Merry Christmas

Christmas at my house used to look like this.

Today, for the second year in a row, I spent Christmas Day at a bar with friends, listening to fabulous local musicians.

Booze and boats. What a lovely view.

The party ended at 4:30. Santa can party til he melts, but I'm snug at home.
Wherever you are this Christmas, I hope you are safe. I hope you are loved. I hope you've given and received, and that some delicious and festive concoction has passed your lips. I hope you've uttered kind words and heard that kindness echo back. Merry Christmas.

Saturday Beach Report: Love and Peace

And if that fails, sail away.

Monday Morning Beach Report

Trinity of boats.
One island gone missing while the other holds
holy vigil for its safe return.
A single willet screams in the surf
and an emaciated mermaid breathes her last,
her ruined jewelry next to her on the sand.

Both Sides Now

view from the waves looking back at the sand

Sometimes the ocean deposits perfection right at my feet.

Sometimes there is mystery.

What the heck is this? Anyone?

Sometimes the cutest boat in the whole world shows up just across the water.

And sometimes my 90-year-old mother climbs up on the patio wall to hang on the fence and get a better view. After a martini.

Here in Margaritaville, the nights at home are just as beautiful and mysterious as the mornings on the beach, but not quite as relaxing.  Nope. Sometimes not relaxing at all.

Stand-off with an Evil Traffic Elf

You can't make this shit up.

Remember Santa on the tractor the day I brought my mother home from the hospital? How shall we top that?

 Like this.

Perhaps it was bad planning on my part yesterday morning to go to the Farmer's Market for the fresh fish and fresh veggies that I'd planned for dinner, but the signs only warned of delays, not quarantine. The Christmas Jog-a-thoners in Santa Hats and reindeer ears? Well, they weren't exactly moving like Donder and Blitzen. Stragglers, I thought. This will all be over my the time I mull over the carrots and cauliflowers, decide on Fuji or Pink Ladies.

Over the course of the hour that I was cordoned off from my home (and my ancient and frail mother) I felt more and more like the Grinch. After my fourth attempt, by a fourth route, to get back into my neighborhood when I was once again waved off into the opposite direction by an adamant and irate traffic cop who yelled at me when I rolled down my window and asked for help, I drove my cheery Christmas red Prius over the sidewalk and onto a vacant lot and got out.

"M'am," he said, as I walked toward him, "I have a job to do. You cannot approach me." I stepped back while telling him that I needed to get home. That my mother had just gotten out of the hospital and was home alone, and that I couldn't figure out how to get there. "M'am, I can't talk to you, I am directing traffic," snarled the evil traffic elf with the heart as cold the North Pole. I repeated that I needed to get home and he yelled at me to step onto the sidewalk. A Christmas Jog-a-Thon stand off.

There was no way to get to my house that I hadn't already attempted, so I just let it happen. I burst into tears. As I stood on the corner crying, a couple came up to me immediately and asked if I was all right. I explained the situation to them, and they took me by the arms and we approached Mr. Evil Traffic Elf again. He was pissy, but he listened as they explained and I cried. He told me to get into my car, turn it around, and he would let me turn right.

And then ten minutes after I got home, would you believe I had to go out again to pick the man who loves me up from the train station? Thankfully, by the time we returned to my neighborhood, all of the power drunk traffic elves had gotten into their sleighs and gone away.

It's been awhile since I've spontaneously exploded into tears. Back when I was mired in Divoreville, it happened frequently. My attorney's office, courtrooms, airplanes, restaurants. It was like I had a deck of cards (or maybe half a deck) with all of the cards the same--crazy divorced lady.

Well, I don't live in Divorceville any more.
And now, having spent most of the morning in Pillville with dispensing of antibiotics, INR testing, calls to the doctor, and my mother's financial matters, I'm now off to a suburb of Margaritaville--The City of Naps. I may end up in Oz, however, due to the winds. Plastic owls and patio cushions are sailing through the air. And earlier this morning, the guardian of the marina, a.k.a. my mom, noticed that one of the neighborhood boats had lost one of its mooring lines and was rapidly on its way to taking an unplanned sail. I called harbor patrol and they came and tied it up again. Maybe I should have called them yesterday. They could have delivered me back home by boat.

My bed is strung with Christmas lights all year long.

Bird-O-Rama

My photos do not come close to capturing the beauty of the birds placidly riding the waves in between fishing forays. Pelicans, gulls, terns, cormorants, grebes all bobbing and dipping and diving together.

