Blog bogdown

In the middle of the night I am up with my computer on my lap.  I can't sleep.  I haven't written here for months now, but I've considered sitting down with this quite a few times.  Disciplined writers work at it day after day and get through blocks with persistence and fortitude.  I suppose I am not such a writer.  I have been painting instead and changing - not just the color of the rooms of my home - but myself.  Change is constant, as you know, but sometimes the eventfulness of the change is pretty consuming, and that's what I have noticed since I wrote last.  Continual change.  The way I see people, what matters to me, how people affect me.  More important than me - my opinion, my self-orientation - is the way the world works out problems, how equilibrium plays out in real time.  You know, the dynamic steady state.  A little of this and a little of that - balancing each other out, playing off each other.  Chinese call it the yin and yang of existence.  I think about that.  A lot.  I see it everywhere. 

On the other hand, we have blogging.  I guess that what I want to do, and what blogging is, are two different things.  Blogging is:  "I went to the store today and saw the new shop that has just opened up.  I went in and bought a cute little doodad and wow was that cool."  Or it could be:  "I am a specialist in the field of political punditry and my opinion is very important.  You should pay attention to all I have to say each and every day." 

Realizing that it is 2:57 AM, I am not unblogging.   Instead, I am certainly uncertain about which direction to go with writing.  I write because I think.  Better than that would be:  I think because I write, which is true.  But, if logic applies:  If I don't write, I don't think.  I'm lost and I don't think it matters right now.  I'll straighten it all out later. 

It's nearly Christmas 2009, the nighttime world is asleep. 

Springing into Fall

The sky is singing blue happy.  I was out there for a while and could not possibly take in enough of it, all of the autumn crunch in the grass laughing.  It is this change after a long low howling summer that makes me sit up and blink.  Yes, it's good.  Yes, it is the 180-degree turn back toward spring in the distance, boomeranging us soon enough through winter.  

The summer was a dog all right, lying there all twitchy and dreaming, not moving much except in my imagination.

How else can you tell you're alive if you don't notice the air outside or the dirt under your feet when you walk?  Stand on a hill away from town (if you have a hill somewhere to go to) and yell as loudly as you can.  Take a deep breath and just HEY! really hard and listen.  Not only does your heart beat harder but you hear evidence of life:  A shout in return. 

Birds do it in the morning:  It's very quiet in the predawn gray light (if you're lucky).  Then, randomly, a little bird ventures a chirp, a cheep, a twitter, tentatively.  A pause.  Another in some other tree or bush responds.  He senses it was another, not himself, who chirped first.   A few others join in and all those little ones with tiny hearts beating at some ridiculously fast rate as they sit still (even before the first cup of coffee), all shriek in their way.  Light! It's light again!  Every and all little life-lets with feathers are run through with the energy of the new light dawning. 

Then, after all of them sing their twittering arias, peace reigns, coffee is poured and a sigh exhaled.  Damn! that was good.

Why does that first bird sing?  It's a good question.  He's got something worth saying:  God zapped his little shorts and he's telling us about it in no uncertain terms.  He made it, did not become a midnight snack for a cat.  He made it.  He MADE it!  He's alive!  Same reason to go yell HEY on a hilltop next time you're up there.  You're alive, life is in you and you've got something that must absolutely come out - loudly. 

Too still outside to fly a kite on shore, it would be good to be out on the bay in a boat, rushing over the water, aware that onshore in the distance autumn is settling on the trees like fine dust on a curtain.  You can see a million miles across the bay today and imagine  the Pleiades dancing around the moon.  The sky is singing blue happy.  Isn't it odd how Fall feels like Spring sometimes?

In a Strange Land

Pacific Grove has a couple of gems in its boundaries.  Mainly, there's Asilomar Beach State Park, way out over west there, elbow to elbow with the exclusive ghetto called Del Monte Forest.  I think you could easily say about one fourth of the habitable Monterey area (Pebble Beach, Tehama, San Carlos Rancho, Pasadera, Carmel Valley Ranch) excludes the other three fourths of its inhabitants either totally or only admits them if they hand over a wad of cash. 

Pacific Grove doesn't exclude anyone from gazing at its prettiness.  Because of that, visitors find it peaceful and tranquil and make plans to move here.  If they hand over a very large wad of cash indeed, they commence life as we know it:  Very quiet -- hushed actually -- and a bit eccentric.  Consequently, it has evolved into yet another kind of exclusionary enclave. 

A man I once knew described the little towns on the Monterey Peninsula as fiefdoms, each pointing fingers at the others and each one filled with folks who felt comforted to know that all the bad apples lived in those other towns.  A case in point:  Another man  I spoke with once said he'd moved to Pebble Beach because it was beautiful.  (It is)  He had lived in Seaside, a town that grew up next to Ft Ord catering to the needs of the Army soldiers training there.  Seaside isn't very beautiful but it has the most beautiful view of the Monterey Peninsula you'll find anywhere around here, especially on a clear moonlit night.  This man lived in Pebble Beach and no one would talk to him.  Neighbors, if they ever inhabited their homes (they could be a second or third home), drove into their garages, the doors closed and no one emerged for long periods of time.  He felt alone, existing in a strange void of not-neighborliness.  He left in disguest and went back to Seaside.  There, neighbors offered each other help and gave out their surplus vegetables to each other.  Kids played outside and life had a happy rough-and-tumble feel that he said was "a million times better than being in the Forest." 

Pacific Grove is somewhere in between.  You'll find both kinds of neighborhoods here.  Mostly, people will help you out and consider themselves unique, special, above average.  They'll share vegetables with you, but they gotta know you first.  You are not welcome until you've found your own friends and established yourself somehow.  It takes a long time.  People new to the area complain that California is unfriendly, people don't say hello, and they feel lonely.  I can see that it's true here.  It's not an attitude of blatant, obvious rejection so much as it is a strong hesitancy to venture a greeting, an approach to life and strangers that stems from self-distraction and abhorrence of chaos.  Be careful! it says.  No loud talking! especially in loud foreign languages.  Hush!  My quietude and isolation are paramount to my success in the world, and I require you not to intrude into it! I have paid a lot for the right to remain silent!  Hush!  

Pacific Grove is a pretty town, beautiful even, depending on what view you're taking in.  There is a bucolic peace here.  But, it's deceptive.  It's a twilight zone, an expensive,  even a timid one.  It sits between a cold deep bay to its north and a wealthy exclusive neighbor to its south.  East is Monterey, and I'll get to that another time. 

Fall clouds, old memories

I live in a small quiet town where most people are very comfortable, sedate and generally unchallenged by the vicissitudes of nature or politics.  Killers do not stalk our town and gangs don't bother with us.  Well, the raccoons do, but they don't usually carry guns.  The wind blows every afternoon after 1 o'clock.  There is no summer and no winter.  Nothing changes.  It's ironic as hell that I live here.

When I was small and lived in Carmel Valley, I would come to Pacific Grove with my brother and sisters, all five of us stuffed into a green Chevy station wagon with fins and a punch-button radio, and visit my cousins here.  It's a 20-mile drive from there to here but it could have been a different planet, and we voyaged across some unseen chasm, a transmutation of life as I thought I knew it.  PG was as boring and dull a place to live as any kid could hope to avoid, even then.  They had sidewalks!  I could hardly imagine that and yet I saw it:  A life lived without hills, a river, trees; nowhere to run, sing out loud and hear the wind answer.  It was horrible.  Cement and a contained, restricted existence faced me, confined me.  I felt I was in a foolish place when I stepped out of the car.  Houses were suspiciously close together, claustrophobic.  Life seemed hidden, more uncertain; curtains were drawn; it was cold.

The feelings I had derived from a free-range childhood lived outdoors for the most part.  Carmel Valley -- in the village, as it's called -- is inland and much warmer than coastal towns are.  Seasons, moderate by mountain standards, are discernible by more intense temperature variations, and trees turn colors in time to them.  A river, beleaguered as it is, flows there and has shaped and formed the valley.  It roared, gurgled, whispered and shushed in turn, and I listened.   

 The warm fuzzy glow of a happy reminiscence is not what I am about here.  I developed a taste for knowing what grows wild because it was powerful and alluring.  I felt the weather changes and seasons. I explored everything out there, beyond the door, by pulling things up, tearing them apart, watching things live and die.  I learned, like kids do when they have been shoved out the door with no money, that what grows does just fine on its own.  All that I could get my hands on or watch day after day fascinated me and made an impression on me.  As far as I could grasp it, God was there in the dirt, up in the trees and flying around in the sky and I was running around in the middle of it all.  It was glorious and amazing and intoxicating.

When I returned to the valley after a visit in town, I was happy and knew I was home where I belonged.  I was very fortunate and am now grateful beyond measure to have a deep well of wild memories to draw on. 

Here in the Groove, we are a quiet, dull bunch.  The raccoons chittering and screeching at night remind me I need to stick my hands into dirt, turn rocks over, listen to rivers.  I growl about seagulls strafing my car outside, but they, too, remind me of what is real, and it ain't cars. 

I saw an unusual sky this morning.  Clouds looking like the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth were charging in from the north and the wind was gusting leaves across the roadway.  It's wild out there, thank you God, and I want to stay that way. 

Lunch at Zocalo

It's time to celebrate!  It's my last night shift tonight.  I was playing substitute all this month and now I'm done.  Back to evening shift and a much more normal sleep cycle.  Whew! 

Also, my daughter got herself a new job.  Just when things were looking too tight and too dismal to handle anymore.  Whew again!  

