A Most Memorable Meal



G and L invited us to a meal which turned out to be a beautifully prepared seafood feast. Appetizers began with broiled oyster with lime and habenero salsa. Second course with sizzling scallops, gai-lan, and nutty brown rice. Then steamed dungeness crab with scallion infused rice bran oil. A intermission of apples and oolong tea- ending with a beautifully carmelized pear upside down cake.

Happiest Girl in East Bay



All year I've been hopping up and down about replacing our suspicious toilet- twice as old as me.

C has been surprisingly resistant saying it was too much work and perhaps he would do it in February. C is a wiley one. On Friday I came home only to be shocked at a brand new shining unused toilet all plumbed and installed- the only time C has heard me screaming and jumping up and down. There is nothing more wonderful than having a toilet "all accounted for" as Suse puts it.



The house is under official prepare for coziness state as Big J and bro-in-law S-man will be here in no less than 2 days. An official welcoming wicker chair has been procured for the porch. Tomorrow I'll dig out my finest linens(supplied by J of course).

Sofbok and the true tales of Safari



Ms. Sof came back from her South African vacation, all smiles. She knows what she wants now. A boyfriend. It's always good to know what you want.

How to do whatever you want. If anyone objects, just say "You are not the boss of me!"

Maiden Mushroom Hunt

First day of winter vacation- G&L took us foraging in Olema and Pt Reyes. Our golden prize- chanterelles hiding under live oak groves. C did not find any, but yours truly chanced upon two specimens- plump for the taking. Consolation prize- oyster mushrooms to be had everywhere- so plentiful that I took very little of what was available.

I'd been in a food funk lately as grocery stores haven't been doing it for me lately. Luckily last week, C caught a rock crab off the coast. My parole officer at work brought me beautiful big bag of lemons. I squeezed lemons all night and then decided against making lemon curd. Instead I baked a persimmon pudding which only I myself enjoyed as C was fast a sleep snoozing by the fire.

Tried a new restaurant on 4th Street- Tacubaya. No leftists insurgents in sight. I had a big bowl of tripe. Sadly, my menudo really lacked kick. My pork tamale, sweet but mealy.



One of C's art chums from L.A. showed up at our door today. Nothing like hung over art ex-grad students in your back yard. Almost always in such situations, Sam McPheter's Dog Dairy idea comes up. Dog cheese, doggy yogurt and the like. Malamutes and Great Danes. Yuck is right.



Of course none as entertaining as Joel- our double denim suit wearing tragic comic art hero. Joel sweetly phoned C to let him know the SFMoma was having Rauschenberg and Arp show. "Man, we've shown with both them fools."

Word Drought & Hidden Spaces



EJ,J and S waited and waited at Dulles Airport this morning. Hugo had been yukking it up in Seoul and was due to arrive any minute. Much to everyone's surprise, Hugo came out the double doors a transformed man. He dazzled June in a smart looking tailored hand stitched 100% cashmere coat. What had happened to the country boy?



Apparently Hugo was living large at the Lotte Plaza Hotel which was attached to a posh shopping mall. I guess EJ and J's sartorial sense finally rubbed in. Of course underneath, he still had his dorky turtleneck and corduruoy pants. As J dismissed, "That coat did not deserve that kind of treatment."



Today I climbed up the roof. Yes it's true, I've been bitten by a writer's block. I've baked a chocolate cake (with chestnut jam) for the occasion but still can not squeak out a story. If things continue in this fashion, I think I'll have to resort to a crunch BLT sandwich. Back to the roof up the rickety ladder, I was having a moment there.

C has been threatening to make one all week and he did. The dreaded no-war pumpkin. I thought it would be one of those meaningless liberal gestures that one sees so often these days. And it is. But now that C's carved it, it looks pretty hot.

The one legitimate chance to dress up as a hobbit, I missed. Miss Sof said she was going to be Smurfette(woo woo). C and I eagerly await the photos. Last year she as a dominatrix;a.k.a party girl with a whip.

C and I've been striving for days to have a pumkpin pie date. This is where two romantically involved persons get together, make a smashing pumpkin pie, and eat it. Sadly, intervening events leave the ppd in the air just as the library dates have fallen by the way side. Yesterday at work, A took me out for an icecream cone. En route, we saw a man being picked up by his wife; lucky dog got the full hug and kiss service on top of the pickup service. I asked A if his wife provides such welcome services. He said not all the time. I boasted that I did. I said you have to train 'em. Every time(regardless) after each new meeting, you have to smile in to their eyes, look a bit confused and say "Did we hug when we meet?"

Mr. Porkpie Pumpkin

I dug all the way to the bottom of the supermarket cardboard corral to fish out the roundest most characterfull pumpkin. I've patted its head several times but can't decide on the face yet.



Country boy

Ej who lays out Hugo's clothing every morning decided to have some fun and pull out a full cashmere outfit for him- Italian cashmere pants, shirt and vest. An unsuspecting Hugo put on EJ's selections as he has done for the last 33 years. Hugo rarely complains much less notices that Ej usually puts him in a pink or canary yellow shirt. But that morning, he complained forthrightly these new clothes were of poor quality wool indeed- too thin and no crunch! Where was the usual wool sweater he liked? EJ and J(and me), we like to giggle over such bits.



Always trying to bring the gentleman out of Hugo, EJ ventured to take him to the Washington Opera performance of Norma. Despite the spicy plot including seduction of temple virgins, Hugo as he does in all dark rooms promptly fell asleep. Hugo's not much for bel canto.



An old friend and a new one.

D, my thesis partner from grad school, visited Berkeley with his new (first and only that is) pretty wife S. I was happy to see D had a such a sweet wife to take care of him. D has returned to the playing of DnD after a hiatus of 15 years. I know as a nerd I should know all about it, but I've never played- honest. He dutifully filled me in- Northern California maps to "Theocracy of the Pale". I blinked twice. Heavy duty. He now works with software that controls etching process of chips. He really is hardcore. Poor fellow- his DSL has given out all last week.

You know things aren't looking good when you only have a bowl of MSG for dinner. No really. This Japanese instant soup might as well be labeled MSG soup with mushroom flavoring.



Despite my big talk earlier, I'm sorely missing my man. Triggered by the plasticized hairy chicken foot he left on the dining room table. I've decided to spend an evening penning love letters to my dearly absent husband. But somehow, Dear Sweetie letters have a sneaky way of turning into todo lists for when C returns. Another sad case of domestic romance being hijacked by renovation.



Been feeling a bit down lately. Not just the recall, the mess in Iraq or the general disgraceful state of the world. Probably just a case of arrested intellectual development.

New neighbor in 1419.



There I was trudging down the Bart stairs this morning, when I see the soft pudgy fingers of our new neighbor typing away on his laptop... I couldn't be sure but he had his pony tail unleashed, and was wearing a black t-shirt "On our backs, the best of lesbian sex". It had to be him as I know all laptop nerds at my Bart stop. Yes it's true, a software engineer of somesort has moved in next door.



C popped in for a day back from LA before he had to swish away to Richmond to use the rapid prototyping machine at VCU. Left behind again. Hence the blogging at work while munching on my double chicken wing seaweed bowtie bento box. In 10 minutes I have to feel like going back to work. Yes it's autumn which means haiku season! Sigh- a whole summer passed by without a single poem about a plum.



In my absence

appeared on my desk

an obscure brown bag.

Six pointy black tips stare

Six persimmons those unripened beauties

orange and brilliant.

Who?

One waits sweetly.

Left behind.



One would think when a spouse goes out of town, one would shout for joy and do whatever one wants... Eat crumbly cookies on the nice sofa and in the bed. Terrorize the town, and maybe get a tattoo or two. Get into fist fights, but avoid the black eye or losing a tooth as your mate'll return after all.



Once my parents left little June-not yet seven- with the neighbors and took me somewhere. Resentful at missing out on the fun we were having without her, she snuck back into our house fuming, marching back and forth with fists in the air. She dumped a jar of Taster's Choice and entire bag of sugar into a plastic gourd full of water. In a gesture full of bravado, she glugged, guzzled, guggled, a gallon of the stuff! She showed 'em. Who likes being left behind.



