Painting

To my dearest, darlingest daughters (who gave me permission to post this),

I thought of you all today when I was peeling stars off the ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars and planets from your old bedroom. The ceiling crack had gotten more noticeable recently. It was time to spackle and paint. In order to paint the ceiling, Mars and Jupiter had to go. If any of you wants them, they’re stuck to the top of the wooden ladder. Being in your old room - the "nursery" brought back so many memories. It’s where you lived together in various configurations. It’s where Lucy became a big sister and Lana was in her body cast and Lana and Allie made their god-awful Barbie messes. It was one yellow and then another yellow. It was lavender with bunny borders. The room still echoes with bedtime stories and plaintive requests for yet another drink of water.

Painting your old room made me happy until it made me so sad. Part of the time I couldn’t tell the difference. I’ve been going through some things in every room - organizing and purging. I feel like I’m saying goodbye to the house, although we have no plans to leave. Then I realized I’m not saying goodbye to the house. I’m saying goodbye to a time. Our time. All those years of you being little and sweet and young. And ornery and whiny and demanding. The relentless daily routines year after year seem such a blur now. In those years it seemed time passed quickly and slowly, simultaneously. How is that possible? Could it really be Halloween again? It seemed like we’d just done Halloween or one of the forty-eight birthday celebrations we had. Three kids times sixteen birthdays is forty-eight, but, really, it seemed like a lot more.

All this maudlin- mother- time can only lead one place. Worry. It’s me, after all. Did I do enough? Do you know what you need to know? I know your lives were good. Lana’s comment that she feels she had a perfect childhood was music to my ears, of course. I really do believe you have what you need to go wherever you may go. It’s all inside. You knew right from wrong, with few exceptions, by four years old. I trust in your abilities, your values and the love in your hearts. You’ll be fine, no matter what. It’s just that the painting project made me think of a couple things I want to say...

Painting is messy and hard, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. Painting a ceiling is even more difficult than painting walls. It has to be done all at once. You can’t just do one wall at a time. Cover up anything you care about, and not just when you’re painting. It’s not easy to climb up and down ladders with rollers and brushes. You’re going to have little drips. Just don’t turn them into big blobs - especially big blobs that you step in and get all over the place. Clean up the little drips right away, so they don’t harden. You know this isn’t just about painting.

Don’t be afraid to break your own rules - even rules you previously believed in whole-heartedly. It’s all about adjusting to the present time and present circumstance. I’ve never painted the ceiling the same color as the walls. I did this time. It looks really pretty to have the cream color on the ceiling. Don’t get too attached to a formula. They’re always being discontinued or reformulated - like the cream colored paint. Wear a hat or you’ll have paint in your hair.
If there are cracks in one place, they’re probably in another location, as well. You can spackle. You can paint, but you can’t really cover cracks. You have to accept the cracks, even love them. Remember, covering cracks as you go along is maintenance. Covering them before you sell is fraud. Painting can be contemplative, even therapeutic. It requires almost more patience than I possess, but it’s tremendously satisfying to feel you’ve done a fine job. Like the way I feel about being your mother.

All my love,
Mumsicle

Austin de Lone to play at Party for Boyle

Very special musical guests: Austin de Lone (of Commander Cody, Eggs Over Easy, Nick Lowe, Christmas Jug Band and many more) beloved and renowned will be performing with his daughter, Caroline. Don’t miss it. January 23rd. Mill Valley Golf Clubhouse.
See boyleparkrenovation.com/ for details.

Shelter in Place

It poured on Christmas Day. The first rainy Christmas I can remember. Usually, when I take my traditional Christmas Day Vitabath, the sun is shining on me through the window. There’s the feeling that one should be outside enjoying the weather when one just feels like turning inside themselves. This year, we had no such conflict and fortunately, no social commitments. The weather outside was frightful. Naps were had by noon. We all rallied to go downtown and see "The King’s Speech" which was wonderful. When we left the theater in search of hot chocolate, there were rivers of water running down the sidewalks. It was so pleasant to be home by the fire, with the new books and toys for grownups. I got to play with my new iPad for hours - after I wrenched it away from each of the children.

