Boom to Bust

It's International Day of Peace today.

"Peace."

It was a common greeting back in the late 60's and early 70's, usually offered with the two-fingered "peace sign" which for some strange reason became the de rigueur photo pose for millions of young Japanese (even to this day! Point a camera at a group of schoolkids and see what happens!) 

The Pupster demonstrates the "peace" pose.

The boomer generation started off with such high hopes, beautiful ideals. What happened? Were the seeds of greed, selfishness, vengeance and lack of empathy already planted in us by our parents, unintentionally, as they tried to give us all the material comforts and conveniences of life? When we look back, yes, we were a lazy bunch. or were we just a bunch of hypocrites? It's easy to look back at the peace movement, civil rights movement, eco-consciousness movement cynically and say most of the people involved were really not committed but were there because other young people were there. You know, seeing demonstrations and protests as some sort of a giant rave. Was that all it was? Was it all a farce?

What failures we were in keeping the spirit and nurturing it for the next generation. Just look at the successive generations -- each one more self-absorbed than the last.

Boomer parents look at kids and go, what the heck is wrong with them? They're tied to their cell phones, their video games, their FaceBooks and Twitters, sending silly updates about what they ate or what they bought, always shooting "selfless." But WE gave that generation the cell phone. WE made the video games. WE created cheap laptops and the internet. WE turned them into vacant consumers who lack the brain cells to question authority, seek the truth, or even value what is real and true.

We were the kids who hid under our desks during a-bomb drills at public schools. We lived with the fear of nuclear annihilation. Well, that fear is still here but it's not our fear anymore. We've become fat and complacent, letting governments take us into war after war, letting them encroach on our liberties. We'll let corporations take over the world. We'll let industry destroy our ability to live on this planet, because as Big Dog says, Earth will still be here and the living things on this planet will mutate enough to be able to live in an irradiated world. But not us. Then again, why should we. We don't deserve this beautiful blue orb, so unique, so special, unlike any other we know of.

We could not teach our children the right values. We didn't even have them ourselves.

I've been disgusted with us a lot these days.

Venice Transformed

36 years is a long time. That's how long it's been since I was in Venice last. Back then, Venice seemed filled with North American and European tourists. Every restaurant was too expensive for me. Today, Venice feels more like Las Vegas in some ways. It must be the cruise ships. The whole place has turned into a theme park shopping mall.

Not Casanova's Bridge of Sighs!

Souvenir vendors galore

Gondola traffic jams!

The dreaded cruise ships...

...but you can still find quiet canals 

And early in the morning, you have the whole place to yourself!

Michelangelo's Ghost

The last time I was in Rome and Florence was to cover the Mille Miglia races in the early 90s for a Japanese TV station. Just a few hours and a short night on the outskirts of Rome to interview the racers. Before that was in the late 70s as an impoverished student doing the Backpack-Through-Europe-On-As-Little-As-Humanly-Possible Thing. (You were supposed to able to travel on $20 a day. I didn't have that much money then.)

"The people have changed, but Roma is still Roma," said Sergio, the owner of the little residenza across from the Lago Argentina ruins.

Yes, they have. In 1977, the place was filled with tourists, but now, it is absolutely jam-packed, and with the kinds of people who weren't even traveling back then. Everyone behind the Iron Curtain, the Chinese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Indians, Middle Easterners, South Americans...

But with the influx of tourists, Rome has also changed. Every place charges a hefty admission. (I remember much being free for students back in the 70s.) There are long lines for everything. Spots like the Fountain of Trevi and Spanish Steps are a zoo of humanity.

Overlooking crowds from the top of the Spanish Steps

The biggest shock was waiting for me at the Vatican. And it wasn't the throngs either.

I was last inside the Sistine Chapel pre-restoration project. That happened sometime in the 80s when Japanese companies had too much money to waste, including Nippon TV who underwrote the project.

After tiring ourselves out trying to see everything inside the Vatican Museum, my mother and I were swept along a human river to the Last Spot. The Sistine Chapel. Guards are shouting "Silence!" trying to quiet the murmur of hundreds of people, shoulder to shoulder in the famous Chapel.

Oh my god. The colors are nothing like what I remember. It's all too vivid, too...colorful. But the most shocking aspect of the "new" Sistine Chapel was that in removing centuries of soot from the frescoes, they seem to have taken away some of the charcoal shading. Things look flat. Some figures lack eyes. Faces have lost detail.

This was not how Michelangelo painted the celebrated ceiling. At least, not in my relatively uneducated opinion.

Some say this is due to the misunderstanding of the restorers who thought Michelangelo painted on wet plaster, buon fresco, and did not come back to add details to the dried paster, so everything on top of the original painted plaster was removed.

I imagine Michelangelo rolling in his grave. Until I remember how even during the painting of The Last Judgement, he had conflicts with the clergy about nudity. I think clothes were painted on some of the figures later on, by an artist who got the nickname "Breeches Painter." Michelangelo's ghost has been rocking and rolling for a loooong time. If it stayed here at all. Nah. Why would it. Why would it stay here when there's...West Hollywood?