Last night C called full of fun and excitement. He and Joel had just enjoyed dinner at Basix, a gay steak cafe. He had never seen so many ripped pecs in tight girly tees before- tees with tapered sleeves, you know the kind. He said it was a "getting to know you" kind of datey joint, too much of a costant techno beat to be for intimate couples. But their woodfired pizza was kickass. Poor Joel has had another spot of bad luck earlier this week. The freight company skewered his piece with the forklift gouging a good sized hole in the middle. This mangled piece was already late being shipped to a show in Cologne.

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/47/features-mckenna.php



"In his posthumously published book of 1989, The Andy Warhol Diaries, the first of several “Doug Chrismas didn’t send the check yet” entries appears in 1977." Damn this no @#$#@!!! good @#$#@$'s stiffed everyone. C's dealer Douglas Supreme apparently has been sued minimum of 55 times.

my work day



every morning when I shuffle into work, I mostly have one thought in mind- my timing with the bakery schedule. Nuthin like a fried egg sandwhich and freshly baked red bean bun. What more could there be in life than fresh baked buns and a mug of milky brew. But all is not heaven as people come and bother me when my mouth is full of crumbs.



C is away to LA and I'm feeling woeful. Nothing but long working days ahead.

small plans of an escape artist



For the many forms of social compliance in this world, weak and strong, who isn't tired of the strictures of adult life. Must wake up when you don't want to. Can't do this, must do that- musn't do that.

Farewell Party

Despite a no-lose bacon breakfast start, I'm feeling rather low today. Having been having trouble with restful sleep. I've been meaning to enlist the help of a few crickets, but instead have to make do with a frog chorus cd my sister sent me. I can't seem to break out of the holding pattern.

Long time C's friend AJ(the guy who use to give me a ride to high school) is moving to Colorado, mostly to make obscene amounts of money. Apparently Colorado is paved with real estate gold. He's tired of trying in Santa Cruz. To a person with any amount of intelligence but a small amount of cash, this concept of gobs of money must frustrate them to no end. It would appear people less worthy than themselves are privy to pots of gold.

Too tight too loose



You know you're getting old when your underwear is older than the Internet. C and I venture forth to restock our underclothing department. Yesterday I sent C on a mission to scout out something for me at CostCo (the last place I vaguely remember my mom getting me a six-pack of florals). He came back disgusted, "Their lady's underwear is soo cheap quality."



My mom and sister graciously buy most of my clothes in the East coast, hence I only know how to buy clothes in one place in California- the young boy's section at Target. Everything fits great and is under ten bucks. Since we were out of laundary detergent anyway, we trudge over to once and for all clear our underwear situation. C makes out like a bandit with 9 pairs of boxers.



I dawdle and futz as it's hard to tell what is what in the world of women's underwear. Bikinis, briefs, froufrous, high cut? I can't tell what could turn out to be a wedgie machine. I don't need anything ass-alicious, just cotton and reliable. In such matters, I always get help from J. But today, I surmised that as an adult I should start making my own decisions.



Oof. Eventhough I selected "medium", my 10 pairs turned out to be bit of a disaster. 4 too big, rest too tight. Is one even allowed to return underwear? What to do as I've already cut up my old ones...

Funniest thing I've seen all day:

brian meets "the ass"

Cherry Falls, Bruce Dickinson Never Dies...



One thing I like about Iron Maiden, no sucky love songs. All adventure and epic poetry. Hum. Last week for the first time in years I went to an indie rock show at the Great American Music Hall. Back in the day, C's band Action Patrol let another band peg on their second tour. Anyhow Rainer Maria now have a video on MTV and some token amount of college radio fame and were in town for their North America tour along with another band Denali with a Richmond connection. So we were privy to free tickets and back stage passes.



Fanny (drummer nee Jonathan Fuller) got much flack from C as he is only seen in sleeveless shirts. I tell C that hipsters do not bother with sleeves as they must fit snugly inside their lifestyle jackets. Fanny regaled us with his last bout of true fame. He was an extra in a horror movie titled "Cherry Falls" after the town in which following unfortunate events occur- a serial killer terrorizes virgin teenagers. The murder rate has risen such that the principal and the mayor urge all the high school girls to lose their virginity. Fanny's shining moment came when a fight broke out in the lunch room.



Petunia Prowler



On Sunday, C and I went to Home Depot to procure some lumber. I told C to meet me over at the garden section when he was done. I took my sweet old time browsing the six packs and quart herbs when I saw some guy put a giant tray of petunias in his cart. I thought to myself what sort of dorky person buys that many petunias. Anyhow, I went back and forth for a while as I could not remember where my cart was. All of the sudden out of nowhere appeared C. He is cracking up saying I passed by him several times, even watched him put the flat of petunias into my very own cart but I didn't register. And then he felt sorry for me as I would never be able to find my cart again since it had a tray of those ugly petunias in them so he waved and said my name. Yes it's true. Even after 16 years I cannot quite recognize my husband in public places. Once I failed to pick C out at an airport lounge as he wore a new shirt unknown to me. But C is good humored and will play on end of pranks on me.

Frontier wife redux

Since C sweetly fried up 2 strips of bacon for me this morning, I am compelled to reciprocate with a super duper breakfast for Sunday morning. But I won't make it on time unless I start now. Roasted roots (sweet potato, anise, blue potatoes, rosemary, no parsnips though as I forgot about them while explaining edibility of corn smut to the produce guy) are roasting away. I started some quickie lemon cucumber pickles to freshen up our palates. I'm wondering if we'll have oatmeal, polenta, or pancakes- all with a few butter sauteed figs of course.

There is nothing more delicious than planning what to eat the next day. I also had 2 more strips of bacon for lunch today and wanted 2 more for dinner but C said he didn't want to be a bacon widower. Even though these are top organic Neiman Schell Ranch bacon, bacon is still bacon. A slice probably carves 60 hours from the tail end of your life- hours I gladly give away but I must think of others. So I am sadly forced in to a quota of 4 per day, I have to wait until tomorrow morning. Despite the cement dust and renovation clutter in the kitchen, I think tomorrow's breakfast will kick ass, and beat standing in line for Le Note or Fanny's.

In truth, I've been waiting for the decline/fall of Western civilization all my life. Now that things are slowly spinning apart, I'm just trying to enjoy all the tasty meals I can. Tomorrow is a hefty digging day. Tussocks of grass must be moved, apple and lime trees planted in the ground. Soil weeded and amended. A quick tour or my newly fenced front garden: Frankenchairs under the michelia tree, I salvaged them from a neighbor on Hopkins and forced an unwilling C to restore them. On the right, the end table I made with our kitchen cabinet door- hinges and knob still attached as well as a rod spooler for C. My birdhouse on the right hand corner of the fence (noone has yet occupied). My leaf corral on the left, barely visible- I've rigged up a criss-crossed branch trap for trespassing cats as C says leaving out a bear trap is not legal.

Oof, had to snail through "In the Mood for Love"- a story about a woman with some seriously coiffed hair and cheongsams so tight that she can't do much except barely pass people in hallways. The other half is about a seriously bummed out dude who gets no loving(except in one cut scene) from the stiff lady whose husband is having more adult activities his wife. Needless to say, C fell asleep half way through. I was forced to watch til the end, as well as all the deleted scenes with commentary, plus read all the Rotten Tomato entries.



Film critics really gushed about the unrequited smoldering restrained love of this type. Who wants to suffer through love that wasn't meant to be as dictated by script writers. Too tedious and foolish for my taste, but perhaps the critics are indulging in their own nostalgia. It would appear there is plenty lusting going on in the world: half the world acts on it, and the other half would rather watch movies where actors don't act on it probably since every other movie is about acting on one's illicit desires. But that Maggie Cheung has a shapely body, that's for sure.



Poor C, I should really put his Nutty Professor II, the Klumps higher on my Netflix queue so he'll have something to enjoy. He's been slogging through all my talky Roehmer films. Poor fellow.

Metal sucks. Criminals at large.



