Suzy Says

On Saturday, I was working* when Mark, my landlord and neighbor, stopped by with his wife, Citlali, who is Rose’s daughter. It’s always nice to see them, but especially when it’s an excuse to stop working.

They had some news for me: they have found three young guys** to rent out their house while they are in New Jersey for a year. The guys will also take care of their dog Luna, their cats, and their chickens, including the one who likes to come over and hang out here.

I’m glad Luna is staying. I feel a lot safer when she is around, and I’m convinced that she keeps the deer out of the garden and the mountain lions and their good time buddies away from my cats. And I can’t imagine that she would be happy living in suburban New Jersey, cooped up in the house and walking on a leash.

Mark wanted to show Citlali my garden. He mentioned that I have one part of it dedicated to Rose, which it is:

I am growing poppies and the calla lilies my friend Jim gave me there. Some of her art and pottery decorate the area, and there is a little “nest” she made with seashells as eggs.

Right next to it there are planters she made and designed, and a piece of her artwork:

They also loved the marigolds***:

And the succulents I planted in an old barbecue grill:

I guess living in the country makes planters like that rustic. And old car jacks and tire irons garden art:

Rose made the pots. The one on the right looks like a tree trunk.

Citlali was so pleased and kept saying how beautiful everything was. She also said that she is glad that someone who knew and loved Rose lives in her house. I think her spirit will always be here.

Later, I looked up from slaving over a hot computer and was astonished to see Jessica, followed by Erica and Megan. E & J were on their way to the beach and stopped by to surprise and delight us. We sat for a chat at the table and chairs I just got from the same woman who gave me the palm trees:

She is moving to Hawaii and sold the whole set to me for $60, along with a lounge chair:

It was nice to have some shade to sit in as we caught up. I couldn’t help thinking that it is so wonderful that we can see each other all the time now, even just a short drop in, because they are back home! I missed them so much.

*Writing up reports while sitting on the couch with HBO’s delightful series Girls on. I haven’t changed much since my teens, when I habitually did my homework with the TV or music on. It made it less boring. Still does.

***Marigolds are used in Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations, and have been since Aztec times. Their fragrance and paths made of their petals are supposed to guide spirits home, and the flowers themselves symbolize both the sun and the brevity of life.

Megan’s emergency services are, as you probably know by now, not limited to the Emergency Room or the ambulance, though her big sister might well be the most frequent beneficiary of her expertise.

This morning, a hummingbird took a detour from the fuchsia on the back deck into my house. He then flew up to the big but un-openable window in the living room. There he buzzed frantically against the window, emitting little chirps of distress.

I went to get the broom, thinking I could gently guide him down to the open door, but as usual in my house, I was too short to reach him. I called Megan and went to get a stepladder. By the time I came back, Megan was in the living room, but the hummingbird wasn’t. I could still hear the buzzing, though, and we soon discovered that he was now in the skylight in the sleeping loft.

Megan got a t-shirt and gently covered the frantic little creature with it, cupping her hands around to keep him in the fabric. Then she took him out to the balcony, where he immediately skyrocketed out of sight beyond the redwoods, clearly unharmed.

It was only then that I realized I should have taken a picture, but I was so afraid that he would hurt himself or die of stress and exertion that it didn’t occur to me.

Thank goodness for brave and resourceful little sisters, who not only catch up with you, but pass you. And then reach out a helping hand.

I mailed my expense report to the US Attorney’s office today, but as I waited in line at the post office (there were two whole people in front of me), it occurred to me that the real cost is trying to catch up on almost a week’s worth of work. It’s really hard to get any actual work done when you are being audited or caught up in the slow and inexorable wheels of the justice system.

I got up early for a conference call, and have more scheduled at 6 and 6:30 am on Monday and Tuesday, but I am still behind. This is why it took me 10 days to send in the expense report.

And then there’s the real life things, like the septic system excavation and the car’s engine light.

Mark has been diligently digging up the system, which apparently needs an overhaul. He says he can do it in a few days, but it seems like a pretty big undertaking to me. Fortunately, while the improvement process is going on, I can still enjoy the indoor plumbing, and having the front yard temporarily hacked up doesn’t bother me all that much.

As for the car…my brother’s reader gadget didn’t work on my car, so I called a mechanic he recommended and explained that the “check engine” light was on. He said to bring it in this afternoon. My enthusiasm level for driving all the way to the Big Town on a non-jobette day was less than zero, but I was concerned enough to do it. I dropped MIss Scarlett off, and ran a few errands while they diagnosed what ailed her.

I stopped by to see Monica and give her my accumulated “Elle”. “Vogue”, and “Harpers Bazaar” and catch up on our news. By the time we finished chatting and I picked up a burrito for dinner, it was time to head back to the mechanic’s. I could hear the Skunk Train coming in to the station, so I slowed my steps, knowing that I would have to wait to cross to the wrong (or right) side of the tracks. It occurred to me that pausing to watch a vintage train cross Main Street on a beautiful summer afternoon was not the worst thing in the world.

