Saturday Beach Report

It was 2018 when I last walked on the beach. The Christmas tree was still up, and I had a houseful of guests. Since then the guests have all gone home, the beach has been pounded with high surf as five different storms tried to drown the memory of fires and drought,  and I've finally recovered from  pneumonia.

Being on the sand today, I felt like a visitor to a strange land. The dredger is in the harbor making noise, and the beach is a tangle of blackened debris--detritus from the the Malibu fire, I guess, and huge pieces of things lay marooned here and there as if flung ashore by the angry hand of some irritable god.

This, I've heard, is a piece of the Ventura pier, washed ashore while I was still coughing and spending the day in my pajamas.

It's encrusted with its history, like all of us, whether we remain in place or are uprooted by force.

The world is brimming with turmoil these days. I feel lucky to be part of it.

What to Pack for the Women's March on Washington: Part Two/ the roller bag

My Equal Writes t-shirt from Shebooks seems like a no-brainer. Wooly stuff may not be necessary given the weather predictions, but I'm taking one sweater and some wool leggings, just in case. But honestly, it's gray and 59 degrees here in paradise right now; it's only supposed to be a few degrees cooler in D.C. on Saturday. Snow boots? probably unnecessarily heavy. A polar fleece hat with an attached balaclava?! Nah. It's weird though...that warm-ish weather. But lucky. Very lucky.

A few years ago, I barely made it make to CA between Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse.

BWI airport in 2010 when the snowplow had to drive up to the roof of the parking structure in order to dump its load of snow on top of the pile.

View from my brother's front door in suburban Baltimore.

Thursday Morning Beach Report

BETWEEN THE STORMS

Surf Naked

You can buy this t-shirt at LAX,

The sky and the ocean were outdoing one another in the contest for the grayest gray as the airport shuttle zoomed down the coast this morning. Dozens of surfers bobbed in the water, wrapped in their black wetsuits from head to toe. No one was naked.

At a LAX bar, I might have gotten my gin and tonic sooner if I'd been naked. The bartender saw the blond next to me, but I was swathed in my gray-haired cloak of invisibility. This is a randomly employed power I have no control over. Sometimes both men and women make a point of telling me they love my hair. Women frequently go on to tell me they could never go gray. They don't have the right skin tone or their gray is a weird texture. Whatever. Oh! the bartender said, when he finally noticed me, startled as if I'd dropped through the ceiling onto the barstool. At least LAX has stopped carding EVERYONE. There were no silver-haired exemptions. What was that all about? Dear whoever stopped that nonsense: Thank you.

I'm on the way to see my mom at the nursing home in Iowa. I'm leaving this:

Last night's sunset

for sub-zero temperatures. I'm wearing wool leggings under my regular leggings and I have a down jacket the size of a small easy chair. My suitcase contains a wool scarf, gloves, two wool sweaters, a down vest, and wool socks thick enough to use as a pillow. There will be extensive driving on this trip. I'm rather relieved that I will not be making the drive alone. Daughter C and her husband will be my travel companions. I keep picturing this:

My mom now has a doctor that checks on her in the nursing home. She no longer has to go out in sub-zero temperatures. She no longer has to go out at all.

And it's just now occurring to me that she may never leave the premises again. Just like that. She's already gone out for the final time, perhaps, and none of us knew it. Often we don't know these last experiences are happening as they occur. It would be too much for us, I suppose,  if we knew. For the past half-dozen years, I've considered that every encounter with my mom could be the last. And that is how I will approach this visit too. I don't see the point in denying it. It's as real as the brutal cold.

La Grande Fête

View from my friend Sasha's sunroof

You might not know that I was once a devoted francophile. Once upon a time I even had a blog about my love of France and things French.  Like other bits and pieces of my life, this particular diversion has fallen into disuse since I began caring for my mother. I have nowhere to speak French. No travels on the horizon, no French neighborhood to frequent where I might eavesdrop on a French conversation.

I was supposed to go to the French fair in Santa Barbara today, but just as a friend picked me up to head north, it began to pour here in the land of drought. We felt certain that the rain was just a momentary cloudburst, but the bad weather continued and when the freeway slowed to a stop, we exited and had lunch HERE.  I had the abalone (for some reason it does not seem to be on the menu a bit farther south) and don't regret missing the fair. My friend and I had a leisurely time and drove back just in time for the clouds to open up again.

