10/06-07/07: Luci, the Artist

I arrived at Luci's in good time -- early afternoon. Luci's been through a lot and has recently moved from her memory-filled ancestral house in Corte Madera, California, to her own trailer home in Sonoma. It's not a teeny type trailer. It's double width and in a nice residential area. She has a garden she's beginning work on. She's a fantastic artist -- painter, collage, and computer -- and is also delving into an astrology service.

She's only just moved in, so we had to improvise a bit on sleeping arrangements. It's wonderful to stay with friends and just chill. She spent quite a bit of time looking at all my pics on the computer and the ones I brought from home. I gave her two -- a large one and a small one. She wrote poems for them.

We went out to dinner at a kind of spiffy restaurant. On the way, I saw the above vividly coloured truck and car. Luci thought I should take a pic.

I ordered some fritatta and a glass of Pinot Noir, which I found out cost $12/glass after it had been poured. Luci was fairly livid about this, since it's one of her favorite restaurants she likes to take her friends to, and they hadn't posted the prices on the sign. I had ordered at a Starbucks-type counter, so didn't necessarily expect that kind of spendy-ness. She complained to the manager (she is braver than I), who ended up giving us the rest of the bottle. It was good Sonoma Pinot Noir, not your rouge ordinaire.

We sat for a while outside to have a puff -- they still allow cigarette smoking in front of a restaurant on the streets of Sonoma, much to my amazement. I took these pics of her. The result is what happens when I use "aperature preferred," without knowing how to take a pic in the dusk. She liked them though, and didn't want me to take another in better light, so there you go. They do have a certain charm (note the pumpkin).

We went back to her place to talk. I learned a lot about how she became a buddhist and student of Khyentse Rinpoche's (the elder, now reincarnated, whom she met in Nepal and held on her lap for a bit).

I slept well. The next day Luci had a lot of things planned. We had seen a store that we wanted to look into near the one with these old Chinese stools, which while cool, were none-the-less something like US$125 each.

I didn't buy the necklace I was looking at (I do have a rather large collection of my mom's jewelry that should do me for a lifetime), but I did get some pants, a skirt, a shirt, and a scarf, at great expense, but just in case I had to dress up for something.

I did take a great pic of the wall in back of the store, which had a few tables in it and was all enclosed. Very New York I thought.

We didn't have time to go to the winery that Luci wanted to take me to -- I spent too much time being in consumer heaven. She had an appointment at 3 pm in Berkeley and I had promised Zeb's dad, Howard, that I'd be there around then, so we went back to her place to pack up and get ready.

I'm afraid I scared her cat -- what you get by trying to "herd cats" -- by rushing it to try and get it to head back into the trailer and not out the door. I'm not really a cat person and don't have a lot of empathy or maybe it's sympathy -- they seem to like me well enough, maybe it's that aloof quality. Luci is a cat mom, and it was kind of upsetting having to rush around to get ready while having to calm the cat.

I asked to follow her out of town, which maybe wasn't a good idea as the traffic in California is not like it is in Nova Scotia. California motorists are almost always in a hurry to get "there," though Luci was very patient and waited for me at crucial turns.

As you can see, Luci also has a good sense of humour and was able to forgive me in the end. She has always been my very good friend. And, I hers.

10/05-06/07: R&R at the Mandels

Today, Friday, after all the excitements and long drivings, I went down to Davis to visit my sangha friends, Joel and Sarah Mandel. Of course, I had to get lost. Last time I visited them New Years Eve 2005, right after my mom died. It was pouring the Pineapple Express (a heavy rainfall that comes across the Pacific from guess, yeah, Hawaii). The whole central valley in California had flooded and houses washed down the Russian River. I arrived at the Davis Shambhala Centre just in time to hear Richard Reoch open an address to be given by the Sakyong that was being transmitted live via phone link.

So that time when I came I had to traverse a number of rather large puddles, more like small lakes and get lost. This time, outside of not recognizing the road, it was less excuseable. Mainly I undershot the mark and travelled up and down Mace, which turned into something else. Anyway, Sarah talked me in via cell and they served up a wonderful dinner of beef stew. Mostly I rested and chatted and worked some on the Wildlife Safari pics, while Sarah sewed beautiful quilted puja table cloths and Joel exercised and travelled to the store. I thank them very much for their hospitality and generosity in just being my friends.

