News of Norway

Is it me? Is it Norway?

It's probably a bit of both.

Happy Saturday! I'm reading the English language translation of Bergens Tidende, the local newspaper and finding all of the weird parts. There's an opinion piece about some new development on a spit of land that's about half a mile from the place where my grandmother was born. The author seems miffed that the developer is mimicking the shape and color of historic buildings. Around here, ersatz historic buildings are considered somewhat sensitive to the local aesthetic. I used to call them Fictorians, but I've gotten used to them.

Anyhoo -- I'm reading the article and minding my own business, navigating the ads for athletic shoes that keep popping up, when I see it:

I write to my friend and ask "Is this a Norwegian idiom?" I mean, I get it but who expects to read the words "butt" and "taste" in the same sentence over their morning coffee. I told mrguy and he says it is now his favorite saying and will use it all the time.

Then I'm reading an article with the headline "They were waiting to die. Then came the miracle drug." As the wife of a man with a terminal illness, I am drawn to miracle cures of a Western medicine sort. The story starts out as one of testicular cancer in Norway, which in the 1970s metastasized rapidly in patients. Then there was nothing that could be done to help. Then a scientist discovered that bacteria stopped dividing when current was run through it using platinum electrodes. It was the platinum, which was spreading platinum compounds into the bacteria solution. They tested the platinum stuff on animals and people. So was born Cisplatin. Men with testicular cancer were saved by this treatment. My man, also, has been saved by this treatment. Also, if he ever had ball cancer, he's probably cured of that.

Also, this is the only article I've ever read in which a cancer doctor advises a patient to continue smoking.

Feuerzangenbowle

During the holidays, there was an interesting item on offer on the local buy nothing group: a zucker hut, or sugar cone. What's it for? It's the essential ingredient in German Fire Punch, aka feuerzangenbowle, which is mulled wine enhanced with flaming rum soaked sugar. 

Once I knew what feuerzangenbowle was, you bet I wanted that sugar cone. A flaming table-side treat (like cherries jubilee)?! My love for regional foodways and bevways went into overdrive and I spent many hours trying to procure the items I needed without breaking the bank. The sugar alone (zucker hut) costs seven bucks plus shipping, and for-realsies feuerzangenbowle rigs were priced at close to two hundred bucks.

Now that it's March, the price has gone down by more than half. I bought a brand new feuerzangenbowle set and I am very happy. Now we just have to end the pandemic so we can have people over to enjoy the spectacle and drink all the wine. The recipe calls for three bottles (plus 151 rum to get the sugar burning).

For your enjoyment, I leave you with a video of fire punch in action.

Adventures in Powdercoating

I have a favorite chair that is super beat. I *think* I bought it at a garage sale when I lived in my first apartment. I thought it was SO COOL. I still do, but it looks really funky.

So I asked mrguy how to use a sander, and I had this unrealistic picture of myself sanding this chair down to the metal (which I thought was wrought iron) and clear coating it. Then I actually tried doing this. Boy was it challenging! I kept replacing the sandpaper and stopping to rest my hand, and after a solid 35 minutes I was ready to stop. I realized that I needed help.

I decided to look for sandblasting and powdercoating services, found one, and they do furniture as well as their big industrial jobs. On Friday I took some time off work, brought my chair and two other pieces. One little table I must have gotten from the flea market. I remember having glass cut and ground for it at one point, but most recently I had some bright blue plastic cut to order. Swingin! The *tall* table was left behind by my sister when she moved to Minneapolis. I had red plastic cut to order for it. 

When I realized that I could get more items sandblasted and painted under the minimum order, I brought those two tables along with the chair. I will paint those two their original black when they're done, and the chair? Who knows? I've asked them to give me a call so I can come in and choose a color.

To the left of my items is an order that's ahead of me in line -- some radiators. They are going to be gorgeous! And V., the customer service person, showed me some electric blue clear coat that had been added over chrome on part of a car fender. These people have me fantasizing about what else they can do.