The Internet Group I Want Most

With all the different internet forums and groups, you'd think there would be one for people who were tormented by foodie moms.

Last month my mother flew from Japan to spend time with me in Honolulu and I realized how cooking for her puts me on edge. Crazy how trauma from decades ago creeps up like this.

My mother has never been a laid back person, but she was at her worst during the first few years following my father's very early death. All understandable. She lost not only her life partner but the sole breadwinner. They had just bought a house in suburban Tokyo so there was a giant mortgage. My father, a man who lived mostly in the moment, thought he would be able to provide for his family forever and had no life insurance. Their savings had been eaten up by my Very Expensive International School Tuition. My mother had to join the work force for the first time in her life at 45 and the waters were rough and hard to navigate. Not to mention the exhausting hour-long commute on rush hour trains and subways.

It was easy for her to take out her frustration, fatigue, depression, confusion, anger, sadness, fear -- that Molotov cocktail of emotions -- on her first born: me.

I was finishing up my first year as an undergraduate and immediately got a decently paying job teaching English. It was enough to pay for my education, as well as our living costs, while my mother's paycheck went entirely towards paying back the home loan. So I thought (oh, silly teenage me!) we were on even ground. Ha. There is no such thing as equality in a parent-child relationship. My mother expected me to be in charge of the house during the week; she would take over on weekends. Oh boy.

For the rest of my college years, I took morning classes at the university on the outskirts of Tokyo, then rushed into town to teach, then had to rush back home to make dinner. My mother came home around 7:30pm, so dinner better be ready by then, or else! That's where I learned to cook dinner in 30 minutes or less.

Now, you might think that's not too bad. Which is why I want that internet group for people tormented by foodie moms.

On those days when classes went a little longer, or there was a train accident that delayed my return, I did my best to whip up dinner but with less than 30 minutes, those meals were pretty basic. Spaghetti and salad. A casserole with soup. Stir fry and rice. And did my mother cut me any slack? Heck, no. Always a fantastic cook, who expected no less from me, she would throw a mean tantrum because I did not make a lot of different dishes, the way she prefers to eat. Sometimes my kid brother would join in on the complaints.

I couldn't wait to leave but my sense of duty and obligation kept me enslaved for years.

Today, we laugh about it all. She's mellowed greatly and never chews me out anymore. But I know her tastes and eating habits have not changed at all. She still hates 2 or 3 course dinners. She still wants to have lots of tiny dishes of different flavors. She still dislikes eating "family style."

No matter how old we get, I think there's a part of us that still craves mommy's approval. Which is why I am nervous when cooking for my mother. Which is why I was on edge in Honolulu and driving Big Dog nutty. Which is why I think that if there were an internet group for people with similar experiences we could commiserate and feel better. Which is why I wrote this entry.

Happy Mother's Day!

How to Kill Paradise

So you find a piece of paradise: 2 mile long stretch of pristine beach on a tiny Filipino island. It's one of their famous "seven thousand." (Since the first time I visited the Philippines, I have heard locals talk proudly of their 7000 islands, though the official count is a rather loose 7107. I say "loose" because some of these islands "disappear" with the tides.) There are a couple of tiny fishing villages, with a few dozen families living in bamboo shacks. You get there like the handful of other travelers, hiking through jungle for the last few kilometers and then hitching a ride on one of the fishermen's boats. There's no electricity, no cars, no diesel generators, no running water, no refrigeration... but it's a pure, unadulterated tropical paradise with fireflies floating to the strains of someone's acoustic guitar, phosphorescent algae twinkling on the lapping waves. You eat like the locals and learn to love warm beer. You lease a little bamboo hut on the beach for something like $500 for 5 years. You want to be here forever.

But "here" is not here forever. Paradise slowly dies.

Travelers tell other travelers. More travelers come. The bus now goes all the way to where you can catch a boat across to the island. No more hiking, no more hitching rides with the fishermen. Some enterprising local starts a ferry service. More travelers come. A small airline operates a direct flight from Manila to ferry point. Tourists, vacationers begin to arrive. Foreigners come with their foreign needs -- locals accommodate with banana pancakes, cold beers, refrigeration. The sound of diesel generators break the silence of the nights. Foreigners open restaurants and bars. More tourists arrive. Now there are motorbikes belching black exhaust along the tiny beach path. Now there are hookers from Ermita.

Your 5 year lease is up. You do not renew, nor do the landlords want you to. They have bigger plans.

20 years later, you return to your one time paradise. The name of the island hasn't changed but that's about the only thing that hasn't. The beach is crammed, shoulder to shoulder with hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, bars, souvenir shops. None seem to be owned by the original residents of the island. The beach is cluttered with boats, littered with trash, and there is sometimes a strange green sludge growing in the water. The island is packed with tourists. You go looking for your former landlord, former neighbors. After days, maybe weeks, you finally find them on the other side of the island -- the windy, rocky side. They still live in a bamboo shack but their lives have not gotten better from all the development. The little bit of money they made, selling their property to some unscrupulous developer for peanuts is long gone. "Food is so expensive nowadays," they complain.

Paradise rarely dies on its own. "Discovery" kills it each and every time.

