sprung to my shallow, sparkly mind for the new year, which I hope will be kinder to all of us. Thanks for coming along on the ride this year!

A YEAR AGO: A look back at 2016.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Reviewing 2012.

It’s 4:30 am and I am drinking bad in room coffee and waiting for daylight. I’m sorry to say that the cold or whatever it is has not improved and I felt too miserable to sleep. It is going to be a long way home. Well, it would be anyway!

Jarrett picked me up yesterday and took me on a tour of Eureka, where he has lived for several years. Like Fort Bragg, it began with logging and fishing, and all that entails, like robber barons and brothels. But Eureka, a much bigger city still, boasted an opera house (the building still stands) and a Chinatown, populated with the people who built roads, did the logging camps’ cooking and laundry and basically kept to themselves until they were all deported to San Francisco in 1885.

1885 is also when this breathtaking mansion was built for lumber baron William Carson:

It is utterly magnificent and may be the finest Victorian home I have ever seen, even after living in San Francisco for so many years. It is now a private club, which is whispered about among locals, much as the Bohemian Club is in San Francisco. Though we peasants cannot enter its splendid interior, you can revel in its elegant excess here.

Right across the street is the fantastic pink house which William Carson built for his son:

Love the color and the stained glass.

We walked around the historic downtown, and I really liked the combination of old and new. The town feels vital and young, not precious like the Village at home. I really enjoyed our look around. We also stopped in at the local history museum, which has a great collection of Native artifacts and pioneer quilts. Needless to say the native people, like the Chinese, were also driven out by Europeans, just as they were in Fort Bragg. The age old story, I’m afraid.

We headed out to dinner with Jarrett’s beautiful girlfriend Kalli at one of their favorite spots. It was so wonderful to catch up on their news and spend some time together. I love those kids. I’d have to say: despite the cold or whatever it is and the long drive ahead of me, I’m glad I came.

Update: Left in the rainy darkness about 6:45 am. Stopped at the gas station and then headed straight for home. No traffic that early, though I did have to drive around two large, shaggy elk on Highway One. Arrived home a little after 10 am. Whew!

Christmas Jessica (with Jonathan in the background)

Merry Christmas! Y’all are a day behind us, since we celebrated yesterday. And celebrate we did!

I spent most of the morning making about a thousand of my world famous cheese biscuits, with an eye to bringing some to Jarrett later in the week. It’s a good thing I set some aside for him, since in spite of my Herculean efforts, I only have about half a dozen left.

After the baking blitz, I put out the Christmas crackers:

and set out the heirloom Wedgwood and silver:

as the tree twinkled merrily with its stockings beneath. Jonathan and Rio arrived with the ham glazed with his secret glaze and smoked for hours in the BBQ, a wild huckleberry pie and a keg of cider, and Erica and Jessica brought a stunning Bûche de Noël:

It was frosted with vanilla buttercream to match my ancient tree, and inside it was ginger cake with a butterscotch salted caramel filling. Needless to say, it was amazing.

So were the stockings this year. I think everyone was really pleased. Mine included a new electric toothbrush that looks like jewelry, glittery pens, and a gift certificate for Angelika’s indispensable services. What’s not to love?

In addition to all that, we had salad with roasted pears and fresh pomegranate along with shallot and honey dressing, our own garden potatoes mashed up with our garlic, the cheese biscuits, and Vietnamese pickled carrots and cucumbers. This was my first attempt at these and it was a hit. I will definitely make them again.

After dinner, we enjoyed the annual ritual of Jonathan and Jessica reading “Red Ranger Came Calling” out loud. I wish I could post the movie clips here, but they are on Facebook for your viewing and listening pleasure. I really don’t know which of them does a better job. And just a few days ago, Jessica’s BFF Bella was on Vachon Island at the very location of the tree!

After everyone else left, Megan and I sat back with a bottle of Limoncello and talked about the evening. We agreed, it had been a great one. Merry Christmas to you and yours from all of us!

A YEAR AGO: A merry Christmas.

Megan and I enjoyed our annual tradition of the Festival of Lights at the Botanical Gardens. As usual, the parking gods smiled on Megan, and we got a parking space right out front. This year, we could buy tickets on line, and I added a small donation in honor of my late friend Joel, who was a Master Gardener there. And instead of waiting in line, we could breeze right in.

The Gardens are one of the loveliest places on the coast, and they are particularly magical when they are all dressed up in sparkling lights. Megan pointed out that they are not particularly Christmassy, with dragons and swans:

Somehow I had never noticed that before, though there is a star or two. The elephant was new, peering cutely out of the bushes:

He was a safe distance away from the erupting volcano:

I always love the jellyfish, floating magically in the air:

And the sailing ship, accessorized with a whale:

It makes me feel like a kid again, with the wonder of the holidays, delighted by the lights in the darkness.