The weather forecast for today:  super hot - in the 90s at least - but as I'm sitting here at my keyboard, the sky looks gray, there's a chill in the air and not a bead of sweat anywhere in town.  So, it's Pacific Grove's version of hot.  You need a light jacket and a brisk walk to warm up, but that's okay.  I'm in a celebratin' kinda mood.  So, how about a nice zingy plate of Mexican fare to ward of the chill midday air and enjoy the good news?  Ah, Zocalo! 

We walked down to the Groove, past the Holman Building, and right on into Zocalo, our favorite Mexican restaurant around, by far.  They serve home-made tortillas, delicious ablondigas soup (meatballs floating in delicious broth), dark rich mole sauce and even have lobster tacos.  Something for everyone.  My choice today was a side order veggie burrito for $5.95.  Very tender tortilla wrapped around beans, cheese, steamed veggies, all seasoned lightly and steaming hot.  He had chipotle chicken tostada for $9.95 with tender local lettuce, whole pinto beans, queso (cheese) and fluffy rice.  As usual, we were licking our plates clean at the end of the meal and felt satisfied and happy. 

A Mexican friend of mine who waits tables at another local eatery says Zocalo is her favorite Mexican place, too, and believe me that's a pretty good recommendation.  Coco has told me her mother was from Old Mexico and "could cook anyone under the table.  I didn't even know what a pancake was until I was a teenager.  She always made old-school hand-made Mexican food."  So, go to Zocalo and enjoy a nice casual but authentic meal.  It's just right. 

A Rose, Hope and Love

I dug my hands into the big bag of potting soil and inhaled the scent of it. 

With both hands cupped and filled to overflowing, I piled my bucket up with the fragrant soil and walked over to my little climbing rose in its redwood planter.  They say the rose is the symbol of love, the divine feminine, the eternal mystery.  But, you have to keep the vine healthy first before there can be a bud or a blossom.  I have no buds on this little vine.  She is struggling to find her place in life.  I imagine in my mind's eye a vine loaded and heavy with blossoms, petals floating to the ground on the morning breeze.  She looks gloomy though, unhopeful, a little discouraged. 

I water her, I feed her, I look for things that may harm her:  Little green caterpillars that eat her tender leaves and little mites that sap her strength.  Still, in spite of my ministrations, she is struggling to hold her own.  I keep hoping, and I am still learning how to grow a rose. 

She's meant to be a climber, to send tendrils to the wires I've strung and beyond to the fence where she can spread her vining branches.  There is opportunity for her; she senses it is there at the tips of her tender growth tips.  

I spread the soil into the planter and tamp it down, patting it firmly. It feels good. I've added a special ingredient, too, that combines pest resistance and nourishment.  I water it in and let her know how much I want her to grow and flourish.  She hangs her leaves and looks wan and listless, stressed.  She nods and waves her pale leaves halfheartedly, but I feel encouraged for her.

My hope for this little rose has taken on a more symbolic tone.  In terms of reality and practicality, I know she will find the right time to bloom, will do well.  In terms of my vision for her, I see in my mind's eye a green vigorous vine thriving, successful, fulfilled.  My vision has to do with love and belief, my hope that an imagined reality can guide the expression of her potential. I see what can be, not what is. 

Isn't that what we do though?  Move in a world full of ugliness and tedium with a vision of some beauty and joy in mind - try to match something in our world to that vision and celebrate when even a small match is made? 

I could have given up on her, cut her back, criticized her failure as a vine, her difficulity coping with the stress of living, but that says more about me than it does her.  I'd rather hope for her beauty while I love her all the while, look forward to her strengthening vines and sturdy growth and then her beautiful flowering glory. 

If I hope, I can love.  If I love, I can hope.  The two things are indivisible and without them, the blossom never can come to fulfillment, and the mystery can never be expressed.  My vigilance is now allied with her own vigor and resilience, and the potential for beauty is undeniable.  The manifestation of her gifts and glories is yet to unfold.  I am eager to see it but willing to be patient and give her lots of time now. 

I wash my hands under the flow of cool water from the hose and stand back to see the little rose growing in its box.  I think she has already taken strength from the freshened soil and water.  She already looks more hopeful. 

The sun dashed a few diamonds amongst her leaves; droplets of water left by the watering hose began to dry in the midday warmth.  The moment lingered as I thought about what I had decided to do:  Allow for time to express the fulfillment of potential in a rose.  There's no rushing that sort of thing, you know.  Patience, now, patience.

Mrs. Delish's cupcakes and a new kind of Hero

Over to the Groove I went, off to the Farmer's Market, the first time in a while, having been prevented by my work schedule for a long while.  Before I knew it, I had loaded my bags with tomatoes, sweet basil, plums, crimini mushrooms, squash and tilapia.  Strawberries are still looking good, so I bought a three-pack of those.  Wow, are they fragrant.  And, as I had hoped, they are amazingly delicious. 

I reacquainted myself with Mrs. Delish's who sells cupcakes to hungry passersby.  I love that she packs up your cupcake for carrying in a smart little box to keep it from squishing.  I noticed she's selling more variety now.  The chocolate with green mint frosting is the top favorite of little kids, she says.  My new addiction is the dark chocolate with vanilla frosting with toasted coconut on top.  Taste reminds me of a Mounds bar - my childhood favorite candy bar.  It was rich with dark chocolate flavor and just enough sweetness for balance.  Three bucks and you've got a little bit of heaven in a cupcake paper. 

Next door to her was a young guy selling three kinds of gourmet sandwiches.  I bought a half of a Tuna Caper:  "A logical twist on a common offering.  The capers add a satisfying briny element that makes this comfort food even more comfortable.  Lettuce and tomato are standard." Italian ciabatta bread tops it off.  Not one to limit myself to just one flavor, I also bought a half of a Goat Basque Hero:  "Goat cheese mousse topped with red fire-roasted peppers, Spanish olives, Marcona almonds on sour dough." Two entirely different but equally tasty flavor sensations.  I prefer the Goat Cheese Hero - the almonds add a nice crunch and I am a sucker for fire-roasted red peppers.  He's working on a web page and just getting his business off the ground. 

Leaving the River (rogue river part VII)

The fifth day on the river is our last and we have mixed emotions.  One emotion is:  I stink!  You spend time on a river and pretty soon you smell like one.  Actually, much worse than this one did. 

I showered once at Horseshoe Bend.  We had set up an area discrete from the main camp area; it was a gravel-covered bench about 50 feet above the river's surface, set back maybe 50 also from the bank.  A long rapid tumbled downstream and created a rushing zen backdrop.  It was totally private from our camp, out of earshot and obscured from view by a large rock outcrop.

Obviously, the usual way to shower is to take off all your clothes, rinse, soap up, rinse again and you're done.  There had been no rafts on the river for an hour or two, definitely none during the time it took to get the sun shower bag hung on the rock and prepare my supplies.  Off go the clothes and I begin to soap up.  I should have bet money:  Round the bend come three rafts and I am standing there not dressed.  Definitely naked.  In the middle of nowhere. I am now the most interesting scenery they've seen for a while.  Can't a bear turn up on the opposite bank and distract them? Shit! (River speak for:  Where did they come from?)  Well, what are my choices now?  Dance?  Wave? Scream? Not much I can do; I turn away and pretend I shower every day on large exposed river bends.  La dee dah.  Ho hum.  Right.  They have the good sense to keep to their rafts and float away.  Chalk another one up to my excellent luck. 

Two days after the showering-naked-on-a-river-bank incident, I am stinking ripe again.  I have no intention of going home except that I want to smell better than this.  A hot shower beckons me back to civilization; all else repels me.

On this our fifth and final day of meandering and doodling on pools, bobbing up and down on riffles, we have settled into new ways of moving.  We have aches, blisters, welts and bruises, but we are still singing.  Last night, we camped on a bend by a slow-moving pool.  Downstream we hear but don't see another camping group.  Upstream, we had floated past a group of men already camped.  At just past twilight, our group begins to howl at the moon.  There's no TV; what else do you think of doing when the moon comes up?  The two neighboring unseen groups hear our howls and echo them.  Howling goes on for a while and gradually fades out.  Everyone is satisfied.  All bears and wildlife, aside from we humans, are long gone, probably holding their ears and shaking their heads.  But, we're satisfied, feel a little wilder, attuned to a different sense of time.  We sleep like rocks.

Next morning, I see Tom up on a ledge above the kitchen area with his tent over his head, shaking out the dirt, singing, "It's not unusual to be in LOVE with anyone!"  His coffee has worked wonders.  He's channeling Tom Jones and seems full of himself.  An actor in LA, Tom has performed on stage as well and can mimic a poodle's bark and his Russian landlady's accent with stunning accuracy. I wonder if he'll be pounding his chest and swinging on vines next. 

Debi dances by, a grin bigger than the bright sun lights up the universe.  She's listening to ACDC on her iPod and packing her dry bag between sashays to and from the boats, hauling her gear and humming. 

Stewart, one of our oarsmen, hands out fake flower leis.  We are a happy mob of stinking river floaters and love the river like the mother that she is.  We load into the four rafts, one ducky and two kayaks and ease into the slow current, looking back at the river bank.  It looks empty, bereft in a way.  I think it's my sense of nostalgia already taking hold, changing reality into a sepia-toned reminiscence.  I feel like sobbing into a beer for a moment, yielding to the melodramatic possibility of perhaps never coming this way again.  That would be a tragedy.

We vow to return, to return to all rivers, any river that will take us back.

