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“This probably isn’t good.”

September 13, 2024 //
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The area where I’m staying does not endear itself to me. Today I had need of a laundromat: without a private bathroom and a supply of towels my ability to do hand laundry does not exist.

Because there was no one on desk duty at 9:30 in the morning, I followed instructions and phoned someone on the house phone, asking where I could find a laundromat. To me, a laundromat means a place with coin-operated washing machines and dryers and boxes of detergent where you do your own laundry. I had packed all of my dirty laundry into my day pack in a plastic bag and needed to know where to take it.

The guy I spoke to gave me directions. “Go right. Go right again…”

“Could you just tell me the name of the street?”

He told me it was on Brighton Ave. I walked Brighton Ave in both directions. No laundromat.

I turned the corner onto Harvard Ave where I had seen a place where you take your laundry to be washed. You were supposed to have a minimum of ten pounds.

My laundry, including my dirty lavender day pack, came to nine pounds. Ten pounds gets you a rate of $1.50 per pound. I didn’t care. I needed clean clothes so I paid fifteen dollars and watched the proprietor dump my laundry out onto the floor in front of a washing machine. Um. She also refused to wash my day pack (I throw it into the laundry regularly).

I have to be back at 5 PM to collect my clothes and I hadn’t yet had any breakfast, so I crossed the street to a convenience store, renewed my cash supply and bought a quart of milk to eat with some granola I took from our kitchen in Ireland.

I walked back to my lodgings. I was just going to eat sitting on the front steps: I had granola and milk and a spork. Ding, ding, ding — i didn’t have a bowl, mug, glass or anything to eat out of.

I went back inside. I asked the desk man on duty if he could find me a bowl or mug. I held up the milk jug and said “I have cereal, but nothing to eat it in.”

He offered me a plastic cup, saying “This probably isn’t good” and volunteered to go looking for something. Ten minutes later he came back with a dusty pot: “This is all I could find. You probably need to wash it. It’s been sitting around upstairs.”

“Could I have the plastic cup, please?” I asked. He went and got it again.

“Sorry to trouble you,” I said. “I have a whole kitchen without a plate, bowl, or cup.”

“We used to have all that stuff,” he said. “People would steal them, or not wash them.”

I sat down at my wooden kitchen table for five and poured half my granola into my new cup, adding a splash of whole milk. I ate it with my trusty travel spork, and rinsed it twice with water, which I drank, zen-style. I still had to clear out small seeds with my fingernail and use one of my precious tissues to wipe out the cup.

I put the milk in the refrigerator along with the rest of the granola. If the milk survives the night I’ll have granola tomorrow. The kitchen is adjacent to my room and is just for my own use behind a locked and chained door. It’s hard to go wild in a kitchen with only a refrigerator, a sink and empty cupboards.

I had a nice day yesterday, sketching and spending time in the Boston Public Garden, walking around and going to hear live music at Club Passim. I might write about all that later.

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Categories Travel

Boston: “Don’t Be Too Greedy.”

September 11, 2024 //
2

I have never been to Boston before. When I found myself in Shannon Airport in Ireland on Monday morning unable to book a flight to California I decided to go to Boston. I relied on Booking.com to find affordable lodging and chose a place called The Farrington Inn. In the photos it looked like a nice house that had been converted to lodging. It was near a T stop, which meant I could get there. The booking mentioned a shared bathroom and I pictured a bathroom between a couple of rooms, accessible from either.

I am learning that not having a smart phone is a significant deficit. Even cities with a lot of tourism have largely abandoned paper maps for their transit systems, neighborhoods and local attractions. There were subway maps inside the stations, but I didn’t see a single map I could take away with me. I did find a red-shirted transit worker whose shirt said “Ask me a question.”

“Is it really alright to ask you a question?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. When I asked him what T stop I needed for the Farrington Inn he pulled out his smart phone to answer the question. He mentioned getting on the purple line, but I had been staring at a map that indicated that Green Line B might be the right direction. “Or you could take the Red Line to Park and transfer to the Green Line B. Get off at Harvard Ave.”

“Green Line B to Harvard,” I repeated.

I took a Red Line train going toward Alewife (great name!) and got off at Park. Someone told me how to cross through the train by entering it from one platform and exiting through the opposite door onto the other in order to get the elevator to the ticket machines.

With some trouble I bought a “Charlie card,” a 7-day transit pass named for the unfortunate man who was short a nickel and could not get off the MTA. Another red-shirted transit worker helped me get through the fare gate and I was off on a crowded Green Line B train (A tall woman kindly stood and gave me her seat: I squished in my soft-sided travel backpack and held my day pack on my lap, watching the display and listening for station stops).

