Travel Luck

Now that's ironic. 

With certain exceptions, I’ve always been a pretty good traveller. I can keep myself entertained and enjoy noticing local trends. I tend to have more time to write when I’m away from home and get inspired by new surroundings. When you travel, you are, by definition, on a break from your normal life. It can be the pause that refreshes. It can also be so harrowing, so isolating and so incredibly expensive that you scurry back to your front porch swing vowing to never leave it again.

The pain of traveling is akin to the pain of childbirth. You forget how much it hurts. I must have forgotten that pain. I birthed three babies. It hurts so much while it’s happening, but what you can achieve through the process can be indescribably life changing. You are not the same after you’ve given birth, and you are not the same person you were before you’ve taken a trip. I would even venture to say that most any trip will change you in some way. Prejudices can be obliterated and, just as quickly, they can be formed.

I am on my way home from an interesting trip. At this moment, I am on a US Airways flight. Since yesterday, the day I was supposed to be home, I have been developing a serious prejudice against, if not a complete hatred for, this particular airline. This airline, which is merging with American Airlines to become the largest carrier in the world, could not get me home because of a few sprinkles in Boston. This “weather related” delay (read Act of God) caused me to miss a tight connection in Philadelphia.

It became obvious, while still in Boston, that I would not make a flight that was supposed to depart 35 minutes after arrival in a perfect world. US Airways is not a perfect world. It’s a perfect storm. These days, with passenger planes being shot out of the sky, we are lucky travelers if we land safely. I know that. It’s always top of mind, yet logistical realities abound and passengers are people, too.

Option number one was to remain in Boston and take an early morning flight, which would then connect somewhere because US Airways is not fond of direct flights. I’m rather fond of them, myself, but since this was a ticket I could not use to go to my stepmother’s memorial service in March, I’m stuck with it. Huge concert and Red Sox game in Boston so the word came back there were no hotel rooms.

I decided to forge ahead to Philly and take my chances. My flight to San Francisco, was, of course, on time and was long gone when I landed. I got in the “customer service” line at ten after nine and by 10:15 pm I had a flight for today and a hotel voucher, which was worthless. When I called the number they said all the distressed rooms in Philadelphia were gone. They suggested I call the hotel directly and book a room, but I’d have to pay full freight.

I called the Airport Marriott, which I could see out the window. They told me I could have a room for $189. Ugh. I seriously contemplated just staying in the airport but when I really thought about it I couldn’t stand the idea. Imagining that eerie time of night after all the red eyes left and nobody was around just propelled me to the hotel.

When I got to the desk the guy was arrogant and imperious. He had me and he knew it and wouldn’t honor the rate I was quoted on the phone, or a distressed rate or a Triple A rate. Those rooms were all gone. There were rooms but not any bargain rooms. He offered to give me a list of other hotels but admitted they’d be just as expensive, if not more. He suggested I take a shuttle out of town to a Quality Inn. By this point it was 10:30 pm and I’d had no dinner. The Marriott Hotel Bar was closing in 30 minutes.

I caved and checked in and no, the rate did not include breakfast. The bill slipped under my door totaled $264.50. What bothered me most was that the two nights before I’d paid under $250 a night to stay at the historic Colony Hotel in Kennebunkport, Maine. I’d rather have just stayed there! The hotel is located right on the Atlantic! And it included a full buffet breakfast, a private beach and a huge saltwater pool. Admittedly, I had one of the noisiest, low rent rooms, located right by the stairwell and the veranda, but come on. The location is magical, mystical, spiritual.

The Colony Hotel. 

 My trip started off beautifully and it was lovely to have some “me” time. By the third day on my own I was getting a little lonely (especially at dinner) and looked forward to joining my friends at their country place in the Berkshires. That did not happen. They had a death in the family and had to stay in NYC for the funeral and Shiva.

Since I couldn’t see my friends, had no plans and nowhere to go, I decided to go home early. I have a real estate listing that needs attention as well as some other projects. But I didn’t go home. I ended up in the Marriott. I have flown many times but never once missed a connection. My room smelled like mildew so I asked to be moved. Mr. Imperious Himself came up and escorted me to the 15^th floor. That room was almost as bad but I turned off the air conditioner and the musty smell got better. They must need to clean their air filters.

