Along the 101

I'm just back from five days in San Francisco.

Thanks for having me, Norcal. You were your usual self in all the good ways.

I haven't spent a ton of time in San Francisco, truth be told. When I moved to Los Angeles almost twenty years ago, I talked myself into thinking that living in L.A. was almost as good as living in San Francisco would have been. I had read Tales of the City rather breathlessly.  The result was a certainty  that if I could get to San Francisco, it would all be just as interesting as Maupin wrote it.  It didn't matter, really, that I was to arrive 10+ years later.  Or that it was--well--fiction.

At the time I thought Los Angeles would just have to do.  No one from Norcal was beating down my grad student door.  And L.A. had called.  Offered money.  So loaded up my babyshitbrownyellow Camry and "hit the San Diego freeway doing 60 miles an hour" to quote Miss Nanci Griffith.  (Who--oddly--is playing on itunes right now.  It's another song, but still, eerie.)

I told myself that I'd go to San Francisco a lot.  I haven't, but I think sometimes about that promise I made to myself and what I thought my life was going to be like back then.

I've come to love Los Angeles.  I appreciate it, too.  I went to a concert a couple of weeks ago and the artist said, "people in New York always ask why I love L.A. with all the traffic and the freeways, and I say, 'exactly.'"  It's not about the freeways, of course.  It's about the city itself.

Anyway, I had been looking forward to this trip when I thought Honey could come.  Then she couldn't.  And it was the first week of the semester.  And then it turned out I was staying at a hotel other than the conference hotel and not particularly nearby.  All of which served to make me cross.

I decided to drive up the 101.  I couldn't take the 5 and feel ok, what with all the crossness.  I'm not sure I'll ever take the 5 to get to the Bay area again. 

California has all sorts of problems, I know this.  I'm not from here.  I know this, too. 

I thought a fair about about where I was from because I listened to The Help on CD some of the way up and all the way back.

Ok, so it's New Orleans, not Mississippi (where the book is set) or Georgia (where I'm from).  She mentions New Orleans and I'm taking a little poetic license based on the photos I just downloaded from my iPhone.

Driving to this city where I thought I wanted to be from the city where I do want to be, listening to a novel about a city that resonates with my past (or at least with my mother's) all served to be a little disorienting, in both time and space.

...

The sea lions weren't out in force to greet me. 

I always forget the damn hills, too.

Did I mention that I like Hipstamatic a lot?  I do.  Made me not want to take my regular camera. 

The conference I went to was terrible.  Not terrible in the way MLA or AAA can be.  That terrible is epic.  Shuttle buses, wide-eyed grad students, pretentious papers, really trendy girl glasses, drinking, people having sex with people they don't know, kind of terrible. 

This conference was just bad.  Boring, tedious, and talking about important stuff from 1000 miles away without acknowledging the distortion.


I stole the time I could. 

Went to the Ferry Building. 

Had Rickshaw make me an fabulously great new bag (which I deserved).  Ok, bag aside.  I promised Honey a "one-in, one-out" bag trip.  I was determined, therefore, to be deliberate about bag choices.  I started with Rickshaw.  They couldn't have been nicer.  Gave me a tour of the factory.  It's a great space.  They're committed to the right things.  Timbuk2?  Not so much.  Want to support a good SF based company all about sustainability?  Rickshaw, friends.  Rickshaw.  I got a Zero Messenger made of recycled coke bottles.

I also explored the coffee of the place.  Two words to simply your search for goodness of coffee.  You ready? You sure?

Blue


Bottle

I had good coffee elsewhere in SF and just made it to Intelligensia a week or so ago down here.  It's a good time to like coffee here on the coast of west.  Portland and Seattle are out here too, you know.  They're not bad at coffee either.

It's a great city, San Francisco.  And I need to go back more often.  The hills are not fun.  The food is great. 

It's what I wanted it to be, especially early in the morning when the fog stays thick and I could ignore the conference and walk along the Embarcadero. 

And yet, all week I wanted to come back to L.A.

I drove home on the 101 and stopped in Gilroy for lunch.  The sullen waitress and cheesy singer seemed bearable with the garlic.  As I walked back to my car after lunch, I noticed this cool old building, which had once housed the newspaper in the town.

The earthquake warning was meant to keep me away.  Instead I peered into the windows and stood and looked at it a long time.

I moved to Los Angeles just after the riots.  The earthquake happened not very long after I got here.  I moved to the "wrong" city. 

When I pulled into my driveway, my car smelling of fresh bread and coffee, I was home.  What's a little unsecured masonry among friends?

As good as my car smelled, the house smelled better.  Honey had baked me cupcakes. 

NoLa

King Tut brought me to New Orleans the first time.

Kids in the gifted and talented program at my elementary school did not usually get to take out-of-town trips until the 5th grade. The exhibition of King Tut's treasures in New Orleans prompted a year roll-back and I came--petrified and overwhelmed--to New Orleans. I do remember the exhibit vaguely and the alarmingly gold t-shirt I bought at it.

Some years later I saw plaster of paris replica of said exhibit at the Luxor in Las Vegas. The "best authenticity money can buy," or so I'm told. Standing in LV looking at the plaster did make a vision of my nine year old self come rushing back. I remembered the crowds and the gold.

I didn't come back to New Orleans until my drive from Georgia to California as I departed for programs PhD. That time, I had a po boy, some beignets, and went to Preservation Hall. I came back later with the folklorists.

