Yippie Kai-a!

Kaia came over to visit for three days because Gen and Sean were going up to wine country to spend some vacation time together. We set up the aerobed in our bedroom for her, with a featherbed on top. Rob put a TV in there and she was able to watch movies while she laid in bed. She loved it.

The first day we went to the farmers market in Ojai where Rob bought Kaia a Webkinz at Serendipity Toys, the coolest toy store in the world where I'm always getting things for the little ones in my life. It was on to Art's Corner Cafe where Kaia was very impressed by the caricature of Rob and me they having hanging there, (chicken Rob and Big Anne, we've never been able to decide which of us should be more insulted). Then she ran into a friend from school, so she knew it really is a cool place.

After I had to go to Port Hueneme to cover Seabee Days, which was interesting because I've never been on the Naval base here. Before I moved to Ventura, I'd never heard of the Seabees, the navy construction engineers who run around the world building things lick-ety split. They build roads and bridges for advancing armies. They build facilities for people to work and live in. But they also do a lot of humanitarian aid around the world, digging wells, building schools and other public works projects in developing countries. It makes my little pacifistic heart happy to hear that our military isn't just about war.

We went to Carrow's for dinner where I had the gross-t beef and Rob had a Mile High sandwich. Kaia got a sundae with chocolate sauce and hot fudge on top and declared it the best overnight EVER. We were both so proud. Monday was fun day and we went to the Teva outlet store, Deckers Factory Outlet, in Ventura to get Courtney her birthday present and bought Kaia a pair of Teva sandals for $4.99. Then back to Ojai for more Webkinz (they were $7.99 a piece and include a special code so Kaia can register them online and make the into virtual pets). Lunch was at Ojai Pizza, where the portions were huge, the wings were perfectly prepared (which is not an easy thing) and the sauce was too sweet for my taste and on to Libbey Park where Kaia made a 4-year-old friend who proceeded to eat her leftovers.

The entire time Kaia regaled us with her fantastical stories of friends, her endless enthusiasm and vivid imagination. She is such a joy and we're lucky to have her in our lives.

Now we have Gen and Sean's dog Keba visiting because Gen, Sean and Kaia are all in Ohio visiting Rick and Marilyn. Keba came with Kaia during the wine tasting too. She's one of my favorite dogs. She's a German Shepherd mix and I'm not sure what she was mixed with, but it was enormous. Despite being a huge dog with a basso profundo voice that literally rattles the house, she's a timid baby. The rest of the dogs keep trying to put her in her place, so she needs extra attention, and so do they. the cats were angry at first, but now have decided Keba isn't a real threat.

I was given the go-ahead to enjoy the summer when I found out I wasn't kicked out of the Ventura County Master Chorale. I had auditioned originally to get in back in August 2008 and for some reason the director, Burns Taft, decided he wanted everyone to audition again. I figured the audition would be like the first one where I had been asked to do some rudimentary sight reading and to sing my prepared song. But this audition was much harder. The accompanist played two notes and asked me what interval they were -- a third, a fifth and a diminished sixth (WTF?. Then I had to sing a chromatic scale. A what? Oh. half steps. But I was so rattled I couldn't get my mind around what a half step was, even though I do know that. She played a major chord, then a minor one, but she played weird chords that sound major at first and then got all minor.

I played the cello back in high school and read music then but really haven't much in the intervening years. I know that a lot of people in the choir are music teachers or at least were music majors. Me, I just love to sing, which apparently was the wrong answer, according to the grading brochure they had made up. There was a category under singing experience that referred to someone as "just loves to sing," with the phrase dripping with sarcasm and listed as a 4 on their scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the best.

The entire experience was humiliating. As Rob pointed out, I was totally blindsided. I had no idea they were going to ask such questions. I wish I had known because I would have been able to work on chromatic scales and intervals, which I pick up really easily because I do have a good ear. I'm not going to quit or anything because I do just love singing and am so happy to have this back in my life. I'll try to see if I can get private voice lessons, which are an actual course at Ventura College. I did that in Ohio, but I wasn't really working on music at the time. Now, I could really use some help with some of my vocal issues.

Anyway, at least now I don't have to burn the hideous black choir dress, which would have probably caused a noxious cloud and brought the EPA down on me.

Huanxontle aka lambs quarters

I've been feeling especially lucky lately because I've really been enjoying my assignments writing for the Ventura County Star
. It's a great arrangement for me because I don't have to be trapped in an office and I can get out and meet people and learn really cool things as I travel all around Ventura County.

Of course my very favorite assignment is writing the farmers market column. I love farmers markets anyway and to be paid to go around and scout out the farmers market scene in one of the most vibrant farmers market enclaves is especially exciting. The farmers market gig is made even more cool by the fact that farmers markets are really "in" right now, so there's always more and more to write about.

And even though I go to a farmers market a week to scope out the scene, I still go to Ojai each Sunday to my favorite home market. One of my favorite people there is B.D. Dautch who is always at the Ojai market at his Earthtrine Farms booth.

B.D. is a local favorite not only because he is a big proponent of the Slow Food movement, which has made huge strides in getting the message of local, old-fashioned food distribution out in this day and age of mass food poisonings. He also loves to grow unique, hard-to-find items that are in great demand by chefs from L.A. to San Francisco.

I love his frisee, which I made into a salad with apples, nuts (I generally use pecans, but lately have been using sunflower seeds, which are delicious) and gorgonzola or blue cheese. I added blackberries from the backyard to my Good Seasons (guilty pleasure) Italian dressing and it is amazing. I also get herbs and peruse the other goods, looking for anything intersting.

Last weekend I came on some odd looking stuff that looked like a weed. The sign said it was lambs quarters or huanxontle. I asked B.D. what the Hell it was and he said some of his guys had gone to Mexico and had found this stuff and brought back some seeds. B.D. said it made a great relleno.

I asked him how one would go about making what looked like a pile of weedy stuff into a relleno. He said to grab a small portion of it, blanch it and then roll it in cheese and an egg batter and serve it up with some red sauce.

It sat in my crisper for a week as I made excuses for not tackling the decidedly odd-looking stuff. It smells kind of flowery/fruity with nutty overtones, so it was intriguing. Finally, I screwed up my courage and made some up into rellenos. They were fantastic. I ate them with some Tapatio sauce and sour cream, along with a steak and the flavors were amazing.

Since you don't exactly stuff these like you would a traditional chile relleno, you should approach cooking them more like you would a potato pancake or fritter, with everything mounded in the skillet while you let the heat do the work of forming it into a cohesive whole.

Huanxontle rellenos

1 large bunch of huanxontle, also known as lambs quarters
1 cup Colby cheddar cheese, shredded
2 eggs
2 tablespoons white whole wheat flour
garlic powder (not salt)
onion powder (not salt)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons canola oil

Blanch the huanxontle in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds,rinse and drain. Break off most of the woody stems and grab a small portion. Roll it in about a quarter cup of cheese. Whisk eggs and flour, along with onion and garlic powders and salt. Pour a quarter of the egg mixture into a separate dish. Roll the huanxontle and cheese in the mixture and mound the whole thing in a heated skillet skillet with canola oil. Repeat the process three more times, to make a total of four rellenos. Cook over medium high heat for about three to four minutes or until egg/cheese mixture is beginning to set and flip over and cook for another three to four minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with red sauce and sour cream.