Meanwhile, back at the mechanic’s, it turned out that Miss Scarlett’s crankshaft sensor had to be replaced. The $200 (including labor) price tag made me slightly cranky myself, but it has to be done. They ordered the part and I will drop the car off on Monday to be repaired. I’m glad that the light didn’t come on when I was driving 101 last week.

Next week will be a pricy one: $200 for the car and $300, the first installment on my crown, which is to be installed on Wednesday. Just my way of improving the local economy.

Excavation

It’s been a busy week at the jobette – fun things like stuffing 500 envelopes with 3 different pieces of paper, after folding all the paper. Then putting two labels on each envelope, sealing it, stamping it, and hauling the whole thing to the post office. I actually had to drive there, and it’s two blocks away.

Speaking of the jobette: we are moving next month! This was a surprise to me. We are moving three or four blocks away into a space which formerly housed a bookstore. We will be in the thick of the shopping district, so we should get more walk-in traffic, and are planning to sell t-shirts and local products as well as dispensing our indispensable tourism advice.

We are planning to move in there the week of August 20 and must be out of our current space by August 31. Not a lot of time. But it will be a great opportunity to get rid of things and streamline the operation.

In other moving news, Mark and his family are moving to New Jersey next month for a year. He is dismantling a factory (I think he said it was L’Oreal, but I could be wrong) and shipping it to Mexico. I could (or should) comment here on the loss of American jobs and our slow economy, but I’m more concerned about who is going to be my neighbor for a year and who is going to fix things when they break around here.

Such as my septic system. On Saturday, I called Mark because my toilet, always an underachiever and my rival in utter slothitude, went on strike. He came over and plungered it, which created a little fountain of what appeared to be poo in the bathroom sink. A poo fountain is never a good sign. Mark thinks there is an issue with the septic system, and he is, if anything, more anxious than I am to get it cleared up before he leaves, since he would have to pay someone else thousands of dollars to fix it in his absence. He was at my place before I left for the jobette today, so here’s hoping he’ll have some good news for me by the time I get home.

I can use the good news, because the “check engine” light came on in my car yesterday on my way home. My brother says it might be nothing. But maybe it is. He has a gadget which can read the engine and tell him what’s wrong. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, since I’m getting a $950 crown next week which I already can’t afford.

Welcome home!

Last night, I had so many weird dreams that I actually feel more tired now than when I went to bed. It was like running a mental marathon.

I was relieved to discover that I had not in fact had all my hair cut off, as I did in the last dream before I finally gave up and got up. Nor was there a flying child in my house. Or the dwarf in the blue sweater who told me “Don’t worry about death, or you might as well be dead,” which would have been great advice if it hadn’t been so creepy.

That one made me wonder about the crazy gene again. No wonder I never want my dreams to come true. I was glad to wake up and drink coffee in the sunshine with hummingbirds zipping around.

Reality can be good sometimes.

As I put last week behind me and get ready for the new one, I thought I’d share a few odds and ends with you that didn’t make it into my Motown adventure posts:

• On the way to San Francisco, I saw a car with Hawaii plates (“The Aloha State”), and thought “How does that work?” It was the first one I’d ever seen. They must have shipped it over from the island, even though it looked like a pretty ordinary Toyota to my undiscriminating eye. Coincidentally, I had just picked up “Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure” from the library.
• When I checked out of the hotel in Detroit, the guy behind the desk saw my billing address and said, “I know where Hooterville is.” I laughed and said he couldn’t possibly, and he said that he was born and raised in the next county north of us, and spent a lot of time in the Hooterville area then. He reached across the desk and took my hand in both of his and said, “Friend!” He fell in love with a Detroiter and moved there for love twelve years ago.
• On arriving at the Detroit airport for my long trip back home, the car service driver scanned my credit card with his iPhone. I signed it with my finger, typed in my email address, and the receipt was delivered to my email inbox before I entered the terminal. I don’t know who was more amazed: me, by this whole high-tech transaction, or the driver, by the fact that I had never done this before and didn’t even own a smartphone. I felt like the bumpkin I am.
• On my way to Polker’s for a pre-departure breakfast, a young, blonde Marina type with a handbag dog on a leash and her cellphone (probably an iPhone, since she lives in Civilization and all) pressed to her ear, passed me, saying, “Well, the relationship won’t last. But the dog is forever.”

My garden says “hello”

Thursday would have been a beautiful day no matter what, but it was a sunny one, too, without the bone-crushing heat’n’humidy of an East Coast summer day*. I sang along to the Beach Boys’ new CD as I drove past the vineyards and redwoods in the California sunshine. I yelled “Woo hoo!” as I passed the Mendocino County line. I wanted to hug the whole County, even Willits.

Well, maybe not Willits.

I stopped off to get my mail, rejoicing in the familiar sight of the hardware store owner’s old black dog napping in front of the store, the swallows above the post office door peeping merrily away, and the peaceful cows across the road wandering through their huge, golden fields.