Ten years or so ago, I came back again for an education conference. I was involved in creating a new kind of undergraduate education program at Commuter State and one of my colleagues suggested we present a paper about it at a big education conference here. The feeling of being at a big conference outside of your field is not unlike being a third grader in King Tut's Egypt. I remember wandering around the city (it was just before Mardi Gras) and watching parades and feeling out of place and out of sorts.

At the end of my stay, I went to check out of the hotel and discovered that I had been charged $1000+ for some equipment. I protested that I had not rented any equipment and the fees were removed. I flew home. A few days later, I got a letter indicating that the charges had been placed on my account again. I called and was assured they would again be removed.

Then I received my American Express card bill. Lo, the charges were once again there.

I switched tactics and protested via American Express. They removed the charges and "investigated." Sure enough, I got a letter from them indicating that the hotel had satisfied them that the charges were legitimate and I was re-recharged. I asked for the "evidence" that the hotel had presented. I was sent a copy of an equipment charge signed by someone named Buffie who has my last name. Buffie. I am not Buffie.

I then had my dad, an attorney who recently compared himself to a late-year Grover Cleveland. Apparently President Cleveland in has late life got rather large and started shooting people when he was cross with them. Anyway, dad wrote a sufficiently threatening letter, mostly referencing his ability to sue and disparaging Buffie and all named Buffie. The charges were reversed and stayed that way.

Sometimes lawyers help when reason does not.

I came back about a year later (and stayed in the hotel across the street). That trip was marked by a missed flight that kept me from driving out to Baton Rogue to see Patti and Tom. I never saw Tom again.

I've been back since that incident, but only briefly when Patti took my mother and I on a post-Katrina view a couple of years ago.

So I'm back now. On the 35th floor of Buffie's hotel. Looking out over the river. It's not a great time for me to travel. The conference I'm attending is fine and interesting and has not reminded me of my King Tut self, for the most part, but I wish I were in the other LA.

Last night, I went to dinner with a whole bunch of folks from my University system. One of the attendees has left the system and is now the vice-president of the college across the street from my high school. The college where Patti was the chaplain for a while. I listened to her tell another person about her experiences. After she talked for a while, I said something about what she was saying, and she said, "I keep forgetting you know all about the places I'm talking about."

Yes. I do know about them. The memory of the past is strong here. It's written on the landscape.

I guess I'd rather start over with New Orleans. Go all the way back to the kid in the gold t-shirt and give her different experiences of this place.

But I'm here now, with all that I do know. So, I'll have a beignet, I guess. And drive to see Patti tomorrow. Then, I'll go home.

Honey has never been here, so I can come one more time sometime. We'll make new memories. And none will involve Buffie.

Water and grapefruit

I've been thinking some lately about water and the desert.

I grew up in the east, where the humidity made you wish for a little less water and a little more seersucker.

That's what roads usually looked like as I stared out the window in the cars of my childhood.

I've lived in Southern California a long time now and am still amazed at how adaptable I am to the dry.  I say that in what, admittedly,  has been a very mild summer with lots of "June gloom."  That's the marine layer hanging around the morning and keeping the afternoon cool.  Thanks so much Pacific.

I've been doing a little writing (of the academic type) lately about the "real" desert here in SoCal.

(That my paper proposal was rejected for my annual professional conference did give me pause.  I've decided to interpret it as a failure on their part, not mine.  My annual membership renewal for said society languishes in the mail basket, perhaps to go unpaid.  Oh, yeah, deny them that $100 and THEN they'll see!)

Honey and I have been frequenting an inn in Desert Hot Springs for a couple of years.  And, yes, I do mean frequenting.  Eight times in two years counts as frequent.  :)

Sigh.  We've just been back a week and I'm ready to go back.  I think the GTI has a homing beacon now.

The innkeeper, a man of considerable charm, refers to his pool and hot tub as filled by water from a "fissure."  He means, of course, that Desert Hot Springs is sitting on a big old fault in the earth.  Those tricky faults that cause all the quaking also can cause the water of spring.

Desert Hot Springs has all the water it needs and can use.  It's good water, too.  It's good to drink.  Lovely to soak in.

Elsewhere in the region, there's less water.

Looks dry.

One of my current fascinations is water of a decidedly undesirable sort in the desert.

That's the Salton Sea.  Formed by inadvertent flooding from irrigation canals in the early part of the 20th century, it was once hailed as the new playground to the stars.  Now it's a salty mess, that kills fish, smells bad, attracts shorebirds, hosts some odd communities, and just generally sits ignored (as best as people can) in the middle of the Imperial Valley south of Indio.

The kingbird probably has a better idea than the sandpipers.  Don't get in the water.

I got to thinking about water closer to home this morning.  When we bought our house eight years ago, I planted a very small grapefruit tree.  And small it stayed.  Mostly because I didn't water it.

When we did landscaping a few years ago, we had a bubbler put on it.  I thought it rebounded quite well.  Then Honey's mother pointed out that the "rebound" was what she called a "sucker plant" and not the "tree" at all.  Today, I looked outside and commented to Honey that a sucker plant had once again attached itself to the little grapefruit that couldn't.

We agreed to plant something else.

A little later in the morning, I decided to feed the backyard birds, something I've gotten a bit out of the habit of recently (for monetary reasons, mostly).  Nyjer costs.  Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't.