Makes four rellenos. Multiply as needed for more rellenos. the egg batter proportions are 1 tablespoon white whole wheat flour to 1 egg.

Upside-down tomatoes

You've seen those commercials for those Topsy Turvy tomato dealies, which are basically glorified plastic bags that you have to find a hanger for, so you can grow tomatoes. Rob and I really like the concept, but seriously? A plastic bag with a hole in it for $9.95 and no way to hang the damn thing. That just seemed stupid.

But then, right before Mother's Day, we were on our monthly Sam's Club paper products run when we saw this black plastic container thing that you use to grow tomatoes and the top part could double as a planter. We decided it would be my Mother's Day present. Rob and I always select something we've coveted for Mother's Day. A couple of years ago, it was our gas grill, many years ago it was the beach bike I got hit on. This year it was the upside-down tomato planter.

We then headed up to the Ojai farmers market to get tomato plants from my favorite tomato plant grower Caryn Molinelli and we selected four plants, including brandywine and San Marzano, but these are all heirloom varieties. I assembled the plastic contraption while Rob poured sand from the beach in the bottom along with some water, to anchor it. The plants went through the holes easily. We added the soil and I transplanted some seedlings.

Usually when I plant my tomatoes they go through a couple of week of shock before they decide to dig in a grow. The plants in the tomato planter have taken off from Day 1. The black plastic keeps the soil nice and warm, which is important here because Ventura, being right next to the ocean, never gets really hot in the summer. Tomatoes actually like good, warm soil and the planter seems to be fooling the tomatoes into thinking they a lot warmer than they are.

Last year our tomatoes were devastated by tomato-eating caterpillars and I'm hoping our new arrangement will serve as a deterrent, while not freaking out the bees. But we did put the thing where our pool used to be, in the middle of our blackberry patch, and there are lots of bees there. We'll see.

Speaking of blackberries, I haven't been writing a lot about food lately because I've been on a strict low-carb diet. With all of the problems with my legs, it's more important than ever to lose weight. I had a lot to lose because I gained weight during my surgeries, despite trying really hard to watch what I ate.

The oven also broke and we haven't been able to fix it yet, so there hasn't been a lot of cooking. The other night, however, I did make a wonderful discovery. Last year, Rob cut back our blackberry bush in a futile attempt to get the thing under control.

We were given a small bush by a friend of Rob's when we first moved here. I asked him if it would run and he said, "Oh no. It's not the running kind." Ha! Like there is such a thing as non-running blackberries. Rob occasionally gets frustrated by the intrusive bugger and last year he really hacked it back. Of course, this meant it put out a bunch of new growth and we have some wonderful blackberries this year. After they bloom, I'm going to make him cut it back again.

Right now we have some amazing blackberries. They're huge and really sweet. The other night I was preparing to grill some chicken when I got inspired and added some blackberries and mashed them into the teryaki marinade I was using. The flavors went together amazingly well.

Blackberry teryaki grilled chicken

1 whole chicken, cut up
1 cup Veri Veri Teryaki or Trader Joe's Teryaki sauce
4 scallions sliced into 1/4 inch pieces (I used a bigger spring onion from the farmer's market and it was fabulous)
1 cup ripe blackberries
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (fresh minced garlic, if you're not lazy)

Mix all the ingredients, except the chicken. Mash the blackberries into the teryaki mixture with a fork. Add the chicken and coat and marinade it in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes on each side. Heat a grill and grill the chicken over low heat for about 15 or 16 minutes a side. Make sure to spread the mashed blackberry and onion mixture on the chicken before it cooks. A lot will fall off, but a bunch will still stick.

Oh and BTW, I've lost more than 20 pounds so far, which is making my legs feel a lot better

Daddy's girl

Originally uploaded by daqvidbellbrook

Jesse and Jessica

Those are some cute kids

Originally uploaded by daqvidbellbrook

I'm not sure why Cody is squinting like Popeye, but those are some good-looking kids, the proud grandmom says.

That about sums it up

Originally uploaded by daqvidbellbrook

Cody and Jessica played together, I'm told, while Alex just took off in his own direction.

Jessica and Cody

Originally uploaded by daqvidbellbrook

Three grandkids

Originally uploaded by daqvidbellbrook

Rocking and rolling

I don't believe in prayer. Not that I don't pray, every human prays. Oh please, please, please let ME be the winner. Oh dear God, please don't kill me now! I just don't believe those prayers are much more than wishful thinking articulated. There does seen to be some kind of order to the universe, but beyond that I have no idea.

Sometimes that order even seems to come about in your own life. Just a few weeks ago, I found out my stepfather had died. Now I come face-to-face via photo with my step-granddaughter Jessica.

Apparently Courtney was out with her friend and they ran into my stepson, Jesse, with whom Rob has been in touch sporadically, and infrequently through the years. Courtney and Jesse decided to meet up on Mother's Day in a park near where they live just a few miles apart in Bellbrook, Ohio. Jesse brought his daughter Jessica, who turned 7 on May 9 and Courtney brought Cody and Alex.

Jesse had mentioned a daughter before, but seeing pictures of her -- a really cute, dark-haired beauty -- really brought it home. Courtney said that she and Jesse were both a bit awkward around each other, but it's been many years since they spoke and, she said, it's time to put the past and its grudges behind.

I think Courtney gave both Rob and me one of the best Mother's day presents ever with those photos of all three grandchildren playing together in a park in Bellbrook. But sometimes it is odd how tings work out, with such a scripted perfection. Cool.

Yes. They ARE all out to get you

This is a mommy Sheltand pony and her 1-week-old baby. They came walking by when we had breakfast Sunday with Lindsay and Ryan at the Farmer and Cook in Meiners Oaks. It was just a happy moment.

It started right after the New Year when our health insurance was inexplicably canceled out of nowhere. We'd been paying the premiums on time, but somehow they thought we owned them even more than the obscene sum we send them each month for CalCOBRA health insurance coverage. In California, workers are guaranteed health coverage even after losing their jobs if they work for a company with 25 or fewer people. COBRA covers people working for companies with more than 25 people.

They figured it out, reinstated us and jacked our bill and then jacked it some more. It costs as much for health insurance as it would to pay rent for a studio apartment. Of course once we got that all straightened out, it got all screwed up again.

If that weren't annoying enough, our health insurance Kaiser Permanente seems to be going through a rough spell, especially when it comes to customer service. They keep billing me for random amounts for procedures that have long been paid for. I did get them to reverse a $500 charge, but they keep coming back like inexorable flesh-eating zombies.

I started thinking maybe it was just us. That maybe we were extremely unlucky. It took all kinds of irate phone conversations to be upgraded to an iPhone because AT&T had screwed up our eligibility. I mean here I am locked and loaded, ready to spend a good sum of money and they won't even let me.