And what better way to follow up sparkling lights than a sparkling drink?

We toasted our lovely evening and the holidays past, present, and future. Cheers!

A YEAR AGO: Some random notes.

FIVE YEARS AGO: It was stormin’ up a storm!

As you know, I hate dealing with the post Thanksgiving turkey carcass. It’s unwieldy, icky, and makes it impossible for me to escape the unpleasant fact that I ate a formerly live creature as I dismember its bones. In my typical hypocritical way, however, this does not stop me from cooking and eating it in the first place. At least we buy free range, organic birds.

So I was delighted when Jonathan took the avian remains off my hands the day after Thanksgiving. He made it into soup and invited us over for dinner that night at Rio’s compound, where we had turkey soup with garlic bread and followed up Thanksgiving II with leftover cherry and huckleberry pies.

While the garlic bread was baking, Rio and Jonathan showed us the progress they had made with restoring the Christmas Village. Rio’s father was a famous artist who made record album covers, Time magazine covers, and posters for Broadway plays. To amuse Rio as a child, he made a little Victorian village of painted cardboard. Over the years, some of it disappeared and some of it deteriorated seriously, but after Rio bought the compound, she thought it would be fun to restore the Village.

It currently resides in the studio part of the studio/garage combo where we made the cider. Now that Jonathan is involved, a train track with trains that really run has been added:

They have also added some historical figures, like Winston Churchill and Charles Dickens, and various cows for the fields. Some of the houses have little chandeliers and paintings inside. It’s quite something, and it’s not even finished yet.

Back in the house, we had dinner by the light of this amazing Swedish contraption, also from Rio’s childhood:

It’s a wooden carousel with a wooden propeller at the top and candles at the sides. The heat from the candles makes the propeller spin the carousel around. The top layer seems to be angels, the middle a shepherd and his flock and the lowest level is Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the three wise men, one of whom is inexplicably black while everyone else is white. Go figure.

It is a charming and delightful object, and I also liked the patterns it made on the ceiling:

After dinner, we watched The Avengers on the 1959 Predicta. It is a pretty weird show. To my mind, it seemed quite surreal. Coincidentally, it also featured trains, though there was no Christmas Village. It was a lovely evening, like another little Thanksgiving together.

It was a quieter than usual Thanksgiving at stately Suzy Manor. I had the house ready well before noon:

and the outdoor livingroom was ready as well:

Rob brought some firewood over, but we didn’t need it. It has been oddly warm all week. I have even been sleeping with the balcony door open.

Erica and Jessica could not join us for Thanksgiving after all. Megan said it was the first time in Jessica’s life that she wasn’t with our family at Thanksgiving. We really missed them. Without them, it was more like an elaborate family dinner than anything else, though there’s nothing wrong with that!

Everything turned out well, from the turkey, roasted Nana-style:

to the maple and harissa roasted carrots, potatoes expertly whipped by Jonathan, who also made a wonderful gravy, and the stuffing/dressing, which as usual I forgot about, but which happened to be perfectly done when I did remember. Jonathan and Rio brought a wild huckleberry pie (in a pie dish made by Rob), and a pie from the cherries we grew. It was quite a spread:

Jonathan brought some of last year’s cider, and we toasted Thanksgiving and the many things we are grateful for with the cider in Nana’s wine glasses.

A YEAR AGO: A much busier Thanksgiving.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A fun and festive Thanksgiving.

Jessica has not yet aged out of trick or treating with her auntourage. I have to say I am surprised that we have not yet become embarrassing, I would have thought that once the double digits raised their ugly head that our auntourage days would be numbered in single digits, but as always, Jessica surprised me. She has yet to turn into a surly teenager. Maybe she will skip those unlovely phases and segue straight into lovely young womanhood. So far, so good.

Megan and I met up with Erica, Julie, and Darius at the Gro, where the new owners have apparently taken over. Erica was delighted to learn that they are Punjabi and that we can expect Punjabi delicacies in the near future. Jessica and her BFF Bella were decanted into Megan’s car, while their elegantly costumed parents returned to the Hagmobile from whence they came to go and have a civilized dinner together.

I was unable to recognize what the girls’ costumes represented:

Jessica (left) is Bill Cipher from the TV show Gravity Falls. In my defense, I have never seen it, it’s a Disney show, and on researching the matter later I discovered that he is essentially a villainous yellow triangle with a penchant for top hats. Bella (right) is Quicksilver, apparently an X Men or something. Jessica may not have aged out of Halloween, but her auntourage has aged out of understanding the costumes.