View outside the restaurant in Carpenteria

I love this stretch of the California coast.  I need to remind myself that my search for a house near the water where I could take care of my mother is what brought me to this exquisite place. I frequently marvel about the twists and turns life has delivered to me since my divorce. How the end of my marriage seemed to be the worst thing and turned out to be the best thing. How agreeing to take care of my mom required me to move and brought me here. How one thing always leads to another thing and at the moment when all that  change is swirling around, we have no idea what the outcome will be. Those clouds might bring a downpour, but in the land of drought a downpour can mean salvation.

View of my patio. When it rains in So Cal, we take photos of it.

Monday Morning Beach Report

The ocean was brushed with silver this morning. Surfers and pelicans amazed each other with their feats of grace and skill.

As an added bonus, the local fire department water rescue squad was out drilling. With bright red shirts over their wetsuits and matching red helmets, they divided into drowning victims and rescuers. When the victims got quite far out beyond the huge waves and began waving their arms, the rescuers skipped into the surf with flippers in one hand and a life belt on a rope in the other. Once they were knee deep in the water, they put on their flippers and stroked like crazy to the victims who were then belted and towed to safety. It was heartening to know these guys practice these skills.

And meanwhile, some of those clouds looked like they might be making big plans.

Blessings to all those in the east coast blizzard.

The Weather Saints

Main Street store: West Point, NE

Going back to the Midwest always evokes a mix of emotions for me. I hate the heat and the humidity, the infernal buzz of biting insects, the endless array of fried foods, and the jello weirdness of salad bars. But C and I drove through postcard prettiness yesterday from Minnesota to Nebraska. Billowing clouds over fields of perfect corn, the silver-green waver of soybeans, the greener-than-green glow of alfalfa. We stopped in a roadside antiques store to browse, and when we got to where we were going, we walked into the little town in search of a dinner. I want a steak in a dark bar or supper club, I told C. She was game. We almost had to settle for the golden arches, but at the far end of Main St., I got my wish.

I don't usually eat meat. I'm a pescatarian--in other words a vegetarian who eats some fish. But I had a steak last night. You gotta eat the good thing that's local, right? And there was no jello at the salad bar. Pea salad, carrot salad, and cole slaw instead. They were all delicious. We returned to our motel without a single mosquito bite and woke this morning to a day of unbelievably pleasant weather. We're here for a wedding, and my ex-mother-in-law has a routine of imploring the appropriate saints for perfect wedding weather. This is her 10th grandchild wedding, and she is currently 10 for 10.

Days of Wonder and Amazement

The weather has been shifting here. When the man who loves me and I walked on the beach yesterday afternoon there was a rainbow ring around the sun. Kind of like this.

It poured as we slept last night. Then sunny this morning when we woke. A cold wind kicked up while I was at the farmer's market and I rushed away with my fresh fish as well as some Taiwanese spinach ("Much more flavor!" says the farmer) and this wonderful and amazing stuff.

It's peanut butter. I cooked the halibut with the barbeque peanut butter tonight. My mom wasn't crazy about it....but I LOVED it! I'm imagining some kind of banana dessert. And stir-frying the spinach with the curry peanut butter.

And speaking of wonderfulness, Downtown Abbey season 3 kicks off tonight. Did you catch the interview with some of the cast members on Morning Edition?

Days of wonder and amazement here in Margaritaville.

photo credit for the photo of the sun: news.nationalgeographic.com

Hotter than Hades/Hot Dog

Los Angeles had the hottest day on record today. It was 113 degrees, and this evening when the temperature was still edging 100, my dog Layla did not want to go for a walk. Good dog. Smart dog. Except that she didn't eat much today either.  Her food dish is inside, and it's a comfy 78 degrees here in my living room. She spent the day sleeping on the rug in front of the couch.  Layla is essentially an indoor dog and she spends almost all of her time in my living room.  And she lives to eat.  So  I've spent today  wondering...
My cat Snowflake died on September 11th. My dog Lola on September 22nd. Um--hello grim reaper of the pet world....can you hear me? I would like to keep Layla, if at all possible, for a while longer. Pretty please? Three pets in three weeks would be excessive, don't you think?