Again C tortures me with more metal ballads. When C goes away fishing next week, I'm gonna scrub all Iron Maiden songs from our hard drive.

Biscuit Bryce Sings Iron Maiden



C tortured me all hour by blaring Iron Maiden ballads. I cried foul as he never fessed up his penchance while we were dating. This would have effected his candidacy surely. He blithely says, "What's there to admit Who doesn't like Iron Maiden." Now I'm married to the man, I have to endure melodramatic metal songs in a ridiculous falsetto. I could have sworn I never found him listening to Iron Maiden in high school... Late bloomer...



After countless refrains of "Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink", C took pity on me and decided to put on new hits by JinuSean(sung GenuShan). Yes the "Dig my hand in the ice and pull Korea closer to Jersey" JinuSean. Out of all appropriated musical styles, Korean rap has got to be one of the worst- not as bad as french rap but heinous nonetheless. We decide to think up Korean rap star names for ourselves. C says I'm Gongbu Girl i.e. Study Girl. Terrible. This is because I spent all Wednesday pouring through my American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia- over 6000 photos- instead of spending a romantic evening for our 4th wedding anniversary. I'm lucky not to have burst a blood vessel on my eye.



So I go even lower by calling C by his party porn star name- Biscuit Bryce. The formula for one's party porn star name is adding first pet's name to the first street you grew up on. But I should take pity on the man as yesterday's surprise check from Douglas Supreme could not be cashed in as he sent it suspiciously unsigned.

Digging holes at home, digging holes at work, it's all the same. Can life get any saltier?



Miss Sof swung by yesterday, a whirlwind of heady and girly laughs. Her life stories full of flirtation and exploits. C got quite miffed because I sent him away so I could hear her stories in full detail and glory- some seduction involving drugs and coworkers, blue eyed asiophiles, fellow named Jesus at Burning Man. She said "I can play with the players now." I could see hearts and roses coming out of her conversation. Nothing but manacles, rats, and moldy bread on my end.



Big J has unearthed more revelatory dirt about her crooked contractor Mark. He had left her in the lurch with an unfinished kitchen and unpaid electricians; his checks to the cabinet makers bounced. Last week, he was known to be an adulterer who left his first wife to marry his mistress who was then pregnant. Of course the cheater is cheated as it turned out it was not his child. He is duly reviled by his birth children. Then this morning, it was further revealed that he had a third wife, Mark scammed her of her divorce settlement money from her more upright ex-husband. Furthermore, he has scammed a whole slew of clients of 200k and has fled the country. J thought she was the only one holding the bag, but there apparently is an exceedingly long line. Lucky for J she has lost only some ducats and sleepless nights.



In the front garden, there plays a red tailed squirrel who likes to look at the back of my head while munching on my nuts off the dogwood tree. I'll walk about testing my hypothesis, and he'll scamper up the tree accordingly so he can hit me with the crumbs all the while snacking away nut after nut. What a rat! But a really cute one so I'll let him go this time.



Mystery of mysteries, Douglas Supreme, C's agent, has sent in a paycheck without the requisite badgering phone calls. It's true.

Peking Duck vs Roast Turkey and the problem with mediocre cash



A friend asked me if I knew any get-rich-quick schemes. I held back. I didn't tell him about my specialized chess sets which will make me millions. Chinese food against American food. Bowls of rice marching against loaves of bread as pawns. Ketchup/soy sauce bottles as rooks. I should really quit my day job so I can concentrate more on this.



Does money buy freedom? Perhaps. Like many, I am stuck in the purgatory of the middle class- plenty enough money where you don't live paycheck to paycheck. But not enough to say no to a salary. Mainly a no because of an unwillingness to forgo middle class luxuries.

Ditches, Chasms, Holes and Dents



Digging holes is a hard business. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. With fencing concrete dust up the nostril, a hard day's work makes me wordless and speechless. I'm only good for a dunk in the hottub. I hope I dream of the Marianas Trench tonight.

Domestic Gulags Redux

My lady friends ask me for love advice- mostly of the "how to seduce a man, how to dump a man, how do I know he's worthy" variety. Why should any 2 particular human beings choose or unchoose each other? Why should I know anything about this...

For the last few weeks, C has been kindly providing me escort service from the Bart station. He usually leaves when I leave and we rendez-vous somewhere midway usually around the two benches in front of a basketball court. On Monday, he spied me coming round the corner, so he sat on the southerly bench with his cheeks hidng behind an upturned collar looking very suspicious indeed. I don't know why but this cracked me up mightily. The next day, he met me in the parking lot of the Bart; he told me he was going to sit on the bench with his shirt off and tied around his head except... Except a band of young Asian girls playing basketball foiled his plans. He didn't want to look like a pervert. On Wednesday, he said he almost dragged a blue plastic Ross Dress For Less shopping cart all the way to meet me; the runaway cart had been hanging about for several days off the corner of Page and Stannage . Of course it would have made such a rattle, he would have given up probably after a block. But he got just as much mileage out of a prank as I cracked up mightily when he told me. Either C has unnatural powers over me because I think he is so funny, or he has unnatural powers over me and that's why I think he is funny.

My mother always likes to point out that Solzhenitsyn has barbed wire fence all around his Connecticut compound. Indeed we love our self constructed prisons.

Life is too good in Northern California. One could age without remembering and this is dangerous. This is how life gets spent feeling too pleasant to do anything serious.

After watching Frontier House, I've decided to bring serious intent to my housewifely duties. Gone will be the days of feeding the family cheese curls for dinner or breakfast, composting in the kitchen sink, or the unchecked dust bunny farms. I awoke 8am today to make oatmeal with a few sauteed figs and almonds, scrambled eggs, thick toasts of rosemary potato bread, and a thin slice of blueberry galette; my man has to work hard today building the chicken coop and my front garden fence. I snuck in a prosciutto avocado open faced sandwhich as I also have the arduous task of making a chicken ladder.



After working hard at cleaning, sweeping, scrubbing, miniature Hugo popped up on my left shoulder and told me to read philosophy and eat all of the blueberry pie. Of course EJ angel makes an appearance on my right shoulder- her index finger telling me to continue with the drudgery which is the fate of womenfolk. So I eat few bites of blueberry pie while thinking about all those suffering ladies which leads me to polish off the lemon chicken paella which leads to me a juicy green plum. Housewife work is strenuous work so I go back to the bites of blueberry pie.. I wonder what it's like to be one of the Asian wives that keep a spotless house. Probably those ladies are not married to Pigpen but well behaved office men that don't know grime so their jobs are easy.

Can't sleep. Made C angry with having 2 laptops on the bed so he took his pillow elsewhere.

Went over to Cody's and was embarassingly forced to ask the guy at the info desk. How public like a toad to croak one's desires to a stranger. The book had not yet been delivered. Truly there is no privacy in this world, only obscurity.

Huffy and Puffy



So I marched home from work quite angrily cursing like a sailor. There is a genetic weasel who recently has made my job more unpleasant than it needs to be. There are two distinct types of a%#holes in the world, one's who annoy the hell out of everybody but gets the job done. Because of their abilities, you have to put up with them. The second unfortunate category revolves around the truly repellent creatures that annoy the hell out of you, prevent/impede your productivity and don't do much. No question as to where my fellow lies, but I can't figure out if he's stupid or just purposely trying to get my goat with idiotic questions that were formulated and discussed in numerous meetings.



Anyhow, I didn't want to get in trouble with C away in LA so I marched straight home and spent a perfectly good evening installing a wiki.

Snacked on half a tuna sandwich this afternoon. What a shame such a powerful swimmer ended up as a soggy leftover with too much mayo.

Idi Amin died this week. I had better update my list of 3rd world dictators who lived a full and cushy life. I had to last update it when Great Leader Kim Il Sung passed the veil. Nope, it must have been Pol Pot. Netflix probably will see a spike for the Barbet Schroeder documentary. There is one scene where a fisherman, to a frightened and fascinated crowd, pulls up an unnaturally corpulent fish from a Kampala lake. To the casual viewer, this is just the bounty of Africa. But french-trained filmmakers are too wiley to waste such a simple scene. Only months later, Kapuczinski unraveled this mystery for me.