Everyone wants "wild canaries," but I'm here to testify that if you want goldfinches at your feeder, you got to pay for nyjer seed.  (Current price about $2/lb.)

Anyway, as I filled the feeders, I glanced at the grapefruit tree and thought, "what the hell, I'll go ahead and shovel it out today."  I figured we could replace it in the fall sometime.

So, after I put away the seed implements (bird feeding is complicated, don't you know).  Visit a Wild Birds Unlimited near you to find out just how money you could be spending!  Don't forget the nyjer is obligatory if you want the little gold ones.

I walked over to the grapefruit "tree."  Let me give you a sense of scale.

That's it on the left.  The tree (no quotes) on the right is the tangerine.  It has had many fruit every year, water or no.  Bless its over productive heart.

There's no doubt that water helps these trees.  Here's the orange tree that didn't produce more than a dozen in the non-water years.

See all those fruit?  We'll be up to our elbows in oranges again this year.

Did I mention that they're navels?  Yum.

So I'm standing over the grapefruit and I glance down.

Yeppers, those are actual grapefruits.

Water.  I tell you what.  Eight years on and the little tree that couldn't has four grapefruit on it.  And lots and lots of new growth.  I'm giving it another chance.  Redemption comes when it does, I suppose.

Now, if only it would rain.

On the eve of a trip away

Back when I started this blog, there were lots of blogs.  I suppose there still are.  My RSS feed certainly suggests that the blogs I track keep getting updated.  I even find new ones to read occasionally.

What is gone now (and I think for good) is the community of bloggers who I felt part of who read and commented on each other's posts.  There may be tweeting now, for all I know.  There's certainly facebooking.  What we've lost, though, is medium to long form ideas and the exchange thereof.  I suppose I'm not anti-tweet per se, but I come close.  And every time I update my status on facebook, I am both careful and a little unsure if my "friends" need to know what I've just said.

All of which is to say that I was thinking about vacation blogging this morning.

My morning gave me time and space to think, in part because I do not need or want to run in errands.  If Saturday is normally about going to the cleaners and getting bagels and getting the car washed, I have decided none of those things are necessary this particular Saturday.  Honey and I leave for vacation Monday.  I'm thinking this weekend should be:

bike, riding;
dogs, hanging out with;
movie, seeing;
meals, eating.

Not necessarily in that order.  And to be sure, some things need to be repeated.

We were to have gone to Lassen National Park to go camping.  (File under: recession, vacation)

It's not really our National Park, but sounded really wonderful.  It's only accessible in the summer.  I'm pretty sure it's summer, what with the heat rash and all.

So I had turned camping into a bit of a research project.

Tent: check, REI Hobitat 4, vestibule, and footprint
Sleeping platforms: check, cot, zero gravity chair
Coffee: check, titanium coffee pot and individual plunger mugs

I could go on and on.  Maps, GPS, hotels.  I had it sorted.

Then, we got a phone call.  They'd be chainsawing at our campground from 7am until 4pm everyday.

Noise sources expect, National Park camping:

Noise sources unexpected, National Park camping:

Serendipity intervened.  I like to think of Serendipity as a person.  She's out there somewhere.  Sometimes she's hanging around with me.  Other times, she's occupied with someone stuck in a tight spot who just happens to have the right tool to get out of it.  This may be one of the reasons I buy so many stupid tools on steepandcheap.com.  Just trying to help Ms. Serendipity out.

I had, the very morning of the chainsaw phone call, gotten a notice that our most favoritist place we have gone to (a lot) over the past couple of years, the fabulous (truly truly) El Morocco Inn and Spa in (not so) fabulous Desert Hot Springs was running a special.  More than half off high season rates.  Half off low season rates.  As cheap as camping.

So instead of a very long drive, followed by very loud camping, we have a much shorter drive followed by a really nice bed and real mineral springs.  And massages.  All of which (despite the triple digits) will clear the heat rash right up.  Also maybe some of the current ennui.

So back to blogging trips.  I like blogging trips.  See, for eg:

Bear Aware

or


The Geese of Hawaii

Hmm, maybe I like blogging trips that somehow involve animals.

Anyway, trips happen whether I blog or not.  I may or may not blog on this trip. 

If I do blog about it, I will assuredly write medium to long form.  Spa-tels cannot be tweeted.

Alone in a downtown

Pre-entry note:  I've been thinking some lately about this blog and how much I was engaged with it during the last Winter Olympics.  It was a different time in my life, to be sure.  Four years seems both quickly gone and very recent.  I'm not going to feel badly that the blog has lain fallow.  But I found myself (with only my iphone at hand--no laptop) thinking about an entry while on a trip this week.  So I wrote it down (pen and paper!) and submit it to the the blog maw for anyone's consideration.

What is it like to be alone in an unfamiliar downtown?

It depends on the city, really, doesn't it.

Some (most) have the obvious thing to do.  To wit:

Denver--The Mint

Louisville--The Bats

Seattle--The Needle

Don't read this as pejorative in some way.  I'm usually up for the obvious.  The more factual and historical, the better.  So picture me, then, bereft outside The Mint, unable to get a ticket and learn about all those coins.

Two Nevada coin asides:

1) Honey and I go to the site of the Carson City Mint after a breakfast of pancakes, after a truly hellish night in Virginia City.  Unless it's the Irma in Cody, WY, give 19th century hotels--however quaint you think they'll be--a pass.  They will be hot or cold or startlingly both.  They will be loud.  You will not sleep.  All of what I have said is especially true of The Silver Queen in Virgina City, NV.  Virginia City MAY be worth a drive-through look at the Bucket O'Blood casino and saloon, but not more.  Not even a little bit more.