The river has a last very technical rapid to throw at us - the most challenging for our oarsmen.  They scout it and cinch down our gear more carefully, then check their life insurance policies.  Well, I remember I have one anyway. When they are satisfied about the route between some gigantic snaggling horrors of boulders, we shout and commit ourselves, plunging headlong on the sloshing roller coaster.  The giant green tongue licks us forward a bit to the right, Chris hauls hard on the oars to get us immediately left, we wheel right again and the raft bucks.  The crests of waves slap the boat and dash water in our faces. I hang on to whatever I can grab, hold my breath and scream at the same time, amazed that it's possible.  I think about my whistle, forget all over again what the signals are.  I imagine myself underwater, trying to blow one long or three short, and I see the dinosaur-sized rocks standing guard left and right, crazy big water piling up against them.  The swishing roar is intoxicating.  In a minute that stretches out all the way to this very moment, the river's wild heartbeat thunders in my ears and she sings her wild song, the same one we'd howled the night before.

A few more riffles separated by long drifts through deep green pools define the rest of the day.  Finally, we've reached the take-out and work commences again.  All the "shit," as we've all come to call it, is hauled out and loaded up for the long drive back to Merlin, upriver.  The day is hot and the river seems more distant even though she's right at our feet.  I feel her rhythm and pace, know her destination, see her flowing away from us, on and on, a wild thing. 

Smiles, promises, good-byes and we're gone, cast to the four winds, driving to our separate jobs and ordinary life again. I feel torn away and adrift in a different way, far less free, stinking and tired.  Happy, grateful. 

The Rogue water is flowing still, and moves me yet.  Our stretch of five days, more or less, is an interchange of time for energy; it charges up my soul as it has not been charged for a long while.  Pray for rain and for the river.  She needs our understanding and care.  In turn, she gives back a hundredfold to every one of us who knows her and, in ways we do not or choose not to acknowledge, she caresses us all. 

River bank crew (Rogue River part VI)

We sling our heavy dry bags to and fro from boat to bank and we all take a hand in camp chores including setting up the "kitchen" and tents. Kevin sets up The Groover, a necessary but unglamorous job. The Groover, aka crapper, stinkpot, pooper, potty, etc., is required by the permit to be brought along; all solid human waste must be removed from the river environs. We take only pictures and leave only footprints. Poop not in the wilderness, maties!

The kitchen consists of a long narrow table on which sits a camp stove powered by a propane tank; a lower and equally long table is covered first with the meal preparations and then the food and utensils as we eat. Chris rigs a clever washing system that's comprised of two buckets, a bulb pump and a faucet made of copper tubing. One hose pulls water from the clean bucket through the faucet and then into the gray-water bucket. You step onto the bulb to pump water out of the faucet and wash your hands - just like downtown. A long mesh bag is slung under the cook table which holds the drying pots and pans, plates and utensils after they're washed. Each raft holds a large cooler and a very large aluminum chest containing packaged foodstuffs. They're packed to bursting.

Life on the river is a peculiar mix of luxury and austerity: We bring as little as possible in clothing - garments that dry very quickly, even shielding us from ultraviolet sun - but as much as possible of all manner of food and drink.

Spotting a choice camp each midafternoon, we haul ashore, scout the camp area, claim tent sites and then set about food preparations. To a person, we attack the food with gusto, having floated quietly on the river for a few hours. Pupus (extravagant predinner snacks) are prepared and consumed very quickly. Then drinking commences and explorations are undertaken.

Rogues, Roguettes and Raids (Rogue River part V)

Two young rogues are with us - Dan and Chuck - and one roguette, Laurel, who is quiet on the face of it but proves to be a wickedly adept paddler in the ducky. A ducky is a deceptively named inflatable kayak that requires quick hip action, deft paddling and fast reactions. She surprises us with her nerve, taking on the best the river has to offer with aplomb, earning our admiration, making it look like she's born to it. Dan and Chuck, two immortal young daredevils who fling themselves off the highest climbable precipices overhanging deep pools of the river have boundless energy. Dan tops all feats with a towering backflip from a 45-foot-high slab of volcanic rock. Gasps, shouts of encouragement and applause echo off the cliffs.

We carry weaponry aboard our rafts. We are Americans after all. These consist of large day-glo orange and yellow machine-gun-shaped water rifles that shoot fairly accurately up to 15 feet away. Other rafts wield water cannons, pump-action single-shot blasters very accurate at the same distance. Bucketsful of water and oar swats are other options.

Skirmishes are short and strategy consists of filling a gun in a quiet moment and taking aim. Mostly, attacks are quick, 15-second blitzes followed by screaming, laughing and entreaties for peace.

On the fifth day, we are becalmed, drifting.  A nearby raft presents a big fat opportunity, a sneak attack. We grab our machine gun and fill it with river. Pumping quickly, a lucky couple of well-aimed squirts hit their mark and we high-five. Dan, riding in Chuck's raft has no countering weapon aboard. Feeling immensely superior, we float on. Suddenly, flying nearly overhead and to my right, Chuck leaps from his raft to ours. Shit! (river speak for "where did he just come from?') 

Landing like Spiderman on the forward section, the dastardly pirate grabs our gun. Damn! Before we can react, he is gone and we realize we've been stripped clean and are now sitting ducks. Chuck shouts and waves the booty overhead, and the other boats applaud his daring raid. Summoning our pride, we wait for an opening and heave a bucket of water on Dan. Oops, maybe this is a mistake. Nailing the cliff-diving daredevil with 2 gallons of cold river water without warning - well, now there's provocation. He smiles, feigning surrender, appears nonplussed. It proves to be the smile of the fox plotting to raid the hen house.

We float on. I try to imagine myself leaping from raft to raft like Chuck the Pirate but realize my vest (aka puffy orange corset) would render me sausage-like and unable to do much more than an awkward splat from the side of our raft into the river. 

We forget the incident and begin to look for a camp.

Mistake!

Dan has slipped silently into the water and slithers like a snake to our raft,  just like a commando, with a fully loaded machine gun of water. Chris is caught off guard and seems confused but - turncoat! - admires Dan's daring raid.  We take our punishment full force and are soaked to the bone and hoist the white flag. There is no contest. Youth prevails and we limp away like drowned rats.

Curious, those comments

Those who commented were helpful.  Somehow I've done something so that when a comment comes to me, it shows up twice.  This could be problematic when I have legions of fans, but until then, I'm okay with accepting only one of the two comments.  It does make me feel like I'm seeing double, though.

Thank you for responding.

Now, on to real writing.....

COMMENTS?

At the request of a frequent reader, I have tried to explore the comment function here on Blogger in order that your comments are shown and/or received.  The process is this:  You register on Blogger or another list, you read a blog entry of mine.  You click on the "comments" radio button below the entry and another screen pops up.  You write your comment and click on the drop down menu which shows the list you have registered with (Blogger for instance).  You should also see a box below that shows a word written in wiggly font that you have to duplicate.  After that you hit enter or something like enter and it should then be sent to me so that I can take a quick look and make sure the comment is appropriate for human consumption.  Then I approve it and it's attached to the blog entry. 

What I'd like you to do is make a comment after this now so I can test to see if the process is working.  If I receive no comments at all, I'll try to hunt down further help so that I can make the process work properly. 

Thanks for reading.  I'm bummed that the comments you have tried to post have been lost.  I hope I have fixed it.  I'll keep you posted. 

Okay, now comment!  

River and We 16 With Coffee (Rogue River Part IV)

What is crucial to life as you float down a river? My mind eddied off to the left and contemplated it all, considered the meanderings and left them, floated back and left them again. The arc of the sun from the eastern arising to the western setting encompassed the entirety of the universe as we then knew it. All of what is important in life fit within that arc and exactly that - nothing more mattered.

We had left our watches back at the put-in camp out of necessity. Few of us owned a waterproof timepiece that would stand up to a minute or two of light splashing, never mind a true soaking, but that was just as well for it nudged us toward the goal we had hoped for: Getting our senses back. We needed to reacquaint ourselves with the arc of a summer day.

I awakened each day at predawn never sure quite what had opened my eyes. Most likely it was birds. Osprey chirping, eagles' dry shreep-shreep-shreep and the unholy prehistoric graaaaaak of a blue heron. I went for slow walks along the river or up around camp to see what might reveal itself, and I simply sat by the graceful curling rapids and listened to the river in all its range of sounds. Underneath all was a steady heartbeat indistinguishable from my own.

We were pleased to no end to discover that one of the oarsmen, Tom, was a devout and highly obsessed coffee brewer, a barista in disguise. He arose almost as early as I every morning and set about preparing his special brew with what turned out to be characteristic precision and care. Attention to detail matters, Tom and I agreed. He had purchased Peets coffee in advance in a very delicately blended mix, estimating almost exactly how much each of us would care to drink each morning. Starting with the large red speckled tin coffee pot that was set to boiling, he brought out filters, cream, organic sugar and a tea assortment for those unable or unwilling to savor a cuppa joe. Carefully pouring the hot water through the exactly measured grounds in the filter suspended over the coffee urn, Tom could not and would not be rushed or distracted from his crucial chore. This was not coffee to be gulped and ignored just to get a caffeine hit. Banish the thought! This was a special nectar whose full rounded rich flavor exemplified the joys of eating outdoors in a wonderful place.

We learned to be patient, and patience was rewarded. After we had been on the river only one day, for the most part we looked like a pretty motley crew and we were not ambitious nor full of urgency in the slightest. Morningtime found us gradually assembling near the brewing coffee with a distant, unfocused and vaguely unconcerned demeanor. We shuffled and murmured and smiled and remembered we had no idea what time it was and did not even care. We were entropied motes floating, loosely assembled in time and space with one bond between us: A warm, aromatic cup of perfect coffee. We took sips between long gentle inhalations of morning air and then gradually formed a novel idea that breakfast might be nice to have.

