Adventure #15 -- The Long March to Dinner (with guest adventurer Kasha!)

Adventure - Heather, Kasha, Marty

Description: To take a walk through the park and down Clement St. to collect dinner makings, and then the making of said dinner, thereof.


(Marty's Report):

Well, adventures aren't always easy to come up with. Inspiration, like the breath, comes and goes. And sometimes you have to take your adventure where you find it...like today.

It's not, though, like we didn't try. We sat down after breakfast, with the magic of the Internet at our fingertips, and found nothing happening this weekend more interesting than the Cardboard Tube Fighting Tournament...which was Sunday. Our huge and culturally sophisticated city failed us. Took us up to the heights of expectation, and then dropped us through the clouds of potentiality (read: Internet events postings) to fall flat on the hard empty ground of disappointment. So we defaulted to a walk in the park and shopping.

Now, this is not just any park. This is the Golden GATE Park! Where a zillion tourists from half a zillion countries, various exercise enthusiasts, some roller skaters and Tai Chi practitioners, a group of swing dancers on Sunday, museum goers, and homeless campers go to, well, do what their descriptions describe. Making us, Walkers. And Gabbers. We walked and gabbed, from our house through museum district (where many were going for the triumphant return of the Kind Tut exhibit) and up the hill to Stowe Lake. We rested there, watching the ducks and gulls and Other Walkers. At one point, I took my leave of Heather and Kasha to sit by the pond-side and let them talk about body image girl stuff. Having successfully done that, we commenced walking.

Kasha's just back from 2 1/2 months in Asia, so she's still getting over the fatigue and jet lag. We stopped a couple times to convalesce, though for some reason, Heather was the peppier of the three of us. We had looked at one of cookbooks that have gone neglected for years on the cookbook shelf in the kitchen, and found four recipes to make, apparently in some spastic foodie splurge. Potatoes, bell pepper cheese appetizers, a foot-long green bean stir fry, and rainbow chard salad. Usually my days consist of a mix of banana smoothies, salads, and veggie burgers, all of which take about 2 minutes at most to prepare. So this, I think, counts as a culinary adventure of the first magnitude.

Down from the leafy and rose-encrusted heights of Stowe Lake, we descended to Clement St., passing by my office. Kasha had never seen it, so we stepped in. This picture shows the two of them from my therapist perspective. Heather is apparently mulling over the rich and complex interpretation I just made, and Kasha, having trouble digesting the profundity, distracts herself with the Van Gogh poster. Or perhaps the lint in the air vent.

We rested here a bit, then continued to the new 9th Ave. library, where I picked up a Kem Nunn book (who co-authored John From Cincinnati) and was again amazed at how anti-capitalist this institution is, judging itself by how freely it can give away stuff.

As I said, Heater was full steam ahead at the Chinese markets, while Kasha and I began to droop, as evidenced by the dim gaze and slack facial muscles. A stop at Heather's favorite dim sum place revived us a bit, but we were dragging again by the time we hit home. Heather went off for more supplies at Safeway, and Kasha rested while I did some computer work.

Then the cooking. As I said, I don't usually cook. Not because I don't like prepared food so much as I eat 5-6 times a day usually, and don't want to give it that much time. But it's fun to cook with friends, so we spent the next several hours in a complex improv kitchen ballet, set to the music of Heather's Ipod hip-hop mix. As we cooked, we danced. Heather well, Kasha good, and me, goofy. You can see our end result below (of food, not dancing).

Then we ate. Which always is a bit of a let down, and probably is another reason I don't cook food much. You spend all that time making, and hardly any time eating. A peasant at heart regarding food, the subtleties are largely lost on me. There's a stone floor to my culinary appreciation; "deep cooking" kind of squashes and bottoms out in my house.

Last adventurous thing for the day was Kasha agreeing to watch a "comedy" with me, June Bug, about a man and his new wife going to visit his family in North Carolina. It turned out to be a hard slog through a modern riff on Tennessee Williams territory. We both felt wind-burned by the end of it, and earned our slumbers.