I wanted more from Carson City, mint wise, but I was tired and perhaps compensatingly over-carbed.

2)  During the early days of the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas was in a period where high-end properties were all about museums as part of the experience.  Museums make thing high class, don't you know. The Bellagio had Steve Wynn's own art collection.  Not to be outdone, Mandalay Bay opened with a featured museum to money.  Appropriate?  You bet.  (Ha!).

So, Honey and I dutifully paid our admission and were given those hand held recorder sticks.  Wands.  Whatever.  You push the number of the display and a deep voice intones from the stick about the coin in front of you.  There was a coin set off by itself in a glass case.  When we approached we discovered it was a nickel.  The stick then began what seemed like 90 minutes of narration about the nickel.

We both gave up on the nickel before it was done.  It was a rare and important nickel.  It was also--there's just no getting around this--a nickel.

(Ok, I just looked it up--because being snotty about a nickel doesn't mean it's not important.  It was a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, one of only 5 known in the world.  They were not supposed to be in circulation, but somehow 5 of them got into collector's hand.  Liberty Head nickels were regular nickels from 1882 to 1912.  In 1913 a rouge Mint employee stuck five 1913 Liberty Heads.  One of the five most recently sold (2007) for $5 million.  It's quite the nickel).

To rejoin me alone in downtowns...

A few years ago, I had a trip to Denver.  The Mint Tour was full.  I "replaced" it with a tour of Molly Brown's house (she of the unsinkable) which I left halfway through.  My trip to the Louisville Slugger bat factory paled next to the massage at the spa Treecup found that trip.

I try, you see, to be a good conference attendee.  I really do, but somehow I am compelled to wander away sometimes.

So, Thursday I wandered Seattle.

I had high hopes.  No rain.  A cool Pacific Northwest City.

And then, well, there's the Space Needle Dream™.  I've had it for years.  Not every night.  But once or twice a year.

Here's how it goes.  I'm in Seattle.  How do I know?  I just do.  It looks like my brain thinks Seattle should look.

When I touched down at SeaTac on Thursday, it was my first moment in Washington State.  Why have I been dreaming of a place I'd never been?  I'll leave that to the symbolgists and psychologists.

Anyway, in the Space Needle Dream™, I need to get to the top of the Space Needle.  I can't get there.  I try and try and can't even get close.  There's something important up there.  A Space Needle Dream™ secret.


So Thursday afternoon, I landed and took a cab with a colleague to the hotel.  She left to meet her sister for dinner, so I feel ok about missing the opening talk and head off to the Needle.  I take the mid-60s monorail to get there.

I paid my $17 and rode the elevator (41 seconds) to the top.  The sun was setting behind the Puget Sound.  I circumnavigated the outside deck, the inside deck and stared off into every direction I could.

I then called Honey.

"Will I know the secret message when I see it?"

"Maybe it's in the needle part"

"Well, that's problematic, because I'm in the round part and can't get there."

I do like modernist architecture.  I enjoyed the monorail ride back, where I looked at the Needle from below.

I then walked several hundred vertical miles (ok, 12 blocks) up a mountain (ok, up Capitol Hill) to buy some good coffee.  (Victrola, Stumptown (a Portland import), and Vivace) for enjoyment back in the blessedly flat San Fernando Valley.

I enjoyed my beer and burger for dinner and wrote this blog in my moleskine with a blue gel pen.  (How quaint).

It was a tiring afternoon (no lunch didn't help), but the people seemed nice and everything was open.  (Take that, Denver!)

The next day I went to Pike Place market and to REI mothership.

The secret is still out there somewhere.  Problem is that now I don't even know where to look.  But I'm sure I'll find myself in another downtown at some point and I'll wander.



As for the Space Needle Dream™, maybe I was wrong.  Maybe it wasn't Seattle after all.  Could the secret be in Brussels at the Atomium?  Do you think they have any conferences there?

Mallomars

Essentially lifted from Facebook...

I was doing one of those 25 things things.  I never do memes on the blog, why I did one on Facebook, well, I dunno.  I have NOT done any of the follow-up memes.  48 things, etc.

Anyway, here was things #23: I once got "stranded" on a rock in the former Yugoslavia (when it was still Yugoslavia). My friends and I made our way into town and I bought and ate some mallomars. They tasted better than any cookie ever had before or since.

___________________________________________________________________________________

A friend asked for more info on what had happened.  Here's my response.  I should note that I have now corrected my spelling of the cookie in question.  It's Mallomar.  I'm going to maintain that it should have a w, but acknowledge that it doesn't.

My response:

In the late 1980s, I traveled with friends from Italy, up through Austria, and down into Yugoslavia. The train to Zagreb was fine, the train from Zagreb to Split was not.

Once we arrived in Split, we explored the city and decided to take a ferry one day to Hvar, an island off the coast. We were the only Americans, probably the only English speakers, and certainly the youngest people of the ferry. The ferry arrived at a rock. It opened itself up and we got off. Everyone else drove off in cars or was picked up. The ferry closed and started back to Split. There we were standing on the rock.

There was NOTHING there. Alone.