In addition, I'm happy to report that a few buffleheads have appeared in our portion of the marina. They're just as striking as the photo (from Wikipedia), and in shape, bear a resemblance to bathtub tug boats. My mom calls them her ships. Which can be a little confusing since she also talks a lot about the boats that come and go in the marina. 

In Which I Revisit the Apartment Where I Lived With Mr. Ex for 12 Years

Dream:

“Look mom, do you remember when I used to live here? This was the bedroom, remember?”  My friend Sandy, my mother, and I are edging carefully around shelves that are crammed with nick-knacks now that the ground floor of the building houses an antique store. Yes, she remembers. All the interior walls have been demolished, but we pace off the lines where they used to be. Living room, kitchen, the little dining nook. Isn't it a shame they banged out all the pretty tile? “Stupid fuckers,” I mutter under my breath.

“You're absolutely right,” says a person behind me. She says she used to live in the building, too, but I don’t remember her. I’m somewhat taken aback by my confusion.

“Did you live here, too?” I ask Sandy, feeling that perhaps everyone has passed through this building at some point in their lives. Somewhat distractedly, she tells me no. She is busy ooh-ing and aah-ing over various things in the shop while scooping the little treats from the candy dishes into her purse. Full of energy, Sandy is giggling, loving everything she sees.

As we are about to walk out the door, a woman from the back of the room says that this will sound weird but that Sandy really reminds her of her husband Randy.

“Oh, that’s the way it is,” I say. “Sandys and Randys are practically interchangeable.”

Once we're out on the street, driving away, we see my friend Carol striding down the sidewalk. She’s dressed in peacock blue and her blouse is open revealing a peacock blue bra. “Should we offer her a ride?” I ask Sandy. No, we decide.

Later it seems as if we are checking out of a motel, but it’s my old apartment again in a new incarnation.

After the motel, I’ve left Sandy and my mother, and I’m in an immense white truck. It’s taking me to a boat. Or, rather, it has a boat attached to its side, positioned to be dropped into the water. There’s a man driving it, but I don’t know who he is. He’s a large bear of a man, dark haired with several piercings. This man is kind enough to stop the truck for a moment when I ask him to. My door is open and my seatbelt isn't on, and he stops simply because I ask him to—which I find rather remarkable. I expect him to grumble about having to stop, but he’s friendly. We talk briefly about the boat. We don’t want the boat to drop into the water upside down. He's the inventor of the device that holds the boat to the truck, and he’s worried than when the spring mechanism releases the boat, it will flip over.

I'm not there to see the outcome. I have to rush to a rehearsal. I have snacks that I took from the antique store, which is good, because I'm hungry, and there’s no time for dinner.

Announcing!!!.....the boat naming contest winners!!!

Thank you all for the excellent and creative entries. I said that I would choose my favorite three, and here they are:

 First, MerSea by one of my favorite bloggers over at http://sinnersalmanac.blogspot.com/

 Second, Runcible Spoon by Joan from France.

And tied for third are Dancing in the Moonlight by Birdie, and Wave Wench by Suz

Being the neophyte that I am, I have no idea if people name kayaks, but maybe all of these names will be employed eventually by boats that will live at my dock (pictured above with one of my favorite visitors.) Please email me at demanuel@dslextreme.com with your snail mail address I will happily email you a copy of "Saying Goodbye." Saying Goodbye is a collection of essays, both poignant and humorous, by an international group of authors. As you might have guessed, I have an essay in the book, too.

Boat Naming Contest

I am determined to buy a boat.  A somewhat laughable boat, yes, but a boat. And I will learn to drive my little boat.

Here in my marina beige-world community, the boat docks have outlets. I'm going to buy a little electric boat. I might buy a Duffy. Or I might buy an Electracraft. There are quite a few of both of them in the neighborhood.

I wish my name was Virginia so I could name my boat "Ginnny's Tonic." But it's not, and another name change is not in my future,  so other boat names under consideration are:
Moby Dink
The Lucy-Tanya
Titania
Non Liki
Mighty Slow
Naughty Us

Morning Becomes (if I buy an Electracraft)

And of course, there's always:
Margaritaville

Feel free to send your suggestions. And in fact, I declare this to be a contest--the very first here in Leaving Divorceville! The top 3 contenders will receive a book of essays.