So, two of the group were handed likely cooking implements and foodstuffs for the meal. Breakfast was made. We sat again by the river in our camp chairs and stared again at the flowing water, taking long drafts of coffee, savoring what was put on our plates. It seemed that breakfast was reinvented, rediscovered and marveled at as if we were emerging from a coma in a new century.

The several cups of caffeine began to take effect in many ways: Suddenly awakened kidneys went into full gear, heart rates rose noticeably and minds were now alert. Murmuring changed to shouts and songs. It was time to go downriver again. Pack and prepare, assemble and load. Of one mind, we were 16 river floaters with all gear dry bagged, bodies sunblocked and wrapped up again in our stiff, awkward vests and oarsmen taking up position on their respective cooler boxes amidships. We were rogues on the Rogue and having none of this softened pace. Take us down 'er, men! We are ready for what she may have for us!

And ever the river flowed. It always seemed to be something more than a river and yet was only a river. It was simply water flowing down grade to the ocean, of course. But it was free and set us free again, held a mystery deep within itself - green, liquid, reforming constantly and endlessly. Beside it and now riding it again, we were of a mind: the day was in full blaze and the rapids awaited once more. (To be continued)

Remembering the Rogue (Part III)

We exist in a world of air-conditioned bubbles of metal and glass, computer-generated graphics, recorded sound, virtual reality and flash-frozen food.

A river that runs its course between high volcanic cliffs under a blazing sun or a vast expanse of stars and planets is none of that. It flows. Rushing and tumbling, thundering or lapping, it always flows.

You ride the river, you swim in it, you sit by it, you hear it, feel it, see it. And it always flows. Its energy is constant and abiding. It makes allowance for your presence and moves on. And after you have left it, you continue to feel it, sense it and be moved by it. Your dreams change, your balance changes. It has a pulse that drives your own.

Off the raft, on shore, kitchen in place, we shook out our chairs from their sacks and sat and stared at the river for the rest of the day. We moved from here to there on the river bank and back again, but we always heard the water in all its range of voices, and we never tired of staring at it, listening to it. To say it was magic is too simple. It captured our attention from a time long before we came to its banks and stayed with us long afterwards. It was, above all else, powerful and demanded respect. The river was always flowing under us or past us, around us.

Soon enough, we were sleepy and went to our tents and sleeping bags, slept like rocks on the shore. The whole night, constantly, the river flowed. We were soothed like babies by the shush and gurgle of water against rock and sand all night long. We had found our place in the universe, were made to feel small and knew it was right and good. An infinity of stars and a singing river will do that to you.
(To be continued)

The Big Green Tongue

It took a day or so until I heard it: No engines, no weed whackers, no leaf blowers. I was sitting on the front of the raft and heard gurgling, lapping, splashing and the occasional creak of an oar in the oar lock. Nothing else. Blissfully, wonderfully peaceful and silent.

The more I heard silence, the more I loved it. It took less time than it takes to read this sentence to realize that it was the sound of heaven to me. I breathed it in and looked around, hoping the giggling smile spread across my face didn't look like it felt: Caught farting.

Before the silence, however, there had been a lot of screaming.

Just before that had been an quick interchange: "When do we get to our first big rapids?" I asked Chris.

We had been floating downriver in lazy circles, like a leaf in a little pond blown by a breeze. Chris, the expedition leader and oarsman, had been telling jokes and looking around, smiling absentmindedly at the distant tree tops. He seemed sleepy, finally relaxed after loading up all the "shit" - boaters' talk for gear - that had taken several hours. His sleepiness was infectious; I contemplated tipping over in my life vest and taking a little nap in the sun. The best I could do with the vest though was flap my arms and shuffle my feet around a little bit. I accepted the ungainly puffy orange corset as fair exchange for the bliss I was feeling.

I asked the question casually, dreamily, believing we had a long while of floating and sunning ahead of us. Chris had let the raft float sideways, frontwards, and then backwards, unconcerned with guiding us in a one-way fashion.

"Now!" He took the oars in hand and looked over his shoulder and to the rear.

"Now?" We were going backwards, and now I heard it. The voice of the river had deepened, intensified. Oh. I am sitting on a cooler imitating a beachball and we are heading toward whitewater. Going backwards. Chris rowed and we remained backwards. I sort of laughed, but it came out like a squawk. Shouldn't we be going forwards? Shouldn't we be able to see where we're going?

I remembered my lesson from earlier: Stay out of the way. Also: Blow the whistle long to alert for something or another. Hmm...confined to a 14-foot raft with several hundred pounds of gear, my husband and an oarsman with an odd sense of direction, I wondered where I could go. Over the side? Too close to the rapid now for that. When was I supposed to blow the whistle?

Now we were slowly turning to our left and swinging around. I could see the rapid finally, a long jumbled series of splashes, stacks of water piling up like little hills frothing at the top, rocks sticking out of the hills and smoother glassier water here and there. It looked like there was no good way through it. The safety talk about not pointing at rocks and whistling recurred to me. There were rocks everywhere and a cliff on one side of the river. I really needed to point at something, and it became an urge so strong I could hardly overcome it. I became so conflicted between the need and the admonition that I just waved my arms around and squawked again. Now I was a large orange chicken, I thought. Squawking.

"Hang on!" Chris called out. To what? I looked around and reminded myself this was what I had come here for, prepared for, dreamed of. Whitewater fun! More squawks. I grabbed my vest but, no, that didn't really make sense. I grabbed my husband, but that made less sense somehow. If I was going to be jettisoned from the raft by a wild bucking river and I grabbed my husband on the way out, he would land on top of me and squish me. Not to death exactly, but two big orange beachball imitators like us would not make a pretty picture thrashing around in the river. We'd be left for dead. The rest of our party, frightened to approach, would look aghast and mutter a few prayers for our souls as they floated past. Maybe one would play a bagpipe. Or a banjo. Both. Dueling bagpipes and banjos.

Chris was now talking about "the big green tongue" of the river and I looked with a sudden stillness of heart at what he was aiming for. The water that had been swirling coyly and gently had gathered itself with an intention of purpose that rivaled any soccer mom driving a minivan in a crowded parking lot. The surface had become green, smooth and now moved much more rapidly into a long v-shaped stretch. It looked like green honey; it was liquid but dense and full of power. The tongue of the rapid.

The current grabbed the raft and hauled it down the tongue, which licked over and around a lot of submerged boulders, each one forming its own tongue of smooth water, pouring over the tops of them. On the far side of the rocks, each one in turn, was a hollow of backflowing whitewater that roared and splashed. We dipped up and down, up and down and each white wave dashed me with a bucket of cold water. I grabbed something to hang onto, probably my camera strap, nothing useful, and graduated from squawk to scream.

Suddenly, we were through and back into calmer water again. "What class was that rapid?" I asked with adrenaline raising my voice. I was ready to tell all my friends back home about my harrowing escape from death. "Class II or so, maybe III. That was a nice little one." Somehow disappointed not to be dead or mangled (odd huh?), I imagined bigger rapids. The classification goes up to Class V, which is where rapids take rafts and throw them up into the treetops at the river's edge. Class VI is Niagara Falls.

Instantly addicted to the sound and motion of a wildly kicking river, I straightened up and looked downriver for more. I felt my confidence return and made plans to become a river guide, outdoors woman, whitewater legend. Yeah, this was where I belonged, on a raft in the western wilderness, ready for any challenge, riding free. I spat dramatically, feeling like Annie Oakley and considered a cold beer.

Then, I looked down and saw the spittle on my knee. Yuck.

After a couple of hours of bucking bronco water interspersed with mellow pools of peace and serenity, we hauled ashore for the day and set up camp. (To be continued)

Remembering the Rogue, Part I

I learned a lot of things on the Oregon river called the Rogue. Most of all, I learned that humans can hardly go anywhere without a literal ton of things. River guides call it shit, so I will too. "We got to load all this shit on the raft or we aren't going anywhere." "Man that's a lot of shit!" "Where do they get all this shit anyway?" Like that.

I took all my REI prizes (see previous post) and headed north, gathering with my tribe on the banks of the Rogue. It was hot in a way that volcanologists who scoop red-hot lava understand, and metal was dripping off my car by the time I got to the gathering spot. My body, which is usually shivering and clammy in our local fog at this time of year, puffed up immediately to twice its normal size and I looked like Mrs. Tomato Head. But, I was thrilled to be joining the ranks of adventurers who seize the day and sally forth into the wild blue yonder. I was overdue for sallying.

The river was beautiful and seductive from the moment I saw it shimmering in the blasting heat. It made cool delightful noises and I wanted to jump into its arms immediately. Instead, I gaped at the massive tonnage assembled next to our four rafts. "Man that's a lot of shit!" Chris the Expedition Leader strode around making sense of it and cursing it in turn. He's been down a million rivers and had a very clear idea of what was supposed to happen in the next few hours. I had only the one idea: Get it all onto four rafts and go float on the river. That idea simplified quite a bit to the point where my idea was: Stay out of the way.

Chris gathered us around and gave us a safety talk. "One whistle means something. Three whistles mean something else!" At least that's what I remembered three days later. "Don't point at obstacles in the river, point to where there's a clear spot. If you see a rock in the way, don't point to it, point somewhere else!" Hmmm...this was going to be a lot tougher than I'd imagined. Mostly, because when you're a passenger in a car and the driver is heading straight for a truck, you tend to want to scream and point to the grill as it bears down on you, not point at a tree nearby or a distant cloud.