Off in what looked like an impossible distance to travel was a town. We climbed up the road and down into the town (it wasn't actually very far). It turned out to be a pleasant resort town, largely closed for the winter (it was March). We wandered around, found a small grocery store. I bought the best Mallomars ever. When we saw the ferry headed back toward us, we walked back to the rock.

In our exploration of the town, we found a path along the harbor that got us back to the rock without having the climb the road/hill. We arrived as the ferry did and boarded it back to Split.

That night we had goulash, and the following night we took the overnight ferry to Bari.

It was that moment on the rock. I wanted to jump in the Adriatic and swim down the ferry.

That and the Mallomars.

Business Balloon Sunday Pinch Hitter

Business Balloon note:  The ephemeral nature of business balloon will out.  eb took her blog down and with it all the balloons.  I've removed the links, but trust and believe that the baloons were there once, both interneterally and corporeally.  Where there once were links and, therefore, balloons, I've italicized.  Feel the loss with every italics.

The guvment of Houston Texas has let the people of America down.  eb brought me such joy.  Almost every week.

eb paid tribute to our wedding

Teresa and I even helped out

Then there was the 40th birthday tribute (complete with Elizabeth Mitchell--contented sigh)

2008 was a good year.  It had lots of business balloons.  (Other things happened, too, of course).

Then Houston went and messed things up

Here's the thing though, what Texas does wrong, Hawaii can help fix.  See we just got rid of the semi-Texas doofus in the White House.  Got ourselves a nice Hawaiian fellow in return.  Aloha and mahalo.

So, here's my contribution, straight out of Hilo.





Did I mention that this balloon was clean and accessible up close?  It sure was.



I love me some Hawaii.  Happy ballooning my blog-ohana.

The Elusiveness of Invincibility

As I sat down to write this post Biscuit threw up in the other room. It was the yellow frothy kind of dog vomit. Many years ago, when I had just taken "companionship" of my first dog (as an adult) an older friend assured me that, "yellow frothy dog vomit wasn't anything to worry about." While that may be true in the abstract, I could have lived without it tonight.

I've been away from the blog for a while, though my sporks-based Wall-E review has kept sporksforall humming along. Very much like Wall-E himself.

I don't know if I'll return to faithful blogging through aught eight. I want to, but life gets in the way of sporks.

I've started a new (interim-again!) job as of two days ago. Four years ago when my boss hired me to be the interim thing that I'm now the permanent thing, I got sick. So sick that during the networking event with the University President, I stayed in my hotel room at the Marriott with fever and chills.

This year we did our slog/sling through the South early. I came back and have managed to get a massive cold (including fever and chills) and a nice case of laryngitis. Did I mention that my new job requires talking? It does. And I just don't sound right

I mentioned to my boss that I had been sick the last time she gave me an interim job. She said, "I remember. Maybe this job change thing is more stressful than you think." Could be, indeed. Also stressful is travel. And bombardment.

My favorite day of the "sling" is always the day Honey and I escape to the closest Spanish Moss draped city. Our usual escape is Charleston, but this year we went to Savannah.

As my few (and loyal!) readers know, I like me a National Park and will take a National Monument in a pinch. Thus, did I drag Honey to Fort Pulaski on Tybee Island.



Not brushed up on the Civil War of late? Here's what happened. Fort Pulaski was started in 1829 to protect Savannah. (Tybee Island is 15 miles from Savannah). Savannah has always been an important port/city to Georgia and is one of the oldest cities in the Southeast. Note, please, that its importance is in no way related to Paula Dean.

Anyway, this being the 19th century and engineering being what it was, not to mention it's bloody hot in the South in the summer, they didn't so much finish the damn thing by 1860. South Carolina (a mere fifty miles away) seceded from the Union in January of 1861. Georgia followed suit and the governor ordered the occupation of the fort. The state then gave it the Confederacy. How kind. Lessee--"we'll take this from the gumment (that's how you say it) and give it to this other gumment. Yep."

Righto, so in April of 1861, the War starts in earnest (you knew that right? April 1861 to April 1865) and the Naval blockade of Southern ports began.

Here's the thing about Pulaski. The folks who built it: they thought it was invincible.

By November 1861, the Federals were encamped at Hilton Head and the Confederates got worried about that and abandoned land forces on Tybee EXCEPT for those at Pulaski. Whoopsie.

The Federals marched onto Tybee. The Confederates in Pulaski though they were safe. The guns of the day only went a mile and Pulaski is more than a mile from Tybee. The Union fellows, though, they had this new gun. Those Federals, always with the new guns. Must have been that industry infrastructure. They shot up the fort. Seemed like they might get to the powder magazine. 30 hours into the siege of the invincible fort, the Confederates surrendered.

The National Park Service notes, "Today the fort serves not only as a memorial to the valor and dedication of those connected with its construction, bombardment, and defense, but in a larger sense as a history lesson on the elusiveness of invincibility."



I hope you can see that I get it. Not invincible.

I did survive that week and may yet survive my cold, my laryngitis, my new job, and my own vulnerabilities. I am certain, though, as certain as I can be, that invincibility eludes me. And I've never run very fast. Mofo needs to slow down and shows no sign of it.

Thoughts on two city traveling

I'm back from my travels. Here are some thoughts of a Monday morning in reference to the U.S. cities I visited.

#The Atlanta airport has too many words in its name. (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport)

#Delta is still the best mainstream air carrier. I heart me some Lance crackers.