Now we have saturation issues. Too much rain in too short a period of time. It’s a worry. All the homes I sold in 20l0 were in flood zones. That's another worry.Think sump pumps and sand bags. Think flash floods and creeks jumping their banks. Think mud. We flooded on New Year’s Eve five years ago. I really don’t care for it. Fortunately, unlike others on our street, our house was safe from water intrusion. The attached garage had two feet of water, which resulted in smelly mud when the water receded. The garage is the California basement and attic combined. It's also our laundry room. The dryer did not like being flooded. Everything had to be tossed out which was a bit liberating. Out with the old on the first day of the new year. We could even park a car in there a few times.

We were all so unprepared for the Flood of 2005. Dozens of cars on our street were damaged beyond repair. For days they were being flat-towed away. Almost everyone got new cars but us. Eric saved my car by having me move it up the driveway closer to the house. Later, when the Audi came down with multiple mechanical issues, I kind of regretted that it was saved. Lana's car was the only flooded car in the neighborhood to survive. An old Dodge Dynasty, it was so low tech she was able to suck the water out with a shop vac, dry off the mud and start that baby up again. The Dynasty, AKA the "tank" and "Big Blue", was from Ohio and it knew weather. 

There is an effort by the town to make sure this type of flooding won't happen here again, presumably to avoid legal problems. It's not like we don't know we live in a flood zone. It's Mill Valley. There are very few homes here that aren't at risk for flooding, wildfires or slope stability issues. I'll take my chances with flooding. The Storm of the Century needed a perfect confluence of events. Unremitting rain for days. High tides. High winds. In retrospective analysis, it seems that there was maintenance that should have been done on the creek that runs through the neighborhood. All of the water runs off the mountain and down through the creeks out to the Bay. It has to go somewhere. When the tide is extremely high, it literally backs up out of the storm drains.

Now we get phone calls. Lots of phone calls at home and work warning us of possible impending flooding. It's a weather report combined with dire predictions. It's an admonition. Do you have food, water, batteries, flashlights to last for seventy-two hours? Not seventy-one or seventy-three. Always seventy-two. We even had City employees going door to door a few Saturdays back. In orange vests, presumably on overtime, they were checking on citizen preparedness. We thought they were selling more Bibles or wrapping paper and hid until they were gone. Ironically, that day was almost sunny and the storm fizzled. 

All of this pressure to perform made me a bit resistant, so I kept joking about how we didn't have emergency supplies BUT, we had plenty of wine and firewood so we'd be fine. Yet another storm rolled in between Christmas and New Years and this one packed a wallop. It was well upon us, with howling gusts and rain blowing sideways in sheets. I finally got sensible and did flashlight inventory. Acch. One semi-workable flashlight and NO spare batteries. I immediately set off in the storm for the closest grocery store. All sold out of flashlights. Off to the drugstore where I bought the last of their supply. Ironically, there were two men in the store buying ice cream cones for five, small children like they weren't in the middle of the seventh Storm of the Century. I was afraid of flash floods on my way home and they were blithely eating ice cream. 

There's a lot to be said for sheltering in place. This year we were most appreciative that we didn't spend several days in a blizzard at an airport. I can read or nap while Eric watches nine hours of college football. The  background noise is a soothing sound from my childhood. My father, grandfather and brother would all watch the games. I only actually "watched" part of one game - the UConn bowl game because it's Allie's school. 

When I wasn't firmly adhered to the couch, life was a bit dangerous for me. In one week I managed to sustain three burns (one from the oven, one from the fireplace and one from steaming milk) and a cut on my finger that probably should have been stitched. I just couldn't face sitting in the emergency room for hours when I was preparing a dinner party for fourteen people. Lana and Allie pitched in while I supervised with my finger in the air. Not that one. We also had the thermostat wars. Lucy, who has NO body fat, is always freezing. Allie and I have dry skin issues. Blasting the heater all day long makes it so much worse. It was so cold and the house is so poorly insulated, that we had to use the furnace a LOT and bundle up. Nothing a little trip to Hawaii couldn't improve upon.     
 