Next thing I know, we are shoving off and piling into the rafts. I'm wearing a straight jacket. Well, they are quaintly called life vests, but you are forced by the confining thickness of the jacket to walk like Frankenstein and cannot bend at the waist at all. You feel impervious to almost everything, bumping off of other people and trees like a large ball. You jump into the river and get pulled out again by the shoulders of the jacket as if you were a large flounder flopping helplessly, kicking your legs ineffectually and hoping the person hauling you in doesn't strangle you with the jacket because you forgot to retighten the upper buckles of the jacket the last time you decided to breathe. The technique is supposed to be simple: You jump in, swim, pee in the river while pretending to watch an eagle fly overhead, swim over to the raft and ask to be helped back in. On three, your helper grabs the shoulder pad area of the vest, leans back to counter your weight and hauls you up and over the side. You slither up into the raft and resume your post in the bow feeling refreshed and content.

I was confident and happy to be riding in Chris's raft on the first day. Until he abandoned ship. Between rapids on the Rogue are long stretches of deep slow-moving water that nonetheless need some guiding hands on the oars to negotiate effectively. Just as I was beginning to develop a deep calm, Chris let the oars go slack and simply dove off the raft into the water. Just like that. Hey, come back here! Certain that we would soon be swept off an enormous waterfall or bashed up against an unseen rock, I began to calculate the time it would take me to row to shore, secure the raft and call for a new guide.

Cell phones - if you are silly enough to think yours will survive all the water and dirt - don't work in the river canyon. I realized I was exactly and simply another piece of luggage on the raft. I don't know how to row, can't get myself through a rapid, didn't really have a clear idea of where I was exactly and was wrapped up in a rented life vest feeling like - and looking a very close approximation to - a beach ball.

Just before I got to the squeak stage of anxiety (which preceeds the whimper stage), Chris hoisted himself back into the raft and took up the oars. "Man, that's the best thing on the river. Just jump in and cool off. That pizza oven wind is blowing. Can you feel it?" He grinned and laughed, rowing heartily toward the distant roar of rapids. (To be continued)

Hummingbird musings

A calendar page has turned and we are in September. At last, summer is here in the Groove. As summer arrives, the leaves float lightly from the sycamores and sail across the streets, landing with a scratchy shushing sound. They whirl up again dryly as tires rush past.

It's beautiful here when it's summer/fall. Warmth so long anticipated is a lulling tonic. Riots of bougainvillea blossoms splash color against the adobes of Monterey and clapboard sides of the Victorians here in the Groove, almost too violent a color to take in. I squint sometimes when I see them, but the intensity of the colors please me.

I coddle three rose bushes in my little garden, hoping for an occasional spectacular blossom. They are very fussy and hold out for more pay; I have to hand pick insects off of them, fertilize them just so, groom them in particular ways. In contrast alyssum and Santa Barbara daisies are like Catholics; they breed prolifically and scatter themselves everywhere, requiring an occasional squirt of a hose now and then. They bloom in any soil. Unlike Catholics, who usually smell like garlic - at least the ones I know do - alyssum is as fragrant as honey.

There's a keen little hummingbird that has set up shop in a nearby Monterey pine. It aims its little needle-like beak at a distant flower bush and flies pell mell toward it like a fighter jet. Licking nectar from any flowers that have it on offer, I can't imagine the energy that's needed just to hover as its tongue gathers its fuel. Wings hum at 200 beats per minute I've heard - a blur. Hummingbirds are ferociously territorial. I wonder if they have ever thwanged themselves like darts into fences by accident. Probably not.

I was rummaging around in a potted plant a few days ago when our hummingbird decided to check me out. He flew to within three feet of my head, wings beating like mad. He moved to his left a few feet for a better view and then to his right. Maybe my skin lotion was interesting; maybe not. Rather I think it was the fact that my garden hose was on and he smelled fresh water. I felt intimidated by his rapier beak and my skin seemed very vulnerable to a stab attack if he so chose. Bored, he returned to his high perch in the pine and carried on with his territorial rapid-fire squeaks and chirps, sounding like a tiny rusty hinge up there.

Now that the sun's rays are slanting at a lower and lower angle every day and we feel her heat all day long, we are smiling more, walking less briskly, looking for hammocks in which to swing idly in the afternoon. Summer crowds are finally gone and we in our specific summer/fall groove can drink the sweet wine of patience rewarded.

Venturing Before the Adventure

I went to REI today because we're going on a river trip next week. Uh oh is right. REI is a huge danger zone. It has everything to feed my every fantasy of adventure, travel, and sporting challenge. I can be anything I want to be, go anywhere on the planet I want to go and feel totally competent, fit, prepared, mighty. Of course, my credit card turns into a little melted blob when I pay at the checkout counter. It even smokes a little bit as the plastic melts.

The sales staff at REI always grin and crack their knuckles with anticipation as I approach. They see me coming and start dancing around in celebration, knowing they will all get huge fat bonuses for selling me everything in the store. Today the staff was doing a conga line around the display of tents and freeze-dried foods. They stopped when they knew I'd seen them, and they tried to look innocent, punching the button on the boom box for a cool jazz station instead of the salsa they'd been boogieing to before.

I had a long list of items I'd been told to buy in order to be prepared for the river. Sleeping pad, carabiners, dry bag, tent pegs, water bottle. Quick-drying clothes. I didn't need to buy a raft. The river rafting company would supply that, but everything else under the sun seemed to be fair game. The REI staff began drawing numbers so that each of them would have a chance to steer me to further purchases.

I started with sleeping pads. There were inflatable ones you have to blow up yourself before using. There were self-inflating ones as well. I imagine they somehow create a vacuum when a valve is opened and air as well as any living thing in a nearby area is sucked into them as they self-inflate. I decided on a plump non-self-inflating model that is about, oh, 12 inches thick. My mattress on my bed is comfortable and about that thick, so I want to replicate that while bedding down after tough days braving whitewater rapids, right? 12 inches, minimum, would do it. The first salesman who'd shown me the pads tangoed away and another waltzed over to take his place. Sunglasses? Right this way.

Next I found myself looking at a huge display of zillions of sunglasses and selected a sporty pair with a dashing shade of blue for the frames, very French adventurer. "I peese on your stupeede and very seelee Americaine sheds. Theese French sheds are zee best in the uneevairz. C'est vrai!," they seemed to sniff at me. Of course, the sheds, er...shades, needed a keeper so that if or when I get dumped from the raft in some hair-raising rapid, they would not end up at the bottom of the river. I added a light but useful-looking set to my cart. My credit card was beginning to get warm in my wallet.

That done, I bid farewell to salesman Number 2 and was approached by a third. He eagerly showed me beverage cups and all their accessories. I fondled and touched each and every cup and container sold in the store. I admired a $40 titanium double-walled model with a tight-fitting lid. I imagined sipping from a sleek missile-shaped container coated in tough aluminum that cost $30. Pragmatically, I settled on a $4 ordinary cup figuring if I lost it, I would not be very sad at all. Number 3 looked crestfallen and wandered away.

Next, it was over to the clothing area. Now we're getting into a very uncertain territory for most women, certainly for me. Salesman number four waved his arms around pointing out the features and benefits of the high-tech garments in the ladies department. He beamed at me. I looked vaguely confused and asked for time to browse, so he obliged me and walked off to high-five his cohorts nearby. The shirts, shorts and pants as well as skirts were arranged in attractive and even flirty ways to attract maximum desire in the hearts of customers like me. Feeling unusually optimistic, I selected about six items from various carousels and racks and strode confidently into the fitting room to try them on.

Oh my.

Fitting room lighting and mirrors are, at best, confidence crushers. This one today was just devastating. Five out of six garments were so hideously wrong on my body that I nearly burst into tears, swearing to never eat food again in my life. Why did I eat that berry cheese danish at Pavels last week, I wailed. Finally, summoning up my last bit of hope, I tried on a pair of lightweight pants and felt redeemed somewhat. They fit! I slunk out of the fitting room, feeling something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. I knew I was going to have flashbacks for days if not weeks afterwards. All confidence was totally gone. I knew I was in trouble when, after thinking I'd redressed myself properly, I looked in the mirror for a final check and noticed I'd forgotten to don my pants and had only my shoes and shirt on. I must have entered a fugue state briefly, probably from the horrible shock of seeing myself in the dressing room mirror in that horrible lighting that adds 20 lb to your figure and shows every dimple and sag. I have heard very intelligent and confident women swear never to return to certain dressing rooms again in their lives. It can be just awful.

With a deep sigh of resignation, I went to what I hoped was a much safer area of the store and looked at insect repellent. Then I began to rethink my happy dream of the trip ahead. Hmmm... It will be the height of summer. Five days on a river in the middle of nowhere. Mosquitoes breed and lie in wait knowing that soft and tender-fleshed greenhorns will venture into their midst, defended only by a thin smear of chemical. They laugh heartily, scornfully, smoking their unfiltered French cigarettes. Then the deadly blood-sucking vampires pounce with gnashing teeth and slurping tongues and leave you, a blotchy itching miserable and whimpering lump of jello cowering in your tent, begging to get back to the coast, to the fog, to seagulls for god's sake. Anything but there on the Amazon where your blood is slowly but steadily drained from you, and you cry one last desperate but weakened cry of despair and then gradually lose consciousness and all fades to black....

The staff persons of REI had resumed their conga line after they saw my cart filled to the brim with supplies for the trip, and one man joked about hiring a Sherpa to carry it all, snorting with hilarity.

I walked out into the sunlight, holding my smoking credit card with an insulated glove and imagined myself riding splendidly down the river next week, paddle flashing in the sun, skin smeared with DEET, new pants riding jauntily on my slim hips. I can lose 10 lb in four days, right? Even if I don't, I'll at least have 12 inches of new sleeping pad to cushion my head at night. Ah, the sleep of the damned.

Hiding in the Fog

I've noticed recently that it's August, and we are well beyond the time of solstice at the height of summer. Just about a week ago I went to The City, which we in California call San Francisco. It's up there to the north of us, on the coastline - like we are in Pacific Grove.