#Captain's wafers with cream cheese and scallions eastbound. Whole wheat with cheddar westbound. Mmm.

#My dad's classic car is cool, but the gas fumes made me a little sick. Did people stay a little sick from gas fumes all the time prior to catalytic converters?

#It's weird that one of the best Philly cheese steaks I've ever had (and yes, I've had them in Philadelphia) is made by people from the Indian subcontinent at a strip mall in Atlanta.

#Getting from Atlanta to San Diego by way of LAX is a pain in the ass, but my Honey made it seem easy.

#Should you have occasion to stay at the Sheraton Marina in San Diego and the front desk person says, "we'll put you in the Bay Tower," please know that you will be in an entirely different hotel. And it will sucketh.

#Downtown San Diego looks a lot like Waikiki. Too much like it, really, only cleaner, less crowded, reachable by car, and with fewer one-way streets. There are fewer street performers, unless you want to count drunk people.

#Petco Park is a great place to watch a ballgame. There are no pets there. The food was good for ballpark food. None of it was kibble.

#People should not be preparing to be stupidly drunk at 8pm. The Gaslamp district was full of people whose paths were clearly about drinking a lot then getting arrested.

#Boring conferences are boring.

#Hard cider at a cool Irish pub will help make the boring conference go away. Leave early, though. (cf. drunk people)

#There are a lot of places that sell fancy cheese in San Diego.

#Most of them also have fancy jam. The jam will probably be more fancy than you want, if your jam tastes are anything like mine. The jars will be pretty, though.

#Did all the cheese stores used to be book and record stores? What will happen to the cheese stores when someone figures out how to internet market fancy cheese?

#I'm glad to be home.

Travel details

It's easy enough to get lost in the details. Is my airplane seat where I want it to be? Is my ipod charged and loaded with things I'll like? Do they have my Starwood Preferred number?  Which suitcase should I take?  Can I deal with how stupid the van for Parking Spot is?



Without descending into another "travel used to be better" reverie, my fixation on the details has made me wonder about what it was like when the details didn't matter.

I think sometimes about what it was like in those long sweaty summers where I had to go the Baptist "day camp." There was little to look forward to, really, given the Baptist (at least the ones who ran the camp) tendency toward, "go play in the creek and catch crawdads if you can." These Baptists were not so much into structured day camps. Trapped by the creek for days on end, the very idea of traveling seemed better than Christmas. We'd get in the car and drive to the beach. I looked forward to it, despite strong evidence that it wouldn't be as fun as I hoped. Because my brother and I couldn't get along in the car, one of us would often be banished to the "way back" of our VW station wagon, underneath which was the engine. In the South.  In the summer.  Without air conditioning. Still, a trip was a trip was a trip and at least I didn't have to go hang out with the Baptists for a week.

Next week, as you might guess, I travel. I travel from one coast to another and back and then down this one some away from where I live.  I've worked the details. Somehow, I can't access those feelings of anticipation  I used to have. I try to comfort myself that this trip will involve no time on top of the engine of a mid-1970s Volkswagen 412 station wagon.

Still I can't help wishing it felt a little less like staring into green water looking for the crawdads I could never catch.

Pineapple phun

"Pineapple princess", he calls me pineapple princess all day
As he plays his ukulele on the hill above the bay
"Pineapple princess, I love you, you're the sweetest girl I've seen"
"Some day we're gonna marry and you'll be my pineapple queen"

So sang Annette Funicello some time ago. My honey channeled Ms. Funicello as we approached the Dole Pineapple Plantation.

O'ahu was not, to be real for a moment, my favorite of Hawai'i's islands. We only visited the two. It came in second and I suspect would continue to sink down the rankings had we visited more. Do you remember how Casey Kasem used to disparage songs as they slipped down the chart? Really, he was criticizing us, his listeners, for letting it happen to the songs. I always found it off-putting. How was there room on the chart for "Leader of the Band" if "Heat of the Moment" didn't slip off? Hmm? Didn't think you had an answer.

I can just hear Mr. Kasem saying, "last week this island was at number 2, but now that Kaua'i has surged, O'ahu drops to number 3."

At any rate, with O'ahu holding steady at #2, Honey and I explored its offerings. In the middle of the island, we discovered (the maps and signs helped quite a lot) something that NO ONE else knows about. They have pineapples on O'ahu. Dole does. Pineapples. Can you imagine?



They've had pineapples there for over one hundred years.

Ok, seriously, the Dole Plantation was cheesy in just the right way.



It featured the above shown pineappletunities. Notice that my level of excitement was such I could not keep my hand still enough for my point and shoot camera to focus.

Beyond the maze, train, and garden, there was a ginormous retail facility. They even had "Dole Radio" (on which Mr. Kasem was not featured). Dole Radio kept promising pineapple cutting demonstrations and Honey and I kept going to try to find them. It was all for naught. There was no cutting of pineapple. What there was was a tremendously long line at the end of which one could purchase pineapple ice cream and the like.

We confined our pineapple shopping to pineapple memorabilia.



(Sample only, not an actual purchase).

I was thrilled at the level of pineapple crap. It was really beyond measure. It certainly outstripped the macadamia nut people in terms of square footage and variety.