Although we are extremely tired of the rain, there have been a few fortuitous breaks in the action. Christmas Eve was clear and we got to play some tennis. I was walking home from the courts when I encountered a confused delivery man with a van full of packages. He asked me about a particular address. I suggested he give me the last name. Maybe I'd know them. I did. I gave directions to their house. If you pass the Palm tree you've gone too far.  I called the recipients and told them to expect a package in a few minutes. It was their Stone Crab from Joe's in Florida. Christmas Eve dinner.

Now that the holidays are over, it's time for the rain to stop. We're bored and tired of entertaining ourselves indoors. Eric is as restless as a hungry bear coming out of hibernation. The "well, it could be worse" game is no longer working. We've played gin rummy and watched movies. We made soup and organized the spices. We've done numerous crossword puzzles. Yet, it still rains. I've spent hundreds of hours looking at photos on Houzz when I should have been finishing my Christmas cards. I've discovered it's really in to have black bannisters and stair treads. Maybe it's time to get out the paint...  

Wing Chairs

I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to buy used wing chairs from the funeral home. There they were, displayed on their perfect, compulsively watered front lawn with a sign and a number to call. I think they were asking $75 a piece for them and I ended up getting them both for $140. The seller, a quiet, dignified man explained that they had only been used in the waiting room. No one had spilled anything on them, and the only place they were really worn was on the top. The seller explained that this was where the director would rest his elbow as he stood by during services, etc. This seemed to be accurate, and after I convinced myself that they really hadn’t been in the near vicinity of the dead people, I thought they would fit right in at home and could some day be reupholstered.

But I was never quite, um, comfortable, with those chairs and didn’t have the decorating budget to rehabilitate them. Still, they were useful without doing any harm, and I got along with them until the point when a good friend died and I went to that same funeral home with her brother to make the arrangements for her cremation. The chairs in the waiting room that had replaced mine were soo much nicer. Although my friend who passed away had taken great delight in the back story of the provenance of my chairs, it was hard to feel good about them now. Three and a half years went by and my friend’s daughter decided to have a garage sale. We agreed it was time to offload the creepy wing chairs.

I told Eric about the chair plan at dinner one night and mentioned that I was excited to be getting rid of the bad energy they brought with them. This led to a wider discussion of the topic, including his father’s ashes, which resided in a box in a pretty antique cabinet that he’d brought with him, and was now in the kitchen. We talked about how having them in their place in the kitchen was starting to be bothersome. The door to the cabinet kept popping open. Spontaneously. I would close it firmly and it would happen again. It had started to get a bit spooky.

We talked about the fact that when his father was dying, thirty-five years before, he had asked that his ashes be scattered at the private high school where he had been a football star. When Eric tried to honor his wishes and scatter the ashes it turned out the football field had been paved over and was now the parking lot of the Pak N Save. Step two was thwarted as well. He took a trip across country to scatter the ashes on the football field where Dad had played in college. The field had been converted to astro-turf which just wouldn’t work. A series of adventures ensued including having the maid accidentally remove them from the safe in a cheap hotel room in New York City. The ashes were recovered and seemed to be on their best behavior for the next few decades while they moved from place to place, but now it appeared there’d been enough delay in finding a final resting place.

We agreed that they needed to be relocated, but we had to find a suitable resting place. It appeared that football fields were out and since this man had not liked the beach, despite having lived much of his life in South Florida, a scattering at sea was not a good option. I kept pressing. What else did he like? It turns out he liked golf. All of a sudden that seemed to present a perfect solution. We’d take him to a lovely, little local golf course. Eric, who can be wildly spontaneous, outdid himself that night. He suggested we go right then. We were still sitting at the dinner table and it was 9:30. He grabbed a little trowel and the box of ashes and we started for the front door. We were intercepted by Lana, who immediately sensed something was up. I told her we couldn’t explain but had to go right away because we were on a mission. She said that was creepy. Little did she know. We passed a cop car when we were nearing the course but he was going the other way. What relief. Timing is everything.