Hooterville had never looked so lovely.

Pulling up at my humble abode, it was immediately obvious that Rob had been at work while I was away. The hose was looped up far more neatly than I can ever manage, so he had watered my garden in my absence. He had also removed two cans of garbage and two of recycling and repaired the cupboard door which had mysteriously fallen off one day while I was at work.

Before I left, I asked Megan to borrow some twine so I could tie up the Little Rose That Could. Strangely enough, feeding and watering it have made it much happier and bigger, but its branches were kind of flopping around:

Instead of tying it up, Rob wove the branches through the balcony slats:

So I’ll have climbing roses on one end of the balcony and jasmine on the other.

The cats definitely missed me. They all came running to say hello and be petted, and then wandered off, reassured that all was back to normal.

Megan and Rob arrived with a bottle of Absolut Mandrin vodka and pomegranate-cranberry juice, which, with a squidge of fresh lime juice and some ice, made pretty good faux Cosmos. Sitting in the garden with the sun gilding the tops of the redwoods, it just felt like heaven. I was (and am) so glad to be home.

*It seems unfair to survive 6 or more months of cold, snowy winter only to be rewarded by intense heat, humidity, and bugs. How can it be so hot and so cold in the very same place? Enquiring minds want to know.

Coming to you from San Francisco!

I’m drinking bad in-room coffee, but not at my usual modest motel, where there was, in keeping with the theme of this trip, no room at the inn. So I’m at a more expensive, but noisier and less nice place nearby. I had the middle seat for the long flight from Chicago to SFO, flanked by two very tall but very nice men. We arrived at the International terminal, for some unknown reason, so I had to line up for a shuttle to get to the regular terminal and retrieve my car. I hadn’t eaten since 4 am Pacific time that day, so I called Victor’s and picked up dinner on my way back to the hotel. It’s a good thing they are still open at 11:00 pm.

I don’t even know where to begin to tell you all about yesterday, especially since I can’t tell you, or my boss/partner what happened in the courtroom, just my lawyer.

I walked to our lawyer’s office in the 86 degree heat yesterday morning to be prepared for the coming ordeal (it turns out hat nothing can really prepare you for it, however). On the way there, I noticed this vacant lot which has been turned into a public garden, including vegetables:

Downtown Detroit has many beautiful buildings, including the historic building where our lawyer’s office is located. On the 13th floor. Here’s the view from the conference room:

That’s Windsor across the Detroit River. I can’t tell you how tempting it was to hop across the river and take a train to visit my Ontario friends. So close, and yet so far!

At the appointed hour, we walked to the courthouse:

I had to leave my phone and iPod at the lawyer’s office, but still had to go through airport-type security at the courthouse. I waited about an hour and a half before I was called. Your lawyer is not permitted in the courtroom, so it’s just you, the prosecutor, and the jury. I walked into the courtroom with the US Attorney, stopped in front of the clerk, and took the oath you see on TV. Remarkably, there was no Bible to swear on (or even mentioned). Then I stepped up into the raised witness stand and spent the longest hour of my life answering non-stop questions into the microphone. I kept my eyes right on the US Attorney the whole time; I never even looked at the jury.

When I was finally excused, he gave me a lovely parting gift: another subpoena dated August 15. He explained that this is just in case they have more questions for me after they read all the documents our lawyers submitted to his office. Supposedly it is not likely that I will have to go, and I hope that is true. I was terribly shaken by the interrogation and now I know what to expect, I will be even more scared the next time. If there is a next time.

At least it’s over now: the courtroom, the delayed flights, the waiting around, the worrying. It’s a beautiful, sunny day in San Francisco, as as soon as I have breakfast and pack up the car, I’ll be on my way home, the most beautiful place in the world.

As usual, karma ignored me. I got a seat in the very last row of the plane, giving me a front row set to the sights, smells, and sounds of the lavatoire. As an added bonus – as if one were needed – being in the last row means that the jerk in front of you can jack his chair back right into your lap, but you can’t return the favor to the fellow sufferer behind you, or even move your own chair to get away from the stunning view of his bald spot.

At least it made a change from the bathroom view.

Since the plane was smaller, it was much bumpier and more alarming than the bigger plane on the night flight from San Francisco. I was glad to arrive in hot and humid Detroit, though, after a day and a half of travelling.

Needless to say, the plane parked as far as possible from the ground transportation. I wonder how many airport miles I have walked over the past two days?

Fortunately, a friend had referred me to a fabulous car service that costs about the same as a plebeian taxi, and I was pretty much over plebeian transportation and the common man, woman, and especially child at this point. It was delightful to be relieved of my bags and ensconced in a town car with cool water provided. Not for the first time (or the last time on this particular day), I considered that whoever invented air conditioning is one of my personal heroes.

The driver was so nice and we chatted amiably as we headed downtown, even passing one of my favorite landmarks on the way:

It was the best part of the trip.