Actually, to be fair, we bought plenty at both nutland and pineappleland. Honey has been sporting a nightshirt that I bought her that says, "I got totally nuts on the Big Island of Hawaii" and I may have some mac nut socks. Nutland wins over pineappleland in the crucial sampling area, too. They'll give you nuts at Mauna Loa. At Dole, they keep announcing the aforementioned phantom pineapple demo and sampling. We stood under the sign that said "Pineapple Demonstration" alone and unwanted.

All was not despair, though. There were pineapple "costumes" to try on!



Notice, please, that I purchased a Dole hat and immediately put it on. Shame did not walk with me in O'ahu. Pineapple fun walked with me instead.

My excitement over the Pineapple Express can only be described as extreme. A small train. Pineapples. I channeled my inner six year old, that is if my inner six year old had $15.50 extra to spend on a 20 minute train ride. She didn't, so my outer 39 year old had to pony up.

I'm sure you're dying to know what happens on the Pineapple Express. You see pineapples!



Also pineapple topiary.



Plus, there's pineapple narration on the Pineapple Express, wherein we learned that James Dole's real claim to fame (besides buying the whole island of Lana'i and turning it into a big pineapple plantation) was canning pineapples.



Good to know that some genius at Dole thought that pineapple should be artificially sweetened. Pineapples aren't sweet on their own. Not even a little bit.

Interspersed with the narration, we were treated to musical interludes. Guess what one of the songs was?

"Pineapple princess", I love you, you're the sweetest girl I've seen
"Some day we're gonna marry and you'll be my pineapple queen"

We may have sung along.

Getting off the train, we were given our only pineapple sample. It may have been the best pineapple I've ever tasted.

We toured the pineapple garden. The way they grow is amazing. They're heavy, you know.



This one had grown itself a nice head of pineapple leaves.

There were some regrets. We discovered a two-for-one Pineapple Maze coupon in our car rental map after we had forgone that attraction. You already know about the pineapple demo lie. We didn't see Pineapple Pete.



We also didn't see the lady with him.

The truth is, though, it was a rockin' pineapple time. So good that since we've been back I've worn my hat, Honey has worn her pineapple shirt. Our Pineapple Pete magnet is featured on our refrigerator between the lava magnet and the Nene magnet. We've bought two pineapples. We've sung "Pineapple Princess."

O'ahu is holding steady at #2 because of the wondrous pineapplepertunities.



As [I] plays [my] ukulele on the hill above the bay...

The Geese of Hawai'i

I went to Hawai'i to look for geese. Truth be told, I did not know when I departed that this would be a goal. Goals sometimes come when you don't expect them to.

Many people go to Hawai'i for many reasons. Scuba. Snuba. Pineapples. Macadamia Nuts. Volcanoes. Coffee.

I experienced several of these activities. I bet you didn't know pineapple could be an activity. It sure can. Details to follow.

But, oh, the geese.

They were MY thing. I am not a birder in the classic sense. I have bird books and binoculars. I own mutliple bird feeders. But, I can't recognize bird songs from the tree, have to look twice at small brown birds to determine if they're house finches or house sparrows. Bottom line, I guess, I like birds and like looking at them.

Upon our arrival to Hawai'i--I know it's confusing, but I'm talking about the island (as in "the big") not the state (as in all of the islands)--I discovered that we would be near to an area where we might see Nene. Nene are Hawai'ian geese.

Ok, let's get a something straightened out before I continue. Despite, my initial inclination, as a native speaker of English from the southeastern part of these here United States, the name of the bird is pronounced "neh neh" not "neen." I still kind of want to call them neens, but I am being all Hawai'ian and shit (notice my use of the apostrophe!) and know it's "neh neh."



There were lots of signs about Nenes. Don't feed them, don't hit them with your rental car, don't let your dog chase them. Nenes themselves are rare. At one point there were there were tens of thousands of Nene and then humans did lots of stupid things and they died out to the brink of extinction. Fortunately, there has been an concerted effort to bring them back and there are now between five hundred and three thousand Nene on three of the Hawai'ian islands (Maui, Hawai'i, and Kaua'i). Most are there as a result of captive breeding programs, though the ones on Hawai'i are often the offspring of wild pairs.

I have a soft spot for geese. I tend to prefer water birds to other kinds of birds and geese are, to me at least, the Goldilocks kind of bird. Not too big, not too small. Just right. I have complicated animal aesthetics, which often involve statements like "a good amount of white" (which accurately describes our cat Halo and none of our other pets). Geese are right in the animal aesthetic wheelhouse. So, when you tell me there's a kind of goose that almost died out, has specially adapted feet for walking on lava, and has a name as good as Nene, I'm going to be goose seeking. With abandon. Aplomb even.

We asked the helpful people at our B&B where Nene might be seen. They suggested the golf course. I then asked the ranger at Volcanoes National Park where to see some and she suggested the Hilo zoo. Um, no, I don't think so. I want "wild" Nene, thanks very much. So, off to the golf course we went.



There were four pairs of them hanging out on the 18th hole. Honey and I laughed at first, thinking this was a sign of how easy it was to see them. They were nibbling on grass and having a Nene good time. One even showed off his lava foot for me. Yes, it was for me. I was the only Nene picture taker there. Other people were using sticks to hit little white balls around. I know who had the true Nene love; the person who got shown the Nene foot.



Nenes mate for life, by the way.

I was in Nene bliss. I figured we go back to the golf course a few (dozen) more times and I commune with these eight Nene and all their friends. We did go back to the golf course several times. No more Nenes.