The golf course was beautiful even in the dark. We shined a little flashlight around until we found the perfect spot, a sand trap. Eric started a gorgeous, spontaneous eulogy to his father. I cried quietly while he dug a small hole in the sand and poured most of the ashes into the hole. We were almost done, when suddenly there was a car and there were lights. It was the cop. He’d circled back around and now he was walking out to the sand trap while shining his light on us. We both sat down. We had to. If we’d remained standing he would have seen that something was going on. He asked what we were doing and we said talking. Talking? He questioned again. I explained that we had teenagers at home and just needed to get away and talk a little. And sit in a sand trap? You could tell his gut just didn’t buy it, but he didn’t have any evidence to the contrary, and he slowly retreated and then drove away.

We cracked up. We laughed so hard we could hardly stop. It was the most intimate of moments between us and the sadness and the ridiculousness all blurred together. We quickly finished the job and got out of there. Dad must like the golf course because that was years ago and he’s been no trouble. The cabinet door has never opened by itself again.

My Town

I’m in love again. I can really feel it. Sometimes you know you’re supposed to feel a certain way, but you just can’t. Your head knows on some level but your heart can’t access it. And if you can’t actually feel it for long enough, is it really there? The feeling. Why must we live so often in a visceral haze? You probably think this is about my relationship. It’s not. I’ve had relationships that I couldn’t always feel. Not now. I can ALWAYS feel my relationship. Sometimes I don’t like how it makes me feel, but I feel something. No, it’s not even about another person. It’s about my town.

Finding my home was pure happenstance - as it often is. We lost our lease in San Francisco and were struggling to find a new place that would take two Dobermans. A friend told us of a vacant place he’d heard about in Mill Valley. I ventured across the bridge to check it out. Arriving in the rustic downtown, I looked around. Charming stores. Coffee house and bookstore. Yes, I was home. That was thirty-one years ago.

I’ve always loved living here, but lately, my connection has felt a bit abstract. Not today. This morning I took a walk downtown. This cold, November morning with frost on the lawns and vibrant, brilliant red and orange leaves fluttering around, I could feel how much I love my town. I could feel it so strongly I wanted to shout from the icy rooftops, “ I love you, Mill Valley.”

The physical beauty of our downtown is incomparable. Because it’s at the base of a mountain, it’s not a drive-through or drive-by. It’s a destination. There is a stand of Redwoods in the center of town. A creek runs through it. A babbling brook with a delightful flower shop over it. We have culture - a film festival, art exhibits and live entertainment. We have location, location and more location - thirty minutes from the beach and San Francisco. Less than four hours from the ski slopes.

There have been numerous changes downtown and I could sit in my rocker moaning about the good old days. We used to have a pharmacy, a place to buy a hammer or shoes for children. We could complain, but we shouldn’t. It’s still such a delightful cross between sophisticated and simple. We’re so fortunate to have the kind of downtown where you can bank, buy books and groceries. There are great restaurants. You can see a first run movie or attend Mass. We also have at least one spa per capita and a fair number of dog grooming establishments. One place even offers chiropractics for dogs. If you want to buy an eight hundred dollar sweater, Mill Valley is your town. Hand knitted, of course. I do miss the funeral home, though. It was so convenient. It’s been replaced by a Montessori pre-school.