But as we were slogging though yet another day of calling rude customer service agent after rude customer service agent -- right now the insurance billing company needs to send us back our payment, and we can't seem to get them to do so -- I realized our housemate was on the phone having his own irate conversations. In the past couple of weeks he's had a couple of bureaucratic snafus that make our little problems seem trivial.

I started thinking that if what we are experiencing is actually becoming more and more normal, as companies cut back and customer service people, who are paid next to nothing and aren't usually the brightest bulbs in the socket, are overworked and as workloads become overwhelming and people make more mistakes, then we're all going to be spending more and more useless hours undoing the damage the idiots are causing.

Isn't this yet another one of those intangible drags that are threatening to suck us into a vortex of failure? As Cher said in that movies that she inexplicably won an Oscar for, "Snap out of it!" People have to start spending money and remembering basic economic principles of good customer service and good quality products. It's hard for all of us. Everything's been cut back and that sucks, but seriously, people still need to try a little harder.

My very favorite thing about the U.S. is that we're a scrappy country. Compared with the stodgy Europeans and the tradition-bound Asians and Middle Easterners, we tend to roll with the punches with greater agility because we don't tend to be governed by ancient mores. I'm just hoping that we can focus on rebuilding and going forward.

Our new president is right, we can make this a time of tremendous opportunity. But it will take a little hard work and a lot better attitude. Times are tough for everyone and seeing as we're all in it together, let's try to be a little nicer. This especially goes for those "customer service" people, but I'm also sending it out to that guy in the big white pickup truck who rode four inches from my rear bumper and is now swerving around me.

And I want to thank the people who are being nicer, like the bakery lady at Von's who saw me leaving the sorry-looking display of cookies. "Wait. I have some freshly baked ones," she said. I'll take a warm cookie any day.

Zen: In memorium

I found out yesterday that my stepfather died. My sister, Zizzy, with whom I have a tenuous relationship at best, sent me her annual Christmas card. I usually get it in March, but she was later than usual.

In the card she wrote "The big event of 2008 for me was the death of my father. He died of complications of a stroke and Parkinsons. Fortunately he had done some traveling in 2007/2008 and we saw him in Vermont, Ohio and NY." And with that, Zen is dead.

I'm not surprised I wasn't told more. It's not as though Zen liked me and would have wanted me to know (or comment) about what happened to him. But he was my stepfather since I was 10, having met my mom when I was 8. This behavior is normal for that side of my family, in which people stand ready to cut you off for life for so much as a missed thank you note.

I've spent many an hour with various therapists to be told that, basically, my mother and stepfather didn't like me at all. Every time I saw Zen he was furious with me for one reason or another. I would say "So what are you up to these days?" and he'd say "as little as possible" with as much hostility as he could muster, as though somehow it was MY expectations of him that were too high.

The last time I saw Zen was at my brother Lawrence's lavish New York City wedding (reception-at-The-Pierre lavish). My youngest Lindsay had somehow gotten into the tractor beam of some weird guy who kept grabbing her saying "I need to dance with her." Lindsay was about 7 at the time, and I ended up having to physically grab Lindsay and take her to the bathroom to escape this guy. I mentioned it to someone else there, that I was really creeped out by the inappropriate attention being paid to a 7-year-old. Zen found out and went ballistic. He wanted the guy arrested on the spot. For what? I thought, dancing too much with a 7-year-old? The guy hadn't done anything and I was making sure he wouldn't.

Mr. Delcol (sp?) -- the father of the bride -- reassured me that the creepy guy in question "was gay" (as though that would make it OK, which it didn't). I just wanted him away from my kid and wanted no more further embarrassing scenes and told DelCol that. Zen was apoplectic. He wanted the guy taken out in handcuffs and he was furious with me that I didn't share his fury.

That's the last time I saw Zen, but it pretty much defined our relationship. He tended to be furious with me. One year when I went to Colorado to spend Christmas with my dad and asked him to pick me up from the Newark airport, he was so angry at my "thoughtlessness" he drove the entire way from Newark to Princeton at about 95 mph, missing the mailboxes on the side of the road by inches. I've never been so terrified in my life.

So, I suppose that I would find out that he died sometime in 2008 in a belated Christmas card is fitting.

My brothers and I called him Zen after we met him. The first conversation, which became part of family legend, went roughly like this. "This is Mr. Zenowich," mom said.
"You look like Clark Kent," one of us (probably me) said.
"No. I'm more like Mighty Mouse," he said. Hilarity ensued.
We struggled with the name and he said to just call him "Zen." So we did.

Zen had a huge effect on my life and the way I think. He was one of the most intelligent people I ever knew and he shaped me intellectually. He once -- during a moment of honesty -- mentioned that he only liked me intellectually and he would nurture that. I guess what I got from Zen was the gift of original thinking. Zen was an iconoclast, always ready to shatter conventional wisdom.

When I lived at home, he was still struggling to make a career in the publishing world. But he hated it. And he would have fits of temper and quit his jobs, even though he was a really good editor, at least according to those authors he worked with. He had always bragged that he could live "perfectly happily" renting a room, with a bathroom down the hall, in New York, with no job or responsibility. My mom and Zen would have huge, ugly fights, made even uglier the greater the wine intake.

The fights used to freak my little sister Zizzy out. It was just her and me at home because my brothers ran away to my dad's because of the generally abusive nature of the household. (Zen actually broke his had once slamming it on the wooden table because he was angry at my brother.) I assured Zizzy that the marriage was OK. But it wasn't and Zen and my mom lived a kind of twilight marriage, where he would live with her for a while and then sometimes not.

I have no idea how Zen spent his final years. I have been estranged from my mom for a long time, after it became apparent that she planned to take the abusiveness that was her childrearing with me and apply it to my girls. The last time she saw my daughters, she spent most of her time drunkenly yelling at my youngest daughter for being "lazy, just like your mother." The girls made plans to to run away and escape her in the middle of the night. I could only think that I never wanted my daughters to experience what I had had to live with for the first 18 years of my life, so I decided enough was enough.

Zen pretty much was complicit with my mother and all I have left of my childhood are memories of desperately wanting to get away to where I wasn't despised. One time, I was trying to have Zizzy come visit me at college, but Mom and Zen wouldn't allow it until they talked with the psychologist I was seeing. After he spoke with both of them, in separate conversations, the shrink declared them to be the the most "awful" people he'd ever dealt with and his advice to me was to have as little to do with them as I could. Zizzy was never allowed to visit.

So I'm struggling with how, exactly, I deal with such a death. I never really hated Zen that much. But he always made it clear he didn't like me, despite mom's efforts to make us call him "dad." (Um, I already HAVE a dad, I blasphemed.) I can see his contemptuous smirk as I write this "what does this matter to YOU?" he'd say.

I wonder if my sister will let me know that my mom has died via a belated Christmas card.