There's more to the story. V told me that her bosses are 29, and she worked with them when they were 17 years old, at the metal painting service. Later, these kids went off and started a metal fabrication business, but always used the services of the painting service they used to work for. A few years ago they heard that the painting service was closing, so they bought it. They brought the whole crew over, and they run the two businesses. They called up V, who had worked with them back in the day and asked her if she would come back and work with them, so the whole gang is back together.

I can't wait to go back!

San Bernardino 2018, Part 4

We drove out to the desert for realsies this day. Mrguy's family had lived in Oro Grande and Hodge (when it was called Helendale or Cottonwood Station), and that's where we went. I'd never been to Route 66 before:

I bought some awesome lavender scented goat's milk soap in a store downtown. And while talking to the proprietor of the place where we bought it, she told us some local lore that helped us identify where some points of genealogical interest were located. And she told us where to find the town's unofficial mayor. 

Am I right in thinking that he came over from his place to downtown to meet us by means of golf cart? I think so.

We had a great time talking to him. He told us where Hotel Whitman had been (another relative of mrguy's was the proprietor). And he talked about the changes he'd seen over time, living in Oro Grande. The cement plant where the hotel proprietor also worked is still there. We stopped at the local pizza parlor where they display old timey photos of the town, and ordered some pie. Turns out that they make apple pie on pie dough. And it was a crazy pants idea but not half bad!

Then off to Hodge before the sun set. Past some houses that should be condemned but are surely occupied. There's a lot of this out there.

And finally to Hodge. Right near here is the property where mrguy's great grandfather lived.

Here it is in all its glory. I'm really happy we could stand on that ground and see where they lived. I just can't imagine how they were able to live out there, in those times.

The next day we drove up to Pasadena to see mrguy south. We stayed at a fancy hotel in a place very unlike this photograph and then visited the Sam Maloof house. So ends our trip to San Bernardino.

San Bernardino 2018, Part 2

San Bernardino was surprising to me. I had no preconceived notions, initially, until the review for the kitschy hotel where I wanted to stay said that homeless folks wander around the grounds and panhandle. That seemed less than inviting. We stayed at a hotel near the mall, instead.

San Bernardino is a dusty, downtrodden, and we saw a lot of people who looked like their lives were very hard. But we had great interactions with everybody we met. Surprisingly, we also found good food. Corporate or no, BJ's Restaurant and Brewpub was good enough for two meals:

And a place with very expensive poke (it's the desert, you know) was also a fave:

I just wanted to make sure that we had some protein to fuel the research. First stop was the county archives. The archivists were efficient and of good cheer. They showed us the original of the 1888 coroner's inquest. Most people interviewed said that mrguy's great grandfather deserved it. Wow.

After the archives we visited the local history collection at the library. It's staffed by dedicated volunteers. The kind of people who retire on Friday and return, unpaid, to the same desk on Monday. One of the volunteers, who works in the clipping collection, is 94. It was a convivial room full of helpers, so while mrguy shared stories, I buzzed around taking photos of biographical materials. We learned a lot. Great folks.

San Bernardino 2018, Part 1

After our big Germany trip last year we had thought that this would be a year to go to Ireland. But after some thought we decided that another big trip was too much, too soon. I  got really excited about the idea of going to San Bernardino instead. Just as good.

I can't recall when, but within the last year mrguy had a complete genealogy conversion. Since then, he and I have been digging into primary and secondary sources to try to figure out why and when his people had come to California, and what really happened with the mysterious great great grandfather who was killed by an unknown assailant.

Once mrguy was on the case, that ancestor could hide no longer. A cousin had found a newspaper clipping describing the circumstances of the killing, and it gave us an AKA for the ancestor that was also helpful. And right before we went to San Bernardino, we used plat maps of the ancestor's land along with Google Earth to find the location where the guy lived (and died).

In March we flew to San Bernardino and rented a car. As always, the trip started with Ka'au Crater Boys' "Tropical Hawaiian Day".

and then we made a beeline to Pioneer Cemetery. We knew from an uncle's previous research that mrguy's people were buried at Pioneer, but we struggled for days with locating them. Turns out that many homeless people live in the cemetery, but that if you say "Good morning" and "Excuse me" they don't mind your poking around looking for your people.