Household dictators and domestic gulags



This is an essay for all married persons:

http://www.english.ccsu.edu/barnetts/courses/vices/kipnis.htm



I've declared a new freedoms policy: noone is allowed to tell anybody else what to do. I'm tired of this long leash! C says that discipline is so lax in our house that mayhem will ensue. Once you've rented a place with no door separating the bathroom and the bedroom, it all goes to pot.

Licking one's chops



There is a man T at work who blinks far less than the average human being. He also stares straight into your skull while you speak which makes me distracted and uncomfortable indeed. Asians do not stare into each other's skulls unless it is a life or death angly fight. The only time I stare purposefully is during my family's routine staring contests; Hugo is the all time defending champion. I am consistently the underdog, bottom ranked at every tournament. My father is a man who burst a blood vessel in his eye because he forgot to blink after he started using a new flat screen monitor. My sister forces him to wet his eyes with Visine every once in a while. We can't figure out his secret hence he has kept his title for decades.



So at lunch, I impulsively challenged T to a staring match expecting to lose. Non brown eyes are very difficult for me to look at. I prematurely employed Hugo's "Licking One's Chops' trick, but the opponent did not flinch. There is no more easier way to stretch out the seconds than this. Who knows why, but his blue eyes blinked. Probably a rematch is in order, but I was hoping to practice with T so I could mount a more serious challenge to Hugo when I returned next.



Sof's Brilliantly Beaded Outfits



Sof is getting ready for Burning Man and brought over her lovely costumes. Many oohs and ahhs were in order, the theatrical outfits were a transvestite's wet dream. Sequined things, beaded halter tops. C was oddly being the useful gay friend seriously repeating how one of the beaded outfits could be worn casually over a white dress or something...

Conversations people would rather be having (do not read, editing)



Last time C's sister and look alike K was in town, we lunched with her and her newly transsexual(f-to-m) friend Cory. We had dined with Cory one year prior just before her transformation. Although my mind was full of detailed questions on the operation and results, I politely smiled and discussed the requisite bay area conversation :weather and real estate. Cory was really boy watching and probably wanted to talk about the hotties that were walking by.



I've been trying to make a a few new friends lately, but really there is too much pussy footing in adult conversation. Can one know the map and terrain of another person by conversation alone? For the social norm, it takes too much delicacy to intuit where another's boundaries lie. What would people talk about if there were no verbal boundaries? A great many people would resort to mating and money. Both exhaustible and exhausted topics. Maybe secret fixations. Forget verbal boundaries, what about behavioral ones.



Take C's old roommate Foster, a rather rare combination of endearing and monstrous behavior. One time C and Foster were sitting at a Cuban bar when C heard Foster's signature squirrel laugh- hu-ee hu-ee hu-ee. Apparently Foster had peed into his beer bottle and drunk it in plain sight of a busy bar on a Friday night. He goes through a great many phases and I don't know if the golden beverage stuck for long. Foster could only really study well sitting on the toilet but was deathly afraid of hemorroids; hence he had to abandon efforts towards med school. Foster finally found a niche in the movie industry. He last visted us when working on LadyKillers. I had gotten so used to Foster so that the narrow range of human behavior that I normally experience has gotten intolerably numbing. But even Rob is becoming respectable. He lived for years on Dave Weaver's couch paying him $150 a month. Foster finally saved enough money to buy a 5 bedroom house which he will rent out to Dave and all the other people who's ever rented out their couch to him.

craigslist junkie



It's like quitting drinking, or smoking. I go for long stretches without, and then a trigger event(must have been a bad bucket of chicken)- I'm back browsing Missed Connections and Activity Partners. C berates me for subscribing to low-brow entertainment, but sometimes one needs such diversions (esp. after a bad bucket of chicken and a hard day of work). Mostly I wade through bad grammar and the predictable solicitations to find a few anomalies which make it worthwhile.



1. Free Stuff: a free castrated Nubian goat on offer. Somewhere in Vacaville.

2.



Oof- when one is actually combing craigslist for source material for one's blog, it's slim pickings. It's the same mating song and dance. The sheer banality and predictability of the personal ads tell me we live in a very lonely world indeed. Acceptance of loneliness is a necessary ingredient for a creative productive life to be sure otherwise one could waste time hunting to fill the void with people. But sometimes loneliness of the human condition is unbearable indeed.

Double Injection



Although I've had it done without Novocaine, today's deep drilling was not for amateurs like me. Oof my teeth shivers at the memory. Of course Emily Dickinson is right, pain has no memory. No endorphins either for the anathestized.



Close to sundown, the chickens chirp for C to tuck them into their coop. C commands "Go to bed" and the ladies march into their crates. I was dubious at first when C made this claim. While C was in LA, I had much trouble convincing the chickens to retire to their coop; I bumbled and chased them all about the yard for a good half hour. I finally tired them out and bribed them with a handfull of chickmash. But today I saw what a true chicken man could do- a whistle and gentle nudge does the trick. I am also just another domesticated beast.

Onto my hot tub rendez-vous as it's been a hard working weekend indeed.

Installing a dishwasher leads us down that familiar renovation path. Everything needs to be gutted and redone. Construction zone in the kitchen seriously cramps one's eating style. I've eaten two cookies for dinner so far. What a nuisance to have feed oneself continuously. The pleasure of eating has been put under doubt by a fridge which only has a few block of butter and other inedible stuffs. Blogging does not fill one's stomach. One more cookie is in order. Another Saturday and Sunday is consumed digging holes and filling them, making a few satisfying calluses on the palm. Hungly hungly stomach makes for serious writer's block.

A tall glass of raw milk and a mongo cookie.



Raw milk- forbidden in 15 states but more legal than same sex marriages- is a pleasure any Californian can enjoy. Undeniable the taste of udder.

Habitude

Spent an afternoon pruning the front rosemary bush. Underneath this fragrant creeper were hiding a few snails. This made me very sad to think of it. I use to get all excited when I found a snail- I usually peel away the shell and feed the poor exposed snail to Meatball. Now that I find a bounty of three sleeping snails and no turtle, my heart is hollow in bits.

Tito Schipa keeps me company while I wonder why certain repeated actions in tiny tiny motions bend and shape the heart, while others repeated thousands of times can leave almost no imprint. But now I've swallowed too much nostalgia and have become useless for anything else.

Yesterday I finally setup wi-fi in C's studio. C was so happy he gave me a big smooch. Even nerds get a little action now and then.

C is slaving away to prepare for his trip to L.A. on Sunday. I think of various devious activities whilst the cat is away. I'm going to hop on my speedy orange bike and terrorize Berkeley and demand bacon sandwhiches everywhere I go. Maybe I'll just return my overdue library books. I could go visit friends but a much more secretive plan is in order.



But my plan is foiled! C is not leaving until Monday so my super secret plan must sleep.

Theme and Variation



Meatball appears to be gone for good. I found him hiding under the passion flower vines the first time he escaped. I put him back in his pen and bribed him with a fat juicy snail. Wild creatures- they only have contempt for their captors regardless of the fine treatment they receive. And so he is gone again. J says if a dog bites his head and he bleeds to death, that is his fate and I shouldn't artificially deny him such an end. She is right of course.



Is life a switchback between 3 phases?

1. You don't know what you want, hence fill your time with interim activities.

2. You know what you want, and are in pursuit.

3. You know what you want, but can't get it, and hence must make do.



Like Hugo, I love triumvirates, triangles, threesomes, trios, and the curve of 3s. But it continues-



4 is the disappointingly extended 2. You thought you knew what you wanted, but it's not it at all so you are back to 1.

5. A weak fifth, variation on 3 - you think you know what you want but since you can't get it, you really can't know- could you.

6. The perversion of 2 & 3- because you can't have what you want, you convince yourself that you really want what you can have



Now for completion of the 3 cubed, I must drum up 3 more-

7. You know you only want the wanting of something hence purposely deny yourself the fulfillment of the want

8. Negation state. Advanced stages of 3 and 6, you reject the very thing you want because you know you can't have it or attempting it is dangerous.