A Boatload of Things I Don't Know About My New Life

Just a little while ago a man in a black wetsuit, complete with hood, pulled up to my dock in a small motor boat, afixed a mask to his face, and dove into the water. There was a piece of equipment yammering in the background. The marine equivalent of the "mow, blow, and go" gardener? Removing barnacles? I have no fucking idea. It went on for a while. If this were a Harrison Ford movie, I'd be kidnapped and held for ransom by now. Men resembling slick black seals would have tunneled  under my house and stolen....my bean bag chairs? My airbed? What the hell. Probably some kind of  marina beige-world HOA sponsored barnacle removal, I guess. But mine was the only dock he visited.

Yesterday while my son and his family and I waited to board our boat for the Wildlife Viewing Cruise to Anacapa Island, we witnessed the orientation for a kayaking session. I was secretly relieved that there were two women my age in the group. I'm going to be in their shoes soon....admitting that I know nothing at all, really, about kayaking.

Last week I had to leave a check for 35.00 dollars and a form I didn't understand under the doormat so the backwash testing folks could come do their........testing.....um, yeah....testing my backwash. Whatever.

I'm going to buy a bunch of kayaks.
I'm going to buy a boat.
I'm going to change my life.
Let's hope I float.

Do Not Change the Channel

Like many children, my grandchildren have been raised on TV and videos. Staring at a screen first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and plenty of time in between. I don't hanker for the chirp and drone of the TV in the background as company, and during visits from my son and his family, I would often turn the TV off when I found that no one was really watching it anyway. This visit things were different. I have no TV here at my new house. Yes, they came with their various small screens, but I think the ocean proved to be more mesmerizing. "Can we go back to the beach?" was the refrain of the past few days, and we grown-ups obliged.

We even took a boat ride to Anacapa, one of the The Channel Islands. A large sea lion lounged on the edge of a boat dock setting up the expectation for wildlife even before we left the harbor. Thirty minutes or so out into the ocean, the dolphins arrived. Dozens of them in the distance at first, and then scores mores, rocketing closer and closer until they were almost close enough to touch, racing along side of the boat or leaping out of the water. A couple of seals popped their heads up, too, and there were more sea lions than we could count on the rocks near Anacapa. Sea gulls hovered above, and squadrons of pelicans were so numerous they became practically became mundane.

I tried to mitigate the media's influence with my daughters, allowing only an occasional video or TV show when they were little and, starting with kindergarten they went to Waldorf School where TV, movies, videos, computers and electronic games of all kinds were discouraged altogether. I felt like I was only partially successful when I was in the thick of it all, and would have probably caved far more often if it weren't for the support of our Waldorf school community. It's so clear to me now that nature is the only real competitor for the pull of the media. And kids want to do things. Sitting means flipping a switch and waiting to be entertained. Being out in a boat on the water, chasing the waves, digging in the sand, playing outdoors, walking the dog, doing chores--there's a satisfaction to all of those things that doesn't seem to crave passiveness.

The flat blue water we were lucky to sail on yesterday was almost like a screen. And real live animals popped right out of it.  I love you, Mother Nature.

Why I Am Moving

"Why did you move?" This question from one of my readers appeared as a comment on my last post. I'd been asking myself the same thing all day. Standing alone on the empty beach under a gray sky with the man who loves me sixty-five miles away, how could I not ask that question?

I tallied up the reasons on the walk home and have been going over them for the last day and a half.

1) My eighty-eight-year-old mom is coming to live with me, and would have trouble managing the four-story "tower house" floor plan of my current place.

2) I've wanted to live by the water ever since I was 11 or 12 years old, goofing around outside my friend Kim's house with her skateboard and her transistor radio playing The Beach Boys "Little Surfer Girl." I'd already caught the wave that included Elvis's "Blue Hawaii," and the Gidget movies. By the time the Gidget TV show aired, California was mine--if only inside my head. When I finally moved to L.A. from the midwest a decade later, I couldn't imagine how I ended up so far from the ocean.

3) I have more than 35 years of memories in Los Angeles. Nearly everywhere I've been in L.A. is someplace I've gone with The Someone. The narrative runs through my head constantly. I'd need some sort of lobotomy to stop it.

4) Downsizing was okay. It was good in many ways, in fact. But despite the fact that buying a bigger place seems misguided at almost 60, I want to gather those people I love and enjoy to my heart and to my hearth. I think I have some talent for this. I have three children and three grandchildren. I hope to have more (grandchildren, that is.) I am serious when I say I want house guests. I hope my grandchildren will come for a long stretch of each summer because I think parents need a break whether they realize it or not.

5) It's cooler here. I'm wearing a wool sweater right now.

6) There are blue herons and pelicans, and other birds I haven't yet learned the names of.