(Kasha's Report):

This is my first guest log with Marty and Heather and I am filled with a buffet of images and senses. The excitement runs through my fingers as I recall the day that began with mist and by the time we sauntered out of the door, the sunlight had chased the silver coldness and gifted us with an aquamarine sky and a brilliance that permeated our steps towards the Golden Gate Park. With the ease born of having known each other over the years, we strolled towards Stow Lake passing the museum complexes bustling with curious onlookers. The plant world and the earth beneath were soothing to me, having had just arrived from the tropics that week. The water was reassuring, reminding the fluids in my body of its likeness.

As we sat on the bench by the lake, I remembered that this was the place were Marty and Heather proposed their intention for marriage to each other and my heart softened even more. In some way, I was being invited into their sacred place. A tender joy danced in me to have this privilege of deep friendship with them, an enfolding into the fabric of their lives, an enfolding of our lives together with all the seasons that maturing brings.

There was a light lamentation that we didn’t bring food for the birds and ducks that reside there. But there were many people who joyfully and dutifully tossed breadcrumbs to the fowl that were only too eager to satisfy their hunger. Many turtles were sunning themselves, emerging from the depths of the lake. How many did we count?

On our way out of the park, we were fascinated by the bobbing of a rodent in and out of its home underground. We couldn’t decide if it was a squirrel, mouse, ground hog or something else? Nonetheless, we played musical steps to find just the right place so we can witness this creature without being in its peripheral vision. Apparently, a couple showed interest as well and the man couldn’t help himself but pass on some oblique commentaries on the medical and mental health system.

Heather was in a shopping mood and had been since yesterday as she cajoled Marty and I to go to Clement Street. This is also known as Asia street as you can find all kinds of Asian restaurants and grocery stores with Asian vegetables and foodstuff. She was full of excitement as we entered one store after another searching for duck eggs, long string beans, shitake mushrooms and other ingredients. Earlier we had chosen several recipes that decadently popped out of the cookbook. As we entered a hole in the wall eatery, we voted to sit down and refuel with egg rolls, lotus bean cakes and other Chinese snacks. With a few more stops along the way, we finally dropped our bags of fresh ingredients in the kitchen and rested before we tackled the recipes that await us. With much gusto, we were transformed into chefs and marveled at the colors of paprika bell peppers stuffed with cheeses and avocado and the sautéed garlic that permeated the air to the freshness of the salad greens. We were satiated with the fullness of food created with much love. We partook of the fullness of each other.


(Heather's Report):

Errr.... we cooked.

Oh, and saw a small gopher type critter (apparently called a "pocket gopher", as I later looked up), which I sat and watched in a fascinated fashion while Marty and Kasha went to the bathroom. Once they came back, we had to, as Kasha said, maneuver around a little bit to hide so that he would stick his head out. He was very cute and I've always wondered how they manage to stay so sleek of fur and... well, clean when doing such dirty jobs as excavating a den. Which is what this little guy was doing, nosing up all that freshly dug dirt onto the grass. I'm imagining this might have been his emergency exit that he was digging but it seemed a little less than smart to be creating it so close to a sidewalk. But in any case, he was cute and came out long enough for Marty to snap a little shot of him.

I don't know why I was so full steam ahead, I'm usually the laggy, complainy one, so I really don't know what was going on there, but off I went, poking and prodding at the others to hurry it up! And I just kept going like the energizer bunny, going out to Safeway for more stuff when they sagged at home. Bah. Lazies!!!

I very much enjoy cooking as a community sort of thing. I mean, a dinner party is one thing, to come together and eat but usually the host is doing all the work. Not only does the cooking get help but it's just fun to cook as a group. As evidenced by the dancing and such. And it's terribly domestic in a commune kind of way. Which I have never experienced. Living in a commune, I mean. But what I imagine it might be. Well, probably idealistically.

And don't listen to Marty about food. Because our efforts were pretty good. He's a complete peasant when it comes to food; give him beans and rice and he'd be happy. Except, if you really only gave him beans and rice, he'd start wanting ice cream and such. So, not COMPLETELY a peasant. But enough that "fanciful" food doesn't usually do anything for him. Whereas, in my family, especially for my father and mother, food, and really good food, is a big deal. I didn't grow up a complete food snob, I'm not a hugely experienced gourmand but I did grow up with some food snobishness in my blood. So I like really good food.