We eventually did find our people on Day 3, after going to the Park and Rec department. Note: if you are looking for burials in Pioneer Cemetery, you can go to Parks and Rec with your names, and they will look up their burial location and give you a map. You're welcome. We also spent time at Mt. View Cemetery, and found one of our rellies there as well.

Germany 2017 Post 12

On to Weißenberg. I'm glad we were ignorant of the travel we would endure. Note to others: Easter is a big deal in Germany. Easter Monday is a bank holiday and we figured that Thursday would be a good day to drive from Dessau to Tuttendorf. Ha ha ha.

Sooooo...we left Dessau on the Thursday before Easter. In the week we'd been in Germany the trees everywhere were going from sticks, to buds to flowers. I had never seen forsythia before, and it was just about poking my eyes out with its screaming yellow flowers. Wowsa. Germany is beautiful, but getting to watch this transformation was really amazing.

OK, but on to the trip. I asked mrguy if we could stop in Freiberg. This is where my first immigrant ancestor, the one who started my interest in the German side, was born. His father, married to Gottlob's daughter, was Wendish, and he became a famous physician and mineralogist. Freiberg is a mining town, has Europe's first and oldest mining school, and is rock crazy. We went to see St. Petri church where my guy was baptized, and then got a spot of lunch at the Rathskeller. Notice the rock detail around the door?

Next to the table where we were sitting were these cool dioramas about mining. They were created by a man named Alfred Mende, a well-known citizen who made his living carving scenes and displaying them in a cabinet you could view for a price. For more information, see the Wikipedia citation. So cool. I so want one of these mining dioramas.

After lunch, and a brief visit to the local Saxony tourist store where we're *pretty* sure we interrupted a little afternoon delight between the owners, we started our journey to Weißenberg. Uh oh. The traffic made it almost impossible to even get out of town. Then it started to get dark and rain hard and there were many detours. Then we used our navigation system to work around some of the detours. And as it got darker and rainier and took longer, we became more apprehensive. We could no longer see the A-4 during some of these "long cuts" and that was worrisome, also.

At one point after an hour or so the navigation took us down a pedestrian walkway, where a grandfather pushing a child in a stroller was very surprised to see us, and then I had mrguy navigate our car through someone's muddy back yard. Very soon after, mrguy said firmly and rather loudly "I am about to really lose my shit! We are stopping at the next building we see". This turned out to be Julius Kost, in Wilsdruff, where we had one of the most magical dinners of our lives.

Germany 2017 Post 6

Right. I forgot. After all that Gottlob stuff and Leipzigerie, we also saw one of the famous paintings of Bach, by Ernst Gottlob Hausmann. Prior to Graf, Hausmann was the reigning portrait artist in town. The painting is nice, and all, but it's like the Mona Lisa. It's on every pair of tourist socks in town. Not as interesting as a Gottlob painting of some minor dude that I've never heard of!

After lunch we headed to St. Nikolai Church, which has beautiful interiors but no connection to my family that I know of. And then to St. Thomas Church, where all 11 of the Gottlob children were baptized. I very badly wanted to see the baptismal font, which was contemporaneous to my people, but the choir was practicing awful Easter music and drove us away. The interior of this church was filled with super old paintings depicting patrons of the church in various solemn moments. I could have stayed for hours with my computer, just looking up their names and learning more about them.

We wandered around for a bit and I saw a sign for Leipziger Lerchen. This was a pastry I'd purchased the night before and very much enjoyed. Didn't know that it was a local delicacy. At the bakery in town I found a placard in the window that tells the story of the pastry. I stood over a particularly putrid sewer grate in order to take a clear picture of the card and get the story, which is that the original pastry was a bird pie containing lark meat, egg and herbs. In 1876 the king of Saxony banned the killing of larks and bakers created this substitute pie filled with marzipan, with the strips on top representing twine used to tie the legs of larks (eew) and the single cherry representing the heart of the lark (double eew). Tasty, though. 