7) I have a boat dock here. I lived in a house with a boat dock until I was five years old. We had a pontoon boat, and a row boat, and a motor boat. I like boats. I need to learn something new. Kayaking seems like a good thing to learn.

8) About half of my L.A. friends have moved away. Others are planning on it. The rest live across town, and I seldom see them anyway.

9) The traffic in L.A. keeps getting worse. The smog is still bad--even though every year, they say it's not as bad as it used to be.

10) I had to move somewhere. Really, I did. It's not that far from L.A. There are trains--Amtrak, Metrolink. You could even come here by boat. If you had one.

Boats, Bok Choy, and Berries

"Wanna go for a boat ride?" My real estate agent rang my doorbell and caught me having a beer and carrots and hummus lunch. I was pretty much done with the food so I grabbed the beer, found the key to my boat dock, and we stood in the sunshine waiting for her friend to pick us up. But the friend got anxious steering the boat in the wind in the narrow channel, so we dashed through the neighborhood to another boat dock where a friend of the friend was waiting to pilot us through the wind.

This was a preview, I think, of what owning a boat could be like for me. I'm going to have to practice. Maybe a lot. There's that part when you're coming in, and you get close to the dock, and you have to jump out with the line in your hand, and then tie the boat up before it scoots away. I saw a lady on a giant tricycle today with a dog in its wicker basket. I need the giant tricycle of the boat world.

The boat ride was wonderful though. We saw seals playing in the harbor. If you have a boat, you can take your boat to the Sunday farmer's market. (You can take your boat to the Vons, and to restaurants.)

I had already gone to the farmer's market earlier by car, so I rode on with the nervous friend and her friend, got out at a boat dock in an adjoining neighborhood, and had a nice long walk back to my place. I'm figuring out the lay of the land--or the marina, actually.

This evening I walked to the beach. It's amazing how few people there are on the beach here--compared to, say, Santa Monica. There were a couple of joggers who plodded by, but otherwise it was me and a lonely blue bucket, which I picked up and carried away so it doesn't end up in the The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Oh--and the seagulls picnicking on a small sea lion or seal carcass. I startled them when I approached. "It's all yours," I said. I'd already feasted on baby bok choy, shrimp, and berries and ice cream.

I'm lonely here though. As lonely as an abandoned blue bucket.

Dear Blogosphere

I've been lonesome for you, my flock of bloggers who I love to read. I've been lonesome for my comfy bed because my "campsite" is rather sterile.

The last few days have been solitary. But I can't complain, when my evening walks take me here.

Here's a preview of the new location--what I saw as I returned from my evening stroll to the beach in my new neighborhood.

Really, I'm kinda speechless about the whole thing.

Official Songs, Drinks, and Poems....and a Runcible Spoon!!!

Margaritaville has an official song. That's a no-brainer, right? Ditto with the official drink. But it might need an official poem, too.


How about this one?

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

BY EDWARD LEAR

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

   In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

   And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

    What a beautiful Pussy you are,

         You are,

         You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

II

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

   How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

   But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

   To the land where the Bong-Tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

   With a ring at the end of his nose,

             His nose,

             His nose,

   With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

   Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;   

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

   They danced by the light of the moon,

             The moon,

             The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

    When my daughter C. got married back in October and asked me to speak at her wedding, I considered reciting this poem since both she and her husband are professional sailors. I, however, did not think I could pull off, "Oh what a beautiful pussy you are..." so I wrote something myself.

    But there you have it. The discarded wedding speech is now officially declared  Margaritaville's official poem.

   And I declare the kayak to be Margaritaville's official boat.

photo credit: redbubble.com (the owl and the pussycat)

greenzebraaccounting.com  (the kayaks in the moonlight)

Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair

I crave water. I want a boat to take me somewhere I've never been with him. A boat to the island of myself. Boat on water rocking me into some new satisfaction. Rocking me until he is washed away, washed under.

I have a disorder. When I travel to a place I like, it's never long before I tell myself I'm moving there. Here's my street. My house. I will paint the door red. Redo the flower beds. Down the street is my bookstore, my favorite coffee. Around the corner--that's my bar. The bartender will mix my drink when he sees me step through the door.

This weekend I  found the place where I will move to. Really move. Not pretend. There is water. There are boats.

I haven't yet found my house. At night while I sleep, I move my furniture into one house after another, trying them out. Sofa here facing the water. Table and chairs facing the water. My bed facing the water. Me facing the water. A baptism into my new life. Every last piece of my divorce floating away from me, floating out so far that all of it is just a speck on the horizon. A speck between land and sea. Between him and me.