Life of Wry

Happened by Steve and Ruben today in Central Park. (Steve oversaw our most recent backyard hardscape design, Ruben did all the heavy lifting). They are part of this dry creek rock bed and bench project.

As a frequent passer by, I am pleased with the effort:

Here’s the bench over by the Caterpillar: 

I am also a huge fan of the Central Park gardens. I’ve written about this before, but it is gratifying to have been serving on the City’s Recreation and Park Commission back in the mid-80s and actually have a little to do with the eventual re-design of Central Park. I can’t claim a lot of credit personally, but I was definitely part of the process way back when, when the Arden-Mayfair lot converted to an expanded Central Park. Yay Maynard Skinner for making a big fuss about it, yay the voters for snatching this land from the clutches of commercial developers by supporting SOS (Save Open Space), yay the City for setting up a citizen-based planning process, yay landscape architect Mark Francis for overseeing a superb design, and yay the R&P Commission for being dutiful and awesome.

Bade adieu to the Aldens, Sally headed south, I west. Drove along Highways 26, 49 through Mokelumne Hill, Sutter Creek, Jackson, then 16 back into Sac to I-80 and home… I enjoyed the drive thoroughly.

I messed up this shot, but like how it came out anyway.. the Drytown Club in Drytown:

The hills…(still drought scorched)…

The Butte Store in Jackson:

More golden hills:

Across the causeway..

After a suitably leisurely morning, we closed up the cabin and headed down the hill to Sally’s parents’ house in Mountain Ranch. We planned to join them for dinner to celebrate their 62nd wedding anniversary, stay the night and go our separate ways the next day.

I’m not sure it’s very far to Mountain Ranch from Bear Valley, at least not as the crow flies, but it took a while to get there. We took what seemed like dozens of roads, each of them narrow, windy and scenic. Here, I’m just trying to keep up with Sally:

Looks like I lost her…

And here’s an artsy fartsy:

We got to her parents’ home…

…found them sitting on their patio in back, reading. Already I’m thinking, man, this is the life. The setting was so lovely and peaceful. Really, really peaceful.

I want to be them when I grow up.

Mr. and Mrs. Alden were regular fixtures in my life from about second grade through high school. They were the Stanford people, the gourmet food and wine people. Mrs. Alden was really nice, Mr. Alden opinionated and a little intimidating. They moved to Mountain Ranch when the last kid graduated from high school.

[Interesting facts: They had four kids, we had four kids. Each Alden kid had a matching Peterson kid in his/her grade. Sally and I were both the oldest, and friends. Matty and Sally’s little brother Holt: same grade and also friends. Jay and Betsey ran in different circles, but Chris and Andrea were both part of a larger surfer clique. Both families had parents who’d gone to Stanford. All of our parents loved their cocktails.]

Mr. Alden is now 90-years-old and still a commanding presence.

And their home! Books, art, wood, high ceilings, lots of windows looking out on the golden scrubby rounds of California’s foothills… it was just incredibly pleasing. And familiar.

I recognized lots of the art from the home I spent so much time in as a kid. It’s like it was a return to something very comforting, very Aldenesque.  Here are some shots:

The guest house is a short walk from the main house:

Here is my room:

I am certain that my own architectural and decorating tastes were formed in part by time spent in their house growing up. I find the spaces and the overall ambiance extremely appealing.

I took pictures of Mr. Alden’s huge workshop in an adjacent building and found it impressive for so many reasons.. but feel posting those may be intrusive. I considered taking a picture of their master bathroom, too, which also had me shaking my head at the handsome and clever touches.. but that would definitely cross a line. We’ll stick with kitchens, living rooms and guest rooms here.

Sally and I went for a 5-mile walk in the hood while Mrs. Alden got dinner ready… lovely environs:

Came back and hung out for a while. Here’s a cute shot of Sally showing her mom some pictures:

Mrs. Alden made the best meat loaf I’ve ever eaten.. from Biba Caggiano’s Northern Italian cookbook..

… then we celebrated:

T’was all extremely nice and comfortable.