And then off on the train for home. Altogether an excellent day.

Signs Point To Yes, Again

Oh Man, I love this sign! Mrguy and I used to pass it all the time when we lived in the old old place, and we'd talk about how some day we wanted to own it. The sign, not the bar. Today, on my birthday (observed) with bigsis, we drove past and I was determined to at least photograph the sign. As luck would have it, the bar is now for sale, and I have written to the realtor to ask whether the owners have plans for the sign.

The reason I ask is that not too far away, many many years ago, I was getting cheap tires put on my car. While I waited, workers were disassembling an amazing sign I'd admired. I asked them if there were plans for the sign, and they told me that their boss had not told them what to do with the sign beyond taking it out of the frame. They went to a pay phone and called their boss to ask, leaving a message. Then he called me (at my apartment 30 minutes away). I returned home, got the happy message that the sign was all mine, and drove 30 minutes back up the freeway to get the very large sign (2 of them, actually) into my Barracuda. I've been a happy gal ever since.

I'm looking for a photo of the SnackBar sign, but can't find one at the moment. The sign is stored (somewhere) awaiting reinstall after the kitchen remodel is complete.

Deliver Me

Today I ran across this note that I found in a pile of garbage on the lawn near a sculpture we were photographing in Honolulu.

"Me" is living the good life if she can get some other human to chase her around town with a bag, don't you think? Although she is taking the bus.

Let's Call Him Dana

Behold this yummy breakfast. I ate it at a place I'll call Dana's with Mr and Mrs Gentry who were visiting back in January.

Dana's is a beloved institution in these parts -- a 6-seat diner with extra seating at card tables out on the street. It sits by the light rail tracks. Long on charm, the walls are decorated by lists of specials on colorful laminated cards.

Dana himself is a grumpy, adorable little old man. One of the cooks may be his grandson. On this occasion the food took forever but the coffee was plentiful and look at this breakfast! Gorgeous.

I wasn't with mrguy on this jaunt, and I really wanted him to have the experience, so we tried to go twice and there was a long line. That's how we ended up at the crepe place down the street, which I like very much now except there are usually lots of kids there.

K. Yesterday was the day. Dana's was open, and we scored two seats at "l" section of the counter. We were in!! So we sat there and nobody made eye contact. Not so much as a hello. No water, no coffee. I think the menu was already there, so we made a selection. Then we waited.

Meanwhile Dana was grumbling at the woman behind the counter, and she was grumbling back at him. She was unkempt, and from our vantage point I could see how filthy this place was. Usually I can make myself unsee those things, but not in this case. As the lady argued with Dana under her breath, she kept shifting her cleaning rag between the counter and the pocket of her apron, where she also kept her money. She tucked a bottle of orange juice underneath her armpit and took it outside to serve from. The other cook had a wad of paper towels stuffed underneath his apron tie in order to keep the sweat from rolling off his neck and onto the grill.

I felt trapped, but couldn't tell what mrguy thought. Maybe he was seeing some local charm in this and wanted to stick it out? He did not. We left, and as we walked out the door Dana made some crack about us.

Then I asked mrguy if we could eat at Subway. I wanted something completely predictable. Besides, I wanted to get there before they ran out of that yoga mat bread!

DIY Cat Structure

Unsafe at any speed.

Hot Child in the City

Thursday's karaoke fest in honor of our dear bandmate, who is soon to get married, was a silly success.

My karaoke experience is limited. I'd never done karaoke in a private room before, and I arrived as the party was in full swing. There was pizza, popcorn, wine and tambourines, and the ladies were killin' it as I opened the door

Song selection is always funny with the ladies in my band, because there is a 20-year span between the youngest of us and the oldest of us. But it's super fun to think of songs that I heard in my 20s, that they might have heard in elementary school. Or they know the cover, but not the original. Anyhoo, we just had a great time singing and dancing and we wound it up with a rousing version of Teen Spirit. 

It is a proven fact that my ladies know how to rock.