We headed to the haunted house first. Bella and I decided that it was too scary for us (perhaps it is not a coincidence that Bella and I also find everything to be too spicy for us) and waited outside for the intrepid Megan and Jessica. The haunted house has both security staff outside and actors who scare the waiting hordes. Since we were early, there was no line to speak of and one of the security guards made the mistake of telling Bella that her goggles were steampunk instead of New Wave, rashly opining that Bella did not know the difference.

She was in the midst of setting the misguided security guard straight when the scarer attempted to scare her. Without even looking at him, she said, “Go away, I’m talking” in such an authoritative tone that he did. He didn’t give up on the scaring attempts, but Bella ended up scaring him by suddenly looming up from behind a pillar, making him jump a mile. He sheepishly admitted that she had gotten him and gave up after that.

Our brave adventurers enjoyed the haunted house, and we all piled into Megan’s car to start the trick or treating portion of the evening. Megan and I had asked around for the best trick or treating locales in the Big Town, and armed with that knowledge, we set out for the most desirable areas first.

Police cars closed off the street, which was awash in trick or treaters and their escorts. I loved these ghost lights (strings of little Caspers!):

and this creative use of a garage basketball hoop:

One of the houses had their own little haunted house to go through to get the candy. When the girls emerged, I asked them if it was scary. Jessica said that the owners had clearly seen “It”, and that there were clowns. I asked, “What could be scarier than clowns?” and Bella replied matter-of-factly, “Crippling debt,” before scampering off to get more candy. She is 12, right?

This town being as small as it is, we naturally came across Jonathan and Rio handing out candy. I think we were more surprised than they were!

The drawbacks of the popular spot was that there were crowds of people, and the kids had to line up at some houses to get the candy. There was also no opportunity for Jessica to show off her signature police knock until we ventured off the beaten path. It still makes me laugh to hear it, especially combined with her girlish and dainty, “Thank you! Happy Halloween!”

Eventually the bags got so heavy that the girls began to complain about toting their weight around the darkened streets, so we headed back to the Village to return our charges to their rightful owners. A good time was had by all.

A YEAR AGO: a trip to the South Coast to see a play and pick up a few delicacies.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Trick or treating with Jessica when she was truly a kidlet.

We left the Fair as the sun began to set, casting a rosy golden glow over the Valley:

I love the look of the rolling golden hills, dotted with the deep pools of shade from gnarled live oaks, and the vines, still heavy with grapes at this time of year:

Soon the vine leaves will begin to turn scarlet and gold, which is our version of fall colors. There are almost a hundred vineyards in the beautiful Valley, most of them family owned and operated.

We wended our way through the redwoods to the ocean. We met up with Ben and Erica at the Gro* so we could guide them up and down the twisty roads to Rio’s compound.

Rio and Jonathan had just finished working on the interior of her guest cabin:

So Ben and Erica were the first guests to stay there in its finished state. Rio and Jonathan still have to build a little roof over the front door for the rainy season, and are planning to paint the outside, but it is more or less finished and it is just charming, so pretty and cozy inside. They could not have had a nicer place to stay while exploring our little corner of the world.

Rio had everything set up so we could make our own sandwiches after we arrived at her house, sliced chicken, cheese, and everything else you could think of to put on a variety of breads, including peach habanero jam, which was delicious. We ate our sandwiches while listening to vinyl records with covers designed by Rio’s father. He was a very well-known illustrator, and his work is in the Met and the Smithsonian, among others. He designed record covers for everyone from Miles Davis to Billie Holiday to Harry Belafonte, as well as Time magazine covers and Broadway posters.

Rio’s stepfather was an actor, starring in the Donna Reed Show and acting in many others, like Perry Mason and Mission Impossible. Rio said that her parents tried to keep her from being one of “those Hollywood kids” by not letting her go on set very often. On one of those rare occasions, her stepfather was shot with a blank and was injured, and that was the last time she went to a movie set. Her parents were close friends of Carroll O’Connor and his wife. You will be relieved to hear that he was nothing like Archie Bunker in real life, though he did have a big personality and tended to be the center of attention.

Dessert was a big bowl of strawberries from the family estate, which were something of a revelation to our visitors. There is nothing like strawberries you grow yourself. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

*Big local news: Doug has sold the Gro! I am sad to see him go, but glad for him and his wife. They have been working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for way too long. Time for them to relax and enjoy themselves. I hope the new owners keep up their legacy and that the Gro remains the heart of our quirky little town.