This morning I stumbled to the bathroom, grabbed something in my makeup bag and gashed my right thumb on a razor. It began bleeding profusely, dripping down my arm. I started to feel sick from the pain and the sight of the blood and broke out in a sweat. Naked, near panic, I imagined the likely scenario of needing to get stitches, missing my plane again (this time my fault), staying overnight again at the smelly Philly Marriott. Alone. I gave myself a very firm talking to. I willed myself to keep it together and prioritize. First, get dressed.

When I left Marblehead my suitcase was packed with precision. I’d stopped in some roadside antique stores in Maine. I bought a sweet white cake stand for $10 and a little pitcher. It was all I could fit. The weathervanes wouldn’t fit in the carry-on. Because of the layover I had exploded the suitcase. Still bleeding, I had to dress myself with my right wrapped in a towel held up. I had to shove the clothes (and everything else) back into the suitcase with one hand. It wasn’t even to close to closing. I sat on it and heard the crunch of the cake stand breaking. Oh well. More room for everything else!

The cake stand.

Somehow I made it downstairs, through security and to my gate. All this time I kept pressure on the wound with a washcloth. Whenever I stopped it started to bleed again. I saw a TSA agent and asked him if he knew where First Aid was located. He told me he had no idea and I commented that he wasn’t the guy to call if somebody was hurt. Not really appreciating my attempt at humor, he told me that if there were an emergency he’d just call 911. Thanks, pal. That’s why you have to work for the TSA and I get to be an unpaid, self-appointed, yet terribly glamorous, travel writer.

A lovely woman at the Information Booth fixed me up with a bunch of bandages and lots of folks were kind enough to offer to lift my bag into the overhead compartment. While we’ve been flying across country I’ve been mentally adding up the costs of the delay. In addition to $264.50 for the room (I didn’t even take a shower there), my dinner last night was $36 (quinoa salad with chicken and one glass of wine), Starbucks this morning was almost $9 for breakfast and then we got to buy ourselves lunch on the plane. Lucky us! For $8.39 you get four crackers, one strawberry, eight grapes, a few walnut crumbles and several blobs of cheese. Yummy!

It’s not just me. When the delays occurred, many folks were inconvenienced, some to a far greater extent. We’ve already had a horrible experience with this airline. When Eric was returning from Scotland, after almost three weeks abroad, he flew US Airways from Dublin to Philadelphia. There was a weather related delay (read Act of God) and somehow he ended up in Las Vegas. I went to SFO to get him and he never arrived. I went home and he finally called saying he was in Las Vegas and that he had to stay there. US Airways would go no further. We were so disgusted by that point that I booked him a hotel room and a flight home the next morning on another carrier.

Of course we ate the expense, but at that juncture we just needed to get him home. He was exhausted, traumatized and severely pissed off. I can relate. He kept saying he just wanted to go home and sit on the porch and never leave. That was three years ago. I think he’s still there.

When you travel by US Airways these days you must buy your own food, pay to check a bag, pay a fee for priority boarding fee AND listen to sales pitches by flight attendants for credit cards. I could deal with the aforementioned if the airline gets me where I am supposed to go. And if they don’t, give me some compensation such as a free flight or a night in a hotel. No such luck. 

The view from the Airport Marriott.

My boarding pass has a lovely message on the back. It says “Thanks for traveling with us today. All of us at US Airways are committed to providing the best customer service and your feedback will help us continue to improve! Please let us hear from you at the address below. Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for your business. Mailing address: Customer Relations

                                               4000 E. Sky Harbor Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85034

                       

                 Email address: http://www.usairways.com/feedback”

They will hear from me. If you’ve had a similar problem, I hope they hear from you, too.

My worthless hotel voucher. 

Facebook: "Like" It or Not

From the Marin Independent Journal

To friend or not to friend. That is the question. If you're breathing you're probably on Facebook. Grandmothers, newborns, businesses and sadly, even dead people can have accounts. You can run, but you can't hide. Facebook is everywhere.

My first experience with Facebook was in 2005 as the mother of teenagers. Along with Facebook came a new lexicon. Dinner table conversation became even more difficult to decipher than normal. Friending, unfriending, writing on walls. Not writing on walls. Who knew what it all meant.