We traveled underground for awhile and then came above ground to see buildings, trees, sky. We passed Boston University, not to be confused with Boston College, the end of the line. I could see that there was a transit legend further down the car, but I could not read it from where I was sitting. After many stops I heard “Harvard” and staggered off the train, having no idea where I was going. The street was filled with ubiquitous American chains, including McDonald’s and 7-11.

I tried McDonald’s first, but could not figure out how to talk to a human there, so I crossed the street and asked in 7-11 if they had a street map. “We don’t have street maps,” the clerk said. “CVS has street maps.”

Back out I went and scanned the horizon for CVS. I saw it. I crossed the street again twice and asked a CVS clerk if they had street maps. She went off to look, but came back.

“We don’t have street maps,” she said.

Adjacent to CVS was Dunkin’ Donuts, Boston’s iconic coffee chain. I popped in, studied the menu, ordered a lemonade and took it to a small table. I unpacked my laptop to take advantage of free WiFi and looked up directions to the Farrington Inn. It said to turn right onto Harvard Ave, cross three intersections and turn right onto Farrington Ave.

I struggled to identify Harvard Ave: the street signs were confusing. The T called its stop Harvard Ave, but had really stopped on Commonwealth near Harvard. Turns out Harvard Ave was the first corner I had come to, anchored by the McDonald’s and the 7-11.

I trudged down the street, noting a bakery for future reference and a mailbox. I crossed what I thought were three intersections, but still had not come to Farrington Avenue. All along the way I stopped people and asked directions. No one knew anything until I asked a young man “Do you live in this neighborhood?”

“I used to,” he said.

“Do you know Farrington Avenue?”

“Are you looking for The Farrington Inn?”

It was one intersection further. I turned right and looked for number 23 with its double red doors. They were up a steep flight of steps. The first step was a doozy, twice as high as the others. I had to haul myself up by the newel post and the railing, setting my day pack down on each next step. An elderly gentleman watched from the porch and offered me help.

A red door opened and a man asked if I were a guest.

“I have a reservation for six nights,” I said.

“Let me get this gentleman settled. Wait for me in the room on the right.”

I sank onto a sofa with my big pack.

When he came back, he asked if I would prefer a room on the ground floor or a room near the bathroom. which might be on the third floor.

“You seem to have trouble walking,” he said.

“I don’t have trouble walking when I haven’t been carrying a heavy pack. I walked here from the T.”

“You walked here from the T? Wow. Let me look at my inventory.”

He showed me to a ground floor room. The first door led to a kitchen: sink, cupboards, small refrigerator, table and five chairs. No stove, oven, hot plate or microwave. From there, another door led to a bedroom: bed, desk, chair, bureau, small “bedside table” at the foot of the bed. T.V. on the wall, air conditioner fitted into one of four tall narrow windows.

He switched the air conditioner on.

“Do you want to see the bathroom?”

He led me down another corridor and said “It’s the white-painted door.”

“Do you mind if I look?” I asked.

I opened the door. There was a marblesque counter, a scarred sink, and a tiled shower over a bathtub, the kind with doors in a metal track. Sigh. No claw foot bathtub.

“Do you have any questions?”

“No,” I chirped, eager to rest.

Five minutes later, I realized there were no towels in my room.

I went back to reception. “Do you supply towels?”

“Aren’t there any in your room?”

He handed me a folded white bath towel. No hand towel. No bath mat. No face cloth. “Don’t be too greedy,” he said. “They only let us have three of them.”

I didn’t even try to figure that out.

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Categories Travel, Uncategorized

Further adventures at The Craiglands, Yorkshire

August 26, 2024 //
3

On this, my first visit to Yorkshire, I am staying at The Craiglands Hotel. I have been here seven nights so far.

The room is comfortable and the spacious bathroom has a deep tub and a heated towel rack. I make use of these amenities nearly everyday. The staff are friendly and helpful.

On Saturday as I was leaving the hotel to walk to town for a belated breakfast I saw a wedding party arriving, a red carpet laid on the front steps, people milling about. I spent the day in town, sketching and walking about, bought a picnic lunch to eat later and planned an evening rendezvous with my friend D. for a singing session on Zoom.

Saturday evening just as I had finished my in-room picnic and lay down for a rest, I heard music thumping through the floor. At first I thought it was another guest listening to music in his room, but the sound was too loud and persistent for that. As the bass and drums continued to pound and rattle I remembered the wedding party and went down to the front desk to ask how long the music would continue.

