Life of Wry

Leaving on a jet plane in about four hours…ugh.. going to be a short night and a long day (maybe I’ll make a promise to myself to endeavor to get more sleep upon my return.)

Going to Santa Fe and Taos with Carrie for five days.  Should be GREAT fun… lots of southwestern cuisine, some desert air and rugged mountains, certainly art, history, a day or two of hiking, much reading and a wee bit of cooking. We’re largely planning on the fly. Looking forward to deep conversations and good times. And southwestern cuisine. 

If I can find the time and connection, will blog.  If not, will catch up next week.  

This, in combination with last week’s trip to PV, is a mini travel flurry before a medium good stretch of no plans.  So, you see that hammock? That’ll be me swinging in it in a week.

Any ideas what this is?

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How about this?

This ought to give it away:

It’s a bottle cap self portrait. I don’t know too much about it or the artist, other than a discussion of it came up in a Facebook thread Jim was part of this morning and the art piece piqued his interest. All he knew was that it was in a bar on the west side of G Street, so after lunch we went hunting. Turns out, it’s here, at The Davis Beer Shoppe:

(Which, I’m chagrined to admit, I didn’t really know existed..) It’s in the back of the shop and, from a distance, looks like this:

It was cool.  And good to know we have a beer store that’s got a ton of different kinds of beers (reminiscent of Mansion Cellars back in the 80s, which was both a wine and beer tasting store, and which held that great challenge, Around the World in 80 Beers, where patrons logged the beers they’d tasted for a chance to get their name engraved on a large piece of wall art if they purchased 80 different bottles of beer over some period of time… which I did, which was great fun.) The Davis Beer Shoppe Looks like a pretty nice place to hang out.. low key, not too fancied up. Maybe the real deal if you’re a beer person.

The day started gorgeously and fitnessly, with a few-mile walk in PV.  Tried a new one: Started in the alley behind my mom’s house (really, a city boundary/property easement between Palos Verdes and Torrance) and wandered about 2/3 mile down to and across PV Blvd. Shaded by eucalyptus with a nice ocean view… at 9am, it was already 90 degrees.

Continued up to the Plaza, behind the post office and up to the top of Skunk Hill. Dropped down, crossed the creek (dry), across the drive/bridle path, and home. Probably three miles of up/down. Very sweaty, dusty, but great.

Then: ate breakfast, packed, watched some tennis with mom, and at 1:30 headed out for the long drive back to Davis. Apparently, I dodged a wild fire or two and made great time (for those keeping score, 6 3/4 hours, which included a 30-minute stop at Harris Ranch), arriving home just before dark.

Which…. gave me time to appreciate my Mother’s Day gift: the hanging of our hammock in a new (and shady) location, suspended above newly-planted landscaping and our newly-laid flagstone path.  wOOt, wOOt!

Took it for a spin:

I am so ready for summer.

My, but it was warm at the beach today.  Did I wish I was making like a dolphin, cruising in and out of the cool, rolling waves? Enh, enh, enh, enh… enh, enh, enh, enh!

(Or however ya spell that.)

I grew up in what is known as the Valmonte area of Palos Verdes. My mom’s still in the house on Via La Selva, about a mile from Valmonte school. A friend who lived on the hill once said, “you’re so lucky; you live in the trees.” Definitely the trees… we are deep into the thick, miles-long eucalyptus forest (our street translates as “by way of the jungle”) interspersed with pepper trees. I think most would agree that the larger, flashier houses are those perched on cliffs or along the sides of hills, with terraced yards and multiple balconies with jaw dropping ocean views.  But, we have shade.

As a kid, I didn’t much appreciate the area, at least not in an adult way. I liked it plenty, but not because of its relaxed, peaceful beauty. Now, because I’m down here so often visiting my mom, I see the neighborhood very differently, and, yeah, I totally appreciate it.  Streets don’t lay out in any kind of order… they’re all curvy and undulating, and dark with shade. And quiet.

I’ve got a walk I like to do when here (one of many). It’s about an hour long and takes me down and around by the PV Golf Club …. took this shot this morning just beyond the intersection of Paseo del Campo and Via Campesina.