Form a parental perch it seemed like a lot of drama over nothing, but high school is full of drama. Lana became obsessed with Facebook. She was constantly checking it and talking about who did what on Facebook. Now she's almost 28 and more reserved. She enjoys seeing posts, but doesn't often like to comment because then she'll be notified whenever someone else comments. She also gets annoyed by everyone's GPS postings. Sometimes you don't really care where people are drinking beer.

Time for the full disclosure. My daughter, Lucy, works at Facebook as Product Designer. What that is, I'm not exactly sure, but it keeps her really busy! End of disclosure. Back to post.

The Facebook etiquette can be a little confusing. Social media is so new we're not always sure how it works. I have been thinking about a few suggestions to minimize awkwardness. Let's start with the premise that your feelings (if you have them) WILL be hurt at some point. All your friends will be at a party to which you were not invited. You'll be tagged in a post in an unflattering angle with massive amounts of cellulite peeking out of your short shorts. My daughter, Allie (the PR princess), always shrugs her shoulders and says the same thing when she hears of some such drama or snub. "Gotta love Facebook. "

Promote Thyself
It's fine (even recommended) to use Facebook to promote yourself. Let's Face it (LOL), we all have something to promote. I'm in real estate and I got my last listing through Facebook. However, if you send a request for someone to "like" your business page and they don't "like" it, don't send three more requests! Also, people feel slimed if they sense you don't care about them at all and are ONLY using the site to publicize your business.

Be Nice
The Golden Rule is still golden online. Walls are visible to "friends" and friends may include bosses, exes, siblings, and children. Don't call somebody out in public. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Snarky comments reflect more on the commenter than on those commented upon.

Sex, Politics and Religion
Dinner party etiquette used to dictate that sex, politics and religion were forbidden topics. I disagree. I've been to a LOT of dinner parties and if all those topics were avoided, they wouldn't have been half as much fun! Be tasteful, be respectful and be prepared to have others disagree with you. I was once unfriended by someone after I made the comment that I couldn't understand how a woman could be a Republican.  My comment was directly related to a women's rights issue. Some of my good friends are Republican women, but I still think the party's policies are not female-friendly.

Don't Take Over Someone's Wall
If you make a comment on a post and somebody else makes a comment, you may begin a hearty exchange. It could be the start of something big. But, be aware that other posters may be getting a notification every time you say something new. Sometimes it's best just to PM (private message) to finish the conversation. Speaking of PM, how do we like those bobble heads of our friends that pop up? The disembodied image can be a little tricky to track down! And for God's sake, don't answer questions directed to the poster on somebody else's wall. Nobody likes a busybody.

Brag About It
I want to see all the wonderful things everyone's doing. That's the point. Bring on the puppy pics and milestones and noteworthy achievements. I love the vacation photos even though sometimes I get incredibly jealous when people are in Tahoe or the East Coast or Europe or Hawaii and I'm not! I still want to see the pictures, especially cute baby photos.  

Network
I can't count the number of times I've  hooked up on Facebook. Not sexually, but that would make for fun dinner party banter! Plumbers and handymen and wonderful places to stay. I've gotten free tickets to concerts that somebody is giving away. I've found that friends (real live, in the flesh friends) are in the same locale and we've gotten together. I've found out about numerous deaths much faster than I ever would by waiting for a newspaper.

Share The News
It seems like every recent news event from my friends has come with the caveat, "Don't post on Facebook". We have a friend who was expecting a baby and were repeatedly warned not to divulge anything about the labor or delivery. Understood. I can keep a secret if I know it's a secret, but if not, I can be a blurter. Sometimes it's hard to know if it's ok to share. Ask yourself: "Is it my news?". If not, then discretion may be the better part of valor.


Like It
The strangest aspect of Facebook is the silent readers. They look, but they don't touch. Some Facebook users leave all the posting and liking and commenting to others. I can sort of understand the reticence, but it takes two to Tango. We know you're looking, but you won't give a thumbs up for anything. You know who you are.

Big Brother data mining is a reality and a scary concept. Cookies are not just baked sweets anymore. You can listen to a Ted Talk about what your "likes" mean. It can feel creepy to think that advertisers are tracking your preferences. I'm not sure that's exactly how it works. I could ask Lucy, but I probably wouldn't understand the answer. A like or two here and there probably won't hurt you.