One of my favorite things about the experience was the videos that play behind the lyrics. The karaoke joint is in a Korean mini-mall close to the forklift factory. Therefore, the videos are...not like anything I'd seen before. When I arrived, it was just the legs and undercarriage of a tortoise, as seen at ground level. Another scene was a daddy fish, with a mouth full of eggs (i.e. his children). Occasionally one would float away. Then there were sea turtles...doing it. And clownfish swimming in an anemone, whose tentacles looked like fingers. My favorite, however, was people in native garb on a trek in the mountains (Himalayas?), with their belongings on water buffalo (yaks, maybe).

I leave you with some photos.

Umbrellanemone

Nepali Rhapsody

Hometown Maki

Yesterday was Grandmamoo Guy Tax Day, a yearly celebration in which BigSis and I do Mom's taxes. Mom starts agitating about it around Christmas, and somewhere around the first of the year, BigSis and I plan both a birthday celebration for Mom, and set the day for Tax Day.

Yesterday morning, somewhere in the middle of my bath, I heard the doorbell ring. The Jehovahs knock, so I was a bit perplexed. mrguy got out of bed, answered the door and then went back to bed. "Who was there?" I called out over the bathwater. "It's me," said BigSis. Unexpectedly, she'd come to pick me up.

We tootled off to Mom's, did the taxes with only a few emails to our accountant and midday calls to MiddleSis. Then we went to Mom's favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner. Oh darn :)

Which brings me to the subject of hometown maki. Many years ago mrguy and I were at a Japanese restaurant in Seattle with friends. There was a Seattle Roll on the menu, which I imagine featured salmon. Then we started discussing hometown maki with key local ingredients: there's a Philadelphia Roll (cream cheese), New Orleans Roll (crawdads), California Roll (avocado). Wherever you are, the local Japanese restaurant has a roll with that name. Rochester Roll, anyone? And exactly what would be in that, anyway? Our Seattle friend, born in Rochester, replied "Creamed corn and saltpeter...to keep the incest down".

I don't know what our local ingredient would be. Crab? My hometown is on the water. Anyway, when I saw the name of my hometown on the menu I got really excited and ordered it. This restaurant's vision of my town was crispy, cool ocean and citrus: asparagus tempura, avocado, salmon, lemon. This was the best fancy roll I have ever eaten (not that the guy family eats fancy very often). Wow. 

It made me wonder what other restaurants thought was an appropriate roll for my hometown. Here's what I found:

1) tuna, salmon & hamachi deep - fried rolled in soy bean paper
2) cucumber, real crab meat, unagi & tobiko wrapped w/ sliced cucumber
3) shrimp tempura, crab, avocado
4) shrimp tempura, cucumber, avocado and crab

I'm going to stick with my original hometown maki. 

Can't wait to have it again.

'Tis The Season

The mrsguy birthday season, that is. Ordinarily we have a quiet dinner somewhere and go home to open pressies. But this being the "kick, stretch and kick" birthday, it seemed foolish to let it pass without doing something more. I took two weeks off and people called it my staycation, but I did anything but stay. And now I'm recovering in my sick bed (more accurately sick couch) and waiting to go back to work. Whew.

Phase One: Operation Meeting of the Moms
Seems odd that we've been together for over 20 years, married for 17 and our moms have never met until now. We finally made it happen. Picked up the grand mamoo and took her for a ride down the coast to meet the tiny mamoo. Of course they liked each other. We ate lunch and took a tour of tiny mamoo's home town, which was super fun.

Phase Two: Pretend You're Huell Howser
Earlier in the year, big sis, the mamoo and I talked about meeting in the middle of the state to visit the sights seen by the estimable Huell Howser on one of his shows. We finally did it, and it was very fun. We went to the oldest A&W Rootbeer and had carhop service. What are you supposed to do with your milkshake once you have it?