I was so happy to get to the hotel. It was surprisingly swellegant. I figured the US Attorney would stick in me in the cheapest thing possible, but instead, I got a lovely suite in a beautifully refurbished historic hotel, just two blocks from the courthouse of doom (where I’ll be spending today). Here’s the living room:

And here’s the bedroom:

Best of all, there was a tub in the bathroom!

I ventured out to find a much-needed (well, at this point, essential) bottle of wine. I learned that, among its other faults, like heat and humidity, Michigan does not seem to sell booze at corner stores or drugstores, the way California does. I ended up walking eight sweaty blocks to the nearest liquor emporium, where I was rewarded with a bottle of Skinny Girl Pina Colada, which I did not know existed. Just the thing for a tropical evening!

Back at the hotel, I drew a bath – though I struck out on bubble bath in my booze quest – poured a glass of pina colada, perched my MacBook on the bathroom counter, and watched “Gilmore Girls” in the tub. Do I know how to live, or what?

After that, I called Room Service – two of the most beautiful words in the English language – for my traditional while travelling club sandwich, and crawled into bed kindergarten early on either coast. Missing a night’s sleep and being tortured by airports and airplanes will do that to a girl. The bed was a cloud of heavenliness and I woke up before my wake-up call, ready to face today’s ordeal: Courthouse followed by yet more airporting. I hope there are no delays in either place and that I am back in California before the day is over.

Stay tuned….

Well, things did not go exactly as planned.

“Picking up forgotten items at lunch” turned into “half hour call with lawyers”, and forgotten items remained in oblivion.

Had a hasty falafel dinner with our friend Clayton in the lower reaches of the Haight, then went to the airport. I was astonished at the traffic trying to get in the airport at 10:30 at night. Presumably the media had been notified of my rare appearance.

Left the car in the first place I could find. Turned out to be as far away as humanly possible from my gate. Car was near Terminal 1; I was leaving from Terminal 3. By the time I hauled Self and bags through the unholy trinity, I was feeling Terminal myself.

Arriving at Terminal 3, I discovered that my flight was delayed by an hour. And yes, I did get the clueless about shoeless people in front of me, as predicted. Not that it matters when you have an extra hour to kill.

I was horribly disappointed to learn that all the bars were closed, yet the halls and seats were full. Why schedule flights when travelers are denied the much-needed solace of a drink? In fact, you couldn’t even get a bottle of water, since everything was closed. This became more annoying as the delay lengthened to two hours and more.

Once aboard, I valiantly gave up my aisle seat to a young guy who had been travelling all day with his girlfriend but hadn’t been seated together. I let them cuddle up while I took a middle seat. Are you listening, karma?

By this time, I already knew that I had missed the connecting flight to Detroit. Leaving the plane around 8 am, I was met by some helpful folks telling me that I was rebooked on a flight at 4:50 this afternoon. I am trying to change that, but the throngs of people in America’s busiest airport make an improvement seem unlikely. I have cancelled my meetings for today.

At this point, the court proceedings will be the fun part of the trip. At least I have a bottle of water.

I know most of you spend most of your time wishing you were Me, but today you would much prefer to be You.

I promise.

Here’s my unenviable schedule for today:

• 6 am: Get up. (Check! Up at 5:30 to discover that cats have broken one of my Elvis movie poster glasses. Bonus: water all over the place!)
• Get ready. Pack up car. Try not to forget anything. Say goodbye to kitties, assuming they aren’t out playing in the sunshine, which they almost certainly will be.
• Leave by 8:00 am for 45 minute drive to the jobette.
• 12:00 pm: Purchase forgotten items at lunch.
• 4:00 pm: leave work for 4 hour drive to San Francisco.
• Dinner somewhere along the way. I have a $28 travel day meal allowance, so I guess this means Chez Panisse is out.
• Park car somewhere at SFO. Drag Self and Stuff into terminal. Suffer usual indignities of having the temerity to travel. I am betting that I will be behind a couple of oldsters who have been living under a rock in one of the square states and has somehow managed never to have heard about the enforced shoe removal rule.
• Festina lente, as our Latin forebears would have it, though they couldn’t possibly have imagined waiting for a midnight flight to a place you don’t want to go to in the first (or second, or third) place.
• Hope the bar is still open.
• Terrifying transport to O’Hare, the busiest airport in the entire US of A, arriving at the unsalubrious hour of 6:20 am.
• Change planes, which will probably include changing terminals with my terminally sleep-deprived self.
• Somehow manage to arrive in Detroit at 9:40 am. Couldn’t I have gotten to Europe in all that time? Or at least Hawaii?
• Drop bags off at hotel, resist urge to leap into Lake Ontario, and head to a meeting at our as yet unseen (to me) office near the ballpark. Needless to say, it’s the All Star Break, so the proximity to the ballpark is completely useless. I am even more certain that the American League will win than I was about the airport oldsters.
• Meet with our lawyers. I imagine this will take my mind right off the impending trip home and the crown that is awaiting me if I am (un)lucky enough to survive the trip. Bonus!