Instagram and Beyond
Instagram (owned by Facebook) has also gotten incredibly popular. Some people like it better. It's simpler. Post a photo, enhance photo (or not) with special effects. Some of our offspring are using Instagram even more than Facebook. When you post on Instagram, you can also share the same post on Facebook, so if you have the same friends on both sites there can be a potential for repeats which is boring. 

Going Offline
There's Snapchat and Pinterest and a new app every minute. You can be an addict or an abstainer. What you should NOT do is tell people if you're going offline and why. It cracks me up when people post that they are going off Facebook for a while because it's too much of a time suck. Or when they warn you to not be offended that they’re not "liking" your posts for a while because they are taking a break.  People have lives and 300 or 500 or a thousand "friends". They're not going to notice that you're not liking their posts! The same people who post such statements have rarely, if ever, liked my posts.

Be on. Be off. It really doesn't matter much. There's a lot to be said for living in the moment.  Over sharing is a legitimate concern. Posting while drinking should be regulated. I recently saw the movie, "Chef" which was wonderful. I loved the part with the son helping the father succeed through social media. The father was completely clueless, but there's no escaping. It's the way of our world. If you're offline, you’ll be completely out of it and you won't know what everybody else knows and that may be ok with you.  If you're on, you might as well like it.

Breakfast at Wimbledon

Reposted in honor of Petra's second win at Wimbledon. The first was three years ago when we visited and I took this photo of her in one of the earlier rounds.

"I've been queuing all day. I just want to watch some tennis," the young English boy said. We knew just how he was feeling. You can get into the All England Club by buying tickets ahead of time. That is, if you're quite lucky, well-connected or very wealthy. Being none of the above, we had to join the queue.

The first afternoon, day four of the tourney, was fairly simple. We had taken the tube from London that morning and checked into our Bed and Breakfast in Wimbledon Village. From there it was a pleasant fifteen minute stroll to the grounds through a quiet, upscale neighborhood. We went around a bend, looked down and there it all was - one hundred twenty-five years of history, and for Eric, the fulfillment of a dream. Wimbledon was just as majestic and aesthetically pleasing as we had hoped. It was absolutely breathtaking to look down and see the buildings and signs we've seen so many times on television. We were pinching ourselves.

It was another walk, at least ten minutes, to get to Car Park 10 where you can get into the queue for afternoon matches. We got into the queue at 3:15 and had gone through the metal detector, paid twenty pounds a piece and entered the grounds by 4:00 p.m. The weather was iffy, and the biggest names weren't playing, so it worked out well for us. After a late lunch of fish and chips, we were off to the matches which continued until dark - about 9:30. Grounds passes allowed us access to all the matches except for Center Court or Courts One and Two, which left sixteen courts to choose from. Such heaven. Our vantage point for most matches was the front row, where you could actually smell the grass.

We saw some inspiring women's doubles. I pretended they were my partner and me when we're really on. One match featured a tall lefty and a shorter righty on each team.  Trish can be the tall one for now, but next lifetime, I'm going to be the tall one. One of the players we saw, Petra Kvitova beat Venus on Monday. Obviously, she's excellent. Speaking of Venus, what about that ridiculous outfit? Eric said it looked like something she made herself out of dish towels. Awful.

Late in the afternoon we had our first rain delay, which was very impressive. It is so much more involved than what you see on television. An early warning system for rain, broadcast by Wimbledon central control, triggers the alarm. When the number changes, and hits code red, court crews go into action. Even the chair umpire has no say and is wheeled off the court backwards whilst still in her chair. Then the fun part starts. First the court is undressed and the net posts and net are removed. With incredible urgency and frantic strength, the crew pulls the cover across. The team leader shouts orders like a drill sergeant and it's finished in a couple minutes. When the rain stops, it's all reversed.

We watched matches until dark and finished the evening watching John Isner play on the same court on which he had the epic, three day match against Mahut last year. There is a plaque commemorating the event. Sadly, this year, he lost in four against Almagro who has a wonderful game. John has a huge serve, but is so tall that he doesn't move as well side to side as he could. Wearily, we headed back to the B & B. We were planning to join the queue bright and early.  Day five was a gorgeous morning and we were in the queue by seven a.m. My number was 3,992. There were two thousand people who lined up behind us.