9. Confusion state. You want it, you don't want it, you don't know any more.



Despite variation, 2 is ever the desired state- like being in love. Too much Erich Fromm is not good for you.

computer face- that's when your face gets all greasy from looking at a monitor all day. I've got one.



You know your life is on the decline when you have to eat a bag of stale cheese crunchies for dinner. As consolation, dessert is cheesecake with vanilla brandy. Last year was my year of making vanilla extract; C and I rowed all the way to Tahaa to pick out 100 beans from a vanilla plantation. The beans apparently receive a hand massage daily for months to induce the desired sweaty state. Back in my pantry, I soused the beans in 2 bottles of vodka, and some in brandy. This is the time I scratched my head and got very confused over VSOP and EVSOP. For months on end, I shook bottles in the morning, shook 'em extra vigorously before going to bed. I sniffed them every other week. It's nice having something waiting for you like that because life should be filled with just such private pleasures.



Tahitian vanilla is the fruitiest of all the vanillas- there is great debate over it's merit. The price is always jacked up due to low supply, many gourmands swear by it- others claim hype. Who ever has a whole pod of either Bourbon or Tahitian is lucky methinks. Just to have something so beautifully fragrant in your posession. I forced one too many vanilla pods on my friends so I fear some of them are languishing in pantries. One extravant use is to split a whole pod, put each on half a papaya, pour some coconut milk on the duo- then bake.



2003 is my year of the preserved lemon. I've come into ownership along with the house, an unwieldy and sickly lemon tree. C and I wrestled with it all Satruday- pruning it, propping it up, twisting it. All the while I thought of lemon drops and lemon seed cake and shivering teeth and Max the Dog and yellow martians and a way overdue book of Lorca poems from the library that had a painting of a big blue bowl of lemons in the front. I never got past the cover. The bowl of lemons was enough to think about.



C complained this entry is too boring. That's what happens when you cut up porn cards for a collage all day long.

Fugitive

Meatball is escaped. C thinks a cat must have gotten him. I know better. He looked a little wild eyed last. If you see him poking along, trying to buy cigarettes, please turn him in.

Rock Fishing Outing



Predicted tide conditions on Saturday call for nothing other than a fishing party. I dial up my friend Sof. C calls up his manfriend and diving partner G who knows a super secret rock fishing spot. Everything seems perfect except C is not confident of one critical matter- the tall task of getting 2 Korean girls up and out so early in the morning. G, expert in such and many other matters, said that was no problem. The night of, you can just put the girls in the back of the Honda. Just throw a blanket over 'em and they'll chat until they fall asleep. Indeed.



Morning comes, and my foggy head imagines that C is frying up tater tots so I eagerly hop out of bed. Fool I was; crackling sizzling sounds were just a coffeee thermos being washed. We didn''t have any ketchup in the house anyhow. After much futzing, we finally make it out of the house to pickup G at 8:15am. Disastrously pig blood sausages and fish cake rolls had been left behind in a forgotten corner and hence we drove back home- Sof and I were adamant we could not have a picnic without them.



How to explain reaching the perilous patch of rock on the shore we barely found. The sheer rigor of climbing down the cliffs, fair amoung of bushwhacking- Sof and I were utterly unprepared; the poor gal had Tevas without socks for a path creeping with poison oak bramble, blackberries, thistle and other thorny beasts. She would murmur repeatedly- "Oh adventure so adventure." Originally we imagined we would leisurely stroll along munching our biscuits, but one needs both hands for such terrain. We eat the scent of sage brushes and wild dill- although we cannot taste the sea on our tongues.



Once landed on the rocks, we lay down the picnic blanket. G and C get busy casting, unsnagging, casting. I didn't bother with my rod as I am strictly here to do nothing on my R&R program. Still I am tasked with guarding our catch against a sea lion scoping us out. Our booty is a few greenlings, the weird ass monkey face fish, and surf perch- all strung on a nylon string spinning on the surface of the water.



Sof is the world's most laid back Korean- also wanjun sweetie pie and total teenager. She is obsessed with boys, romance and sex. Now that she will start reading these pages, I am obligated to put more Nerve content on here. After a chat, she casually asks me if I have any fantasies. She is so sincere and JOJ that one cannot be offended. But I tell her they are only for my lover. She is seriously chomping down on a big bag of chrysalis. Because it is illegal in America to sell bugs for eating, Koreans have labeled the snack as "Fish Feed" to bypass import restrictions. The bag has a happy cartoon family- mom, dad, and son all snacking away enthusiastically. Everyonelse, including me, has politely declined to join her. She insists that these grubs are chewy on the outside and burst of juices in the inside. Despite the testimonial, we all look at our shoes.



I sidle up to my man who has been busy catching 3 creatures fit for dinner consumption. There is nothing sexier than your man catching your meal. I tell him Sof's earlier query and answer for him "Being served a BLT with tater tots(deep fried of course), plenty ketchup, for breakfast in bed." One always wishes for what one cannot have.

Job woes



Ever since my friend S said my blog was the literary highlight of the week(better than her Updike audio tape), my head has ballooned too big to write anything interesting. From the subway to my work, I have to pass by 4 modern concrete columns. At passing of the first column, a strange force field made me more sluggish on approach. At the third column, it was true. I could not continue any further. So I started kicking the base of the column, left foot kick, right foot kick, left foot kick. Who cares about stubbed toes. And then, I noticed that the new guy at work, one of 3 new guys with accent sideburns(side burns are the new pony-tails of this decade), watching me. So I had to give it up and march straight into work.



That was last week. This morning I walked out a few sidewalk steps out from my house and my feet would not carry me further. I had to return home and request escort from C. Just to make sure I make it to work instead of walking straight into an icecream shop somewhere forgetting that I need to go to work "cause we need the moneys". I suppose I should be grateful I'm not some sex slave being pimped by the Albanian mafia.

Figuig Redux

Most days I knowingly and willingly reenact the myth of Sisyphus. Some days and this week I simply do not want to partake- these are the times when I have to walk down back the hill and restart the pushing.

2 years back, I became ill with Figuig fever- a desire to go somewhere I would never go. While I would compile my code- or between any two delayed clicks of a mouse , a sigh followed by "Figuig" would escape my lips. I would be washing the dishes and I'd find myself mouthing "Figuig, Figuig". Any activity with a pause was filled by chants of "Figuig". Before long I was a useless Figuig zombie. For awhile, before falling sleep, I would drink plenty of water and a few almonds in case I ended up in Figuig.

Figuig is a scrappy border town between the Algerian-Moroccan border. Old postcards show the typical oasis village with few date trees, crumbling buildings, but mostly sand. Immediately after the WTC attacks, the luxury of remote possibility downgraded to never. (I sincerely apologize for leading the reader on a 9/11 story.) This never was because I wouldn't go without C and C would be nothing more than kidnap bait. Because of this never I demanded that C procure for me a worthy Moroccan rug to directly transport me. Due to a weak Anthrax scare- spores could be carried on wool items such as imported rugs- C did not indulge me with a carpet. The Anthrax scare was probably pretext. Who wants to see their wife chanting Figuig Figuig nonstop on a rowdy rug.

My sister J and I share geographic fixations because we both sprung from a man who loves maps. I think it was she that dislodged Figuig with a simple solution. We would take turns finding the most remote locations on the atlas. She would call me at night as she lives three thousand miles away, and we would agree to meet at a fixed location. So before falling asleep, I would repeat "Tuvalu, Tuvalu" over and over again to make sure I wouldn't forget to meet her. But then I became very busy and forgot to call her; in this absence I developed another terrible fever. I don't know if she was still looking for me in the last place in the Pacific islands we met, but I was secretly paddling up the Irawaddi. Why such a muddy stretch of water would become a place of imagination I finally knew. Say out loud Irawaddi enough times and you taste the tranquility.

Too many uneaten plums in Berkeley



One cannot munch on a plum without thinking of William Carlos Williams. On route on my walk to Bart, the last path under a too full plum tree is too full of rotten smooshed plums. How sad that something which could give pleasure- a really good plum is a private pleasure- has become a sticky nuisance.