Famously, an explorer a few hundred years ago came all the way from Spain and accidentally stumbled on the huge and impressive bay to our north and he was amazed, as he had every right to be. It's complex and far reaching, essentially gathering water from all of Northern California. The ferocious currents swept his ship into the myriad inlets and curving shores, so he, arrogant and proud Spaniard that he was, claimed it for Spain and left. Back in his home country, the explorer recounted his exploits including a glowing and fantastic description of a vast inland waterway and beautiful hillsides abounding with game and plenty.

For two hundred years, no one could find the inlet again. Had it disappeared? Did it ever exist or was the original explorer full of salsa? Truly mystified, king after queen sent shiploads of Spaniards to search and explore. All came home again with sad frowns of defeat and frustration and gazed forlornly into their sangria, unable to account for the missing bay.

Finally, again by accident, another expedition leader woke up from his siesta on the poop deck, rubbed his eyes and there it was! Something like the neck of a bota bag, the narrow strait that is now spanned by our famous bridge was visible and beckoned him to come ashore, which he did, infecting all the native americans with overwhelming pestilence and plague. But, that is another story.

Our lovely summer blanket of fog had precluded further exploration after the first claim of ownership for Spain was made. It had acted as it usually does, blanketing the coastline so effectively that the entire inlet of San Francisco was obscured.

I'm not sure what the Spanish word for fog is - do you? - but I believe the left coast of the continent should have been named after it. No telling how many more years the bay would have gone unsullied by European exploration if the second Spaniard had slept just a little longer.

Tour de France and nothing else

I'm held captive in the clutches of the Tour de France, unable to wrench myself free until the final rider crosses the finish line in Paris tomorrow. I was hooked on the intricacies and spectacle of it years ago when I tried racing and rode my bike all over everywhere. While it's complex and there are many aspects of strategy involved in the sport, the visual appeal is hard to deny. Riders everywhere imagine themselves riding up the huge mountain climbs or bombing down twisting devilish descents, but only a very minute percentage of racers have a realistic chance of competing. Among those, an equally tiny percentage have a hope of competing to win.

When the Tour coverage begins in July, I'm glued to my TV and love every second of it. Like one little French lady said a few years ago, "The Super Bowl? Pooof! What is that compared to three weeks of the Tour?"

I agree.

Blocked

Writing is hard work. It's solitary, bedeviling and painful work. Hemingway knew that and so does any other writer who's been published. You get to the point where you know that when you look at the screen or the paper, nothing's going to happen, and you imagine all kinds of self-pitying scenarios, most of which involve no writing but lots of screaming and thrashing. You hope for things to happen to you so you'll be torn away from writing against your will, and it won't be your fault you don't write ever again.

Next time you wander into a bookstore, stand back and let your eyes scan all the spines of all the books displayed there and imagine that, probably, for every inch-thick book, there has been about a year of a writer's life spent. At least. Lots of paper, lots of backspacing and deleting. Probably lots of therapy hours spent, too.

I'd say having an urge to write and then not succeeding at producing an interesting paragraph or even - god, let me, please, a sentence - is a lot like anticipating a nice cool swim in a pool you know about and finding that the pool has been drained when you get there. It's soooooo disappointing. You ask yourself (after a few satisfying foul words tumble out): Well, what else could I do besides swim? What else could I do besides write?

For me, I can think of lots else, but not many other things draw me to them. I guess I could go wash my windows since I can't see out of them anymore. That would actually be useful. Or, I could walk, or read, or sing, or SOMETHING!!!! But, you have to understand, I feel like writing. I really need to write, and, just like I really need to breathe, if I don't write, I will crumple up into a little ball and end up in a corner behind the sofa, dead. I'd bet money that that's not probably something you can relate to, needing to write.

I probably won't let myself get to the point of a desiccated, shriveled little mess of frustration. I'd go the fridge or the store long before that, but I know it would only be a delaying tactic. I flew into the Monterey airport one time in a private plane with a friend. We were going from point A to point B, B being the airport here, but in the approach, we had to use delaying maneuvers to avoid piling up too close behind another plane. My friend had to start banking left and right, left and right to slow down his forward progress. We knew we were going to end up at the airport, but we had to avoid it for a while. I got airsick and almost barfed. Avoiding writing is a lot like that. I know I have to sit down and do it, but I can delay it by going to the store or a bakery or to the ever-beckoning fridge. I'd eat, or walk and eat, or anything but write, but the whole time I'd know I was meant to write because I told myself I needed to write.

So, there you go. You can let me off the hook by saying, "It's okay, don't write, you've done enough, it's all good." Or, you could say, "Write, write, write! Never stop!" And I'd have no excuse, possibly even be encouraged and then, even more possibly, my mind would unlock and I could write again. So, what'll it be?

Okay, here I go to the fridge....

The fog and the mock Chinese

Here it is Sunday and the sun has rustled by in her long skirts, hastening to the evening performance at the horizon. The breeze is lifting the leaves lightly on the ornamental plum in my neighbor's yard, tickling them, teasing until they all turn, smiling prettily, flirting with the boys. This is when the day begins to shift to evening time. Twilight, the shy good-looking end of the day, is stretching its arms and preparing to dance with the moon.

We've been seeing a full arc of weather every day lately. Fog rolls in, picks his teeth absentmindedly and checks out the sports page, obscuring the sun for most of the morning. Eventually she tires of him, thinks him a boor and by midday sends him packing. When we get to day's end, we are feeling as if summer actually exists, but the experience is short-lived. Fog shuffles back and sits on the trees and park grass, lolling around, ignoring angry stares and muttered grumblings from us all. It's just the way it is here.

The sun has a better time of it over in Monterey. She has set a limit and holds her line at about the crest of hills that border Monterey and Pacific Grove. She puts her foot down, and the fog generally takes heed. But, over here, it's different. Here the peninsula sticks into the bay like a referee. The ocean currents wrestle one another and take down small boats, kick up spray and pound the shoreline. The victor hauls kelp up on the beach, spoiling the fine blond sand until high tide cleans the stinking strands away.

You'll need a jacket, good walking shoes and a plan if you're going to venture out. Your best bet is to get out at about 8 in the morning. Go get a real cappuccino at Juice 'N Java downtown or up on the hill (Forest Ave.) you can go to B's Coffee. Both will get your heart started and fortify you for our version of summer. Then, you'll be ready for a ride or a good walk where you can take a look around.

PG is gearing up for a weird but charming little festival - The Feast of Lanterns - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you've dealt with the elements in the summertime on our Peninsula. Over 100 years ago, the local assemblage of Protestant summer campers were bored and very cold. It was July and even though drinking and partying were not ever to be indulged in, something really had to change. Being fervently religious white folks, they decided to host a Chinese pageant and dress up like princesses. They floated a mock dragon in the little bay at Lovers Point and set off fireworks, all in an effort to divert attention from the penetrating chill of the fog. Further back in time there were actual Chinese people living in a rickety collection of shacks where Hopkins Marine Station is now, so perhaps in an odd tribute to the now-vanished community, the white folks invented an odd, quirky festival that continues to this day.

In a nutshell, the pageant includes belly dancers, samba drummers and little kids with big voices who sing the Star Spangled Banner. Princess Jasmine (always played by a hand-picked white girl on her way to sorority membership in college) and her Court escape the Evil Mandarin and eventually everyone lives happily ever after. Then someone turns into a Monarch Butterfly, and a huge display of fireworks turns the fog pink, blue, white and purple with loud percussive thumps. It's very grand, and everyone cheers wildly and cares not one whit about its silliness. It takes your mind off the clammy fog and absence of bikinis, off the raccoons throwing pine cones at you from the storm drains and deer chasing your dog off the lawn. It takes your mind off the wind that blasts down from the north and from the sun who's gone into hiding after her aria at midday. It reminds you that we are cornered over here and shoved up against the big cold Pacific but that we are living here, doing our thing in our specific but quirky little groove.

Waiting for Summer

Summer has reverted back to its old patterns after trying on some unusual heat last year. With a sigh, it has settled onto the sofa and is taking a nap until fall. Then, I'm hoping, it will awaken and dash around raising the heat and ripening the fruit in the trees. We are cold here because everywhere else is hot. It just works that way. The big deep cold Pacific is being asked to provide cool air after the warm air inland - hot air actually - rises into the heavens, creating a vacuum that the cold air tries to fill. The provision of coolness comes in the form of fog for us, cold, formless, persistent. There has been enough fog lately that cars are beaded with moisture in the morning. They look as if someone had turned the hose on them all night. The rooftops are wet and water pings in the downspouts every morning.

I feel so hopeful every day, looking for sun, wishing for warmth, remembering a suntan. Vine-ripened tomatoes are the stuff of wistful conversations among gardeners around here. "I wish I could just grow tomatoes," my friend said today at breakfast. "My roses look so bad." She pantomimed a withered and sickly being, weakened by pests and mold. "You should just forget about roses in Pacific Grove."

My roses are trying hard, but every bug and ailment known to science is now afflicting them. All for the lack of good warm sun.

Well, on the positive side, we do have plenty of calm here. And gray. Also, we have an abundance of guano, but that's only really a benefit for, well, I'm not sure, but there must be a benefit. So, there you go. A calm, gray, bird-shit-laden town that remembers it once grew tomatoes somewhere else.

A glimpse

He reclined in his chair and felt his body gradually relax. He inhaled quickly and let the accumulated clang of the day become muffled and then silent. He sipped from a cool tall elegant glass and felt the beaded moisture on its surface, ran his fingers up and then down one side of it. The light was dim in the room and the distant city was now quiet.