I woke to the smell of coffee brewing and word burning. Hard to get more heavenly than that. Nice to have good cabin mates. Speaking of… here’s Sally stoking the fire, view from my loft.. can ya smell the wood and coffee?

We made some eggs on the stove, pioneer-woman-like..

We hung out a little to deal with the electrician, packed a lunch, then headed a couple miles up Hwy 4 to see what the Bear Valley Ski Resort is all about since I’ve never been there. No snow, but beautiful and fallish:

Then onward toward Ebbett’s Pass, because I don’t think I’ve ever been over it and thought I should! Passed Mosquito Lake along the way:

We got out in a few spots along the road to look around. We decided to turn around thinking we’d somehow missed the pass (I know, hard to do in the mountains: you go up, up, up, until you go down, down, down. That middle part is the pass… what’s complicated about that?). Later we learned we were just a couple miles shy. Something to explore next time (I’d wanted to see where the PCT crossed the Ebbett’s Pass Rd (Hwy 4).

We went back to Lake Alpine, found the trailhead for Inspiration Point and headed up.  Lake’s really low due to the California drought:

On the way to top, some very craggy cliffs:

And from the crags themselves:

Here’s Sally at the top, with view of Lake Alpine below:

And some other views up there, worthy of name Inspiration Point:

We had a fantastic lunch at the top, taking in expansive 360 views. The terrain at the top looked like this:

Descended late afternoon, as sun was getting low:

Headed back to the cabin to find we still lacked power, but that had to do with a PG&E service vehicle breakdown. The crews arrived later that night, after dinner (cooked again on the wood-burning stove), and did indeed fix the line. Power was restored about 10pm (on a Saturday!).

It was never a problem. Sure didn’t interfere with our cooking (pasta and spinach tonight), talking and throwback music!

Today has finally arrived: I am on my way to meet my childhood pal Sally–whom I’ve not seen since October of last year–and we are going to catch up on what has surely been for Sally a crazy year of re-settling in California. When last we saw, we were on a transcontinental road trip: Roswell, GA to California. I’d flown to Atlanta to help her pack up her stuff and move back to the west coast. It was a really fun, great trip. Much has happened in the year since, and we’ll have a long weekend to debrief it all. I’m excited.

Sally’s been living in Morro Bay for the last year. Our plan was to converge in Arnold, stock up on groceries, then head up to her parents’ cabin in Bear Valley.

The drive from Davis was beautiful! The weather was dramatic and the sights were quintessential gold country. And I had two cameras to play with. My kind of heaven. Here are a few shots:

Along Hwys 16 and 49:

I took this while delayed at a road construction stop along Hwy 4:

So, Sally and I met in Arnold at 12:30, exactly as planned, did some meal planning on the fly, bought food, and caravanned the rest of the way up to the cabin.

We arrived, unloaded our cars and while settling in discovered a big problem: we were lacking power, not all power, but the big stuff–heat, hot water, major appliances (like the stove, oven and dishwasher). We had enough electricity for lights and music (which we cranked), but that was about all. We also found that the refrigerator had been turned off and, not only had all the food inside spoiled, but there was a healthy crop of mold growing on all the surfaces. Ugh.

We would find out the following day, after dealing with a local electrician and PG&E, that there had been a smart meter malfunction and the 220 power line was down. They would fix it later that day, but until then…

….we had work to do.

We needed both heat and something to cook on, so, while we had tons of wood for the wood burning stove, we needed some kindling. I split wood while Sally emptied and scrubbed down the fridge.

My hatchet skills were tentative and pathetic. I remembered something from my old wood-burning-stove days .. the claw hammer wood-splitting technique.. so found a hammer and hacked away:

That worked pretty well!  We had kindling to last the weekend. Let the fires and cooking begin:

This being October, we’d decided we were going to have an October Fest meal of sausages, sauerkraut and boiled potatoes. We found a grill for the sausages:

And cooked the kraut and potatoes on the stove:

Which worked really well. It was a great dinner and the cabin was extremely warm, especially upstairs where the bedrooms are.

Which was great because it got really cold outside. We took a nice walk, saw a gorgeous sunset and covered a lot of conversational ground.