I wonder if my garden grew such a tree, do I know enough people to fill their baskets. Yes I know plenty, surely a surfeit, of people who might need the prunes.

The General's Visit accompanied by the Philosopher King

My parents visit every 14 months or so, and each visit has unmistakably the same flavors. Within a packed span of less than 40 hours, there is mounds of sea creatures consumed preferably live if not raw as well as the gluttony of figs, blueberries, peaches and the like. EJ(my birth mother) will wake up at 4 in the morning making herself useful scrubbing and cleaning the kitchen. Planned activities in Berkeley which I thought would consume the whole day would take no more than 2 hours(going to the marina ends up as 15 minute excursion), and hence there is a lot of hanging out in pajamas rehashing the stories of old. At any point, Hugo can spring the requisite political philosophy lecture, thankfully only one per visit.

Only a month ago when I visited my parents, Hugo was heavily into German philosophers. At the breakfast table, he singsongs in his most casual tone, "H, do you know Kant?" To which J tartly replied "You mean personally?". We all giggled. Who wants to be harassed with the categorical imperative so early in the morning.

So this time I thought I was on the alert. While we were all lazing about all too pleasantly, he snuck in a "Do you know this Bandam?" To which the right reply would have been "Yes, I don't think Kick Boxer II was as good as Kick Boxer I." But too late as he gave me, C and the walls a full lecture on Jeremy Bentham and the rise of utilitarianism. There's something special about a man who thinks people want to hear a speech on Bentham with no pretext or context. You can get the flavor in his very words below (I'm not making this up. He actually e-mailed this yesterday.)

Dear C and H:

It was one of happiest trips. EJ and I enjoyed very much, and we were glad to see you have a happy home. Happiness lies in satisfaction. There are three ways to obtain satisfaction in economic sense: (a) to reduce demand or desire, (b) to increase income or productivity, and (c) to maximize utility subject to limited budget.

Obviously my dad's advice comes to late for Mick Jagger. As the duo is my genetic template, I'm ever on the alert for my biologic destiny.

Tale of 2 Chickens

Our ladies are plumping up nicely. Patrice is top of the pecking order, an distinguished Araucana. Charlene is a feather footed fancy- silver laced Cochin- a runty thing which looks more like a bald patched turkey vulture. C suspects our friend picked these particular breeds with purpose- one for C is a solid red head and one for me is a a skinny black feathered thing.

Who knew there could be such a wide degree of variation in chicken intelligence. Charlene I think must be a retarded chicken. I know this because her partner Patrice is brilliant- for a chicken that is. Always on the alert, always trying to hop on the highest solid platform to see what's going on- keeps an eye to the sky watching for falcons. Patrice chases cats out of the yard. One only has to look into those beady birdy eyes to know something is definitely going on behind Patrice's tiny bird brain.

Charlene-of a species bred only for the furriness of the feet- probably would have never survived without human intervention. She always tries to sit on an incline, and falls over. She has such tiny vestigial wings that when she tries to hop on anything, she always overshoots and falls over. And as expected, she is no production egg-layer. I'm dubious myself that she will produce at all. Charlene probably only has a minor neural cluster maybe just in the foot or something.

C is away diving for sea cucumbers today. I vaguely remember a kiss on the forehead this morning. I had better not get in too much trouble today- nobody to bail me out.

I scrounged a respectable brunch for myself. Rosemary potatoes roasted with shad roe(not a bad replacement for sausage), plumpiest plump cerignola olives, gorgonzola pizza, one yolky egg glugged down all without worry with gingerbeer. And now I am wasting a perfectly good Saturday blogging about it. Away I go.

Cranky sick but well scrubbed frog



Eating too much pork and sleep deprivation has finally kicked my immune system. When one is out of commission, little can bring pleasure- even the privilege of lying down on the couch and doing nothing. June says I am lucky I'm not on the east coast. Any Asian seen coughing and sneezing back east despite the WHO announcement gets no amount of suspicious glances.



There is no other luxury in life than having one's very own bathtub. The first ceremonial bath after much delay was today. I rubbed, splashed, bumped all my elbows. I was in heaven.

Out with Chickenbetes

Dr. C has confirmed that I have a severe recurring case of chickenbetes. Peter Stewart first diagnosed this condition in the early eighties; nothing, absolutely nothing except the immediate consumption of chicken will relieve the sufferer's symptoms. Hence my relapse at the RoliRoti truck at the farmer's market Friday. My case appears to be triggered by a mounting series of external events:

• 1. Unsatisfactory fried chicken special at Mel's Diner


• 2. The imminent opening of the new Berkeley's Popeyes on San Pablo. (The only time it's worth going to a fried chicken joint is when the grease is fresh. I'm lucky to have found at least 2 non-vegetarian friends in Berkeley. Sadly, K who would chomp down at Popeyes with me has left for Chicago yesterday. I'm afraid to ask A who gifted us our chickens.)


• 3. C's no slaughter policy. C looked me straight in the eye last week. He said "Let's get this straight. Nobody eats our ladies." I guess that nobody is not me.

If one doesn't go shopping regularly, one does not have the visual muscle to handle the sheer number of physical objects. C and I idled a perfectly good Sunday on shopping. In the blur of a hundred thousand objects, only a coffee splashed wedding dress for sale at Urban Ore hooked. It was a deep stain on the heart and splash stains all across the skirt. I think the clerks probably put it up for entertainment value only.

In an odd interim on San Pablo, we visited a wedge of a store where an old Chinese man sold only cracked giant pots mended with epoxy. He followed us around everywhere- although the pots were already cracked, and no way we could heave one out of the store without commotion.

Dirty Bathtubless Frogs and the Obscure life of turtles



The tub has 7 more days to cure. The thought of having my very own bathing facility brings tears to my eyes. C's friend Joel was evicted from his studio a while ago; his art dealer(C's too) after months of nonpayment slipped him a few too many rubber checks. Joel told C sheepishly that he was so ashamed of himself. He had never sunk so low- his new studio lacked the most basic of facilities- no sink. Joel said that lately, he'd been given to washing his hand in the toilet!!! Joel promptly corrected himself, "Strictly upper deck man, strictly upper deck man!"



Meatball owns the pen. He doesn't want to be bothered with anything but bananas; even then he'll hiss in your face. Many days before, he would retract into his shell somewhat peevishly but cautiously keeping an eye out. Now he's part teenager and cranky old man. He's hangs about hidden under a clivia in the middle of the pen. Sometime during the day when he pleases, he checks it out. Then promptly back to central command.



Today I finally succumbed to the RoliRoti at the farmer's market. Who can guard against the hypnotic suggestion of 80 rotating chickens. The thing about such foods is that one simply gets greasy about the face just thinking about it.

Secret life of stoves



Yesterday C took apart our Wedgewood gas stove. He showed me the manifold, a beautiful wiggly thing- all one piece of cast iron. It looks intestinal- the path to the front stove curls around so it travels the same distance as the back. One would not guess such a thing inside a square box which contains more boxes. I'm onto our stove.



Sunday was appliance day. We drove miles and miles to Sunnyvale Fry's to pick up a Korean refrigerator. I have decided that the Danish are not food-obsessed enough to make a worthy refrigerator and hence the CFC free Conserv is kicked out for the LG. C missed our turn to the Lawrence Expressway and ended in front of a parade. There is nothing worse than a tooting brass section blocking your pathway when you are hot on the heels of the appliance of your dreams.



It was meant to be, the fridge and I. I know this because I got the last one in a discontinued color: Noble Inox is displaced by the Titanium finish. They are near identical except the failed marketing name and subtle golden hue on the Inox. Being the last closeout item, the Inox was only half the ducats.

The new fridge is underwritten by the generous contribution of J who could not bear the thought of a biscuit colored clunker hoarding my provisions. The remaining half of the funds should really go to the man who heaved and hoed the fridge from the store into the house, also heaved and hoed the old fridge onto our sidewalk. What a man!!! He also spray-painted a sign "Free. Works Great!" Despite such promotional suggestions, the fridge sits outside still.