The Brits are very orderly, broken to the queue from early childhood. I kept imagining what this would be like in New York - fights breaking out all over the place and lots of swearing. Instead, there were acres of nicely dressed, well-behaved, extremely pleasant people. We were in the grounds before eleven a.m. and treated ourselves to the traditional strawberries and cream which we ate on Henman Hill. Play doesn't start until one on Center Court and noon on the outer matches. The crowds were huge because it was a big day for Great Britain. Laura Robson played Sharapova (whose shrieks we could hear even outside the stadium) and Murray was also in the draw.

We saw Berdych play a wonderful match against East Bay player, Alex Bogomolov, who although scrappy didn't have enough game. We also watched Mirza and her partner, Vesnina, play some fun doubles against Voracova and Voskoboeva, whoever they are. We also really enjoyed seeing Llagostera-Vives and her partner, Parras-Santiago. We were waiting to see my buddy, Ryan Harrison, play doubles with his partner, Travis when there was a rain delay. It was evening and we'd had a long day so we went back to our hotel for a " lie down", as the English would say.          

A while later we walked up the street to get some dinner at an Italian place called "La Strada". The joint was jumping - locals mixed in with players and their entourages. The waiters did an excellent job trying to keep everyone satisfied. In fact, they bumped us from our table when a party of six from the tourney arrived. We didn't mind. They put us right next to Gasquet. That was our Wimbledon - breakfast, lunch AND dinner.      

Eating Above Our Station at San Ysidro Ranch

The Stonehouse Restaurant

Sometimes you discover a location so enchanting and riveting that all you think about when you leave is how to get back there again. Exactly one year ago we visited San Ysidro Ranch for the first time. We were enthralled by the gardens and charmed by the tasteful cottages. Lunch on the terrace at the Stonehouse Restaurant was delicious, romantic and without a false note.

The intervening year has been traumatic in more ways than one. Looking back on the year in December, a friend remarked that all the good things that had happened to me in 2013 had actually happened to my children. It was a wise and thoughtful comment. Lana got married, Lucy got a fabulous job at Facebook. Allie excelled in her career. All good.

The gyrations of moving and not moving, selling and not selling the house were exhausting. Innumerable stressors, known and unknown, were taking a toll on our relationship. Still in that mindset, we took a trip to Palm Springs in February. The final few days were to be in LA slash Santa Barbara with a belated Valentines Day dinner at the Ranch. Plans changed and that portion of the trip was deleted.

Still hankering for a dose of Santa Barbara, we decided to try again with a June mini-break. Although Montecito is a most dog friendly town, we left Ruby home with Lana. It was her first time without Eric or me and she went on a mini hunger strike. It upset Lana that Ruby would barely eat, but that’s just how dogs are. Anyway, she can stand to lose half a pound.

We started driving down and I was kind of shocked when I realized we were driving six hours for a two night get-away. I'd been thinking it was more like a four-hour drive. My grasp of geography has always been suspect. Basically, we were traveling 345 miles for dinner. No pressure there.

Sometimes its good to be trapped in a car for hours and hours with the one you love. You talk about things you need to discuss and there is no escape. By Woodside we were pretty much talked out and the atmosphere changed. It lifted and lightened. Lunch in Paso Robles was excellent. At least I thought so until I spent much of that night in the hotel bathroom with imploding intestines. Now that's romantic!

Gastric catastrophes aside, it WAS very romantic. It was a short walk to the beach from our hotel in Montecito. The water temperature was perfect for swimming. No wetsuit required. The ocean is incredibly therapeutic. Saltwater will cure whatever ails you in mind or body. It makes my skin feel so good.

I had a huge Planter's wart when I was a young teen.  It was so painful I could barely walk. It was going to be removed when I visited my father on Long Island. A few days of saltwater and the wart was completely cured. We hoped the ocean would cure Eric's 100-day cough, but it didn't. It cured the rest of him. I hadn't seen him so relaxed in years.

My fingernails were a mess so I wandered down the street in Montecito Village for a manicure. I was shocked when they told me the price. Twenty-five dollars for a simple manicure. You might be wondering what they charge for pedicures. Forty-five. So for a mere seventy bucks, before tip, you can leave feeling pretty good. Ridiculous.

The night before we'd gotten ice cream and three tiny scoops were over nine dollars. And I thought we lived in an expensive area. Montecito really has to get over it. Unless you can control the moon and the stars and command the sun to break through the fog, you're just another place.