“Until midnight,” the desk clerk told me.

Midnight! It was 7 PM.

He offered to look for another room for me and he did but there was nothing available, the remaining rooms having been assigned to guests who had not yet checked in for the evening.

Back in my throbbing room, I emailed D. to ask if he could come collect me earlier, explaining the situation. He responded by asking if I needed to bring a toothbrush and said he and H. could put me up on the sofa if necessary.

I stayed at D. and H.’s until quarter after midnight, at which time he took me back to The Craiglands. The front door was wide open, and the lights were blazing, but it was blissfully quiet. I bathed and crawled into bed in my silent room.

The next morning when I went to the customary room for breakfast it was empty: no food on the steam tables, no sign of anyone else. I padded back to the front desk and asked about breakfast, which is included in the price of a stay.

“It’s down the far end,” I was told. I walked all of the way to the end of the hall and entered a ballroom. There was food alright, but there was no silverware on any table and the coffee urn was empty. I trudged out again to find a staff person whom I told about the lack of flatware and coffee. She supplied both for me — as I said, the staff are generally helpful.

As I exited the hotel after breakfast I saw another large party arriving, dressed to the nines in embroidered saris and formal clothes. “This looks like another wedding,” I thought to myself, dodging around the large, expensive vehicles idling in front of The Craiglands and going off to visit the Toy Museum, which is full of old dollhouses, teddy bears, train sets and a mechanized carnival.

Upon my return I found a message marked “urgent” from D. I feared a Covid outbreak, but the problem was that his computer was down. Since my phone does not work in the UK, D. and I communicate via email and Zoom, just as we do when I am at home in the States. He had borrowed H’s computer to send me a message.

I replied that he was welcome to use my laptop and asked him to collect me earlier than we had planned. I was able to help him access his email remotely and to strategize about what to do before he could have his computer looked at. Then I settled down to doing my laundry and having Sunday dinner with my friends.

I returned to the Craiglands at about 9 PM. The red carpet outside was strewn with the remains of flower petals and, once again, the hotel was quiet. I hung damp laundry on every surface that would bear it before I went to bed.

This morning, the lights were out in the corridor outside my room. Okay. The lights work in my room and in the other corridors. Breakfast was once again served in the ballroom. I prefer the more intimate breakfast room usually in use so I did not stay long and returned to my room to make tea.

Tonight is my last night here before I depart for Bournemouth on Tuesday to visit a student. Who knows what will happen tonight and tomorrow morning?

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Categories Travel

Hunting the Yorkshire fruit and vegetables

August 22, 2024 //
0

One of the challenges of traveling is eating something resembling your usual diet. Coming from California, I have an advantage in the fresh produce department: the state has a long growing season, temperate climate and many farmers markets.

I get breakfast at my hotel each morning. From the start I have been serving myself tomatoes and mushrooms to mix with my scrambled eggs even though I would not normally eat either of those things for breakfast. It isn’t a bad mixture: I eat it because I am constantly stalking fruit and vegetables on menus.

On the first day, I also served myself some fruit salad, which seemed to consist mostly of green apples. Alas, they looked lovely because they had been doused liberally with lemon juice to preserve their color. Sour apples with sour lemon — no. I wondered why they hadn’t served them as a cooked compote. By the next day I had learned to pick the pineapple and grapes out of the mixture, leaving the apples behind. Yesterday I scored a single orange segment and this morning a bite-sized chunk of watermelon.

My first night here I dined out in town, choosing a French restaurant where I could get steak frites. I started with a cup of soup because it was tomato and red pepper soup, a basic puree that could have used a bit of cream to smooth it out. The steak and the frites (skinny, salty French fries) were delicious, but the best thing on the plate was a little mound of watercress drizzled with tomato vinaigrette. I could have eaten an entire plate of that.

I had dinner at the hotel last night because rain threatened and it is more than a mile to town and back. I had perused the menu in the bar and was leaning heavily toward Caesar salad to get all of that crunchy green romaine. When I sat down at the table, however, the server informed me that there were no salads. Why would that be? I have no idea.

I ordered pasta carbonara and asked if the side of vegetables listed on the menu was available. Yes, it was.

“What kind of vegetables do you have?” I asked.

“What kind of vegetables do you want?” was the answer. “Tomatoes? Onions?”

“Something green, please. Not peas. Green beans? Broccoli? Broccolini? Spinach?”

I got a lovely little bowl of green beans, broccoli and courgette (zucchini), which I don’t think of as a green vegetable. The chef threw in a little butter and some flecks of parsley.