We went to Micke Grove and saw the Japanese Garden. Not as tranquil as we had hoped! A photographer, his buddy, a child and two ladies made up as I-don't-know-what (flappers? it involved a lot of tulle, sequins and cloches) were doing a photo shoot there. The ladies would sit on a rock and stare at each other theatrically for the camera, notice that the child was not in viewing range and shout "Buddah! BUDDAH! Get back here where I can see you". Buddah, the child, had been happily assaulting the koi with small rocks.

Anyway, Micke Grove also has a zoo with little deer called pudu. I really want to see my cats play with a pudu. After the zoo, we looked for the crane habitat but were unsuccessful, so we went back to our hotel. Perfection. Three beds in one room, and a plastic and very dusty olive tree. But I loved it. Successful trip.

Phase Three: Sumo Saturday
Birthday was celebrated with friends on Sumo Saturday. This consisted of my ordering tamales from a neighbor and decorating the house with sumo-themed bunting (yukata fabric created for sumitori or their sumo stables, that I bought on ebay). People seemed to like sumo more than I thought. They asked great questions.

Phase Four: Disneyland
Yeah. Had to do it. Spent all day and part of a night at California Adventure. Ate at Napa Rose. Saw an adorable little kid named Daniel using the guardrail in line at Soarin' as a personal jungle gym. Then he liberally tongued the handrail. Yep. We're doomed. Stayed with mrguy south one evening, which was delicious, and I spent as many hours as my battery would allow cropping photographs in our moving vehicle as we sped back home for Thanksgiving.

Phase Five: Guygiving
But it wasn't Thanksgiving this year. It was guygiving. A one-time-only event celebrating my birthday and my brother-in-law's. The family gathered, the brother-in-law and I put together an overly-long slide show which people seemed to like, and then we went out to dinner. I'd fallen victim to the handrail-lickers earlier, and by guygiving I had almost no voice. It felt like I had cystitis of the throat (imagine gargling with broken glass and tabasco), but I had such a good time. Private room, much good cheer, no birthday singing. It was awesome.

Phase Six: In Which I Retire To My Sofa With Cold Preparations For Days On End
I'm still here. Been here four days. Wicked cough. Voice still very wiggly. Except for the illness, all-in-all a success. Plus, a friend sent orchids yesterday, extending the occasion.

I will never do this again, but man was that enjoyable. OK, parts of it I'll do again. Ordering tamales from my neighbor and having people over for sumo I'll definitely do.

Palm Springia 2012

Oh, the desert. Why do people go there?

In our case, we went for a professional development thingie, which was quite wonderful.

But we weren't alone. No! Our conference coincided with an event called American Heat, drawing motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the state to sunny PS. Loud. Interesting. Scary.

Three of our meals came from a place called Sherman's Deli. Visiting there reminded me of my days as a diner waitress. Unlike my diner, the food at Sherman's was outstanding. This was our first view, as we picked up breakfast:

I ruined the first photo by getting a reflection of the palm trees and mountain behind me in the shot, then decided that it was kinda awesome.

 

Breakfast was on the go in order to get me to a workshop on time. It turns out that the location for the workshop was not the location of the museum (my bad). But I got to hang out here for a while and watch roadrunners chase each other across the dusty road for a while. A desert experience, yes.

 

The workshop was great, if sweat-inducing. I wielded a HEPA vacuum and brushed dirt off of hand-woven rugs all day. I truly felt I'd earned my dinner later.

In the morning we went back to Sherman's. This is my giant pile of matzobrei.

Turns out that motorcycle gangs like breakfast, too. Groups of men and women, dressed in their regalia, politely waited their turns to be seated at Sherman's, along with groups of cops. Truly a varied crowd. I very badly wanted to know more about the flair on the vests of the motorcycle dudes. The motorcycle club that we saw in the largest numbers was the Mongols.

After breakfast we spent the rest of the day looking at every thrift shop we could find. During the drive I gleaned what I could about Mongol flair, its meaning, and how those patches are earned. Purple wings. Wow. Look it up.

We got back into town and most of the Mongols had left town. I was sad, because I really wanted to put my newfound knowledge to use. The only Mongol we saw that day had very little patch action (a novitiate?), and was sweetly romantic with his girlfriend. Not playing to stereotype.