An interesting thing about this particular spot: My parents first moved to PV from Manhattan Beach in 1957 when I was one. A teeny house on Via La Selva. They then had my brother Jay and within another couple years my mom was pregnant with Chris (3rd of 4). They realized they needed a bigger house. They found one on Paseo del Campo that they really, really wanted but lost it to another bidder… heh.. it was probably about $50k… pricy!  So instead, they found a larger house just a block up La Selva, and my mom’s now been there for 55 years!

Had they bought the house on Paseo del Campo, this would have been the view (the above photo).  The mountains just visible over the trees are the Malibu mountains on the other side of the Santa Monica Bay. The “hill” is just to the left, out of this picture.

I found this aerial shot. The narrow strip part of that dark spot is the Valmonte area of PV. The point at which that dark strip nearly touches the coast is the end of my mom’s street. The highest elevation on the peninsula is about 1500. Good sized hill.

On a map, it looks like this. The big red dot is, more or less, the end of my mom’s street.

Anyway.  The hood.

A day in several parts:

Jim, Peter and I started the day with a walk over to and up Skunk Hill.

Then we all headed over to Eric and Staci’s for a LOVELY Mother’s Day lunch and hang out with their brood, Aunt Ellie and Uncle Bud, Bob and Tam, Matty and Chris, Mom, us, and Staci’s parents.

Peter really enjoyed playing with his cousins… here they are at a relatively sedate moment: Ry (5 in a couple weeks), Kate (9 in a couple weeks), Courtney (7) and P:

I didn’t get very many worthy photos today, so will use the few good ones I got… like this one of Chris:

Then we went over to Matt’s to have a quieter celebration of Mom’s 85th birthday… just us immediate family folks: Mom, Chris, Matt, us and John came by, too, before work. Here are Matt, Chris and Mom in the kitchen.  Biggest political discussion was over the minimum wage, with Matt the restaurant owner not wanting anyone to tell him what to pay his employees, and pretty much the rest of us arguing for a living wage.

Yeah, nothing to do with Mom turning 85 or anything. But at least people are smiling.

Peter drove us to all the venues, including the John Wayne Airport, where he and Jim boarded a flight for Sacramento tonight.  They’ve now landed and are on the shuttle home… yay.

Good Mother’s Day/Birthday weekend.  Here’s a parting shot–taken yesterday: the two people who are the subjects of Mother’s Day for me:

Maybe that’s too crude?

But really, Peter, on the verge of getting his driver’s license, gets to take Grandma’s beamer for a spin around the winding coastal, cliffy, rolling hills of Palos Verdes on a brilliantly sunny, warm Saturday afternoon.  With mom.  Well….. it was almost perfect.

Above, we’ve pulled over along Paseo Del Mar to get a look at Bluff Cove.

Here’s Peter, standing on a cliff overlooking the cove, a cliff I spent a fair amount of time on (told him the story about my sitting on the edge, writing in my journal, and along comes a snake..)  We checked out the surf (a PV thing).  You can’t see them, but there are a number of surfers at the various surf spots within the cove.. Upper Indicator, Lower Indicator… you know.

(Isn’t he cooperative?)

Then we drove over to Lunada Bay… not somewhere I went as often…  just beyond the high school… and checked out some more surf. Lunada Bay’s the sight of many a battle between the local surf community and would-be surfers from outside the area. Not a proud statement.

After that, we drove out toward the Wayfarer’s Chapel (Lloyd Wright’s–son of Frank–glass church), past the Pt. Vicente lighthouse, the former Marineland (now a Trump resort development), then along the uppity downity portion of PV Dr. West that is eroding and sinking all over the place. Very fun road to undulate around on.  Then turned around and came back.

Super exciting for the boy.

Now going out for steak at grandma’s favorite local bar/restaurant (60+ year old dive, but very popular), The Bull Pen.  Old school but always reliable. And, you know, steak.  (Fifteen year old, wet dream… right?)

Or, down I-5.

To Grandma’s house we go.  Annual trek south for Mother’s Day, Mom’s birthday (this year, her 85th) and avoidance of Whole Earth Festival.  (Kidding on that last one… I used to enjoy WEF a lot.)

So, this characterized our day.

Partially notable was the fact Peter drove, I rode shotgun and Jim snoozed in the back. When I wasn’t snoozing in the back. Partially because Peter only drove for a portion of the trip–the piece from Davis to the West Sac Subway (yes) and from Santa Nella to the Paso Robles cut off near Coalinga.  Just two out of the eightish hours.  The bloom is off the rose a bit, as he prefers reading and playing 2048 to keeping vigilant on the interstate.  Can’t blame him for that.  But shoot.. less  snooze time for us.