My pasta came flecked with parsley as well, but so devoid of Parmesan that it wasn’t salty or sweet, but merely bland. I added pepper from the table liberally and made a note not to order carbonara here again. The shallow, flat bowl was full: a lot of pasta.

If I eat lemon tart, will the lemon count as a fruit? It came with dabs of orange curd and a tiny pool of raspberry sauce. I ate those, pushing aside the chocolate curls and something that looked like red confetti. In my opinion, chocolate curls do not belong on a lemon dessert — a wee puff of whipped cream perhaps, but less is more.

The ubiquitous vegetable here appears to be peas. English peas or garden peas are possibly my least favorite vegetable, although I like snow peas and sugar snap peas eaten raw. Once again, my Californian upbringing.

I haven’t yet resorted to hunting up a shop and buying things I can eat raw. In the days when you could travel with a pocket knife, self-styled picnics were easier.

How do you procure fruit and vegetables when you are traveling?

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Categories Uncategorized

Welcome to Ilkley, Yorkshire

August 20, 2024 //
2

After countless hours in the Dublin airport, a fiendishly long layover during which I wrote, sketched, drank a cappuccino to remain awake after a near sleepless night on a red-eye from Los Angeles, and tried many times to sleep sitting in a chair, but ended up meditating instead, I ended up at a crowded gate at 4:00 in the morning, got on a bus and boarded a small plane, the kind where you walk across the tarmac and climb a narrow ladder, two seats on either side of the aisle. The flight was advertised with a meal, but to get one you would have had to pay for it, so I didn’t have breakfast on the plane.

What I noticed as we approached Leeds/Bradford airport was how green everything was, fields and trees everywhere greener than in eastern Ireland. The airport is tiny. Someone waved me through customs and I went back to see if I needed my passport stamped. Someone said they often don’t stamp them if you enter from Ireland. That means there is no official record that I am here in England.

My friend D. had told me to get a bus to Otley, Yorkshire and, after two errors, I found the right one. The bus had WiFi so I was able to log on and tell D. I was on my way to Otley. I had assured him that most bus stations had a nearby cab rank and that I would get a cab from Otley to his house. Well, most American bus stations have a cab rank…

When I inquired about a cab and said I was going to Ilkley, a bus driver said “There’s a bus to Ilkley, but it just left.”

Of course it did. The buses were 28 minutes apart so I found a place to wait. It was a dry, overcast morning, but someone had done their best to imitate rain by flooding hanging baskets of flowers which were raining on the pavement.

When the bus pulled up, I asked the driver if he was going to Ilkley. He repeated “Ilkley” in an accent that implied I hadn’t got the name quite right, a dark, swallowed sound. Because I had no idea how long it would take to reach Ilkley I did not use the free WiFi on the coach but watched out the window and watched the monitor showing the stops.

I was tempted to get off in the village of Burley when one stop featured a brick square and a map, but I stayed on the bus until it terminated at Ilkley Station. I saw a post office with a bench in front and made for it. I meant to call D. to come get me, but my phone said “No service.” I paid for international roaming, but my phone had not worked in the Dublin airport, nor did it work in Ilkley.

I dug out my laptop and tried to join the local free network. The internet hamsters ran about on their wheel as fast as they could but I never got on. Okay, plan B: get some breakfast.

I looked across the street and saw a bakery, Loafers Bakery. Perfect. I studied the unfamiliar menu and then told the counter person I had not yet eaten breakfast and asked what she recommended. She suggested a bacon and egg or an egg and sausage sandwich. I chose the latter and asked for a cup of tea.

“Sugar?” she asked

“Sugar and milk, please.”

I was running on fumes as I crossed the street and sat on a wall to unwrap my sandwich. To my horror, it contained a sausage patty as thick as a hockey puck and a fried egg with a runny yolk on flavorless white bread. I nibbled the thin white edges of the egg, careful to avoid anything yellow, took one bite of sausage and went for the tea. This was, undoubtedly, the worst cup of tea I have ever had: weak, not sweet. The only thing it had going for it was that it was hot. I drank all of it.

Wondering what I was going to do next, I looked around and saw a cab leaving: there was a cab rank in the street in front of the post office. Stowing my uneaten sandwich in my day pack, I went to stand by the sign painted on the road.

When I gave the cabbie D’s address he knew right where it was and took me up the road for five pounds. As we turned into D’s street I saw a woman who could only be D’s. wife H., whom I had glimpsed all of once in a Zoom background. She was going out to look for me.