Later that night we went to a private event at the Sunnylands event center. A modernist paradise, with fun company and yummy dishes. We found what we thought was the quietest table and it turned to be in the direct path between the kitchen and the appetizer tables. Unintended bonus: we got everything as fresh as it could be.

Then we went to the children's museum and pulled the same move inadvertently -- we looked for what we thought was going to be the farthest and quietest table, which then turned out to be front and center for a darling performance of traditional Mexican music and folklorico dance, performed by kids from an after school program. Their pure joy could not have made me happier.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that we were treated to an amazing dinner at Workshop Kitchen and Bar. Amazing, both in the fact that we were dining with super interesting colleagues and that the food was so incredibly tasty. This is one of my best meals ever. Because we were a large party we had some of everything: octopus, octopus salad, an oxtail shepherd's pie that was *insanely* flavorful, olive oil cake, panna cotta, rib-eye, redfish...

We all walked home past a large vintage automobile dealership and told stories about the ones that got away.

The Old Place. Whale Edition

Every Labor Day I think of the heroin story, but I've already told you that.

Instead I'll tell you this tale from the Old Place.

The Old Place was extremely hot in the summer. We lived in an old brick building next to the Petroleum and Nuclear Worker's Union Hall. On summer days the house would be cool until evening, when the bricks would expel the heat they'd been collecting all day. Some nights it would be 90 degrees at midnight, and rising. Kinda awful. However I don't think we ever paid more than $500 bucks a month for this place and I was on disability so this was the perfect spot for us during those years.

About a dozen years ago, on a hot Thursday in late August, we were watching ER. The teaser for the 11 o'clock news came on saying that a whale had washed up on the coast of our town. Our little beach was maybe 200 feet across, so we assumed that they meant the oceanside beach of the same name.

We waited for the news, and, sure enough! We recognized our little beach and the burned-out pier. Crazy! We grabbed our flashlight and walked down to the beach. There we found another couple who had obviously watched the news also. Our lights made out the shape of the whale. Not much to see, but I would come down the next day and see him in daylight.

The morning paper said that we were about to have a heat wave on the weekend. It was pretty warm by the time I left the house. I stepped out and it smelled...a little "whale-y". Poor whale. According to the Fish and Game guy I met, the whale was a juvenile female, had been deceased for quite a while and wasn't in his jurisdiction. The joy of living in an unincorporated area. "So what's going to happen with the whale?" I asked him, "I don't know," he said. Uh-oh.

I ran into a neighbor on the way back home and we talked a bit about the whale, the smell, and the upcoming heat wave.

Two days later I saw the same neighbor and commented that it was smelling a lot less whale-y. He said "You know why, right?" "Me and Bob..." (anything that started with those three words could not be good. Bob kept a pit bull chained to his porch behind our house, he didn't have a lick of sense and he owned guns) "went out in my boat, tied a rope to its tail, and towed it into the bay. Then we shot it full of holes." He seemed surprised that it didn't sink. All he knew was that he didn't want the smelly whale on our beach during a heat wave. I could tell that in some weird way he thought it was his civic responsibility to do something with the whale. He lived next door to me and also owned guns, so I wasn't going to disagree.

One week later, on Thursday, we saw the teaser for the news: "Another whale has washed up in the area." It was clearly the same whale, and I could see the bullet holes this time. It had floated into another county, on the beach fronting a fancy neighborhood, just in time for the heat wave.

I almost had an image to illustrate this post.

That first smelly day on the beach I used the last shot on my camera to take a picture of the whale. When I got my film back, the whale shot wasn't there.

So ends the story of the whale.

Italy 2012: Day 3

The simple pleasures! A cheap and yummy ice cream during our coffee break: 

Some terrific graffiti on the side of the museum. One thing we noticed in Mantova was that graffiti was often signed. Although you're never going to know who Grigorio's piccolina was.

 

 And dinner: 

I sucked the heads of those shrimp because I see people doing it on television and I have to say that it was too mineral-y for me. To each his own :) We were so tired at the end of the workday that we could only go to dinner at the outdoor cafe outside the door of our hotel.