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

There’s nothing like an unwanted trip looming on the horizon to make you appreciate your humble abode. Leaving all my doors open when I go to work! Driving to work beside the ocean! Having the adorable Digit (and my awesome co-workers) at work when I get there:

My beautiful, peaceful garden! My naughty kitties! It all seems like a paradise now.

As I set about packing today, I kept thinking about how much I would miss the kitties, the garden, and my hippie hovel. Not to mention the silence and the safety. I would venture to guess that Detroit is the utter antithesis of Hooterville.

The cats ignored the signs of my imminent departure and played outside under the big blue sky in the clean fresh air. It was about 70 degrees today, and I had all the doors open. Roscoe took advantage of this to import as many lizards as possible. He even went behind the pots and bowls in the kitchen cupboard, emerged with a lizard, played with it a while while I went to get the broom and dustpan to aid in lizard removal, and then vanished with it under the couch.

Under the couch appears to be the favored reptile repository around here. I figure by the time I get back from The D, they will have completely taken over, sitting on the couch reading and smoking a cigar and raiding the liquor cabinet*. They will look at me in disdain and wonder what on earth I’m doing in their house.

I took a much-needed break from stewing and fretting yesterday to have a Q with family and friends. Erica and Jessica were there with the Lovely Lucy:

as were Lichen and my siblings’ land partners, Dave and Jennifer. Megan had marinated a pork roast, which was slow cooked over the barbecue for hours. We made that into fajitas with grilled onions and peppers, as well as salad just picked from the garden and a cherry pie my brother made from scratch. As if that weren’t enough, we also had grilled fresh peaches, yet another delicious Erica innovation. You split a fresh peach, take out the pit, brush it with olive oil, dust it with salt, and put it on the barbecue for 5 to 7 minutes. Delicious!

Is it any wonder I’ll be homesick?

*Which is itself without a door, having detached itself from its hinges while I was at work last week. Mark and his family are in Florida at Disney Land (or Disney World), and when they get back, they are almost immediately moving to New Jersey for a year, so I’m not expecting it to be fixed any time soon. Oh, Rob….what are you up to in the next few days?

On Monday night, I was engrossed in the second season of the complex and rainswept* Killing, when I noticed a hole in my tooth.

Uh-oh.

Apparently a filling had fallen from its original location. Even more disturbing, I must have swallowed it without realizing. I tried not to think about all the “lead is known to the State of California to cause cancer” signs I have seen, from wine bottles (really!) to lead-based artwork in museums. And what would happen if the tooth blew up on my while en route to my grilling in Detroit.

Of course, this has to happen with the Subpoena of Damocles hanging over my head, along with a national holiday. The jobette was closed for the rest of the week, and I was afraid the dentist would be, too. However, luck was with me, and the dentist who takes care of my siblings and took care of our mother just happened to have an appointment at 4:00 on Tuesday afternoon (aka Independence Day eve). They are closed the rest of the week, so I was lucky to get it.

I was scared about what he would say and what it would cost, not, as it turned out, without reason.

He frowned while looking at the damage, and I said, “Don’t give me that face!” He laughed and said he was concerned that the filling was cracked and there might be decay in the crack. Fortunately, there wasn’t. He removed another chunk of filling and then sealed it up with some clear stuff with antibiotics in it, which should hold me until July 25, when I will be crowned for the first time in my life.

The crown will cost $950.

I wish it was from Tiffany instead of the dental supply store, but adult life is full of such disappointments. At least it’s not a root canal, right?

When I brought Jonathan his Thursday dinner and told him the saga of my tooth, he asked me when I called the dentist’s office. “About ten, ” I said. He laughed and said that the dentist’s receptionist called him around 10 to say that an emergency came up and he couldn’t have the 4:00 appointment.

Small town.

*The show is set in Seattle, but filmed in Vancouver. I hope at least half of the rain is special effects. Otherwise, all Vancouverites would look (and feel) like mushrooms!

It’s a great day for cats. Today (or maybe yesterday or tomorrow or next week, since she’s in Australia) my gorgeous niece Cat turns 30, and my adorable cat Audrey turns 6. Cat asked me whether I thought turning 30 or being subpoenaed was worse, and I said turning 30, since it lasts longer. Audrey just asked to be let out.

In other happy news, Erica and Jessica are back! And better than ever!

They made their triumphal return last Monday, but had to spend several days removing the carpet from their house (Erica’s tenant apparently had an extremely incontinent dog) and painting the floors, tenting out in their own yard until they could start to decant their furniture and things’n’stuff from the giant 26 foot moving truck which Erica had valiantly packed and driven from distant Portlandia.

Because Erica is Super Girl, and missed us as much as we missed her, she made the hour’s drive from her place to Jonathan’s for a barbecue on Saturday evening. Even though it was foggy, and as the evening went on, it started fogging, which is what we call it when the fog gets so heavy that it’s almost raining.