Then, he saw her silhouette in the doorway. She stood and regarded him, her arms at her sides. He noticed one single finger fluttering, almost imperceptibly.

"Do you like my shoes?" she asked. They were all she was wearing, but she wore them very well.

"New?" he asked.

"Do you?" Her eyelids lowered and the slightest wisp of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

"Will it cost me?"

"Could."

Cake Diving

I always thought it would be fun to burst out of a cake. I had a birthday cake once that was a doll whose skirt was cake and frosting. I think that gave me the idea. Covered in cake, I could be quite happy.

It's definitely a spa treatment I have not seen listed locally in our many fine hotels. In Pacific Grove, there are no spas. The town was dry until a startlingly recent time, so having a spa would be just as abhorrent to town fathers and mothers, at least of the older and grayer variety. New mothers and fathers probably actually enjoy making small boutique brews of their own, but the older town fathers....well, they ruled out fun for a pretty long time.

Imagine the difference between growing up on Lawrence Welk and then being faced with Pink Floyd just when you had life all figured out. Both involve a certain swirling experience evoked by froth and breezy smiling happiness, but champagne bubbles floating gaily around accompanied by polka music is worlds apart from looking at The Wall through a haze of psychotropic smoke.

I have to say, I have not actually indulged in a full spa treatment. No hot rocks, avocado facials, nor mud baths. No, I'm saddened to admit that my life has to date been limited by modest means and has not included mineral thises and thats. However, if a cake bursting experience in which I could be the burster were offered by an imaginative spa purveyor, I do believe I would be first in line.

If I could not burst out of a cake, I would definitely choose to swan dive onto one. I think reading myself to sleep while lying on a cake that I have just landed on would be a gentle and happy indulgence almost beyond imagining. I would love to do that. So, one for the bucket list: Swan dive onto very large delicious cake and really, really enjoy it. Mmmmmm hmmmmm...

What's on your list?

Beyond Begonias

The sun came right out and said "Off with you!" to the fog today, and, amazingly enough, he went. So, the sun's out and she's having a great conversation with the summer breeze, who must be doing most of the talking because it's a little brisk out there. No clouds; they've run off somewhere, probably just hanging out, texting friends, planning a party or whatever clouds do in the summer.

I took a quick look at my flowers just now and they're looking pretty dandy, doing their best to attract bees. But, I believe the bees are napping or possibly in watching Wimbledon. They prefer to do their work in the morning before the breeze takes a walk around town. I have some begonias that are looking pretty awful and may just need a little nudge to the great beyond. They are a little long in the tooth, and I should replace them, but you know how that goes. Old guys need a little respect in their final days, give them a chance to recount former glory, teach the young blooms a thing or two. Generally, you kind of know when it's time to say good-bye for good, and I'm not quite there yet with those gents.

Like a lot of gardeners in the area, I am gradually adding more natives to the mix. They resist drought and invading hordes of insects much better than exotics do. Though it's better to plant natives in October or so, I'm heading over to Monterey this afternoon to the Native Plant Nursery for a good look at what they have in stock.

The biggest challenge for we who live on the Peninsula is a very definite paucity of water. Even in more lush years, rainfall barely replenishes the underground aquifer we are tapped into. The Carmel River, which runs the length of Carmel Valley, supplies water for what seems like a zillion people and their pets. Water diverted from the San Joaquin River delta goes to almost the entire state, especially southern California, but we here in this corner of the left coast, get our water from the local rivers and aquifers that are supposed to be recharged by seasonal rainfall every winter. The balance is in favor of we humans, not the rivers, so water levels drop and we are held on alert for possible rationing in dry years.

So, when we plant natives -- the wise plants who know how to survive with virtually no summer watering -- it helps decrease the impact on the water supply. If the human population were static or declining, we'd be in fine shape, but that isn't the case.

When I roam around in my garden listening to the idle talk between the blossoms out there, I try to imagine fewer of them, but that's a difficult vision to conjure. They're handsome and proud of their good looks. My plan is to let them live full lives, and when they finally pass on I'll replace them with natives, one by one.

She's a Breeze

Traveling along the geography of my body, I note that the southern extremities are cool today while the northern are much warmer. I went for a walk at the beach this morning and got my old gray socks wet. Again. So, my feet got cold, too. Not so bad though. Not so bad.

The swell was up - has been up - lately, and the waves made a whomping boom every now and again as a wave hit the sand or bucked up against the rocks or cement ruins here and there. Nothing eventful. Rather, it was peaceful in a swishy sandy way. My shoes came away covered with sand and no matter how much I stomped them afterward on my walk home, the sand stayed put, covering the soles and sides, awaiting an opportunity to finally fall off once I was inside my home.

The summer breeze has been scurrying around busily lately. She's like an old aunt who has gotten past her inhibitions and proprieties and gets a good laugh lifting up skirts, tossing hats and sending napkins sailing. I walked with her yesterday, as a matter of fact, catching her coming into town on errands with her arms full of clouds and mist. She's an odd mixture of grace and whimsy, that old girl is, and I think she gets a laugh out of that.

We sat briefly on a bench downtown.

"Did you see those golfers out there on the ninth fairway?" she giggled. "Oh, I had such a laugh! One of them had himself all set up to swing and I just couldn't resist. I gusted! I love it when I gust! It reminds me of the old days. Oh my..." and her voice trailed off with a little sigh. A flag fluttered on a nearby pole. She looked at it with a distant, unfocused glance, made a shooing motion with her hand. The flag snapped and strained on its clips and the rope pinged against the metal pole. "Oh!" She looked away distractedly, brushed a gray shock of hair off her forehead and stood up briskly. "Let's go!" And we set off downhill again.

In her younger days, she could slip over the tops of hills and down their slopes, ruffling the grasses rather delicately with her fingertips. She would rustle through the tops of willows at the river's edge and have long talks with the sun as they walked together through the day. She was longer legged, it seemed, back in those days, and she was lighter on her feet, a fine dancer. You know, just give her a fine cliff face to whirl off of and she would set the evening off in such refreshing way. Everyone has always admired the summer breeze, especially since she could do just about any small invisible thing and make it look so easy.

But these days, in the middle of June on the coast, with the fog lying around all fat and slothful, she's been a bit out of sorts, and I think she feels like she's losing her grip on the waves. She's from a large family, all eccentric, of course, and she never had children. She's told me a few wild stories about the black sheep in her family, the tornadoes. She suspects they need anger management therapy, and she's staying far away from them. It's for the best, she says. Mostly, she spends her time shooing clouds to the inland valleys.

"You know, I'm thinking of taking some time off for a while, write a memoir or something. I've given it some thought. No one really wants me around right now. The sun and fog are at it again, as usual. He's just gotten so full of himself. It's such a shame!" She put her clouds down on the beach and they ran off to play, pushing the water's surface into tiny wavelets. "If you really want to know," and she leaned toward me conspiratorially, "I think the sun should just blaze, let herself go for a change and teach him a lesson. She's been too diplomatic with him. She told me about the Wagner the wind has been listening to, but he's up north for the season, so I don't expect him around here for a while. It's just the fog that's getting to her. She just needs to blaze!" Her eyes widened with the thought of it, and she smiled quickly. A passing tourist caught her suddenly frisky hat.

She was chatty, smiled a Mona Lisa smile as she called her little clouds back to her for a snack now and again, and waved at the tourists on the recreation trail. I enjoyed her company and wondered if she could convince the sun to blaze again. I asked her to try again and she agreed. She ruffled my hair with her hand, and it felt good.

After a while, we found ourselves silent and simply sitting peacefully on the rocky shoreline, and then both knew it was time to go home, take a nap. We said good-bye and parted for the afternoon, me to walk back home and she to wander out west over the water to watch the gulls and pelicans, give them a lift, help them soar. She lives out there this time of year, reclining at the end of the day with her stockinged feet up. Listen over on Asilomar Beach at the end of the day and you'll hear the puffing breaths of her satisfying sleep, steady and soft in the night.

Afternoon in the dust

I grew up in a safe haven far from gangs, hoodlums, and brutality. At least no evidence of that was ever to be seen on our quiet streets. We knew our fathers were good, we respected what they did and we accepted that we would be like them one day, welcomed that. We ate well, were provided for, and did not want for anything.

In our deepest hearts, though, we knew that what we were so sure of did not exist everywhere and, further, we knew some kids in our midst lived very differently. It was a generally peaceful place to be.

"I'm calling you out!"

This was the biggest threat of all to us. You got called out by an enemy. But, no one really had enemies. None of us did that we knew of. We hardly knew what an enemy really was.

You got called out and the certainty of a showdown was electric, and the news traveled like wildfire.

"Jackson got called out!" Eyes widened, hearts pounded. Jackson was going to get it, was going to eat it, didn't have a chance. But he was a tough, a bully, might even be a gangster. We speculated about all of it, and had no idea what any of it meant. We were soft, naive, stupid really.

"What happened?"

"Why's he gettin' called out?"

Every kid who had a pulse knew something was up. Your blood drove you forward to watch, and you watched with an intensity reserved for life-and-death moments, like dog fights, floods, car wrecks.

Billy Jackson was surrounded by a mob of tough kids, boys who bristled and jostled. Fight. It meant fight. There would be a fight. Robert Durkney was calling Jackson out. After school, when teachers lost control, kids slipped out of their grasp, they would be free to entertain their blood lust. There was no way Jackson could hide from Durkney. "Jackson's gonna fight Durkney. He got called out!"