It’s not just that I love my town - it’s also that I’ve made a commitment to it. It’s my community. It’s where I’d like to be living when I die. I did cheat on my town once. When I was separated I got an apartment in Tiburon and stayed there part time. It was attractive and had a water view, so you can imagine the temptation, but it wasn’t home. One time I stepped from the apartment to shake out a rug and the door slammed shut. I was locked out in only a man’s dress shirt - with wet hair. Pulling the shirt down over my butt, I scurried to the manager’s office where there was a sign posted saying they were closed for their annual employee picnic. Help. No phone, no friends, no neighbors with a spare key. Just me. Alone. I accosted a couple painters working on an apartment nearby. Despite our enormous language barrier (why didn’t I study harder in Spanish?), I convinced them to let me make a call. I don’t even want to know what they were thinking. The only person I could reach was Eric who was already in San Francisco. When he rescued me forty-five minutes later I was huddled in the fog and the wind on my doormat. It’s an image that gives him great amusement to this day.

I have so much history in Mill Valley - maybe too much. When I first moved here so long ago I didn’t know a single soul. Now Eric’s convinced there’s not a single soul I don’t know. At night I used to look in the windows of the grand old homes, imagining what sort of people might live there. Now I know. Some talented, successful people, some truly wonderful folks and some real jerks. They’ve all been part of my life here. Some of them I’m proud to call friends.

Mill Valley is where Banana Republic began, long before it was sold to the Gap. A small storefront with a jeep in it - they carried safari-type clothing. Smith & Hawken also started at a downtown location. Now we have the first Tyler Florence store. Tyler would like to offer cooking demonstrations there but the City of Mill Valley won’t allow it. Something about a parking problem. Seems shortsighted and provincial. I’ve NEVER been unable to find a parking spot downtown. You’ve got to love small town politics.

We have our famous folks in Mill Valley. Legends in their own minds. I mentioned Blue Pants Man and Babushka Lady in “ Invention is the Mother of Necessity” (April 20l0). We also have the Greeter who stands by the road all day waving to folks going out to the beach. Currently, our most famous street person is Red Sweatshirt Man. When Charlie Deal was alive he used to make guitars out of toilet seats. The man was an icon. Of something. In days gone by we had The Knitter. I miss him sitting cross-legged under the Redwoods. Knitting.

Of course we have plenty of “real” celebrities like Bob Weir and frequent sightings of Carlos Santana, Robin Williams and Sean Penn. Nobody really pays much attention to them, though I did think it was funny when I went to get my blonde highlights and Sammy Hagar was there getting HIS blonde highlights. Working at Sweetwater,I was surrounded by musicians for years. I ignored everyone equally, without regard to their level of fame.

I also think well known people should be left be left alone as they go about their business. Recently we went to a Chamber Mixer at the Tyler Florence store. Tyler was there giving out samples of his potato soup. It got me in the mood to make potato soup which I hadn’t done for a while. I was wondering about his recipe but couldn’t find it any of his cookbooks. I thought I’d just wing it and went down to the market to purchase supplies. Who do you suppose was in the produce department doing a little shopping? Tyler Florence. I could have asked about the recipe, but I didn’t want to bother him. He ended up practically stalking me around the store. I went to the butcher to order my turkey and he went there, too. Later I went back to the butcher counter because I’d forgotten bacon and who do you think came to the butcher asking for four strips of “good” bacon? It never occurred to me to ask for “good” bacon. Now I know how the real chefs of Mill Valley shop.

We have such an intriguing blend of characters in this town. A recent report in the Police Log shows as much. “Caller reported a male subject with a beard and green clown hat walking around the area. Caller said it seemed odd and she thought he’d been smoking weed. Officers located subject in front of the 2AM Club. Subject was sober and just waving at people. Officers field-identified subject and told him he could only be a clown in Mill Valley, not county areas.” Our clowns are legal and our town has it’s own song. Does your town have a song?

Pat's Words

My grandfather, George Partridge, was born November 25, l905 - one hundred and five years ago tomorrow. Even though he's no longer with us, it's always special for me when his birthday falls on Thanksgiving. I love the blessing he used to say before meals which the girls used to call "Pat's words". Happy Thanksgiving.

Father, we thank thee for the night
and for the blessed morning light,
for rest and food and loving care
and all that makes this world so fair.
Help us to do the things we should,
to be to others kind and good.
In all we do and all we say,
to grow more loving every day.