(And so does Marty, he just won't admit it).

Our final result!!!

Adventure #14 -- Harbor Seals Are Not the Brightest Worms on the Beach

Adventure - Heather

Description: Wherein we set out to fulfill Heather's training in seal counting, at Drake's Estero.


(Marty's Report):

Now, I wouldn't normally go play voyeur to seals, but my Wife Unit has taken up volunteer work with the park service that watches over the seal populations. Apparently, seals, because they are near the top of the food chain (they are predated on by sharks and the occasional orca, and coyotes will go after the pups), the health of their groups indicates the health of the ecosystem. So the park folk need people to go keep an eye on them, which means schlepping out to relatively remote spots on the Marin coast, and doing the schlep work of environmentalism: counting them.

We got up early--well, historically 7am is early for Heather, but with recent morning shifts with Baker Places, she no longer thinks the crack of dawn smells like ass. We got our morning coffees from Javaholics on Balboa, our neighborhood joint where we are recognized by the regular barristers, and where we've spent many Sunday mornings. Heather, who used to be so snooty about the imbibing of the "blood of the bean" ("battery acid" in her pre-fallen vernacular), now has surrendered to the dark lure of a caffeinated life. And since I've fallen off the wagon after a period of righteous abstinence, we sin together.

So fortified, with me in Zippy's driver seat (see here for a full account of our meeting and naming of our current vehicle), we headed up through the morning fog, over the Golden Gate, and into the Green and Verdant Lands of Marin. I don't remember if the fog and overcast continued for the whole drive, but it certainly was there at the coast, as we drove across the rather bleak lands to the north of Pt. Reyes. This the route I'd driven once before with James, out to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. But we went to the parking lot at Drake's Estero, a long empty beach next to bluffs, that lead to a sizable inlet about a mile south of the parking lot.

We arrived at the same time as Heather's mentor. To do this volunteer work, you have to go with an experienced counter to each site, and in the case of this site, twice. Heather had made it out once, but hadn't been able to find anyone to take her out again. I counseled her to email the mentors and offer to take someone out for dinner if they'd go with her to the site. I don't know if she did that, but she emailed and Ruth responded.

So when we pulled up, Ruth and her cousin Bruce had just arrived in the empty parking lot, the colors of the ocean, beach, and scrubby hills washed out into different shadings of gray. They greeted us warmly and functionally, which was a nice tone for the whole outing, everyone there to do a job, and therefore not much reason to be very chummy. We got the gear together, consisting of lunch and some binoculars and, um, unioculars, and started down the totally empty beach. I was reminded unpleasantly of the 6 hour whale watching tour Heather and I did, through a world of gun metal and sweatshirt grays, sans whales. And vomiting and nausea only second to skydiving. I averted my eyes and walked on.

Then we cut up and started what seemed to me to bushwhack through the tall grass, but Ruth seemed to be seeing a path. Either way, we ended up cresting a bluff and heading down to the observation point, about a quarter mile away from the sand spit where the seal colony had "hauled out" (I'm learning all this new seal terminology). Meaning, the place where they like to squirm their unarticulated worm bodies up onto the beach and plop down for a good nap.

While Heather and Ruth and Bruce busied about with the setting up of tripods and scopes, and then the first round of counting (which Heather can describe in detail--basically it's a clicker and trying not to count), I dug out a novel written by Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel Laurette for Literature from the 80's (I think he's deceased). Heading off to Egypt next year, I've been wanting to go prepared, so I got a random novel of his from the library and started it up on a cold-ass hill next to a gray ocean, with a lot of sand. So not much difference, perhaps.

It's a strange book so far, reminding me of Marquez' and Allende's books, allegories about suffering which strike me as at least tedious, if not self-indulgent. I'll keep plugging away at it, if nothing else than for anthropological reasons, but as a personal experience it's not doing much so far. (When I got home I returned to reading my delightfully trashy Elizabeth Peter's novel about Egypt, written by a modern British woman. Telling, I suppose. I've not found yet a way to relate to such novels. It almost feels like I'm having to translate developmental levels, which is a strange process.)