D. and H. helped me into the house, put on a kettle for tea and showed me into their lounge or sitting room. H. placed a plate of homemade shortbread within easy reach and had me choose a china mug for tea. Good, strong Yorkshire tea. D. was full of apologies, but I assured him I had enjoyed taking the buses and watching the “shower” at Otley Bus Station. I told him that travel was all about adapting on the fly. I had found my way to him, hadn’t I? When I told them about the dreadful sandwich and tea H. said, “They’ve been there for years. I don’t know how they stay in business.”

D and H. kindly allowed me to nap on their settee. I woke just before 4 PM. We loaded my gear into D.’s car and he dropped me at the front entrance to my hotel. After wandering a maze of corridors and struggling with my key card (I had not stopped to read the instructions), I opened the door to a spacious room with a large bathroom.

Tired as I was, I unpacked all of my clothes, hanging most in the closet and folding the others onto shelves with the laundry bag isolated on the top shelf. I then did computer yoga, typing with my right hand while using my left to hold my Apple charger in the socket of the adapter in a wall plug (The weight of the Apple charger pulls it away from the adapter socket). I got to 85% battery capacity before it was time to teach a writing class on Zoom from the comfort of the big, soft bed — two and a half days later, I still owe my students their class summary — they’ll get it eventually….

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Categories Travel

I’m on My Way

August 17, 2024 //
8

Today is truly my last day of residence in California unless the future holds something I don’t know about (certainly possible). I was born here and have lived here for most of my life with time off for a junior year in Ireland and grad school in North Carolina. As I took BART to the San Francisco Airport this morning we passed stops near where I used to live (24th St = Guerrero St), where a past love lives (Glen Park), where I went to therapy (Glen Park). As I rode the train, memories washed over me.

There was blue sky this morning as well as fog rolling over the hills: I could see both from the window.

I spent last night at a friend’s house on Eighth St. in Berkeley. D has a lovely house with hardwood floors, a deep bathtub, octagonal floor tiles, a friendly dog who was surprised to have a visitor. I slept on a loveseat and then on a couch when I wanted to stretch my legs.

D is a fine hostess, Midwestern style. She went out and bought a new set of sheets for me to sleep on, if only for one night, and broke out some new towels in the bargain. She fed me coffee and oatmeal this morning (She had offered a trip to Lavender Bakery for pastries, but when I am traveling I like to start with healthy food, knowing that I will end up grabbing pick-up meals and eating crap sooner or later).

I lucked out at SFO though. My gate was close to Drake’s Brewing Co. I read the menu, which featured both Caesar salad and pizza, two of my favorite things. Which to get? I ordered pepperoni and chile pizza and asked for a side salad, which was a Caesar. Yes! Everything was delicious and I saved enough pizza for my next meal. It wasn’t crowded and there was plenty of space for my bags and cane at my feet.

I don’t usually travel with a cane. I have cerebral palsy and mostly walk unassisted, but I brought a cane in case my six weeks of travels include any challenging walks or hikes — I am going several places I have never been before. The cane also helps to balance extra luggage: I tried to travel light and got rid of everything I reasonably could, but I travel with a large backpack and a small day pack and there is no great way to carry that combination since you can’t put both of them your back (my preferred mode of portage). Before I left D’s this morning I jettisoned a couple pounds of coffee beans, filters, a coffee grinder, a jar of honey, a singleton sock and a Leonard Cohen T-shirt. I love Leonard, but I don’t need souvenirs on this trip.

I’m spending my last resident hours in California at LAX waiting for my flight to Dublin, Ireland. From thence I go to Leeds on Monday morning. My afternoon has been filled with jitney rides, currency exchanges and gate changes, plus online chatting with my good friend Neola, one of my biggest supports through the past year.

I am doing my best to put myself on Irish/British time: because it is now the middle of the night in those countries I will try to put myself to sleep as soon as I board the plane. I have ear plugs and a sleep mask, which should help. It will be mask on mask since the lower part of my face is masked against Covid and the upper will be masked against light. I should probably have someone take a photo of this unusual sight since I will look like some kind of alien, or maybe Bug Rogers.

The gate is getting really crowded and the hallway, too, with the most people I have seen all day. Almost no one is wearing a mask — I estimate 1-2%, which makes me more determined to keep mine on. I had a barrier of empty disabled seats for awhile, but now I am seated next to a small child and an Irish woman with a cane. Who is from Limerick, where I am going in two and a half weeks. Small world.