The Kiwi Has Landed

metaphorically. Kiwis are flightless, so that isn't technically possible, which is a long-winded way of saying that we had a delightful visit with our Kiwi friend last night.

It was a bit of a pop quiz -- an early email announcing his arrival that happened to find us at home on a weekend with a clear schedule. Whew. He manages a pop band that is having a fair amount of success, and they were playing at the large venue. Seems like a fun ride, but a little tiring for someone who has a young family waiting 18 hours away from here.

Occasionally you have a friend who you can just pick up with after long stretches of time, and he's one of those friends. He was part of a flock of Kiwis who were sent by our original Kiwi, the Marxist. The Marxist started sending his other musician friends over to stay with us, and last night's Kiwi and his then-girlfriend were two of them. For about two years, there, we had hot and cold running New Zealand visitors. It was so much fun. We paid them all a visit one glorious month in 1993, and had many adventures. We have mostly kept up with last night's Kiwi. I have a better blog name for him, but it would reveal his real name :(

Occasionally he'll come through town with a band. The last time, we showed up around sound check time and the bartender tried to shoo us away, telling us in a really patronizing tone what a sound check is. Dude. I had my first sound check when you were tickling Elmo, o.k.? And I'm still gigging.

Anyway, this time we popped over after sound check and had perhaps our most civilized dinner to date -- at a nice restaurant in the city. Our Kiwi friend had the Coq au Vin and proclaimed it delicious...

If you can sublimate your senses until you get to a restaurant, the city is a nice place. Especially on a warm April night like last night. After dinner we deposited him at the door of the large venue, and hope to hear of the further adventures of the band on the rise.

The Weekend, Ukulele Style

Fri: half day of work, drive south, stay with cuz, go out to dinner, stay up late talking story, sleep in sleeping bag in the living room. It's kinda like being a kid again!

Sat: brunch at cuz's house with grandmamoo guy, big sis, and middlesis guy, delaware punchy and more cousins. Clean up, short nap, drive to middle sis's art opening, stay for an hour, drive back north.

Sun: Sleep from 2-7am, then off to the ukulele festival. Whew. We were beat.

The festival was tremendous. Lots of vendors, lots of great food.

Backstage was cool. From the set list for the previous night we learned that the entertainment for the police benefit the previous night had included magicians and ventriloquists.

The gig itself was fun. We were the first act, or as mrguy modestly remarked "The foamy first pour from a keg".  Even that early there were plenty of people in the audience, including Auntie Spunky, who I could hear from the stage. The reception was warm and friendly. We got some compliments from friends and strangers, and it was lovely.

After playing we took seats in the balcony and saw various bands play. The balcony is THE BEST! Kinda informal, which will come in later...

Playing first? Also THE BEST because you get to see everybody else and hang out with zero nerves. This was the most fun I've had at the festival since before we joined the big uke band. And we ran into friends from the band and caught up on life. One of them asked us to play for her halau at another festival, which I hope comes to pass. That would be a treat.

After chatting came lunch. Look at my yummy chicken lau lau plate! The mac salad had a little tuna in it. And it came with poi. Heaven.

The afternoon acts were varied and interesting. I wish I'd brought a book, though, because when they were not so good they were really not so good. I feel like I learned a lot from watching, and I'm definitely going to buy the dvd.

So here we are in the balcony again. Some bandmates still there, some not. Mrguy put in his earplugs and went to sleep after the wrinkly bag and whiny child people sat behind us. Right behind us, though, was this lady Auntie C. Real initial. I know this because she called out her own first name during the raffle, and all the performers' names are listed in the program.

When she didn't win a raffle prize but it went to a little old lady, her husband joked that he was going to beat the lady up. And when one of the sponsors was onstage Auntie C. commented that he'd lost weight, his face used to be rounder and now he looked like a haole. Goes without mention that she also booked it for the exit when they started Hawaii Aloha. 

That's o.k., lady, I didn't want to hold your hand anyway ;)