Jackson lived down by the river and was trouble all the way through. He already drank, did things most other kids couldn't even imagine. We'd heard all the stories. He threatened adults, raided houses, trashed yards, shoplifted, shot his BB gun at dogs and killed pets. He was a tough rotten kid. If he called you out, you were dust. Why Durkney called him out was not known and it didn't really matter. But, it was Durkney who did the calling, and Durkney was just as tough. None came tougher. He was seldom even at school, had cuts and bruises on his face, raged with a cold fire in his eyes. In our minds, Jackson was mean but Durkney was murder. Both were wiry, strong, tough street kids who did not get love and did not want anything to do with calm reasoned understanding.

Jackson and Durkney were going to beat the living daylights out of each other. No one knew why and everyone wanted to see it. And everyone felt an excited dread in their hearts but didn't know why. It was like a tornado was going to be on our school grounds at 3:30. Our lives were quiet, simple and ordinary. We didn't have parents who beat us up and drank and cursed and got arrested. We knew of that side of life in our town because we caught glimpses of it on Durkney and Jackson's faces, in their eyes, in the jut of their chins, the grip of their fists.

The only badness in the rest of us allowed us to be silent in class to avoid investigation by the adults. If we were silent now, we could witness the mayhem later after the bell rang.

We heard the clanging and then we few hundred kids moved as a pack to the lower playground sand pit. Bursting out of the confiningn doors we were one mob with one frightened but maddened heart. We needed to see the darkness unleashed between Jackson and Durkney. They couldn't not fight now. It wasn't their choice anymore. What had been decided hours before now was all of our destiny.

The mob moved quickly and at its heart was a blood lust. Everyone was surprised by it and yet seduced by it; we moved with a shuffling trot east across the upper playground, rounded the corner of the building and poured down the short hill to the sand pit where forlorn and empty swings hung and the afternoon breeze gusted between them.

Durkney and two friends, strangers to us, stood together by the side of the pit. We halted and then waited. Jackson and his two walked down the hill. The boys glared at each other and spat. Then no one said anything. The two wore jeans, white t-shirts, shoes. No weapons, no dogs, nothing. It was just two mean angry boys filled up to the bursting point with adrenaline, anger and no sense at all. Durkney was blond, short and his arms looked strong. He never took his eyes of Jackson who had dark hair, more of a swagger about him and just as strong.

The rest of us were just kids who lived and died by the cruelty of rumors on the playground. Someone could say something to someone, just the smallest thing, and it was all over the school in what seemed like a moment. Adults existed in another realm that was remote and oblivious to our code, incomprehensible. We were our own tribe of little beasts, much worse in our own minds than ever hoped for in reality. We were capable of turning on each other just as quickly as we were able to grab a snack. More likely to be destructive of one another than empathetic, a duel in the sand pit after school between two hate-filled boys was the best that life had to offer our idle minds on a spring afternoon.

While Durkney and Jackson eyed each other for an opening, we watched as one single unit of preadolescent cruel curiosity. The only stake we had in it had nothing at all to do with the fighters. We were curious and we felt excited to be witness to the mayhem because it wasn't ours.

Someone yelled, "Watcha doin', ya pussy?" Jackson snickered and that's all Durkney needed. He sprinted forward so quickly we barely realized the fight was on. The lieutenants joined each other and there was nothing but white t-shirts grabbed by tough dry cuffing hitting fists and flying legs. Dust lifted above the gang of fighters. As quickly as the fight began, the shouts went up in the mob. The ugliness of the moment both shocked and thrilled us. We didn't need drums, we had our own heartbeats and stomping feet.

Then, the fight separated and the boys glared from a few feet. They stood very slowly back to their full heights and we stopped yelling and stomping just as quickly. They uttered low insults but stayed apart and then began to shuffle away in different directions, both away from us and the school buildings.

We stared and we accepted the verdict. The warring toughs who lived lives we had the barest glimpse of were now silently swallowed by distance and time. We were hushed and somehow sated, did not need any more than that vision of a vault of loneliness and mean silence that they occupied. They were not and never had been part of our world, had emerged from our midst for a moment to thrash each other and then disappear, leaving us with the reaffirming belief that our lives, handed lightly and sweetly to us, were surely delivered from evil.

Turkey dreams

I dreamed I was pounding turkey meat in the kitchen for dinner, standing at the counter with a wooden mallet in my hand. I was preparing tender turkey breast layered with herbs, sauce and cheese. I imagined the flavor, delicate and savory, and my mouth watered. I dreamed I was banging the meat with loud thumps and it was flattening out nicely. Wham, wham, wham! I was preparing a feast for many friends who would be arriving with expectant appetites, good humor, beautiful clothes worn in a casually chic way. They would be bringing bottles of delicious wines, stories of good times through the past season. Bon Appetit magazine editors would ask me for my recipes and wish to photograph the savory poultry I was creating. Wham, wham, wham!

The pounding was very loud and it sounded like someone knocking on my door.

I realized someone was knocking on my door, but...it couldn't be. No one I know knocks like that on my door. Wham, wham, wham! I floated up to awareness and realized I had been sprawled on the couch in deep sleep, imagining dinner. The unreality of loud turkey pounding traded places with the reality of a heavy hand knocking on my door. I wanted to dream of fixing dinner more than I wanted to see who was pounding on my door. The curiosity replaced the happiness of a dream well encountered, so I went to see who was intruding into my unconscious so vigorously.

A solicitor. "How are you tonight?"

"I'm asleep."

She wasn't very sorry for evaporating my dream. I was a little put out at that. I would have been satisfied with some regret and apology, maybe some sympathy and an offer to return at a better time. She just wanted my money. She expected me to sympathize with her. Me with her! She had banged on my door at dinner time and wanted me to feel for her, empathize with her predicament, develop actual happiness that she had come to my door and separated me from my dream world, a dream world that involved delicious turkey, herbs, sauce, all kinds of intertwining flavors and satisfying texture, tantalizing aroma, sensuality, all the memories of eating fine savory poultry with good friends, laughter around the table, wine splashing in slow motion into beautiful tall glasses, enormous bouquets of flowers on linen-covered tables and the clink of fine silver on bone china.

My mind wandered away and found itself considering options for dinner, the offerings at the local theater, my conversation with a colleague at work a few days ago. Then, it wandered sleepily back to the feast I was preparing in the dimming, retreating dream. My wandering mind peeked hopefully into the dream world, hoping to rejoin it, but now the scene was gone like a little puff of mist.

The solicitor was earnestly asking for money for her cause. I had missed the parts in between that had explained about the cause, but now I was being asked to give her money to help fund it. She was gathering a head of steam, by the look in her eye.

I was standing there with my eyes half closed, my hair sticking up all over, my clothes on sideways, thinking of making pounded turkey breast, wishing I had cranberries and more sleep, and she was asking for money for her cause. I sighed. I leaned on the door frame. I imagined myself starving to death, pitiful, unable to survive unless I had my last meal of turkey, my dear friends gathered around me, saddened to see me wasting away so pitiably. All for the lack of a satisfying last meal. I visualized the poverty of it all, hoped it would be visible all over my face and hoped the woman at the door would realize finally that she was depriving me of a truly fine culinary experience, possibly my last. I hoped she would hand me her money, speak words of remorse and sorrow, walk away.

She finished and stood expectantly, waiting for me to hand her money, sign her petition, applaud her courage for joining the political fray. I leaned ever more alarmingly on the door frame doing my best to look tired, interrupted, dream deprived, starved for a good turkey dinner. A clock ticked somewhere. Einstein explained relativity as the clock ticked. My mind wandered off again, this time to Einstein's hair, his intelligence, his dismay at contributing to nuclear weaponry. I stopped short then, feeling lost and alone in the world having wandered so far from dreaming of a fine meal well prepared. Returning to turkey, herbs and tantalizing aromas I felt some sense of resignation. My mind wailed sadly, knowing the dream was really now just a dim memory.

The solicitor cleared her throat expectantly. I began to see this solicitor meant business and was not impressed with my sad disheveled state of deprivation and certainly was not going to budge without a really good explanation for dismissing her cause. I considered asking her to re-explain the cause and its needs. I tried to focus intelligently but, truth be told, I failed pretty soundly. This was feeling a lot like having to stand up in front of the third-grade class with Mrs. Belleman waiting to hear my book report. "I didn't read the book. My dog ate it."

All my upbringing and all my internal conflicts began to swirl up like an enshrouding fog. Could I just say no and shut the door? Some people can actually do that. I knew I would feel rude and mean spirited if I did. Could I tell her to come back later? I really didn't want to ever see her again. I'd have to go through all of this again or go to great lengths to avoid her or invent a wild excuse to explain...what? I didn't know what the cause was I didn't want to join or pay for. The solicitor looked at me. She tilted her head slightly and began to look a bit sad and crestfallen. Now I was in trouble. She was winning the sad-look contest. She was more determined than I was. I knew I would have fared better if she had come when I was more alert, but, no, I had been dreaming a wonderful satisfying dinner into existence in the middle of deep sleep. Damn.

I don't think I ever really did look sad. I was just a rumpled woman with her clothes on sideways who wanted to pound the snarf out of some dinner meat and was now having a hot flash. I think I looked like a sucker who had no idea how to get rid of a professional solicitor who had banged on the door. Good Lord, all right. I relented and handed her my last $10 and said I was broke, couldn't contribute more, wished her luck and she went away. Just like that. She took my money, ruined my turkey dinner reverie and won the sad, poor-poor-pitiful-me drama.

I'm going to get a No Solicitors sign for the door, gonna have that turkey dinner and invite everyone over to share it with me. Maybe in the Fall when turkey dinners are a better idea than in the middle of summer. You can come on over and share it with me, but please don't tell me about your urgent causes because I just gave out my last $10 and my mouth is really watering for some fine food. And boy do I need some sleep.