Hammin' it up

We had a great Easter this year. The entire local family showed up, nephews, daughter, and we had assorted friends. It was a beautiful day and everyone had fun. Sean and Colin managed to fly the remote control bug that I got Rob for Christmas -- and has incidentally turned out to be one of the best presents I ever got him -- over to the lemon orchard. But they got it back. Kaia was delighted with her Easter egg hunt and made Rob find eggs that she hid. She also loved the musical jump rope Lindsay bought her. Kaia's been fixated on jump-ropes, and this one was perfect. even the dogs had a blast.

Our oven was broken, but I was able to use Lindsay's and she lives about 2 miles from here. I would have used Kim's but her oven is also broken. Despite the oven glitch, or maybe because it caused me to be more organized, everything came out on time and was tasty.

Because we're watching money these days, I've switched from the Honeybaked Ham, which I still love, to making my own because I can buy a 10-pound ham for $.77 a pound, and who can pass that up. I used a new method to make the ham and it came out great. I cooked the lamb on the grill. I've had problems with flare-ups and was running to get Dena from work, so I threw a big piece of aluminum foil on top of the grate under the lamb leg (which was on the top grate) and this solved all the flareup issues and the lamb cooked well.

I had made the scalloped potatoes a couple of days ahead and had Lindsay cook them ahead of time. Scalloped potatoes can be very hard to cook because they resist cooking through, especially if you make a big bunch, as I do. In warming them back up, they finished cooking and were at the perfect consistency. I got a bit carried away and bought too much asparagus, (which I served lightly cooked with melted butter and fresh-squeezed lemon) but I am having a great time eating all the leftover spears. I also served baby potatoes with butter, parsley and chopped scallions, which is a perennial favorite.

Gen brought garlic bread, which people devoured, and Kim brought a carrot cake from a local bakery. Lindsay also brought over an orange coffee cake she'd made that was quite delicious. In fact, it was what I broke my diet to eat.

I'm not sure why I had so much fun. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that -- for this moment in time -- we're all OK, we're together and we can enjoy each other's company. And as we've learned in the past few years, that's saying a lot.

Coke-baked ham

I had wanted to make ham with Coke for years because every Southerner swears by it. I bought a Mexican Coke -- made in Mexico and formulated with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup -- and poured that under the ham, which was placed big side down on a roasting rack in a roasting pan. I added about 1/2 cup of water, although looking back this probably wasn't necessary. I trimmed all the skin off the ham and cut the skin into diamonds. I studded the ham with whole cloves, stuck in at the intersections of the diamonds. The entire ham was covered with aluminum foil, which was extended to the pan edges forming a tight seal. I baked it in a 325 degree oven for about 20 minutes a pound or three hours for a 10-pound ham.

After the ham was done I glazed it with a brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, mustard glaze poured all over the ham and cooked uncovered for another hour.

One thing Rob always loved in Ohio was the Dorothy lane market Heavenly Ham(TM) salad. I have yet to see a ham salad in California that holds a candle to the DLM delicacy. So I have had to resort to making my own version. In fact, I've made two version. The first version is designed to taste as much like the DLM original as possible and the second one is designed to be low-carb, so it's made with dill pickle relish, not sweet relish.

Devilishly delicious ham salad

Leftover Coke-baked ham cut into 1/2 inch cubes
Mayonnaise, to taste
Yellow mustard, to taste
Sweet pickle relish

Place all of the ham in a food processors fitted with the big blade and chop fairly fine. Place all of the chopped ham in a bowl and add enough mayonnaise and mustard (I use about 2 tablespoons mustard to about a half cup of mayonnaise)to moisten. Add pickle relish to taste. I add about 3 to 4 tablespoons for two cups of ham salad. For the low-carb version, use dill pickle relish in place of the sweet relish.

Gettin' down in the kitchen

My grandparents had big aspirations. They had reinvented themselves, my grandfather shrugging off his immigrant Irish background to become a much more refined Scot. They had lost their humble Minnesota beginnings and lived a life of privilege. But my grandfather, a devout Catholic, was never truly content with his wealth and there was always an underlying air of fear -- fear that he didn't deserve his riches.

My grandparents had a grand house in Greenwich, Conn., and our holiday meals were always formal affairs, with a multitude of dishes served to us by the live-in couple David and Ethelyne, who wore uniforms and served us out of sterling silver dishes.

Our meals were served elegantly. The conversation was light, interesting and very proper. Table manners had to be scrupulously adhered to. My grandmother had a little bell she would ring when it was time for the next course, and David and Ethelyne would come in and clear plates and serve the next dish efficiently and gracefully.

For a child, these were exhausting affairs. You always had to look out for the dirty look, which mom tended more toward with each glass of the copious wine. I could never wait until the dinner, with each portion kept carefully modest, would end and I could escape to the kitchen and hang out with David and Ethelyne.

Because I was a child, they felt no reservations about sliding into their natural black patois from the carefully modulated and unfailingly polite tones they used with my grandparents. David would laugh and dance and tickle Ethelyne, who would giggle, and gesture reprovingly at me, over picking at the turkey. And David would make some kind of inclusive statement like "Oh she doesn't mind" or something and I would laugh -- real belly laughs, as they went back and forth, and feel a sense of inclusion.

David and Ethelyne lived in the half-finished attic (it was kind of summer house-y, exposed lumber walls) with their two children, who were both born while they worked for my grandparents, Dennis and Denise, who I dubbed Niecy after a girl in my class. I had found out -- because I had asked, I was always asking questions -- that my grandparents gave David and Ethelyne a home in exchange for their work. I was incensed. I accused them of being "slaveholders." It was so unbelievably unfair to me that these people had to live in the unfinished attic, while my grandparents lived in their elegantly appointed, tastefully decorated, antiques-filled home below.

Eventually David and Ethelyne also decided that this wasn't the way they wanted to raise their children and they moved out. I had heard that Dennis got some awful disease and my grandfather made sure they had money to pay for treatments. My grandfather always made sure the people he hired in his home were taken care of. He gave the young Filipino grandson of the couple who lived with him and helped care for him at the end of his life the same amount of money as he gave his grandchildren. I say that totally without rancor -- it was HIS money -- but as an illustration of my grandfather's egalitarian impulses toward the end of his life.

By then the guilt of his money had become overwhelming and my grandfather ended up giving most of it to the church. He was very defensive about this when I last saw him. But, hey it was his money to do with as he pleased. By this time I had discovered real poverty first-hand and was even more cynical about my grandfather's infatuation with "the poor." There is absolutely nothing noble about poverty. It is ugly and demeaning.

Eventually I was too old to be dismissed from the table, besides we did our own cleaning and serving after David and Ethelyne left. And there was no fun kitchen where I could sneak turkey bits. Holidays lost a lot of their luster.

But one of the things that always intrigued me was the dichotomy that David and Ethelyne had. In front of my grandparents they spoke one way and when they were in private they had an entire different way of speaking and moving. They laughed. David would do his George Jefferson walk with the dip, way before it was on TV. I always felt so comfortable and happy when I was around David and Ethelyne, much to my grandmother's chagrin.

Later I noticed the same thing when I worked with a bunch of black journalists at the Dayton Daily news. Blacks are hugely under-represented in the newspaper business, as are other minorities. But in Dayton there was a pretty good-sized group of blacks there, which was good seeing as there is a very large black population on Dayton.