Amen

Needless Markup

I’m still recovering from the agony and the ecstacy of being a Giants fan. Now I have to try to understand the election? Was there really a Teapocylypse? Is a Blue Dog a bad dog? What about the Congressional Commission? We just had a huge surplus and now there’s a tremendous deficit. I am still proud of my “A” in college statistics and I love a good bar graph or pie chart, but some numbers are higher than I can even visualize. Trillions, billions. What does it all mean?

I understand that, although neither of them won, more people in California voted to legalize marijuana than for Meg Whitman. I voted for Brown with a sense of despair. This state is MESSED UP. I disagree with the premise, that we, as voters, are qualified to run this state by initiative. Unlike Meg Whitman, I always vote. The reason I vote these people into office is so they will make these decisions. I expect them to know more about things than I do. We all know the initiatives are written to trick people. Sadly, it works.

On a local level, our county supervisors have never met a consultant they didn’t want to hire. It’s all about covering their you know what. If they don’t want to take responsibility for the massively expensive policies they’re creating, then they shouldn’t be in office. With the pension bombs exploding left and right we see so clearly how self-serving politicians truly are. Pandering to their district, the lobbyists, the special interests, their sex drive - it’s overwhelming. I had a huge crush on Eliot Spitzer until he turned out to be Client Number 9. I thought he was so sexy in a tough, smart, New York white collar kind of way. Now he’s just another slime ball.

Life is too complicated. Maybe I need to lie down and stop thinking about it all. Oh, look, it’s the Neiman Marcus holiday entertaining catalog. Look at this gorgeous food. I can just order Thanksgiving dinner online. Fabulous. Dinner for eight. They don’t offer Turducken so we’ll just have to be traditional. We’ll start with Brie en Croute ($60.00) and stuffed mushroom caps ($75.00) as an appetizer. Add broccoli and cheese casserole ($78.00), green beans ($70.00), some glorified mashed potatoes ($65.00) and sweet potatoes ($52.00). Put corn bread stuffing ($60.00), turkey (only $65.00), cranberry relish ($45.00) and one pecan and one pumpkin pie ($50.00 each) into the “shopping cart”. Terrific.

Let’s see. Including tax and shipping charges the grand total is over nine hundred dollars. Add some wine and rolls and you are talking about a very pricey meal. AND you still need to do all the set up and clean up. We could order Thanksgiving dinner for eight at our local, independent grocery store for only $l50.00. Seems like a bargain as we once spent that much there for a piece of meat (and a head of garlic) for Christmas dinner. Besides, I love the market and we have to support it or our friend, Cris, whose family owns it, will be mad.

Eric’s been doing a little perusing of Neiman Marcus catalogs, as well. He’ll read anything I leave in the bathroom. He’s had some fun with this one and thought he could do a little of his own online shopping. He was tempted by the Tory Burch family chariot electric tricycle (pictured with purse dogs - no doubt extra) for forty-five hundred, but there’s also the gingerbread playhouse for fifteen grand to consider. He was also charmed by descriptions of a trip to the cultural hub of Marfa, Texas, where a concierge will work with you to create a “one-of-a-kind” experience of three days and four nights. Trips to Hawaii are usually sold as four days, three nights, but whatever. This is Texas and for a starting price of $9,500 per couple, not including transportation, it’s such a deal. The other option is the tequila party for up to seventy-five guests in your home for $l25,000.00. That’s one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. A celebrity chef and celebrity event planner are also included with the VERY special tequila.

There used to be an expression, “stupid money” meaning people had so much money they could be stupid with it. Really stupid. It’s not so easy since we’ve lost our dots and coms. I still know quite a few people with money. LOTS of money, and none of them are stupid. I don’t know who IS stupid enough to buy some of these catalog items, but apparently there must be someone. Right? Perhaps it’s the people who just closed on a house one town over for 6.3 million cash. Maybe they need a housewarming tequila party and a Tory Burch Tricycle and a gingerbread playhouse. Forget the trip to Marfa. They probably don’t have enough money left and have to stay home.