Meatball has gotten comfy in his minimum security facility.



He no longer attempts escape and has fallen into herp complacency. J is right- turtles do love bananas. Meatball hangs about various leaf piles, time to time sniffing out the digs. As far as prison goes, Meatball is getting A1 deluxe treatment. C served him salmon glazed in balsamic vinegar -of course Meatball was too full from the banana to make a dent in the salmon.

Chickens- or rather chicks have arrived thanks to Miss A. C christened them Patrice and Charlene. He wanted tough jailbird names with the added mix of fecundity. We want these ladies to produce! J came up with Charlene. C had been saving "Patrice" for his bulldog....



No doubt they are his ladies as C fusses over them. Takes 'em out for fresh air, cleans the cages. There is no guarantee they are not roosters which would be very sad. Roosters are illegal in Berkeley, so they can be arrested and sent behind bars until deportation to Marin or some such county more friendly to roosters.



Yesterday my cousin died in a gratuitous car accident. He was 26. He had a prior car accident at age 13.



C and I labored for a hexagonal turtle pen for Meatball today. C hammered his shin by accident. Meatball after being released from his old compost box got very excited and starting cooking along the edge of the fence. Poor fellow. No escape is possible of course.

Tom Sawyer Paints the Fence



Crouched and faux gunblued the side of the tub in C's sawdusty studio- applying just one thin coat of blue black enamel paint seemed to be just that appetizer activity one requires after a long day of computer work.



C spent his day grinding and polishing down the iron. C will grind down the highlights and repeat with another coat. His hair is all dusty full of drywall powder. I am guiltily resentful my tub is not ready for a proper bath. Bird bathing out of the world's tiniest sink is sure path to a concussion. It's been a marathon week of early morning meetings for me.



C has been chugging along. C moved the clawfoot tub all by himself with a dolly and few wooden blocks. Not a chip to be seen on the tiles. But as J says, "I'm tired of being impressed. I want to see results."

move-in blues



C and I have gone entirely legit- a land line and everything.



The problem with moving in is that the law of diminishing returns kicks in too quickly- so unpacking the last 20 percent becomes unbearable. It's those awkward knickknacks hastily packed that never had a true home in the last home that also has no place in the new home. Unpacked bags and boxes from the last 3 moves(some pre 2000) wait still.



C encountered one guy so serious about simplicity that he had a single washed out soupcan and spoon as his only tableware. His diet consisted of Grapenuts and coffee.



Weeks of manual labor and clutter, I simply have house fatigue. The constant state of undoneness everywhere. I cannot seem to banish the piles. My mind's landscape is probably far worse, but C cheerfully advances.



We have no tub, so we must trudge to the Y to get clean. There is always a story at the Berkeley Y, but the men's locker room always has more action than the lady's side it appears. It's pretty much lumpy bodies getting clean. When C was dressing after his shower, he overheard some nervous giggling in the stalls. The gist of the conversation was that the first man knew the other man's penis but not the face, the second man knew the first man's face. C thinks some SF club scenario where man #2 must have been masked. Anyhow man #2 wanted to strike up a connection and make small talk. They talked about vacation hours in Germany, but man #1 was ever eager to get away. Man #1 returned to his locker which was right next to C. C always wanting in on the action asked man #1, "Something good happening over there?". Man #1 said exasperatedly, "It's my terrible life as a wanted man. And I mean, I am wanted in the worst way. The worst possible way."

moved out blues



last Saturday night, everything except the landlord's cat scratched orange leather couch and dining furniture was cleared out of the old space. I sat on the couch for a few minutes for the last time looking at the empty spaces where our stuff had been. Two brazilian sisters had come earlier to clean it top to bottom with mops and rags. They sang a few pop songs, yelled rapid portuguese into their cell phone all the while making all surfaces spotless. C says their secret is ammonia, and clorax. My usual efforts of scrubbing with the wimpy ass 7th Generation Eco Friendly cleaners had left a serious layer of grime in the kitchen. And now that was gone too.



For once, the mental shift is too fast for me. I've done more than 27 moves, but now I finally feel the twangs. Something which meant so much to you-the one place in the world which has the most intimate meaning- it's now a place forbidden and impersonal to you. I think this is what divorce must be like. The fact I've boiled pasta one hundred times on that particular stove means nothing now.



But after sleeping one night in the new house, I've plum forgotten the joys of the old house. I thought how could I have lived as a troglodyte for so long. The bedroom, bath, and office lacked windows in our Camelia space. There is no room without a window in the new house.

our Berkeley shoe box is covered in a tent, sprayed with tear gas and a copper based powder post beetle poison. I hope nobody's stupid cat has any smart ideas about trying to sneak under the tent.



Last week, our friend A(who is supplying us with chickens) sighted a box turtle wandering along our fence. C says Meatball will either get crushed by a hapless driver, or chewed up by a dog if we let it go. So I guiltily confine it temporarily to a compost box. When I call up J, she excitedly repeats "Turtles love bananas. Turtles really love bananas."



We feed Meatball a snail everyday but I have secret hankerings to let it go. Unfortunately this is a non native species, an escaped pet. He doesn't look happy to me but C says Meatball is hanging out relaxing.

Donuts and holes

An old house is full of tiny cracks, holes, crevices. A house is also a slow-leak time sink. It's those holes that are eating minutes and hours methinks. So many days I spend filling/patching numerous holes with my favorite tool(double headed plaster spatula). But it's futile as new gaps are made.



While I was away visiting the OM for four days, C has busily dry-walled, tiled, and painted the bathroom.



My sister J is also renovating her home. J is serious about luxury and quality- she bought a full sized Steinway grand to learn how to play piano. But sadly she was diagnosed with arthritis in one hand so she stopped her lessons. J is also the most generous person I know. She doesn't hold back on anything. Everytime I go to her house, I always comeback with a sackful of goodies and an altered concept of the purpose of money. J can make necessities out of any luxury.



The architect who did the vice presidential residence(during the Gore years) is re-doing her kitchen and 4 bathrooms. When I showed her the pedestal sink C and I had selected, she held out a pinky in a scooping motion. She said she would have to wash her hands a finger at a time in my sink.



Although I always poopoo luxury, I find myself pleasantly surprised and acclimated to excess by the time I leave her house. Why chafe your knees on mediocre sheets when you can have the finest Tuscan linens. Why not bathe with the soap Napoleon had commissioned for Josephine. Except I am married to pigpen.

bathroom remodeling

All is progressing swimmingly. Last week C gutted the entire bathroom except for the loo. As of today- all plumbed- the copper pipes are things of beauty. I'm sad they have to hide behind a dry wall.

cracker wars

A late night snack bites both of us. C grabs the last box of grissini, dipping them unsuccessfully in a jar of honey(he chose the wrong kind- all crystallized). I, in an effort to grab one, karate chop his breadstick- split half in his mouth, half falls in the honey jar. Despite the deadly accurate aim, it was an accident. Honestly!

Seeing C growl over his box, I'm forced to scrounge around for my own box of saltines and favorite blue cheese. While I spread the cheese onto my first cracker- C looks at me intently. I spread my cheese a little too vigorously, and the cracker busts in my hand. C nods at me knowingly- with the look of satisfaction. He brags "I broke that cracker with my mind."

Unfazed, I stack a pile of four crackers on to my plate- fully ready enjoy my snack regardless of cracker breaking mindwaves. While I divert my attention for the briefest second to restore the twisty tie to the cracker package, C in plain sight drives a finger straight through my entire stack of saltines. What an outrage!

C claims it was purely an accident. This unnecessary escalation has my mind spinning. I cannot think of a response witty enough- I make C eat every bit of the destroyed cracker pieces. Without water!

The next day after dinner, I ask C to prepare the table for the cheese plate while I surf the web. When I go back into the dining room, I see a plate of busted stack of crackers. I cannot live this down. C grins again with satisfaction- he says the vacuum attachment I've left on the floor has made him trip over and his finger landed perfectly in the center of these crackers. I grumble since more perfectly good crackers have fallen victim. He says he only wanted to make me laugh. I can't win because it's true- I am giggling. So Aristotle is right again. One can't win against humor.