Then I napped, finding a relatively unbumpy 6 foot stretch of grass, until Heather stood over me and accused me of not be adventurous enough. I got up and ate while they clicked away, and then checked out the environs and seals through the scopes. Initially the contraptions confounded me, till I saw how they are focused, at which point the experience of watching the seals took on an amazing quality. The clarity of the image was so great that I felt almost that I was hovering above the critters.

And what strange critters they are. Heather says they are schizoid, meaning they don't really have much use for each other, not even touching like the seals at Pier 39 do. Watching from afar, it seems like just a group of vaguely distinguished dark shapes, but "up close," they're squirming and worming around the sand, including one who was, for no known reason, flopping around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail, but more befuddled about why. Not that a dog knows why, it just pretends it does for the audience.

My adventurousness, however, was drawn at actually counting the critters, despite Heather's seeming idea that it would be fun. There were maybe 700 of them at several "haul out" sites, I was told. OK, good for the frisky buggers.

From there, more bushwhacking, and a walk down along the beach, where we saw cormorant babies up in the Cyprus trees, and a little golden finch in a beachside meadow. Oh, and a mangled headless seal corpse.

When we got back to the parking lot, I got a cup-o-joe at the 12 dollar hamburger joint on the beach, we said goodbyes to the mentor and cousin, and headed back off through Petaluma, stopping at the cheese shop that probably everyone who's gone along the Petaluma-Pt. Reyes Station route has stopped at. I say, I do like cheese.


(Heather's Report):

Poor seals. Either popular and cute or called silly worm-like creatures.

But Marty is correct. They are the best population to count (since it's rather hard to have regular volunteers to count sharks or such) to find out what might be happening in the ecosystems "below" them. Bad fish year, the seals will be affected. Bad plankton year, the fish will be affected, thus affecting the seals... you get the idea. Including human impact, even hikers, oyster farming, possible environmental pollution, etc.

Since I've been toying with this whole environmentalism idea, I had decided to volunteer somewhere to get a taste. Unfortunately, my taste was like a tiny appetizer since it's just been a rather crazy time considering right when I signed up to volunteer is about when I got hired at Baker Places for relief work. And out the window went my time and many possibilities to finish out my mentorship/training. Bah.

But I love being out there, the few times I made it. Drakes Estero is apparently a very hard site to count, huge and with several "sub-sites" that are difficult to see even with the scopes. It is a heavy pupping site as well and pups can be hard to differentiate from the other seals when they get a little older, which is very quickly. 700 at this site is, from what I've heard, low. I take it there can be over a thousand at this site.

So how do you count a thousand seals, let alone 700? You don't. Well, you don't actually count them. We have little clickers for counting. So you learn to take in groups of seals at a time visually and as you (try) to look at each seal in the grouping, you don't attach a number, you just click your clicker which keeps count for you. It was very hard in the beginning for me. Plus having to recount to double check and being so slow at it and then losing your current "grouping" and having to start all over again.

This time, I was a bit more swift and able to hold the groupings in my head more consistently. My counts were similar to my mentors which was a bit gratifying. My first time out I was usually off by a hundred and there were only 350 or so last visit.

But all that aside, Drake's Estero is an extremely gorgeous area, to me anyway. It's quite wind swept and scrub bushy, see out across the hills and ocean. Quiet. I like quiet. I like that sort of quiet that's more quiet in the back of your brain not just in your ears. There's no city buzz in the background. There is only the wind, nature sounds, the seals (they make the occasional snortling (that's half snort, half chortle) and mewing sounds from the pups). There's something calming to me about being there.

I don't know if I'll get to go out again this season, considering the craziness of my work schedule and the fact that the season is winding down but I'm hoping to continue the work in some form or another (maybe raptors next year!!) and possibly looking into classes on conservation.

Adventure #13 -- The Fillmore Jazz and Meat Festival

Adventure - Marty

Description: To go to the Fillmore Jazz Festival on Saturday, perhaps dance, maybe jazz, and try not to get trampled by wild emu.