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Categories Travel

The Monte Rio Diaries, Part Two

August 15, 2024 //
0

My friend S. is a late riser. I live a whole life before she gets up in the morning. I check email. I charge up a computer and a phone. I re-pack my luggage. I make coffee. I say hello to S’s husband G. who gets up even earlier than I do.

This morning I found a bowl of Bosc pears on the kitchen counter. That was the signal to make a baked pear pancake: after preheating a 425 F oven I sliced pears and caramelized them in a cast iron skillet with sugar and butter. While they were cooking I made a batter of flour, melted butter, eggs, milk, vanilla and raw sugar. I poured the batter over the fruit and popped it in the oven for twenty-five minutes. Voila.

After eating I went out to sketch. I’m supposedly taking a sketching class on Zoom, but I tried for twenty minutes to get in. No dice. I had assembled my sketching materials, filled my watercolor pen, sharpened some aquarelles, so I opened my sketchbook and began to sketch the bonsai tree out on the deck. I hate bonsai and feel sorry for them, so I made it a real, non-stunted tree and started filling in the colors and shapes of the trees in the landscape behind it. I used too much water trying to make the colors blend — I tore the bottom of the paper and my pigment bled through onto the next page or so. I left the sketchbook outside to dry and rinsed my brushes in the sink, checked email again and sat down to write. S. is still sound asleep.

I am getting used to S.’s kitchen: the rack of cast iron pans hanging above the stove, the baking sheets stashed next to the piano, the refrigerator door that requires slamming to stay shut. But sometimes I find the unexpected.

After lunch on Monday I was craving a sweet. I asked Sadie what she had. She offered me a chocolate bar and mentioned baking mixes. Nah. I had brought a container of rolled oats from the house I left in July. “I could make cookies,” I said. “I brought oatmeal. Do you have flour?” I knew there was butter and I had sugar.

“I have flour. I have eggs. Do you know where everything is?”

“I think so. I took a tour when you-all weren’t around.”

I found the flour in a low cupboard with other baking supplies and packages of pasta. While I was looking for it, I found a jar of bright white powder. I read the label pasted on the jar lid: “Powdered sugar, pretty much ant-free.” I laughed out loud and have been telling the story ever since.

S. got up. I procured a basket and picked blackberries in the garden. She was having breakfast when I got back. When I got hungry I made a peanut butter and blackberry sandwich: ripe blackberries — nature’s jam.

I had a second one of those the next day for lunch before we went to the river to swim. I swam. S. waded into the water a few times and sat on a towel reading. It was lovely: hot day, cool water, negligible current. The water is lower than I have ever seen it at the river, but I have only been here half a dozen times in my life. I would come back. There are hotels here and everything as well as S’s inimitable hospitality.

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Categories baking, breakfast food, cookies, Travel

The Monte Rio Diaries, Part One

August 12, 2024 //
0

I am up in Monte Rio, California, one of the towns on the Russian River in Sonoma County, lesser known than its counterpart Guerneville. My friend S. lives there with her husband G. in a ramshackle house by the side of the road right above the river. I love it up here in the redwood forest, although I love it best when the sun is out and we can swim in the river or kayak.

I arrived here on Friday evening after 6 PM. My friend Lorelei, like me, loves to be surrounded by water and trees and jumped at the chance to drive me up to my friend’s house. We arrived with my travel backpack, my day pack and a couple of boxes of food I have been hauling around since I left my former home in Kensington. Lorelei snapped a few nice photos of me out on S’s deck. I call the one above “Sharyn and the Paycock.”

S. had spent the day clearing a space for me to sleep and making up a bed for me. I am sleeping on another high bed under a window with another window behind me: when it is dark I can see a spray of stars. There is enough room for my travel gear and a wide ledge for a lamp, my laptop, pens and my glasses. In daylight I look out into the trees and a purple buddleia growing up from the garden.

I have been down into the garden to sketch, to test out the almost-ripe blackberries and to sit in the sun. I drew the blackberries with watercolor pencils on watercolor paper and then saw a weathered white statue or mannequin leaning against the weathered white boards of the house. She was festooned with duct tape around her neck and speckled with mossy green. I had a postcard that I had painted over that had kind of a basket-weave pattern of gray and white, the perfect background to recreate the mannequin with leaves growing where her thighs ended.

Yesterday I asked S. if the mannequin had a name. She didn’t. “You can name her,” S. said.

“Penelope,” I said. It’s what came into my head because she looks like she has been waiting awhile down there in the garden.