I left at my usual time -- about 9:30 or 10 am -- to go visit my friend Luci in Sonoma, whom I've known since about 1971 or 2. Her directions were from Google and even though down many highways and biways, I was able to follow them and not get lost!

10/05/07: The Langdells

The next day I got up early to visit what I'm calling my "god parents," even though, as you know, non-theism reigns supreme. Heh. Libby and Joe have known my mom since she was in College. She and Libby went to the Chicago Institute of Art back in the 40s.

Joe is 93 and had a medical mishap, but is recovering nicely. I never saw anybody zip along faster on a walker. Joe has spent many of these last years organizing (most of the organizing being done by Libby I must mention) reunions of the survivors of the U.S.S. Arizona in Hawaii. He was serving on board the U.S.S. Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbour. He retired a Lt. Commander. He said I should google him and 11,400 listings come up on his name. Bob Schieffer of CBS interviewed him on the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbour. I found a good biography of him at: http://www.ussarizona.org/survivors/langdell/index.html

Here's a quote from the biograhy:

"Mr. Langdell is one of three principal figures in the television documentary, "USS Arizona: Life and Death of a Lady" (see right side bar for Spotlight Documentary) which aired of the A&E cable network in 1991 and 1992. During an historic moment aboard the USS ARIZONA MEMORIAL, former ARIZONA Officer Joseph Langdell accepts a floral wreath in memory of ARIZONA'S entombed from former Japanese Lt. Commander Zenji Abe, a pilot who dropped a bomb on the ship."

When I asked Joe if he forgave the Japanese, he laughed and said "Hell no," as only he could say it.

Libby has been a second mother to me, helping me greatly from time to time in working with my mom. She has a wonderful memory for telling stories and has kept the family and house together lo these many years. And, not has much now, has been a wonderful cook and gardener, and specialist in the colour purple, which fills her home.

Teddy, their son, is an amazing fellow. When I googled Ted, I got 7,710 listings. He's what I'd call an alpha geek -- a high compliment in geek circles. He specializes in Macs and as you can see from the pic we both have MacBook Pro laptops. He asked me in some puzzlement "When did you get yours?" About a week and a half before I left. Heh. He lickety split got me up and running on iChat so I can video conference real time with others who have iChat. This was very useful when I got to my son Stan who set me up on Skype with the same video ability.

Ted has a great business where, besides creating commercials and business videos, he creates "documentaries" of personal stories. He can use old photos, records, antique video (like Super 8 or whatever) to create a mini-documentary for a family, which has been used to great effect for memorial services. He knows how to restore all these things and has recently become the sales rep for a restoration machine made in Germany. His website is: http://www.tedlangdell.com/.

He whizzed around taking zillions of photos with my Canon Rebel that could be viewed at one second intervals and have the effect of a video. He somewhat annoyed Libby when he started recording her as was telling my a story about my mother's last meeting with her father, Burt, before I was born. Burt wanted to know what she planned to do after College. He thought being a teacher or nurse, or perhaps secretary was the appropriate thing. My mother did get him to send her to Art School. She later became a cartographer for the OSS (precurser to the CIA) during WWII and then developed a career as an industrial designer.

Ted did manage to document my departure.

10/04/07: A Quality Inn Graphic Detail

I spent the whole day on Thursday, the 4th travelling from Oregon to Yuba City. It was really a long way, through redwood forests, along the Coast of Calfiornia, and then left through to Clear Lake and on into the dark and lightning-struck night of Central California listending to a NPR (National Public Radio) station from Nevada. Got to the Quality Inn in Yuba City on Rte 99 where I'd made a reservation and it was terrible. Requested a smoking room for some unknown reason, which was bad enough, but the worst was the toilet lid would slap my back every time I sat on the seat and then there was a full-length mirror that faced me on the outside of the bathroom door which wouldn't close. Well, that's for those who like graphic details and to know that all is not nirvana and that those little details of suffering are always there lurking. The good news, I think, is that I got the room free with so-called points.

10/04/07: Square Pants and Lone Sticks

My brother gave me the day off, which was very sweet of him, to go and visit the lawyer, Don, down in Brookings (not too far from Gold Beach -- about 20 miles). I let him pick one of my photos as a thank you for all the work he did for my brother and I. As some of you may know, he's the sort who, after a Rotary Club meeting came over to the house wearing a tie that lit up and I think may have played a song. Gad. He has a heart of gold.

He picked "The Dao of Driftwood," which as you may recall is at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He had me sign the back as an "artist's proof." He's going to frame it and put it in his reception area.