I was feeling a little Nene bereft as we headed off to go coffee tasting. Honey had promised that one of the coffee places had geese, which she and I both assumed were Nenes. What other geese are there in Hawai'i? Nenes are the Hawai'i state bird, by the way. Do you know what your state bird is? I'll wait while you go look it up. See, you're learning LOTS of bird facts today. (In case you're wondering, my state birds have been: Brown Thrasher, Baltimore Oriole, and California Quail). At any rate, we get to the coffee place in question, Mountain Thunder, to discover that they have two kinds of geese on the farm, neither of which Nene. Still, geese are geese and I'm ready for my close up. One kind of goose hangs out down in the coffee tree area and the other wanders more. The nice folks inform me that they may come by to be fed. We're enjoying our coffee sample and watching Mountain Thunder on Dirty Jobs when the wandering goose family presented itself (minus one, who is incubating eggs).



The owner told me that a visitor had told her they were Toulouse geese, but I'm pretty sure they're Greylag geese. At any rate, they were really fun. They honked some and threatened me when I stood near them for a picture. The threat was the large male sticking his neck out and opening his beak a little. They also got into a goose fight. How many times have you seen a goose fight while sipping really good Kona coffee? I didn't think so.



We interacted with the geese for a while, bought coffee and descended thunder mountain with the rental car shuddering from the strain of the descent and Honey and I jittering a little from all the coffee and goose goodness. It was probably more coffee than goose.



I had read in my Hawai'i (the state) bird book, that there were no Nene to be found on O'ahu, our next destination. I wanted another Nene fix. The next day, we were headed out for turtle viewing and I saw a sign that said "Nene 750 yards." I immediately began mumbling about all the bullshit Nene signs that promise more Nene than they can deliver. Then, I saw...



Nene on the side of the road. I pulled over quickly (not dangerously). Honey and I circled the Nene so I could get more pictures. This caused the Nene to moan. Really. They don't honk so much as moan. Watch this video for the sound. The effect was, "leave me alone, you stupid mainlander."



I persisted in taking pictures, though. Finally (from their perspective, not mine), we left them alone.

I tried a few more times to see Nene. None were in evidence. Still, if there really are only 500 Nene, my ten Nene worth was 1/50 of the total. This seems like a pretty high proportion, given that I certainly didn't make up 1/50 of the visitors to Hawai'i (either the island or the state) last week.

My advice when traveling? Get your goose on.

Nene up.

Tiki room (and related) thoughts

On Tuesday, Honey and I decided to play hooky. There simply isn't a better place for playing hooky than Disneyland. Imagine your eight year old self. You want a day off. You want to do something superveryfun. What could be more superveryfun than Disneyland? Sex. But you're supposed to be imagining your EIGHT year old self. If you thought about sex a lot then, I don't want to know about it.

Theoretical fingers in theoretical ears... Lalalalalalalalalalalalalala Done with eight year old sex thoughts.


Ok, I won't give you a whole travelogue, but here's a highlight/thought list.

*They can dress it up all they want, but Innovations (in Tomorrowland)=superverylame.

*The redo of Space Mountain is awesome. It seems faster and you can't see the track any more. It's like a roller coaster in space. Wait, it IS a roller coaster in space.

*Disneyland rides with pictures they take and then try to sell you do NOT take flattering pictures of me. Nope.

*This image is funny and is on almost every ride. I kept trying to be these people. My body won't do the things it suggests.



*Cynthia, who was having a birthday and brought her coffee onto Thunder Mountain in the pouring rain, reminded me of how great people can be. I don't even know her and we rode behind her on the ride for all of three minutes. Still, she and her friend Susan rocked.

*As a child, I was DEEPLY disappointed to have spent one of my E-tickets on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (aka the submarines). The 35 minute wait we experienced on Tuesday did not improve my liking of it a lot. It was ok, but it was the longest wait of the day.



*I kind of loved (actually really loved) the Tiki Room. I'd never been there before. Full props to Disneyland for not tearing it out. It would not have been worth an E-Ticket, though.

*Fewer full props to them for tearing out the gallery above New Orleans Square for the new luxo-suite. I did like the Disney employee at the "Disneyana" store who described the gallery space as "having moved on to its next life." She did this all why I dripped onto the rug, having gotten soaked in the rain on Big Thunder.

*We didn't bottom out our Small World boat! I'm also pleased to report that Small World is less annoying at the holidays, because they intersperse Christmas songs with the eponymous song. I'm not a fan of either, but less of both overall makes it more bearable.

*I was pleased to do Tomorrowland first. Why we always do Adventureland first is beyond me. I'm a big T-land fan, Innovations notwithstanding.

*Bring back the People Mover.



*Indiana Jones has gotten more jerky. Panic attack inducing jerky.

* I know, I know, SOMETHING has to make you want to go to California Adventure, but why oh why can't Tower of Terror be in D-land? I heart it but not enough to pay $20 more to ride it.

*I wish we had parked on the Daisy level instead of the Mickey level. I've never much cared for the mice. The ducks, I like.

*La Casa Garcia has really good albondigas. Really good albondigas tastes especially good when you're wet.

*I would say I need a rain coat, but I live in Southern California.

*The best part of the day? All of it, of course. What's not to like? A day with my Honey at Disneyland.

I like my inner eight year old sometimes. She has good ideas.  Besides, my outer 39 year old can afford to buy her extra E-Tickets.

At the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room...