S. and I have got up to no end of fun already. On Saturday we went out to a library sale where I replenished my supply of books. I had mailed a box of books off to my storage facility in Port Angeles on Friday before I left Martinez, but I can’t stand having nothing to read and books are cheap at library sales and they had such good books: I will be mailing off another box of books before I leave Monte Rio. For now I have the pleasure of reading essays by Ann Patchett.

After the library sale, S. suggested we go to a cafe. There I had a Mexican mocha and she had a latte and we sat and talked. When we got back to her house we rehearsed and performed at an online singing session and played a couple of games of Jotto.

Sunday we went to the Sonoma County Fair, but that is another story…

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Categories Travel

House-hunting and Other Adventures, Part Five

September 18, 2023 //
3

While we were out buying melons on Sauvie Island I asked Carol if we could stop at a grocery store for train food: I bought a sourdough baguette to make a sandwich with and a couple of yogurts.

Back at Carol’s farmhouse we got out the slow cooker and I proceeded to chop the leaf lard into small pieces. I usually buy lard already rendered, but a homesteading website said to chop it up and cook it slowly for two hours.

“Shall I read all of the instructions, or shall we wing it?”

“Let’s wing it,” said the genuine Washington-born farm girl.

She thought we should use a basket to hold the lard above the melted lard, so we did. This resulted in the project taking four hours instead of two and gratuitously greasing up her steamer basket. You want the pieces of lard cooking in the rendered fat, which causes them to render faster. We didn’t know. I pulled the pieces out and chopped them more finely.

We also didn’t know I should have trimmed off the few visible bits of meat before rendering. Oh well. I hoped the lard wouldn’t taste porky.

Hours later, Carol got out a large and a small mason jar for me and I poured the rendered lard into them to cool. While it cooled, I talked politics with Spike, Carol showed me some of her recent artwork and we watched a few episodes of a home-buying show because, you know, real estate.

“Look at how beautiful it is. It’s so white,” Carol said.

I read about how you could fry the unrendered bits for cracklings.

Meanwhile I had been in correspondence with one of my Zoom writing students who lived on the Oregon Coast a couple of hours from Carol’s house. We invited her to come to class in person the next morning. We would supply coffee and snacks if she would arrive by 8:45 for a 9:00 o’clock class.

On Monday morning I got up and packed my luggage. I dressed and poured a cup of coffee: Carol sets it up before she goes to bed so that all I had to do was push a button. I ate something — leftovers? fruit salad? — before making a salami and cheese sandwich for the train with lettuce, mustard and Carol’s homemade bread and butter pickles. The sandwich, the yogurts and two jars of lard fit perfectly into my frozen lunch box.

Mary Bess arrived early and she and Carol hit it off, immediately finding an acquaintance in common. Carol poured coffee and offered fruit and cookies before it was time to pop into my Zoom frame to show the rest of the class that we were actually in the same physical location. We then separated to avoid multi-device-induced feedback. Mary Bess took the back porch. Carol went upstairs to her office and I conducted class from the dining room table while Spike rested in the bedroom.

After class Carol shooed me out to talk with Mary Bess. We sat at the table on the back deck and discussed real estate, my reasons for my eventual move, M.B.’s life in Seaside running a health clinic. Mary Bess invited me to stay in Seaside if I came through Oregon again and asked if she could take my picture

Then it was time to say goodbye. Spike carried my bags to the car. Carol drove to Portland. I checked in at the historic Portland train depot, all high ceilings, marble and wooden benches with high backs.

I spent another 22 hours on the train, eating my sandwich for dinner, my yogurts for breakfast and trying to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs. When I got back to the Bay Area we had WiFi so I spent the last leg of my train journey chatting with a writing buddy about my adventures before catching a bus from Emeryville to Kensington and resuming my regular life, which is not so regular anymore, but that is another story.

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Categories home cooking, Travel

House-hunting and Other Adventures, Part Four

September 17, 2023 //
4

The plan for Sunday morning in Port Angeles was to pack up to leave, to try the second breakfast place that I had been tracking from afar, and to visit the year-round Port Angeles farmers market, one of the reasons I chose Port Angeles as a potential place to live. While packing I kept dealing with annoying texts from a Port Townsend realtor: I had been trying to book an appointment to see a Victorian cottage there. Carol and I would be able to stop in Port Townsend on our way to her home in St Helens, Oregon, if we could get an appointment in the early afternoon.

The texts asked me to declare things like was I planning to buy a house. Yes. Then they wanted to know if I planned to buy it immediately, in two months, six months, or more than a year. My honest answer, “more than a year” was the kiss of death: the next flurry of texts concerned when an agent could speak with me. I kept texting “Pls no texts” because texting is difficult for me (flip phone meets dexterity deficits due to cerebral palsy).