We were prepared for sticker shock when we arrived for dinner at The Stonehouse. You're paying for the experience and location and the food is very proud of itself as well. The bamboo-covered terrace, with hurricane lamps and sparkly lights, overlooking the property and hillside, was sensational. Eric opened the wine list and gulped. Edna Valley Cabernet started at $280 a bottle. I peeked at the menu. Risotto, at $46, was the least expensive item. Talk about eating (and drinking) above our station!

There is a certain gentle, twinkly sound at high-end restaurants. The Stonehouse was no different. The conversations were interesting in the way only an LA area restaurant can be interesting. The patrons were as eclectic as expected. The gay couple behind us was riveting. One of them had a British accent and a serious stutter.

It was hard not to overhear their conversation, not that we tried. Eric and I love to eavesdrop at restaurants. Allie and I do the same thing. Afterwards we let our imaginations run wild and make up stories about them. At one point the man behind us asked the waitress about a guy called Warner. I had no idea who he was, but he sounded important.

On the drive home the next day I put the google on the ranch. It turns out Warner is the owner. Ty Warner. Ty as in Beanie Babies! The man has 2.6 billion dollars because of Beanie Babies! Lord knows I've contributed my fair share. I must say, the man has amazing taste. It's a legendary location - John and Jackie Kennedy spent their honeymoon there. I'm sure it's always been wonderful, but Ty certainly hasn't ruined it.

We got out of dinner for under three hundred, but it wasn't easy. Was it worth it? Yes. And no. The wine, at $70 a bottle, was mediocre. The abalone appetizer came so drenched in a tetrazzini style sauce that you couldn't taste it. The salad had large chunks of Brie that were way too cold. It was like eating lumps of lard. We fared better with the entrees. My Halibut was outstanding and the portion so generous I couldn't finish it. Eric's dinner was also excellent. The piece of chocolate cake was so so. The lava cake at our local restaurant Vasco is far better.

It's always a let down to be back home. The temperature was a bitter 58 degrees and the gloomy fog dripped on the windshield and swirled around the house. It's hard for me to relax at home. Every place my eye goes there is something for me to do. House projects, the linen aprons I started for Lucy and Allie. Even updating the wills. I do my real estate work at home so that adds to it. For Eric, it's much simpler.He's either at work or at home. That's very old-fashioned, but sometimes I envy it. I'm rarely not working on something. 

My stomach is still protesting so we've been eating simple dinners. We figure two nights of tomato soup and scrambled eggs and our meal at the Ranch hasn't really cost us that much. Dollar cost averaging. And Ruby, the little stinker who wouldn't eat for Lana, she's eating just fine.

Chemical Peel

Born in Michigan to a blonde, blue-eyed father and an olive skinned brown haired, brown-eyed mother, I ended up with dirty blonde hair, green eyes and freckles. Three of my four grandparents were blue eyed. I'm not sure where the green came from, but they’re a point of vanity. They make me feel special even though most people think of me as having blue eyes. The freckles used to be kind of cute, too. Now they’re viewed with suspicion. We have no history of skin cancer in the family, but my dermatologist isn't taking any chances. 

Raised in New York, we resided for a while by a lake and my father had a sailboat on Long Island for years. There were the catastrophic sunburns in Florida- second-degree burns that blistered and peeled. At seventeen I moved to Hollywood and spent my fair share of time by the pool. When I moved to Mill Valley there was a slab if concrete in the back yard that I dubbed the "sun pit". You get the drift. That was before all the years at the girls' swim meets followed by the tennis years. Suffice to say, if I never had another drop of sun on my shoulders it wouldn't be too soon.

At a recent visit to the skin doctor he looked at me and put it quite bluntly. He said he could zap my face thirty times or I could have the blue light treatment. No third option? I guess not. Eric has the same dermatologist and he prescribed the same treatment for him. Forty years on tennis courts and a South Florida childhood had come home to roost.  

We decided to have it done together. Double date. The first question the doctor asked me was if I was ok with having a “vicious” reaction. Apparently, the longer the chemical is left on before the light treatment, the deeper it goes and the “better” the result. The medicine attaches to the pre-cancerous cells and then they peel off. He suggested I might peel for ten days. Eric had gone first so I said I’d do whatever he did. It was an hour and a half. In retrospect, it’s a decision I regret.