I never felt any tension with my black colleagues and never even would have noticed a difference, except for one thing: When they would get together, they would slip into the black patios, the easy drawl that they reserved just for each other. The minute anyone of another race would approach, the speech would slip back into the educated modulations they all used professionally.

It's not one of those things where I can start using a black-ish drawl when I approach, as I've seen many idiots do. I'm not black and it would look like a silly affectation and it's insulting. But I was always so hurt by it. I always felt excludedl.

I've never known how to even approach this with any black people I know without sounding stupid. It's the same exclusion, although this is more subtle, as the ban on any white people using the "n-word," while blacks call each other that whenever they want.

Frankly, I think that giving any word such extraordinary power is ridiculous and just begs for abuse. That's why I'm very much against the whole "retard" movement, trying to get that classified as "hate speech." There should be no such thing as hate speech. Giving up that much power by allowing yourself to be devastated by certain words uttered by any ignorant moron is just stupid.

But back to the black speech dichotomy. Here's my question. Do the Obamas, when they get alone with their friends behind closed doors, do they slip into the easy black drawl, and if I came in the room would they all stop?

Trash-ination

I've always been attracted to trashy, nasty girls. Not men, so much, maybe because trashy behavior is accepted more in men. Even as a young girl, my very favorite musical was Gypsy because it was about strippers. I almost memorized The Happy Hooker when I was in the eighth grade.

I found to my surprise that I was actually repulsed my such nastiness up close. When I was about 8 months pregnant I made my first foray into a strip bar. After the initial minute or so of shock at the nakedness, it was sordid and actually dirty. Like the guys who were there are dirty, the place was dirty -- as in they have dirt on them.

I found it the most un-sexy thing ever, watching these bored, half-lit girls wiggle around desperately to earn money. I remember this one mousy little waitress who had on a really cheap blond wig and looked terrified. It was so dejected and sad. As I walked in the door, the bouncer felt compelled to pat my belly, but hell, it's not as though the baby is participating in any of this. I nursed my lukewarm, flat Coke and counted the minutes until I could leave. I wasn't offended, just tired and bored.

But my fascination lives on. I just make sure to keep it more in the conceptual arena. This is all a long preamble to the shame-faced confession that I'm completely addicted to Rock of Love starring Bret Michaels. Michaels is the front man for a moderately successful power band from the 80s called Poison. They pretty much sucked and all you probably hear from them is "Ain't Nothing But A Good Time" which is trotted out at sporting events. "Every Rose has its Thorn" is another, really bad song they did.

The formula for the show is simple, Bret Michaels a middle-aged pudgy, chinless, apparently balding, guy who wears bandannas and the cheapest looking wig ever ("Finest hair extensions Europe has to offer" -- as he put it in one show -- notwithstanding), is looking to find love by having a bunch of girls come and vie for his "heart." It's kind of like The Bachelor, although instead of a good-looking, young guy, you have a washed-up rock singer in his 40s. And instead of a bevy of lovely, dewy young things, you have the trashiest strippers, porn stars and whatever they could dredge from the gentlemen's clubs and peep shows around the LA and Vegas areas.

You gotta love it. Brett, who has Type I diabetes, pretends he's this wild, partying rock star, when, in fact, he's in a long-term relationship with some girl and has two very young kids. His signature move is to make out with all the girls. And he's of the St. Bernard slobber school of making out, which makes it especially disgusting. Plus the majority of the girls are about half his age -- and this dude shows his age.

Nonetheless, I have to watch it. This season, Bret took his show on the road. The producers were able to wrangle up some really lovely examples of sex on the hoof this side of the HBO series Hookers at the Point. The intellectual discourse among these girls and Michaels is something to behold. Michaels uses such endearing terms terms as "me likey" or "Hey OH" or "your hotness" as he slits his protuberant eyes into snake-like slits and watches the latest silicone-bloated chest come staggering toward him for some of that luscious, slurping making out.

The girls drink constantly and compete in absurd games that seem designed to showcase the plastic, surgically enhanced beauty that Michaels finds so appealing. This season is winding down. Bret made the fatal error of getting rid of the trashiest girls too early. I think he didn't mean for the last one to leave, but this time most of the girls are more obvious in their disdain for Michaels and they seem delighted to get the hell away from liver lips.

But I'll still watch to see who has "captured Bret's heart" this season. The last time, he spoke sadly of the blow-job he probably wasn't going to get from one of the girls he had cast aside earlier in the competition. He really is a disgusting man, although that doesn't stop me from watching his every move.

I agree with the blogger who said this was the only show from which you could get a contact STD. When I'm done watching, though, it's always time for a nice, long, hot shower.

Living la vida lo-carb

Once again I find myself packing way too many pounds, which is even more worrisome than usual given the fragile nature of my legs and joints these days. So Dr. Atkins and I have found ourselves reacquainted.

I'm not sure what it is about my body, but ti seems to respond well to a lo-carb diet. My dad has used the Atkins diet since the 70s to lose weight. Back then it was the "drinking man's" diet because you could still consume as much alcohol as you wanted and eat steaks.

These days they've watered down the message a bit and don't call for the high-fat, meat-only diet the good doctor espoused. But then he slipped on a patch of ice and cracked his skull open, so he is no longer around to keep the message alive.

But the good ol' Atkins seems to work for me, especially now with more and more no sugar treats. Overall I try to avoid sugar. I've always had a bad reaction to eating too much of it and when I cut it out entirely, I tend to be a lot healthier. It's kind of a shame because I've discovered baking in my older age and now I can only make the treats, not eat them.

The good news, however, is that I've lost weight, and although I need to lose more, I'm encouraged. I've been pretty much subsisting on meat and salad dinners, with an emphasis on chicken and seafood ever since my uric acid level came back high during my pre-surgery blood work, which could be an early sign of gout, which I DON'T want to get.

I still eat meat from time to time, though. In fact, I'd been wanting to make some meatballs for a while because we had a can of those french fried onions you use in green bean casseroles hanging around and they have 3 carbs per 2 tablespoons, which means they'd be a great replacement for bread crumbs in my meatballs, I thought.

I had seen a recipe for meatballs and baked ziti and decide to craft my own lo-carb version. Once of the greatest discoveries for us lo-carb, low glycemic index dieters has been Dreamfields Pasta, which allows us to eat pasta with carbs that are basically passed through the body. I showed it to my dad and have studied it and it seem legit. And the Trader Joe's
Barbecue Grill & Broil seasoning is fabulous because it has no salt and lot's of flavor.

