Hey! I've been doing everything but blogging this past month, and that's just fine by me. Now for a little catch-up.
I've had a real hankering to see changing leaves, and so, to mark the end of summer, Ace proposed we spend Labor Day in Yosemite. I was hoping for a little Fall color at higher elevations, but it was thoroughly hot, hot, hot.
We were surprised by how uncrowded it was over the holiday weekend. We hiked around then overnighted near Hetch Hetchy, and spent the following day taking the high road to Tuolomne Meadows, which I must have attempted to pronounce in my head and out loud about 300 times. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Even if blowsy yellow grasses (0.1 m hike)
and peaceful mountain lakes (2.5 mile hike) don't get you going, there are still granite domes to climb on (0.4 m hike), just like the valley,
and breathtaking vistas (0.2 mile hike) with views of Half Dome, just like the valley.
The next weekend was full. After a lazy Saturday morning, Ace and I played tennis and jumped in the hot tub, which felt decadent in the middle of the afternoon. He started my birthday off a day early by giving me a camera to replace the one that drowned in Montana. It's blue!
(Can you tell it was wrapped in Christmas paper?)
We were very late getting to two local weddings.
First was our neighbors, who have been together for seventeen years (they met in college) but only this summer were allowed to make it legal (in this state, anyway) - their attitude alternated between making like it was no big deal because really, their relationship wasn't changing in any meaningful way, and excitedly sharing the series of thrills that included getting their license, picking out rings (apparently required by City Hall) and so forth. I was utterly charmed. We spent way too little time at their reception, which was deliciously catered by Iberia, one of my favorite winter date places (because their tapas/wine bar area features a great big fireplace and cozy hooded benches). Someone had made an enormous (8 inch) cake topper out of fondant or marzipan featuring the groom and groom, perfectly personalized. I was sorry to miss its big presentation.
Then we sped to the wedding of one of Ace's high school friends at UC Berkeley. The bride was beautiful wearing a sky blue dress! I thought it was so daring, and she looked sensational. She's naturally a fair blonde, and after the fact I couldn't help but think of Cinderella.
Ace truly has the nicest friends. They grow good people in our small towns.
The next day Ace and I woke up very late, and very hung over, and we decided we had to eat. Mindful that we were planning on an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner, we struggled with wanting to consume as little as possible while wrestling with the after-effects of a most convivial time.
Ace took me to Skates, a special-occasion type brunchy place on the Berkeley Pier. It hangs out over the water right where the OCSC sailboats exit and enter the marina. The wind was brisk, and it was an invigorating way to begin a birthday. I had every intention of eating sparingly, but the chicken club sandwich was crazy delicious and it was all I could do to box up half of it. Ace got the Spanish omelette and barely touched it. He is a man of great commitment and resolve.
As long as we were in Berkeley, Ace took me to see the tree sitters, who have been living in (and protesting from) an oak tree near the soon-to-be-demolished old football stadium for some twenty months. Our timing was fortunate, because on September 7 they were down to the last tree. Four people lived in a very scraggly specimen, and when we were there, the Berkeley chief of police was up in a cherry picker attempting to persuade them to come down. Ace was impressed that they had a solar panel up there.
Two days later, I learned that it was all over. Their case had plodded through the courts like an ent, but unlike with the ents, the Berkeley trees had lost. The last tree was chopped down on September 8.
To break up the long drive home, we stopped off for a ten mile run at Sawyer Camp, which was gorgeous, and felt a little fallsy. I walked much of it, just to enjoy the view, and saw several deer.
My birthday dinner was wonderful - there was no one there who I don't honestly love, through and through. After a long while of feeling like I've had a lot of Social Acquaintances here in California, it made me genuinely happy to realize I was surrounded by Real Friends.
And the all-you-can-eat sushi was good, too.
The next week I went to Erie, my mother's home town, where my parents were planning a mom-side family reunion on their anniversary. I liked Erie a lot - the waterfront is very attractive, I only wish there were more there besides one hotel, a convention center and a restaurant. I wish there were a longer, "Lake Shore Drive" type access to the wonderful lakeshore with recreational opportunities for average citizens. I tried going for a run, but it consisted almost entirely of running through the parking lots for the aforesaid structures.
We first detoured to my uncle's hunting cabin in Tidioute, in the Alleghenies.
Beautiful country.
Apparently Route 6, one of the roads that took us there from Erie, is rated one of the ten most beautiful roads in America by National Geographic.
Do you see those things popping up through the wildflowers? They're cars. It's the most pastoral junkyard I've ever seen.
Tidioute is a sweet little town, where people are friendly and genuine and tend to drive trucks really fast on roads with no shoulder, and the menu at the Tippy Canoe Inn restaurant is heavily influenced by Rachel Ray (according to our waitress).
I believe everyone had a legal beverage.
I was fearful that my uncle's cabin would have a taxidermied deer head; instead he had mounted the tail that he had shot off a deer who ultimately got away. Mixed emotions. I did my best to understand the hunter mentality. Clearly they include men who love nature - my uncle enthused about the quality and beauty of local hiking and canoeing up and down the river; he was busting with pride as we admired the view from the outlook; and he was delighted, genuinely delighted, when we woke up one misty morning to see fifteen enormous turkeys in his front yard.
I attempted to take a picture of the turkeys through the kitchen window.
No picture, and the turkeys moseyed away from the idiot with the flash. My uncle was disappointed that they left, and I was too embarrassed to admit that it was my fault.
Uncle Bob makes a commemorative shirt each year. We tried to take a picture of the whole family in our matching Tidioute shirts, but never really got it together...there was always someone not in uniform.
This is Uncle Bob and me, trying to capture the cabin from the same angle as the picture of the cabin on the shirt. Meta!
Still no Fall leaves.
The reunion was great - I hadn't been to Erie in fifteen years, but everyone looked the same as I remembered them.
I participated in my first political discussion in a swing state, which reinforced my impression that good people exist on both sides of the aisle, but that we haven't figured out a way to identify our shared values such that any politician can satisfy us both...though I think that some politicians are trying.
At least, that's the message I got from Obama's convention speech. I get the impression that Republicans see the issues as either/or questions, zero-sum games, rather than problems that could possibly have win-win solutions.
Seriously people, what's the BATNA?
The party was held at the Sunset Inn - a place with a gorgeous westerly view onto Lake Erie and miserable customer service. It had sentimental significance - my parents held their rehearsal dinner there 43 years ago.
At the end of dinner, a cousin shocked me by dinging on her glass to make my parents smooch. Then my parents shocked me by obliging. I was so shocked, I didn't think to take a picture until after the fact.
So, by popular acclaim, they repeated it...in fast forward.
Missed it again!
We spent a day traveling around Erie, going out to the lighthouse where my mother spent childhood summers.
The smokestacks on the left are the now-defunct Hammermill Paper Company, where my grandfather spent his career.
If you go to the peninsula, I highly recommend the food at Sara's - it was good eats. Plus there's a plate of chocolate chip cookies for munching while you wait for your burgers. And save room for a cone - get the orange sherbet and vanilla swirl!
Then the rain swept into Pennsylvania and deluged Chicago.
I said goodbye to the folks at Midway.
Pop quiz. Notice anything different about my dad?
Beaker is back to Iraq and the folks to Singapore. And me, back to the sunny dry skies and fresh fruits and vegetables of home! Ace and I spent the remainder of the weekend running and farmers marketing, catching up with a friend visiting from Santa Barbara and discovering that for $20 you can sail on teeny boats on teeny Shoreline Lake and I will still spaz out and practically run us aground.
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