He kindly took me out to lunch at his favorite watering hole and let me take a pick of him in his bright blue new Volkswagen. That's Square Pants Sponge Bob on the side. There's a pic of Minnie Mouse on the hood. He's an avid golfer and has (obviously) a great sense of humour.

After that, I went by my mother's old house that I sold on December 21, 2006, one year to the day after she died. The new owner has painted it pumpkin orange and green and renamed it "Herb Cottage" (as you can see in the pics) from "Set E C," which my mother and brother had named it, meaning C'est Ici for the francophones in the audience. There are what look like four "beds" in the front yard. There used to be Agapanthis (tall purple flowers) under the living room windows, which they've pulled out to expose the raggedy bottom of the front wall. Good thing we sold it "as is."

Then, on the way back, I stopped by Lone Ranch Beach, where I took most of my beach photos of driftwood and such, and spent another half hour taking some really cool pics. I'm just posting one that I'm calling "Lone Stick." It's nice to know sometimes that my photo taking is not always completely serendipitous!

When I got back to Gold Beach I went out to dinner with my brother one last time, this time to the Porthole on the harbour in Gold Beach. Went to bed early to get ready for the long drive to Yuba City and my "god parents" Libby and Joe.

10/03/07: Crab Shack and Dinosaurs

The next day my brother wanted to drive up the Coast to Bandon where we were going to have lunch at the Crazy Norwegians (as per Jan Wilcox, whose sister has a flower shop, that used to be a gas station right next door), but it wasn't open, so we went to the Dock, a crab shack on the coast. He had crab louie, which looked fabulous and I had a cheesy seafood fettucine type dish, which was too heavy on the cheese and noodles.

My brother seems to have really liked the hoodie I got him at the Glooscap Trading Post in Nova Scotia what seems like quite long ago now.

Afterwards we headed back toward Gold Beach where we stopped by the Dinosaur Park, which specializes in life size statues of various kinds of dinosaurs. I'd wondered where the Tyranosaurus was, and missed it right in front of the entrance. Didn't look like Jurassic Park. The proprietress was very impressed that I'd driven all the way from Nova Scotia to see her dinosaur park and insisted on helping us take a picture in front of said tyranosaurus. However, I forgot I had a fully automatic setting I could have used and instead tried to do the f stops. She wasn't able to make sure the light was right, so you can't see us very well, but there you go.

This dino turtle didn't turn out too badly.

But I did take a great pic of what looked like a Primeval forest.

We came back to Gold Beach where we repaired to the cabin where we've had many a good talk. My brother's doing very well and it's been good to see him.

10/01-02/07: Rustic Cabins & The Mother Tree

Last night I arrived in Gold Beach and found a great place to stay for a few days while I visited my brother. It was called the Ireland's Rustic Lodges. I highly recommend it. I got a discount for being over 60, so it cost $80/night -- pricey, but better than some others. It had a "real" fireplace in it where I could burn wood, which smelled good and covered my brother's smoking. It had a big living room/bedroom, another small bedroom and bathroom, small fridge and microwave, wi-fi, TV with HBO (if one were interested) and no phone, which was interesting. I now have moved to Skype (with the help of my son Stan) and can now make video calls to anyone with Skype for free anywhere in Canada or the U.S. (hey, hey).

It was a great place for my brother Frank and I to have some quiet space that wasn't Driftwood Lodge, where he lives, or a restaurant or the bush. He said it really reminded him of places where he and my mother would stay on their many trips around the U.S.

The next day I picked my brother up and we drove down to Crescent City (about 40 miles or so down the Lost Coast of Oregon into California) where he did some bank business, and we got some Kentucky Fried Chicken lunch to take with us to Jedediah Smith Redwood Forest. My brother remembered exactly how to get to the triple-trunked tree where we spread my mother's ashes last year. Turn off 101 to Forest, turn left on Walker Road, .25 mi down road on left.

My brother had noticed only after we had spread her ashes around this tree that it had one big trunk and two little ones coming out of its base (symbolizing our small family). So it was fairly distinctive looking and no mistake could be made as to which tree it was. We ate our picnic as last time and then I burned a sage smudge and said "ki ki so so ashe lha gyel lo" around the trunks. My brother thought I was funny. But hey. Each in our own way. He searched and found that the dumping area had either been cleaned out or grown over and it all looked very beautiful and peaceful. This last is sunlight on a fern growing from her tree.