(Marty's Report):

As you might guess by just the fact of me writing this, we did survive the emu. Barely. But life is full of these near misses, so I won't bore you with the details.

What we did, you see, was to attend the Jazz Festival held outdoors on Fillmore, something that's been staged for the last 24 years. Eight blocks, from about Geary north to Jackson or so, is full of performance stages and meat stands and craft stands. And thousands of people, sweating under the mid-day sun, eating meat and waffle cones, but mostly drinking beer.

There was a LOT of grilling meat, of various species. Well, I suppose meat isn't a species. It's what happens when a species is, well, simplified to its basic muscular structure, usually to eat. I've heard of meat artists, but there were none at the Fair. And even the cooks would have been hard pressed to call themselves artists of meat. They were more like culinary undertakers: not really washing or giving meaningful rites to the deceased, only taking their carcasses and conveying them with a modicum of decorum into the waiting holes of their patrons.

Now, I'm usually a pretty tolerant vegetarian, accepting the choices and of my fellows with sometimes respect, often tolerance, only occasionally scorn and derision these days, usually when someone plays "taunt the vegetarian." But when Heather got a meat-object-on-a-stick, I had to tell her to stand downwind, lest I, as the kids say, hurl.

The crafts were about on par with the "food": overprice, under loved, and ill thought out. Nothing really struck me. I've seen some pretty amazing craft shows, but this was not one of them. Which was curious, given where we live. It felt more like K St. Mall in Sacramento: a place where artisans display their wares for the farmers and tractor salesmen to come on weekend.

The jazz, which I'd expected to maybe look like the Blues Festival in Sacramento--i.e., a lot of choices strewn around interesting venues--turned out to be about 4 bands for the 8 blocks, one of which was a reggae-roots band with Marley-esque political songs, and the others were jazz bands formed of youngsters without a lot of pizazz. We watched for a while a 9 piece band where only two members could have been over 30. The leader of the band, the pianist and songwriter, was no more than 28.

I've always thought of jazz as a seasoned person's music, whereas rock-n-roll was fully compatible with the needs of adolescents. And you could feel the youngness in these young men's playing. Not technically bad at all, just unseasoned.

We stayed maybe two hours, at the end of which we had one of those strange street meetings, in this case of two co-workers and their friends. Not much to say to each other, just conveying some friendliness and then moving on. Which was good as two hours in such conditions starts making me melt on the insides.

One nice discovery was a little cafe run by Arabic speaking folk, who made us coffee and gave perhaps a pre-glimpse into coming experiences in Cairo. There was a very nice feeling to the place, friendly but not saccharine as with some shops.

Last stop before going home was a quick trip to Guitar Center, where we picked up some heavy picks for the bass.


(Heather's Report):

My husband lies.

No, really.

I have to put up with his crazy vegetarian talk all the time. The whole "oh, eating some desiccating slab of dead carcass, are you?". Respect for his fellows? Really. Show me!! He's full of snark, don't believe his nattering about being a tolerant vegetarian. For the most part.

Besides, isn't he murdering hapless fruits and vegetables all the time?

I wasn't so enamored of the festival myself. It seemed an opportunity in which many humans seem to love to take advantage of: drinking and cavorting in the streets. Mostly the drinking part. I don't mind people drinking, it's just the behaving part that comes later. Especially the later after several beers.

Plus for some reason, with all that swilling of said beverage, you can smell it in the air. If Marty has issues with my Meat-On-A-Stick, I have issues with the lingering smell of poor quality beer floating about on the wind, plus that stale smell of alcohol inside someone's body and pouring out through evil exhalations. Yuck.

Okay, now I'm taking on Marty's Snark Fest Role. Where Pride, including alcohol (and very likely other substances) is completely tolerable in this realm, because it's more about the wonderful, crazy, fabulous energy that's going on, these sorts of street fairs are not so much. There didn't seem to be a lot behind this one other than the alcohol and meat.

Well, I did enjoy the meat. I had a big ole slab 'o dead animal on a stick with some sort of tasty sauce and I got all messy. I got to roll my eyes at my husband at his flailing anti-meat antics. That's always fun.