First day: success.

While today did not turn up a lot of picture-worthiness, it did turn out to be a pretty lovely day.  Didn’t quite expect that. I woke up out of sorts following a night that had one particularly long period of sleeplessness. I have a bunch of questions I’m wrestling with.. which.. questions are good, right?, especially if you’re me–a person at somewhat of a crossroads. I think I’m glad the questions are uncomfortable. That seems appropriate. Choosing paths in life should have a measure of angst.

I made a couple small–but hopefully effective–changes in a couple of things.  Okay… for example… one thing: I drastically weeded some people and organizations from my Facebook feed that consume way too many column inches. Sounds silly, but it’s not. Social media requires some serious and ruthless skill, people. You gotta find that sweet spot of useful and enjoyable, while making sure you don’t forget which end is up. Social media management is a thing. We know this. Not willing or needing to ditch the whole enchilada; it has value.. but you know, it’s Facebook. Gotta be smart. I have lots of time these days, last thing I want to do is squander it in social media.

I also affirmed some of the absolutely great parts of my current life routines, affirmed some of my current priorities, decided, in the light of the day and pretty clearly, that, yes, I’m on a good path. I relaxed.

Went to Fitness Garage. (Definitely one of the good things.) Also, Igor is awesome.

After that, ended up with a good, long hour to read, while drinking coffee downtown; then, ended up having a great lunch with Jim where two different friends dropped by for some excellent conversation; then, ended up at Valley Wine, talking with the owner–as you do–who grew up in Davis, and we entered a rabbit-warren of Davis history, stories and people. It was a rapid-fire half hour and ohmygod we covered some interesting territory. I know my town. Bought some great pinot too.

Flu shots, laundry, packing. Preparing to be gone for a few days on an adventure (the pinot factors in). More on that later.

(And just so you know, it’s not all Pollyanna here. Keeping vigilant. Staying uncomfortable. General directions good, specifics need lots of work.)

So… onto the photo part of this photo-a-day blog:

Handy that this otherwise non-remarkable, if unexpectedly enjoyable, day should also be a Thursday. Because, wuhoo, TBT. Picked a few from a series I took in the spring of 2003, a few months before Peter entered kindergarten. Here he is trying out the big kid play equipment at Cesar Chavez:

Oh boy, super high monkey bars:

I got this nailed:

It wasn’t all a piece of cake:

There are times when I don’t go to Mishka’s.

Thank goodness for friends who work at UCD, of which I have many. Without them, I might never venture to the inner campus, even living so very close. I skirt the perimeter of campus daily for one thing or another… because, literally, we live a block away, but it’s rare that I cross the line.  No reason… I love being on campus… I just don’t have any purpose that would regularly take me there.

Until I get to have lunch with somebody–usually at the Coffee House..the Coho, they appear to call it now.

Here’s what’s hilarious. I accept that we all have devices and pretty much look at them all the time. Still, it’s epic device-love at the Coho. I really wanted to take a picture of the main dining room, where there were hundreds upon hundreds of them lighting up the faces and dulling the senses of students everywhere, but felt too conspicuous, so snuck off a quickie in the hallway outside the main area. Still got a good sample:

Colorful, huh?

Unrelated to personal electronics, I really don’t know why I don’t go to the Coffee House more often; there are amazing choices for cheap food. And a pretty great coffee and baked-goods bar.  It’s probably the closest food establishment to our house, too.  Filing this away.

Between the Coho and our house is the humanities building. Always an architecturally worthy subject for a photo or two:

And noir-style, which seems fitting:

Today, mid-October, and we’re still having 90 degree days. With only a few exceptions, we’ve had summer weather for about five or six months now. Tomorrow’s supposed to drop nearly twenty degrees. So says my weather app. And if that happens, maybe we’ve seen the last of the nineties until sometime next spring.  This could mean fall is here. As of tomorrow!

This was taken a couple hot nights ago in downtown Davis. Not complaining… I love warm nights! In no hurry for cold weather…   just sayin’.

I see your cafe au lait, and raise you a scone.

Every single Sunday. Yes indeed.