After Eric waited for his hour and a half, he spent seventeen minutes under the ultra-violet light. I could tell it hurt by looking at him when he returned to the waiting room. Then it was my turn. If you’ve ever had a lip wax you might be able to imagine the pain. It’s like the ripping part for seventeen minutes. Also like someone is stabbing your face continuously with tiny hot pokers. Ouch!

Afterwards, you scurry home under a hat and stay in the darkest room of your house for forty-eight hours. We have a very light house. With six skylights, it's even bright in the garage. Many of our windows are up high and have no shades. That ruled out the master bedroom, bathroom and living room. We draped the kitchen windows with towels and drop cloths. It was rainy when we went in for the treatment, but four hours later it started to clear up on the way home.

That was yesterday. I cannot express how miserable I am today. Red, itchy, blistery, scaly face with out of control swelling. Pain like the worst sunburn I’ve ever had, along with that chilled feeling. It’s a glorious spring day and miserable to have to stay inside the whole time, but it’s probably just as well. I could scare children if I’m seen in public now. Eric is having some itching but he looks practically normal.

Now that I’ve finished all 775 pages of Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”, I’m at a loss. Agitated, bored and grumpy. As unpleasant (medical euphemism) as this is, I know it’s the right thing to do. I need to get the bad guys off my face. It will heal and I’ll forget about how awful it was until I go back for treatment number two. In five weeks.

The kitchen looks like an encampment.

Home Again

Our House

Sometimes you take a trip and end up in the same place. The place where you started.  Maybe all trips are like that. I don't know. I'm getting confused. What I do know is, I thought we were moving in one direction and it seems we're not moving at all. Anywhere.

The house plans went along swimmingly until they didn't. Tilt. Shock number one was looking at apartments. On New Year's Eve we checked out The Cove. It was the emergency back up plan because they accept pets. For $2,300 a month we could rent a tiny one bedroom. But, hey, they take pets.

The Cove triggered a tsunami sized panic attack. The idea of living in a crappy apartment while someone else lived in our house was horrible. And offensive. And horribly offensive. I know. I know. It was my idea in the first place to find a temporary rental, empty out the house so we could refinish all the wood floors, and then stage it for sale. The Cove cured me of that notion. Leaving the house before we had somewhere to go was a bad idea.

Then I realized the plan had another flaw. The part about leaving Mill Valley. The concept was that we would rent until we found something we could afford to buy and if we didn't find anything in two years (which is the deadline to transfer the property tax base) we could buy in San Anselmo or Fairfax which are more affordable. It was all perfectly viable until I realized I don't want to leave Mill Valley. It's home. My post "My Town"  (http://pearlsandlemons.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-town.html) says it best. How could I have forgotten all that?

Ruby enjoys the new window seat.

Reconstructing the past few months, and even the last year or so, I can see why securing my future became of such paramount importance. Cashing out seemed to be the right thing to do. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. It's all in how you look at it. I am such a tricky combination of eternal optimism and doom mongering. Crashing about between feelings of bounty and scarcity, I even confuse myself.

We've done so many projects preparing the house for sale. At some point it stopped being for others and started being for us again. Well, maybe for me. Eric has been so whipsawed by the process, and all the changes of my mind, that he doesn't much care anymore. So much of the work needed to be done to care for the house properly. New hot water heater, new bathroom floors, getting rid of dry rot. It's all good. The landscaping in front was long overdue and is lovely.

Having automatic irrigation at long last is simply marvelous. Installing a lawn during a drought drew some ire, but I knew having timed watering would ultimately save water. We used to put the sprinkler on in one spot and forget about it for two hours. Talk about waste! Anyway, we ended the drought. The afternoon our sod was installed it began to rain and it rained off and on for weeks thereafter. The reservoirs have filled up. You're welcome.

I've always wondered how you know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. As the song goes, when to walk away and when to run. Is it too soon to leave or too long to stay? For jobs, homes, relationships, it's a perennial question. Selling our house is not the problem. Lots of folks want to buy the house. One of our neighbors offered to buy it for an exorbitantly high price, and have me list his for sale. He's never even been inside!

The problem is where to go. For now, the most affordable place for us to live in Mill Valley is our own home. It's partly why there is nothing to buy. People like us can't sell because they're locked in. Things will change. They always do. For now, I'm enjoying being back home, even though I never really left.