Good thing that Jonathan (note the blondeosity of his hair) showed Jessica how to start a fire in the fire pit:

Every kid should have lessons in matches and fire from a real fireman:

It’s surprising how much warmth the concrete ring can both achieve and hold.

Jessica had wasted no time in learning how to drive the golf cart. I may not have mentioned that Jonathan acquired the golf cart from someone in a non-operational state, fixed it up with Rob’s help, and now uses it to haul equipment and wood and heavy things like that. And, you know, for fun. Everyone, including Star, loves to ride in it.

Jessica was no exception, and wanted to take me for a drive. Jonathan put her on his lap and let her steer:

She seems to be a natural driver. She did very well navigating the twists and turns and even remarked on how you have to look a few seconds ahead and how the longer curves can be easier to drive than the short ones, all of which is true. You can see the concentration:

Also the pierced ears she got for her birthday. Our little girl is growing up!

Back in the golden days of our youth, my siblings and I were all golden-haired. But when puberty reared its ugly head, mine went from gleaming to drab, seemingly overnight. “We’ll take your blonde hair and swap it for decades of menstrual hell and pregnancy scares! Enjoy!”

This was about the time I began to realize that being a grown-up would not be the staying up late, eating pizza, and partying with your friends festival that I had envisioned.

Needless to say, my brother, the only boy, has retained his thick, almost platinum blonde hair into his 40s. He doesn’t really think about his hair, washes it with soap most of the time, and keeps it ruthlessly short year-round. Of course, he also has Dad’s blazing blue eyes and his own absurdly long eyelashes. Just another of Ma Nature’s wickedly unfunny jokes.

Once the plague of puberty had mousened me, I fought back by dyeing my hair, sometimes to its former glory and sometimes pink or purple, since it was the ’80s, one of the most embarrassing and unflattering decades ever, and things like that seemed like a good idea at the time. Like parachute pants and giant shoulder pads that would have made Joan Crawford balk. Or lift her eyebrows even further, if that’s possible.

When the recession hit and I found myself having to sell my jewelry to pay the bills (sob) and even buy socks, personal maintenance fell by the wayside, along with fashion magazine subscriptions. No more highlights, waxing, or mani-pedis. It was a dark and ugly time. Much like my grown-out hair.

But it’s always darkest before the dawn, so for this landmark birthday*, Megan bought me highlights for my hair! The artist in question is a charming lady who cuts Lichen’s hair (even the most accomplished stylist can’t cut their own hair). She has a little studio in the former pump house on her property. We had a great time chatting with her as she worked on my hair. She is from Germany, where hairdressers train for nearly four years as apprentices, spending part of their week at school and part of it at the salon, helping and observing and taking on greater responsibility as time goes by.

All I can say is all that training really pays off. My hair looks completely natural, but so much better and brighter. She also cut it, and when she was finished blow drying it, it had never looked so good. Bright and bouncy and fabulous. Unfortunately for you, I had no make-up on that day and was too vain to document my new and improved hair with my old and unimproved face, so you will just have to take my word for it for now. I will be interested to see how it looks after I do it myself tomorrow morning. If I were rich, I would definitely have a stylist on my staff.

In other happy news, Megan and Rob are celebrating their 21st anniversary today!

*Since I had the highlights installed on the next to last day of June, I really did have almost a birthday month!

Well, I wrote a post a few days ago, and then I got paranoid and deleted it, and then I had second thoughts and thought I’d restore it, but it seems that when WordPress deletes something, it stays deleted.

Told you decision-making was not one of my strong suits.

Last Friday, my boss/partner called me to say that I have been subpoenaed to appear in front of the Grand Jury in Detroit in a couple of weeks. This is even scarier than that audit we went through a few years ago.

Also, it’s going to take forever to get there and I haven’t flown in so long that I can just feel my flying phobia in full bloom again. And then there’s the whole court thing.

Right now, I’m planning to work at the jobette on the Monday, drive to San Francisco after work, and take the red eye, arriving in Detroit early on Tuesday morning. I’m supposed to meet with our lawyers that day to be prepared for the Grand Jury on Wednesday. Then I’ll fly to San Francisco on Wednesday night, stay overnight, and drive home the next day.

That’s a lot of hassles and 6,000 miles just to tell people that I don’t know anything, because I don’t. I got paranoid and took the earlier post down because I was afraid that the Powers That Be might somehow find it and read it, even though I hadn’t said anything that could get me in trouble.

I think.

I told my good friend A about the whole thing, and she said to think of it as exciting and glamorous, and being part of a courtroom drama. Another friend said I should feel really special, since there aren’t many Grand Juries convened and your chances of being called to testify in front of one is about one in a million. It will be an experience, he said, but I think it’s one I’d rather not experience.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that this is actually my job. Well, jobette. And that they pay me to do this!