So here's my Lo-carb baked ziti with meatballs

1 and one-half box Dreamfields** penne pasta, cooked to shy of al dente and drained
1 pound ground beef 85/15
2/3 can of Durkee french friend onions, crushed
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon Trader Joe's barbecue Grill & Broil seasoning
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 large cans Progresso chopped tomatoes with puree
3 fresh bay leaves
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 package trader Joe's quattro frommagio cheese
1 pound whole milk mozzarella cheese
1 pint whole milk ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Mix together the ground beef, dried onions, grill seasoning, eggs and Parmesan cheese. Roll in small balls and cook in skillet with olive oil heated to medium. Cook meatballs until browned on all sides. Drain the fat (this is absolutely necessary to make a non-greasy meal). Add onions in with meatballs and cook until transluscent, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add cans of tomatoes, wine, oregano and bay leaves. simmer. Mix the ricotta cheese with two large eggs. Using a large baking dish (11 by 13 inches) sprayed with canola oil, spoon a few tablespoons of sauce (avoid meatballs) into the bottom. Top with half the cooked penne. Top the sauce with two-thirds of the ricotta mixture. Top with half the quattro frommagio, half of the mozzarella, sliced and half the remaining Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining pasta. Add remaining ricotta and other remaining cheeses. Bake in 350 oven for 40 minutes.

** Dreamfields cut their box size to 13 ounces, so you have to use more than once box. Jerks.
*** real Atkins calls for whole milk products, which are much lower in carbs.

Look what they done to my beach, ma

Rob and I love the beach here. We take the dogs there every day, which they love. But recently our beloved beach walk has become marred by tons of crap that is being dumped their by the harbor authorities. I thought mucking up the coastlines was a no-no in California. Apparently I was wrong.

We used to take the to the park -- Cemetery Park -- where they peed with delight on the graves on Ventura's founders each and every day. I'm not sure if it's something they put on the grass or what, but first Rascal would chew his paws after he was at the park. He would rub his belly on the grass, which made it itch, so bright dog that he is, he'd rub it more.

Then Fuser started limping every time we took him to the park and his paws started getting red. The vet and I agreed that it appears to be an allergy of some kind, so long story finally over, we decided to take the dogs to the beach for their daily constitutional.

Chris once observed that he couldn't imagine the endless boredom of our dogs' lives. But we pointed out that they experience such boundless joy that they can live their lives with going to the beach as the highlight and they're at the zenith of doggie aspiration. Their second favorite thing is going to bed because they all snuggle under the covers or on top of the down comforter. And a good cuddle or bellyrub will never be turned down.

Our dogs enjoy food as much as the next dog, but they're not food-obsessed because we let them graze. The worst thing you can do for dogs, we've found, and for people, is to make them feel deprived. Then they become obsessed with whatever they feel they're not getting. That's why diets never work in the long run.

What our dogs go crazy for is their daily walk to the beach. They get so excited when Rob and I started getting ready, it's like being in the vortex of a furry tornado. When we put Stash's harness on her, they go completely bananas. Titan emits a piercing skull-splitting shriek/bark and jumps around knocking everything off the coffee table. Rascal starts barking hysterically and they all run to the door and back to us in frantic circles.

Occasionally, we have errands to run prior to the beach run, although we did learn our lesson about taking too long with pre-walk errands when we went to Fry's in Oxnard one day and on the way back Rascal shit in the car. They save up their poopies for their walks and if they don't get to the beach in short order, well, you can't hold them responsible, they say.

We take the dogs down to the beach at Ventura Harbor, which is one of the few where dogs are allowed. Most beaches don't allow dogs. They say it's because the fecal matter contaminates the ocean. But most people will pick up after their dogs. It's just that the world is divided between dog-lovers and assholes, and it seems the assholes are in charge and make the signs.

The beach at Ventura Harbor is one of the nicest, IMO, because there are no houses crowded up next to it. It's pretty wild and it extends down to the Santa Clara river mouth. It's a great place to see sunsets over the Channel Islands and birdwatch. We all love our daily walks there.

Well until recently. Each year, the Harbor Commission or whomever, has the harbor dredged. It isn't a natural harbor and it tends to fill with sand and other crap during the year. The dredging is done in the winter or early spring to avoid tourist season. They have a big dredging boat that is basically a giant vacuum that sucks all the crap up from the bottom of the harbor and sends it down a pipe that they extend down the beach. Then they dump the crap by the Santa Clara river mouth. This year they have a couple of bullzoders and they appear to be making some kind of makeshift jetty our of all the crap they're dredging up. But a bunch of the crap is drifting down the beach, back toward the harbor and being dumped all over the once-beautifil beaches where we walk the dogs.

Now the beach smells bad and the dogs are forever finding all kinds of nasty treats in the debris. Usually when there's a lot of debris on the beach, they come and bulldoze in into the sand. I'm hoping they get this bulldozed soon. Because until then our beach walks are a whole lot less enjoyable for us. The dogs aren't complaining, though. They LOVE trash.

Sad, bad times

The kids ask, Do you ever remember it being this bad? Hell no, we reply. Rob and I came of age in 1973, which was a bad economic downturn, what with the first energy crisis. There were lines to get gas and inflation was insane. But we were both really young and people will always hire kids because they don't cost much.

We made it all the way through the crappy 70s. Anyone remember WIN buttons? Whip Inflation Now. We remember mortgage rates of 14-plus percent, and thought we'd never be able to buy a house, and we weren't for quite a while.

Conservatives like to point to what they call, through their distorted lens, the Golden Reagan era. Lately Rush the Magic Idiot has been saying that Reagan cut taxes to stimulate the economy. First, at the end taxes were higher under Reagan than at the beginning of his term, which started with huge inflation/stagnation and ended with the savings and loan crisis and the great market crash of 1988.

But now there's the Great Meltdown, and the ground has the solidity of quicksand. Today it was announced that the Rocky Mountain News was going to cease publication. We all find this so sad, even though it will probably help out at the Star because Scripps won't be hemorrhaging money and a money-making vehicle like the Star had to subsidize the Rocky Mountain News for a long time in its losing battle against Dean Singleton and Media News, another member of the conservative cabal.

But I used to live in Colorado and know some of the people at the Rocky from back then. I also know some kids who went out there because it was the biggest paper in the Scripps chain and a great step up.

I guess what I'm failing to understand is how newspapers can be folding and cutting back when the need for news has grown exponentially. Here we have all kinds of gadgets to keep us updated 27/7 with information and at the rate we're going there will be no one to supply it.

When I first started at newspapers one of my favorite parts of the job was access to the AP wires. I could see what tomorrow's news was going to be today. It was almost a living thing, constantly morphing and updating as events unfolded and the reporters kept pace. Now everyone can get the news immediately, without the need for a physical newspaper, which is an anachronism.

But the news business is too entrenched and lacking in vision, having been effectively cowed by, as Hillary put it, a vast right-wing conspiracy that screams and moans about any news coverage that didn't fit into their rigid, narrow, bigoted agenda.

Newspaper editors went from booze-guzzling bombasts, who lived and died to get the best, most accurate story out to readers to corporate lackeys who were promoted precisely for their unthreatening mediocrity. So when it came time for creativity and real original thinking, they all stood around a table peering down at a computer screen, bellies hanging over their belts, arms crossed, one hand to the mouth, with a disapproving look, never offering suggestions, insight or ideas, just peering intently and vacantly as their world crumbled around them.