Bathtub Blues

Clees and I chew up a perfectly good Sunday shopping for a clawfoot bathtub. I hopped into several 5 footers at Omega Salvage- only upright sitting allowed unless you are Napoleon. I pressure C to try sitting in one as well, but he won't budge. He gamely says he knows what it's like. My sister says there are two types of people in the world. The first types, when they find their friend has broken a leg and is forced to wear crutches, will feel sympathy for their friend's pain but immediately and enthusiastically demand to try out the crutches. The second types would never even ask.

She also tells me again there are two types in the world. When you ask them "What do you think about bird diapers?" The first will respond quite seriously "What do you mean - diapers that birds wear or diapers with birds on them????". The second types will just burst out laughing. My sister takes set theory very seriously.

So C and I, after bad unfriendly service at Omega Salvage scooter over to Urban Ore. I again want to try the tubs- now with the real leg room of 5 feet 6. Chris looks at the miscellaneous scraps of trash, brown paper bag, leaves, and an old english beer can in the tub and then looks at me- some tubs are precariously placed on dollies. Such dangers mean nothing to a true tub shopper; I dive right in. I am ready to fork over my cash. While C guards the desired tub(casually claiming with one hand on the rim), I go over to the moustached cashier. As I point to our tub outside, C furiously wave his arms in the international distress signal. I apologize to the moustache and run outside wondering. He tugs at my jacket. "What if for the most minute chance our deal falls through- better to be tubless than tubful." Actually, C said "Don't you think we should wait until the house closes." He also claims he did not put his hand on the tub as it was too low on the ground. One true fact, we headed home no tub the wiser.

The day of 58x2 signatures. Or the endless Escrow Papers.



Luckily the Title office is situated a few blocks from the best pastry stop in Berkeley- so C and I share macaroons(plain and hazelnut), linzers(apricot and raspberry), and sesame delights while flexing our fingers. Such morsels are more than compensation for having to waste a perfectly good Friday afternoon bent over unreadable papers.



We sign in a room which showcases two of my real estate agent's paintings. It's an incestuous town- Berkeley. C said after the signing that he did not like our title officer Rapunzel- too cold and business like. He could imagine her going to Chevy's after work with a friend. She would say in that exhasperated office lady tone, "You cannot believe the clueless couple I had to deal with today..." Rapunzel suited me fine though. Just a disappointment her hair did not live up to her namesake.



Confusion over the dates produces anxiety. I told e*trade I would close on May 1st- so the documentation reflected that. But my agent set the date for the 7th. So flummoxed I become, I cannot reloop my brain. To relieve this problem, C buys me a straw hat which helps me enormously to type furiously all my 6 blogs.



the banana man is back. the same dude bent over in the driver seat of a toyota corolla, watching a tiny tv hooked up to his lighter. always parked to the left of my door under the tree. he slowly eats bananas all the time. once in a while he'll start up his car again to recharge.

Thoughts past midnight. The itch to move.



More punk kids bang our door and ring our bell last Saturday. Ever since they had sex in our drive way and peed on our door, I just want to live on a street that gets some respect. Our section of Camelia -eventhough located diagonal from a church, it's all about public urinators-drunk mostly, stray dogs, used condoms, smashed bottles, sex in dark alleyways. Lack of street lights always invites trouble.



But this is all irrelevant. Even the squatters parked in front of our door- always some bearded guy bent over watching tv inside a van or some bearded guy smoking out in a van- they don't bother me. It's really "Sculpture Night" and "Anatomy Night" in the adjacent studio that makes us flee. I worry the interminable uninformed chat sessions as well as the bad/mediocre art being produced in the "Talking Hands" studio next door will corrupt Chris's artistic sensibility in some unexpected way.

3 weeks since start of escrow.



As tenants still occupy my future home, I have to just satisfy myself looking at digital photos- all crowded with the accumulated life of the tenants. I try to Photoshop their stuff out- but this is too much work, so combination squinting and imagination will have to do. But it's not so easy blanking out a pink Hello Kitty poster over the oven- this is not the first time that mouthless encephalitic cat has haunted me.



Everyday while preening my Netflix account- I still hunt the MLS looking for houses I could have bought. I'm ever grateful for my postage stamp. After officially drawing up the floor plans with MSWord draw tools(even C is impressed by the eighties diagram feel), I am officially upgrading my postage stamp to shoebox.



Am no longer kicking myself for almost being had by the evil she-devil morally repellent mortgage broker as the E*Trade loan appears to be going swimmingly. I have to go sign papers at the Title Company with Rapunzel- our escrow officer. Almost a $12,000 lesson- if anyone is making money off of you- they're mostly not interested in saving you money.

I first made up my mind to find a Berkeley shack, or perhaps a Berkeley shed. But after many an afternoon of house shopping- only the possibility of a Berkeley shoebox remained. In the end, we were only too lucky-enormously lucky- to be able to nab a Berkeley postage stamp.



So Max the Dog teaches me a Chinese proverb: parents must give their children two things- roots and wings. Alas Hugo only gave me wings- but somewhat vestigial wings more like those on a quail as I only barely made it west of the Mississippi. It took four years to overcome the fear of being stuck in one geographic point on the map, and in these four years the East Bay real estate doubled in value. But not too late as my good man and I finally find a tiny plot of a home- a creaky rustic cottage constructed 1920.



the search:

Open homes are for the voyeur. I prefer most the empty house. Staged homes insult the viewer as having no imagination. Two years ago, I went inside an open house of a divorced couple. They had moved their copious debris of a life to the sag of a basement- dirtied ivory carpet everywhere. A whole round steel rack like the ones you find in department stores hung with plastic covered clothes in need of dry cleaning. It was sad. Who can fight bad karma and bad carpet like that.



outbidding the competition:

On the day of open house, C and I in 5 minutes decide we will outbid anyone. After seeing hundreds of houses, it doesn't take long for this decision. The listing agent is in the same office as our agent. It's an internal incestuous frenzy as another lady represented by the same agency also want to make a preemptive bid. There is a rush back to the realty office to write offers. Through the glass doors of our conference room, I scope out our competition. A lady in her early forties, fading blond hair. C refuses even to look that way. How can one tell if a person's wallet is deeper than yours? She's already been outbid 11 times. I feel badly because I know she doesn't have a chance. She doesn't know despite my shoddy drawstring pants and Chris's unkempt appearance, I've got my Enron booty and EJ's war chest behind me.



our offer is accepted:

The first few days after ofwhen I should be studying up my mortgage types, my head swims with fowl possibilities. Ducks of every feather. Of course there is nary space in my postage stamp and so pinty Coturnix Quails might have to do. C champions chickens but truly I am in love with the duck personality- to pat them on the head and have them follow you around quacking their heads off. Some lady in Tokyo has made a ducky diaper- plastic bag taped onto a duck's end.



fools and their money are soon parted:

By middle of the first week, I'm struck with appliance lust. I pine away for the stainless steel non CFC refrigerator like nothing else. The idea of a sub zero refrigerator seems quite sexy to me. Then I snap out of it and realize I'm about to be had by a greedy and incompetent mortgage broker- a truly terrible combination for any profession.



A co-worker asks me how my mortgage is proceeding. I tell him. He who appeared to have some respect for my technical prowess appears disdainfully disappointed in my mortgage know-how. He waves his hands over my computer and types in some mortgage rate sites. Just his one shake of the head convinces me I must do better than just bend over.



I rage about kicking chairs wondering how could I part so foolishly with my hard earned money. My berkeley postage stamp actually costs much money- lots of it. No really I didn't kick any chairs but instead wrote a 2 page list of why she is dangerously incompetent. The list grows every week. I also put my loan through e*trade. I thought of various ways of preventing this type evil in the world. Finally I e-mail Carol Lloyd of the San Francisco Chronicle- to see if she will write about "Mortgage Brokers from Hell" in her Surreal Estate Column. She writes back- she will.