A few days ago, I left work around 11:00 am to go on a tour of artists’ studios. This is a new local business, and the tour operator wanted to take around some people as a sort of test drive. There were 8 of us: me, two gallery owners, my counterpart at the Chamber of Commerce, and the rest worked at hotels.

We were driven around in a comfortable, climate controlled van, equipped with water bottles and a flat screen TV, which showed movies of the artists we were going to visit. It was one of those postcard days when even I can hardly blame the tourists for driving so slowly, and it was great to be able to actually look at the scenery instead of the long and winding road.

We visited Paul Reiber, who does wonderful things with wood. Here is his studio:

He made these mirrors. The round heron one was made for his mother, and he got it back when she passed away. The circle of life…

He also made these charming toys:

And this breathtaking headboard, showing various stages in an iris’ life:

We had a lovely tray of appetizers to accompany our wine tasting at the Wine Shop:

We had a tasting flight of five wines, four from the County and one was what Mark, the sole proprietor, calls a “ringer” from another county, in this case, Sonoma. They were all delicious. Mark says, “The first law of wine is drink what you like.”

Next, we visited Richard Yaski’s studio. He does amazing things with metal:

This is a memorial to his late wife:

It reminded me of what Christopher Wren’s tombstone in St. Paul’s Cathedral says: “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.” I imagine this beautiful, hushed place was dear to her when she lived there. It is a very moving piece.

This house on Richard’s property is made out of an old school bus:

He drove it here when he moved from Los Angeles more than 40 years ago, and he lived in it for many years. Now it’s rented out. Here’s another view of the house (note the tail lights beside the front door):

Next was Julie Higgins’ house. By this time, I felt like I was on an episode of “Cribs: Hooterville”. This is Julie’s home and studio:

Here is some of her work, displayed in her living room:

It was a wonderful experience to be able to meet the artists and be welcomed into their homes and/or workplaces. This area is famous for having more artists per capita than anywhere else in the country, so it’s really special to be able to talk to the artists about their work, their inspirations*, and techniques, in the very place that the artwork is created.

*One thing that struck me was that all the artists are inspired by the local ravens, which seem to be very powerful symbols. They are supposed to be able to divine the future as well as being keepers of secrets. Some say they are bringers of light. Whatever they are, they are inspiring and mysterious.

I’ve been promising you some pictures of the garden party palace over on the family property, and here they are at last!

The whole thing started back in March. Or maybe February. Making a garden here in the pygmy is not as easy as it is in most places. First of all, you have to get your friend to bring his heavy machinery over. Then, he hacks up the huckleberry bushes, manzanita, and other various scrubby bushes:

You get to remove the root balls and debris by hand, though. Hours of fun!

After that, your friend comes back and tills through the soil and smooths it out:

Then you spend a zillion dollars on real dirt, which you can (and do) have delivered. Then you make it into raised beds.

Now, the pygmy soil is a dustbowl in the summer and a mud pit in the winter. To help keep the garden from blowing away, you buy lots of hay and purple vetch seeds, which you strew liberally on the spread out hay and hope for the best. The idea is that the vetch’n’hay combo will anchor the soil.

It worked like a charm:

Next, you plant fruit trees (apple and peach) for future shade (and cider making) and almost everything else you can think of: potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, arugula, strawberries, tomatoes, beans…

Of course, all these plants need water. Good thing you have a big water tank:

and that well (the white cap on the left; the cement square is where the pump house was built later) you dug a couple of years ago. And have another machinery-wielding friend who can dig trenches for water pipes:

While he’s at it, you realize that you might as well lay electricity in as well as water, since there’s plenty of room in the trenches. So you do. Then you fill in the trenches.

I forgot to mention that you also need Friend One to dig post holes in the hard soil, and you have to buy posts and deer fencing and then install all the posts with cement which you have mixed and poured yourself. Little details like that.

And you need a couple of gates, one big enough for machinery and one for you to go in and out. Might as well make them pretty while you’re at it.

Rob and Jonathan made the framework for the gate (which they painted blue) and built the planter boxes and lattice (on which our father’s favorite flower, sweet peas, will grow) entirely by hand:

Same goes for this redwood lattice gate:

Just add a fire pit (a repurposed well ring):

a couple of hay bales, barbecues, and you’re ready to party! The enclosure, at 6,400 square feet, is even big enough for camping when you’re finished partying:

We’ve been picking salad from the garden for the past couple of months, and strawberries are beginning to ripen. It’s kind of like magic to just go over there, pick food, and eat it.

We also bought an additional hive for the bees:

Last year, they swarmed before we were ready, so some of the bees moved on to greener pastures somewhere. But enough were left to keep going, and they were thriving enough to need more room this year.

Megan and Jonathan moved some queen cells to the new hive, so some bees stayed in the old one and some moved to the new. There seems to be a little confusion around the entrance of the new hive, but on the whole, they seem to be doing well:

Sometimes when I’m over there, I look around at the garden, the bees, the windmill, the well, the solar panels, and even the tree where little Henry Etta sleeps peacefully and am amazed by how far the property has come with the hard work of my brothers and sister, through imagination and dedication and love.