Now the news business in in a tatters because newspaper executives can't seem to get their minds around how to give people what they actually want in this Brave New World of News.

People want a discussion. They're tired of some middle-aged white guy telling them what "good news judgment" is. People want to decide what they want to learn about things. They want to have a say in what is reported, rather than the pedantic model newspapers now use and can't get away from.

Newspaper people need to take a page from our new president, who always found that he made his best decisions when he was able to get out and listen to people, real working people, as they gathered and spoke about their lives.

As journalists, we need to get out and find out what people want us to write about. Not what they SAY they want us to write about -- because people aren't going to SAY they want to see more stories about Paris Hilton, even as they read the latest about her at TMZ. Newspapers need to use Yahoo and Google for models of how to package news online. They need more reporters gathering more and more news and they need to charge advertisers -- not right now -- but on a sliding scale for being on their web sites.

Right now, it appears newspapers are in a death spiral and there's nothing left to do but wait for the inevitable crash. Until they embrace real change in their business model and the way they approach the packaging and preparation of the news, they're just not going to be able to survive.

I'm not sure where we're all going to end up after the smoke has cleared. We're hanging on by our fingernails, as most everyone is these day. It's a Brave New World out there and it's time to embrace it and use the disruption to create something new and better, kind of what our new president is trying to do.

Valentine's Day and the Last Lobster

We celebrated Valentine's Day the way we usually do, at home. The last time we went out we were disgusted when we went to our favorite steak place, The Sportsman, and they had a limited menu with jacked-up prices. And it's super-crowded everywhere else, which is far from romantic IMO (I love little abbreviations, no matter how precious they may be). Besides I can always make our favorite dishes better than we can get them out.

This year, I wanted spiny lobster. I'm doing Atkins again after having gained way too much weight as the result of the surgeries and over the holidays. One of the good things about Atkins is you can eat such decadent meals as a steak dinner or lobster or crab and it's OK, just so long as you stay away from bread and potatoes.

Spiny lobster is only in season here from the middle of October to the middle of March. Then there's a moratorium on fishing for the lobsters, which BTW I found our are not, in fact, lobsters, but rather giant cousins of crawfish. I haven't had one in years and really love the taste of the sweet meat that's in the large tails. I think spiny lobster is actually tastier than Maine Lobster.

So I had to get up early on Saturday -- Valentine's Day -- and head to the fisherman's market at Ventura Harbor. If you're not there early, you miss out on the best stuff. I was a little worried at first because there only seemed to be lots and lots of crabs, but we found the lobster guy and picked out a big old lobster, which they packed in a frozen bananas box and then wrapped in saltwater-soaked newspaper.

The last time I got a lobster, I felt bad and tried to make some salt water by pouring salt into tap water in the sink. I put the poor lobster in there and I swear to God he screamed, arched his back and tried to jump out before he died, which he did immediately, so this time no trying to make a saltwater bath.

Rob had come with me and was asking the fishermen about the spider crabs, which I had been told were not very tasty. These guys say, however, that it's hard to crack the thick shells, but the meat under the top shell of the body is delicious. Spider crabs are really cool and grow to be huge giving them this primordial feel. They have one on the wall at The Sportsmen and it's cool-looking, in a creepy way.

After the fisherman's market, we headed to the Ventura farmers market because I had to take pictures and get information for the farmers market column (Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE writing that column? The very first pictures I ever took with my camera were of the Santa Barbara farmers market. I love love love farmers markets.)

We shopped around, finding the artichokes I needed for my meal. We also got blueberries, which they're just starting to grow around here, and some garlic grass, which I realized as soon as we got home, I have growing in my garden. But I get caught up in my own enthusiasm when I'm there and it was only a buck and a half.

On the way home Rob wanted to stop by our neighborhood flower guy to get roses. He ended up with 21 roses for $40. One phenomenon I found interesting when I came to Southern California was the practice of many Mexicans of selling flowers on such holidays as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day -- those are the big ones out on the streets. On Valentine's Day the entire length of Ventura Avenue is lined with tables featuring roses, stuffed animals and red, heart-shaped balloons. I love how cheerful they look, even though business seemed slow this year.

Even though the flowers were beautiful, especially after I added some baby's breath, but I felt guilty about eating the lobster all day. I've made lobsters before, but as I get older my twinges of guilt over eating animals grow. Actually killing one is even harder on my conscience. When it came time, I just wanted to get it over. I checked the size of the lobster to make sure it would fit in the pot and when I was going to put the lobster in to measure it, it started flipping its whole body back and forth violently, apparently knowing full-well what I was doing.

Rob started yelling about how cruel and evil I was and I did feel pretty bad. I briefly entertained the notion of going back to the harbor and dumping the poor lobster there and letting him fend for himself. But the thought of the $27 I had paid, along with my strong desire to eat some sweet lobster meat allowed me to put my qualms aside.

After all, the beef I'd bought for Rob's Swiss steak -- his favorite meal, with mashed potatoes and canned sweet peas -- had probably been as upset about his death. The thought of a cow -- eyes rimmed with white in sheer panic, being led into one of those killing boxes where they drive a charge into its skull didn't me feel less guilty, unfortunately.

At this point the lobster's alien extruded eyes were drilling me. I mean I swear I can feel it when my plants are thirsty. I can hear them scream for water, so this lobster's buggy eyes following me around the room made me feel even more guilty. Not guilty enough, however, not to plunge the poor guy headfirst into the boiling water when the time came.

I cooked him up, alongside the artichoke and sat down to savor a meal of lemon butter-drenched food. But I swear the meat didn't taste right and I couldn't get too much of it down. I devoured the artichoke, which didn't seem to object to being boiled as much as the lobster had.

Later that evening, I'm not sure if it was the lobster or the malitol from eating a million sugar-free chocolates, but I had an attack of colic to end all attacks. Rob said he thought the house was going to shake off its foundations with the volume of gas bursting from my body. He said the lobster was getting its revenge.

Now the story should ended there, but today I ate some of the leftover lobster cold, and it tasted delicious and so far I'm not doubled over. So we'll see, but I think my days of buying live animals to eat are probably over.

Oh for anyone wondering, the way to make artichokes is to trim the stem almost off -- it's fibrous and almost inedible. Pick off the smallest leaves and trim the artichoke by cutting the tips of the leaves off. You don't have to do this, but the leave tips have thorns and you can prick your finger, which hurts when you're dipping your artichoke in lemon butter.

Bring about 2 inches of salted water to a boil in a large covered pot. Add the artichoke and cook for about 18 to 20 minutes or until a fork pierces the stem end easily. Serve with lemon butter, which you make by melting a half stick of butter in the microwave in 20 second increments. Mix with the juice of half a lemon.

Seashells and seances

A few months back my friend Kim decided it would be great fun if we all went to a seance. It was scheduled for Dia de los Muertos at 11 p.m. at the Olivas Adobe, which is this really old rancho from the 1800s -- what passes for historical in California. I was game, even though I had to talk Rob into it. "You're scared," I said. "It will be lame," he countered. We sucked up the $40 per person fee for the spooky event, which was conducted by our local historical raconteur.