Carol and I did make it to breakfast. After my elaborate French toast the previous day and our gourmet dinner at the lake, I decided to go with basics: scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes and toast. I took particular care to ask about the breakfast potatoes because I do not care for hash browns.

The restaurant was a long narrow room with tables against the wall and a long counter. One server seemed to be doing most of the work: taking orders, carrying food to customers, serving people at the bar. She took our order, returned in a few minutes with our plates and was at the other end of the restaurant before I could tell her I had been given the wrong plate: there, next to the eggs, sat a slab of hash browns. Also, neither Carol nor I had received water, although we had asked for it.

While Carol tucked into her salmon I tried to signal our server. When she approached I said, “I think I was given someone else’s order.”

She consulted her pad. “Oh, they just gave you hash browns instead of breakfast potatoes.”

She swept the plate away and brought it back moments later sans hash browns. On another pass through the room she set down a second plate containing breakfast potatoes and several packets of jam. I lucked out here: my first plate had had Smuckers strawberry, which I do not like, but the new installment included blackberry.

It’s hard to mess up scrambled eggs and toast, but the potatoes were nothing to write home about.

We returned to Carol’s car and scored a parking spot across the street from the farmers market. While we waited for it to open, I received another text, asking if the real estate agent could call me at a later time.

“Yes,” I texted, getting tired of this.

We crossed the street and entered the farmers market. Carol had been talking about wishing she could buy a share of a butchered pig and, next to a bakery stall, we walked past a stall advertising beef shares and pork shares. Continuing on, we stopped at a produce stand with glowing golden beets: Carol bought some to take home.

We browsed a mushroom stall. Across the way I saw a beautiful wool hat on a stand. “That would look good on you,” Carol said.

“Try it on if you want” said the owner of the booth, who was spinning as she spoke.

“Your work is beautiful,” I said, pausing to look at bundles of roving. “Is this purple or indigo?”

“I would say it is a dark blue.”

That was the wrong answer: had it been purple I would have bought it for a friend.

“Have we seen everything?” I asked Carol.

“I think so,” she said.

On our way out she stopped by the pork shares guy and bought something. I had a sudden inspiration: “Do you have leaf lard?”

The vendor dug through a cooler and brought out a one pound package. Leaf lard is the fat around a pig’s kidneys: it is the best kind of lard for baking. I use lard as part of the shortening in pie crust — it adds flakiness.

“Do you know how to render it?” he asked. “Put it in a slow cooker for a couple of hours.”

“I have a slow cooker,” Carol said.

“Do you mind doing a kitchen project?”

I knew Carol wouldn’t mind: she puts up her own pickles and jams.

In the mean time, the real estate agent hadn’t called back, so we decided to drive to Port Townsend ourselves, figuring we could get a look at the outside of the house and be around if an agent could show it to us.

As we were approaching Port Townsend a real estate agent called to say he could show us the house at 3:00 PM.

“Can we see it at 3:00?” I asked Carol.

“No, that’s too late,” she said.

“That’s too late,” I said. “I’m only here one day from California and we have to get back to St. Helens tonight.”

“I don’t have anyone who can show you the house.”

Fine. Carol and I drove around Port Townsend until we found the small house on a corner lot. The backyard was full of deer scat and the exterior had not been painted in some time. There was a lock box on the red-painted front door and plenty of cars on the street but no sign of real estate agents or house tours.

“I’m going to look around,” I said.

I walked all around the house, peering in windows. I could get a good view of the living room that way. I hesitated before walking up onto the back porch to peer in the kitchen window. I couldn’t see the layout of the kitchen.

I wanted to jimmy a window, but I didn’t want to get arrested in Port Townsend. All I wanted was a three-minute walk-through of the house to see what the rooms felt like: I like Victorian cottages, but this was 692 square feet. I needed to know whether I could live in a place this small.

Because I was unwilling to commit a property crime, I did not see the house, which is now pending inspection. C’est la vie. Carol and I commenced our road trip back to St Helens, making a stop at a diner en route outside of Olympia, where I had a plate of sweet potato fries and Carol had half a club sandwich. Our server kindly filled both of my water bottles for me and we were on our way again.

The next morning in St Helens, Carol made the kind of breakfast potatoes I would have made, frying up the spicy sausage she had bought in Port Angeles with potatoes, corn, fennel and onion. Carol, Spike and I ate them with an egg apiece before Carol and I drove out to the Sauvie Island farm stand for more produce.

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Categories home cooking, Travel, Uncategorized
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