One of my many defects as a grown-up is my inability to make a decision. My usual method is to procrastinate until one course or another becomes inevitable, and then go with it as though it were my idea all along.

Sometimes a girl’s sloth gets unfairly rewarded in this manner.

Remember my concerns about road tripping to distant Portland to visit Erica and Jessica? The problem has been solved, without my having to do anything.

Erica and Jessica are moving back to California!

They should be back some time this month, and I can’t wait to see them. Unlike Self, Erica actually made an actual decision, and I think she was right.

Essentially, she was up against many of the same problems I had when living in Oaktown (aka the Bad Old Days): expensive rent (especially for the living space it paid for); huge water and electricity bills; the impossibility of finding a part-time job to defray these expenses.

She also mentioned that Jessica had concerns about the lack of other adults in her life, hardly surprising in a girl who was already thinking three years ago (at the age of six) about what would happen to her if anything happened to her mother. Here there is no shortage of grown-ups (faux and otherwise) to step in and help out when needed. Or just for fun.

I’m looking forward to having those two back in my life. More Jessica stories to come! Stay tuned!

Well, for this year, anyway.

On Saturday, we had my family birthday celebration. It was at my house for a change – Jonathan’s place has become the summer party pad, mostly due to the fabulous 80 foot by 80 foot garden, equipped with two barbecues, a fire pit, and hay bales to sit on. Now it even has electricity and running water!

But I felt like having the party at my house, where my kitties and Schatzi could meander in and out (and I could keep an eye on the Stanley Cup playoffs). The menu was simple: barbecued chicken breasts with grill bread* and salad from the garden. Rose’s daughter Catrin stopped by for a little while, and so did Mark. It’s good to have an outdoor living room.

Megan had already given me a gift of highlights, which we are still trying to schedule with the stylist who cuts Lichen’s hair (he’s too busy landscaping this time of year to girlscape), so I was surprised when she handed me a long, wrapped box.

Inside were these wonderful light up branches, which remind me of pussywillows:

They really look fabulous, don’t they?

We stayed outside under the stars (and by the twinkly light of the branches), sipping wine and talking, remembering our increasingly distant childhoods and feeling lucky to be part of each other’s lives.

I could not have asked for a happier birthday, or for better friends and family.

*It’s sort of like naan, or pizza dough, cooked quickly on the BBQ grill over the coals and served with olive oil mixed with Megan’s secret blend of herbs and spices. It’s magically delicious.

Well, Wednesday was a little unexpected.

I thought I’d have a relatively quiet day, since most of our staff would be at a meeting out of town. Turned out, I was the one at the meeting out of town.

The CEO called me and said that no-one else could attend the meeting. He asked if I could go to the meeting and take notes. I barely had enough time to print out extra documents on our creaking, ancient printer, get gas, and head out of town to Willits.

Willits is best-known (if known at all) as the home of Seabiscuit. You can visit the stables and ranch where he lived out his retirement, if you aren’t rushing to a meeting. Willits is also the home of the oldest continuous rodeo and Fourth of July celebration in the state.

I was more interested in finding the hotel where the meeting was to be held. I was told it was between the McDonald’s and the Taco Bell, and it was. Ironically, I hadn’t had any time to eat that day, and they actually looked pretty good to me as I drove past into the hotel parking lot.

I barely had time to race up three flights of stairs with the conference call phone, my co-worker’s laptop, my handbag, and a bunch of documents. It didn’t help that was over 80 degrees there. I made it with seconds to spare. Then I had to figure out how to set up the phone and the computer, pass out the materials, and take notes.

Whew.

The meeting went on for four, count ’em, hours. When it was finally over, I packed everything back into the ovenesque car and headed home with the radio blasting along with the air conditioning.

Those of you who live in cities and have real commutes will laugh when you learn that it’s 32 miles from Willits to Charlottesville (and a further 25 to Hooterville). Ha! You say. What’s 32 miles? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the longest 32 miles of your life, is what it is. Up hill and down hill, getting high enough to be snow-dusted in winter and as curvaceous as Jayne Mansfield on steroids, the road is frequently signposted at 25 or 15 miles per hour. You feel like you’ve been driving forever, and it’s only been 10 miles.

The part of the highway (two lane road) I was driving on is actually the last part of the California Trail, blazed by emigrants in 1850, the other end being the interchange to Truckee and the Donner Pass (where you may remember my furniture being marooned a few years ago). It has been a paved highway for more than 100 years. It took me an hour to get to Charlottesville, and it had never looked so beautiful. I took a detour to drop off the computer and phone at the office and pet Digit, and then pick up a much-needed burrito (I was starving and there was no way I was cooking when I got home) and while I was waiting for it to be made, stopped in at the library, which stays open late on Wednesdays, to exchange the week’s books.

It was a long day, but I certainly got a lot done. And it was…interesting.