I've lived in a number of communities over the years, and each one has a self-designated guy -- it always seems to be a guy -- who's rather rotund and has a whole schtick about the history of the area, complete with ghost tales. I'm not sure why the rotund part, but it seems to go with the whole dramatic effect. Ventura's local guy specializes in Perry Mason stuff and ghost stories that seem to revolve around Ventura's City Hall and the adobe.

He wasn't the medium for the seance, though, the medium was his wife. Their daughter, who appeared sad and lonely, also was along for the ride. We showed up at the adobe at the appointed time and were given the standard lecture about the place. We went over how the Olivas family had 24 kids -- take that Duggars -- born from the same woman. Our local historian talked about how the family made its money supplying beef to the Gold Rush speculators to the north.

It was all stuff I knew already. One thing I do when I move to a new place is try to find out about its history. I love old historical stuff, and I'd put together a talk that I gave about the history of food in Ventura County awhile back, so I'd studied a lot of this before.

We were then given tours of the adobe and were allowed to go upstairs, but not all at once because the floors aren't very sturdy. Lindsay had been wrangled at the last minute to come along after someone else canceled, so it was Kim, Dennis, Rob, me and a friend of Kim's, Teresa Rochester, a reporter for the Star. We all agreed afterward that the tour, especially late at night, was the best part.

The seance itself was laughable. I'd gotten into it with the medium right before the seance about a local park that had once been a cemetery, but had been bulldozed years ago. Now it's a dog park, where hundreds of people a day come with their dogs to enjoy the sunshine and let the dogs frolic and socialize. There is a small, vocal group of fanatics that's all up in arms about "dogs defecating" on the graves of the people buried in what has become known as Cemetery Park -- it's actually named Memorial Park.

Frankly I don't give a shit about the old moldering bones (yup I did it, I had to go there). When I'm dead and gone and my remains are decaying I pray someone will have the sense to allow picnics on my grave. I hope lovers fornicate on my grave and certainly hope the entire dog population makes its doodies on top of me, with a few tinkles sprinkled in. I want life to happen on the earth. I want people to be happy frolicking in the grass. I'm dead. Gone. Every time a baby laughs and every time a dog wags his tail up there, it's a salute to my life, or at least what I want the memory of my life to be. After all, that's really all that's left after you die, the memories of your life. I want my memories to be happy ones.

The medium was of the dogs-defecating-on-the-graves side of the argument and when she started going on about it, I had to say something (Seriously. Some of the most dangerous words in my lexicon are "I had to do/say something.") The seance was held shortly after that.

We were led inside and sat in a large circle. There were a bunch of people there, maybe 35-plus. I wondered how many of them believed, really believed, in this stuff and how many were skeptical curiosity seekers, like us. I'm not saying I don't believe in afterlife or spirits, because I believe there are a lot of things we don't understand and that there is an essential energy that makes us all who we are, so it's possible. But, as Dennis said, if there were any energy from the otherworld, it wasn't in that room.

The medium did her schtick, which included some lovely displays of, by turns, phlegmatic clearing of the throat (dubbed by Theresa as Lugie boy), simulated childbirth, which seemed especially creepy given that pants-clad legs of the medium were splayed, and I kept thinking if I see a wet spot, I'm outta here. Then she popped up and looked with pop-eyes at Lindsay, who was giggling uncontrollably by now. She tried to catch my gaze, but I was having none of it, and peered intently at the rug pattern. We were all tempted to throw our hands in the air because she'd warned us that if we broke the circle, she could go into shock and die, which sounded really interesting.

"Respect me," she rasped, all dramatic and spooky. I thought Lindsay was going to leave a wet stain, she was laughing so hard. This went on for a while. Then the medium tried calling out random names of people who could be close to any of us. No dice there. She spoke in what she said was Chinese, but sounded like what I would have made up if I were pretending to speak Chinese. Good thing we didn't have any Chinese people there.

We were all glad when it was finally over with some really silly "readings." The medium talked about Lindsay's sex life, probably to embarrass her to get back at her for giggling.

After, we all talked about the experience. We all agreed the tour was the best part. Before the seance, during the tour of the house, we went upstairs into the bedrooms the Olivas family used. In one of the rooms was a box covered with seashells. We were told that the box was probably made by one of the Olivas daughters.

I was transfixed by the box. The seashells had been carefully collected and separated according to size. Then, whomever had made the box glued the shells on in very careful patterns. It was the coolest thing. The shells are exactly the same kinds of shells I find when I go to the harbor for my daily walk with my defecating dogs (Yes, we clean up after them). When the anonymous Olivas girl had made her box, all filled with the romantic yearning that absorbs the adolescent girl psyche. She had to have walked the same beach I walk each day. Of course, in her time, there was no harbor and no jetties.

Now when I walk along the beach I try to imagine how it looked back when some attention-deprived middle child of 24 children would run down the road to the beach, where she'd chuck her shoes and stockings and wade by the Santa Clara rivermouth. I wonder if she was as enthralled as I am by the dance of the pelicans as they drift under the breaking waves in patterns that evoke the theme from Apocalypse Now when the copters flew over the rice paddies.

Of course shellgirl would never have thought of rice paddies and helicopters, so I wonder if she had a crush on a handsome ranch hand and if she was collecting the shells for a box to put her dowry in. Not her official dowry, but the dowry of young girls of that time, which would have been the little knick-knacks girls collected back before we were inundated with plastic crap from the mall. But then I realize the box is still at the house, so whoever made it never made it outside the home with her dreams. That makes me a little sad.

While we were touring the house, we stopped to look for ghosts. We all stood there in the dark peering as hard as we could. But there were no ghosts that night, except perhaps in that shell box, glimmering in the streetlights by the front window of the Olivas Adobe.

Hopefully lumpless

So I had my plastic surgery today to -- please, please, please -- finally get rid of the damned stupid lump. First of all this doctor was NOTHING like MacNamara & Troy on Nip/Tuck. But he DID draw on me, just like in the movies and on TV, only he used all different colors ("just like a Christmas tree" he said.

I see him again tomorrow to see if anything is going wrong. I'm also drugged because it's really sore. This should be the last surgery from the truck hitting me. Well, when I eventually have to have my right knee replaced, which seems inevitable, it will have happened earlier than it would have if the truck hadn't hit me, but it's not a direct cause and effect.

Rob and I pretty much have this whole surgery thing down now, after all between the two of us we've had surgeries in the past 18 months. It's a damned good thing we're both so healthy.

Dena was great and took me to and from the hospital. Lindsay couldn't because she had school. She's studying to be a teacher. I wish her the best of luck, although I think she would be well suited to going into politics. I keep bugging her to make a run for city council because she's smart, charismatic and she has a great heart.

My thought for the day (bear in mind it's narcotic fueled, but ask Coleridge, sometimes the best art comes from opiates) In these bleak economic times it is the friendships you have that become even more valuable. There is a sense of comfort in knowing we're all afraid, but if we stick together, we can get through it.

Speaking of hard times, it's time to plant a garden and some more fruit trees.