But, dang, he is great company.  Really great company.  Love that kid.

I’m reminded of the book by Calef Brown, Polkabats and Octopus Slacks.  Peter’s Aunt Teresa and Uncle Chad gave it to him when he was a little guy, and it was a huge favorite of his… though Jim and I were probably much bigger fans.  I wrote about Funky Snowman, one of the poems in the book, a few years ago here. Interestingly, that blog post remains the Life of Wry entry with the greatest number of hits… by orders of magnitude.  Seriously, that blog post brings them in in droves. (The Brazen Little Raisin post is a distant second!)

Anyway, here’s what came to mind when I saw this photo (and thought to myself, “how greenish!”):

Clementown is greenish,

the people tall and leanish,

the dogs bark very loudish,

but not because they’re meanish.

 

The food is rather reddish,

delicious radish relish,

there’s never any rubbish,

that would just be foolish. 

 

Well, you know… you have to know that poem, and it has to be something you read a lot back in the day, and it has to be a poem that, to this day, you think about whenever you say, or even think, the word greenish.

By the way, photo taken today at UCD arboretum. Lake Spafford.

The Davis High JV baseball team played its last game today. Ten weeks and 26 games (this doesn’t count the weeks and weeks leading up to the start of the season).  Lot of baseball.

For Peter, it was a great season. He got stronger as the season went on, securing a spot in the starting lineup, usually at second. He got some playing time at third, a little bit at short, and pitched in 7 games.

For us, we’re just happy he enjoyed himself, tried hard, and did about as well as he could have done.  His confidence is up and he’s got some momentum leading into the summer season, and he’s enthusiastic about it, so that is great. We will just enjoy that.  As I’ve said all season, every day he gets to play for DHS is a great day. No sense looking too far ahead. Nothing is certain going forward, so best to have fun while he can.

The team did well this season. They were 17 and 9 overall, and in league play were 12 and 3. The Delta Valley Conference has six teams (we played each team three times); some are strong and some are terrible.  Davis’ only league losses were to the Elk Grove Thundering Herd (all three games), who went on to win the conference title with a 13 and 2 record. Close!

It was sort of fun to close the season with such a challenging opponent, and it was especially fun that Peter got to be the starting pitcher in our last game. He pitched okay, held them to three runs over 4 1/3 inning, and for a while Davis was actually in the lead, but things got sort of funky in the last two innings. All three of Elk Grove’s final runs came in on walks and hit batters with bases loaded. Frustrating. Coach Creely registered his disdain for the Elk Grove tactic of leaning into pitches to draw a HBP. Hrrmph.

Lots more to say about the season, but then this would read like a baseball article; can’t have that.

Instead, here are some pictures:

Peter’s final at bat: a hit (lucky nobody was covering first as several players went after his bloop single that dropped just out of the infield) and an RBI.

Peter ended up with pretty solid batting stats for the year, which I don’t think anybody expected. He got to bat in the #5 spot today, which I think he both loved and earned. Another nice stat: he went the entire season without a single strike out. He wouldn’t let me bring that up for the last couple weeks in order not to jinx him.  So I guess that worked.

[Enjoy this. Enjoy this. Enjoy this.]

Okay, so enough baseball speak.  Here are some shots from a great-little-find-of-a-restaurant–The Squeeze Inn–where eight of the guys went for the post game dinner. Wish the other six had joined, and even the coaches, but there will be a more celebratory banquet in a couple weeks where a more formal season wrap-up will take place. Or not. These Davis coaches don’t go in so much for these sorts of bonding and camaraderie building rituals. The guys gotta make their own fun. And, they do.

The Squeeze Inn:

Here’s what one might eat in this out-of-the-way diner:

I’m not kidding. That is cheese spilling out of the burger, fried with the burger and crisped on the grill. Insane.. Not that I would have ordered one, diet that I am on. You should have seen the baskets of fries, especially the crinkly sweet potato fries. I’m going back someday for the full experience. (My chicken taco, while also fried, cheesy and extremely tasty, was not the way to go.)

So.

Here are Noah, Danny, Gooey, Peter, and Ray:

And here are Tyler, James and Solly (and a bit of Noah again):