I wonder what this strip of Mexican Caribbean coastline was like 20 years ago.

Don't get sick unless you're a multimillionaire

$75,000. Actually $74,917.33. That's my hospital bill and both Big Dog and I are in shock.

It started last Friday, just around midnight. We had had a couple of intensely busy weeks renovating the duplex and now had our house packed with Big Dog's sister, her husband and their father. I was dead tired. My stomach felt strange. It's hard for me to eat much right after making dinner but Big Dog's family were used to eating early, so I was only able to have a few bites. At first I thought I was just hungry. But soon, it felt like indigestion. And a while later, something much worse. It felt like the pain of being kicked in the solar plexus -- except instead of being a brief kick, it was constant and lasting and getting worse all the time.

Pain makes you nauseous and it sure was doing that to me, so I quietly got up and tried to make my way to a bathroom. A sudden surge of pain made me stumble and fall at the top of the stairs. I crawled downstairs and into a bathroom. Nope, there's nothing to throw up. The little I ate was already digested. But the pain keeps making me retch and heave. I lie on the bathroom floor, hoping the pain will go away but it doesn't. It just gets worse. For a few hours, I go back and forth between the bathroom and the living room couch where I lie, curled up in pain, wondering what could be the problem. By 3am, the pain is unbearable. Should I call an ambulance? Should I wake Big Dog and make him take me to the hospital? Or should I just jump off our roof and end it all? When I started thinking that, I knew I had to get myself to a hospital one way or another. I woke up Big Dog.

I lay, curled up in the back seat of the truck, moaning in pain as he drove me to an emergency hospital in San Luis Obispo. The ride seemed like it took forever. Each turn, each bump made the pain that much worse. Then, it was another forever before they actually put me in a bed in the emergency room. During that eternity, I am writhing in pain, unable to remain seated in either the chair or the wheelchair, on the filthy hospital floor. Enough pain obliterates everything else: common sense, decency, inhibitions, etc. In my own delirium, nothing else mattered. So there I was, curled up like a ball on the linoleum floor, eyes closed, panting and moaning and kicking at the wall until they finally got a gurney to take me to the emergency room and, finally, a bed.

"What's your pain level?" they asked me in Admissions. "On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you say it was?"
I would have said "Twelve" if I had much consciousness, but I could barely think and groaned "Ten."

The first 4 ml morphine shot had no effect whatsoever. They had to give me another. And then another, and finally the pain subsided enough to let me breath a little slower, a little deeper. Shots to stop the nausea (and dry heaving) followed, as did an IV drip. I got an EKG, a CT scan and an ultrasound, then was left moaning in that room for 4 more hours before they got me into a hospital room. It was all pretty much a blur until later in the afternoon.

At one point, someone came by and asked what my pain level was now. It was so much better than when I came to the hospital -- I didn't feel like jumping in front of a moving truck to stop the pain -- that I told that person it was probably a 4 on the pain scale. Still bad, but not something I wanted to kill myself over.

Much later, I saw the Pain Scale on the wall. Zero was not simply "no pain" but a smiley face. A smiley face for me indicates more than just pain-free, it means you feel good. I was nowhere near that. I was nowhere near even Level 4. As much as things had improved, I realized that on their Pain Scale, even with the multiple morphine shots, it was perhaps at Level 8.

THEIR pain scale.
MY pain scale.

So, there I was. For days.

After about 3 days, the pain had moved further down my digestive system. It was no longer in my solar plexus but lower, around my belly button. I could now sip a little water. By Day 4, I could handle a little broth. I still needed my morphine shots every 4 hours and just when I thought things were improving, I would have a big setback. My roommates started with the tattooed mother with pneumonia who couldn't stop complaining and elderly lady also with pneumonia (they were on either side of me who insisted on my curtains being open so they could watch the tv which was right in front of my bed -- it was the World Series and Elderly Pneumonia Lady was a St. Louis fan -- and they yakked loudly all night long.) They both left on Day 3 and I had a night by myself (ahhhhh) in the room before they brought in Mrs. Dementia. By then, the pain had shifted all the way down to my lower abdomen, I could handle Very Soft Food (although I couldn't eat the hospital fare for taste reasons) and I knew I had to go home to get any better. None of the doctors could tell me what was wrong anyway, despite all the tests. The first doctor insisted it was food poisoning from the oysters I had eaten 2 days before The Pain. No matter what I said, all he could do was tell me about the time he got sicker than a dog after he ate Morro Bay oysters. It irritated me that a Man of Science was more a Prophet than a Skeptic. The second doctor, more sensibly, speculated that it was probably a virus since nothing showed up in the tests. Either way, neither of them knew, really.

I've never been sick before. Not enough to be hospitalized. Just being in that environment with all the Negative Energy was making it hard to get well. Not to mention the processed foods. But I think what really made me want to go home was knowing what the entire experience was costing.

When they brought the estimate to Big Dog, he howled "What?! Bring me a wheelchair! I think I'm going to pass out!" It was about $50,000 at that time. It was outrageous. Nowhere else in the world would they charge you that much for just a hospital bed and a few tests. Almost every country in the world takes care of the medical needs of its citizens, whether they are poor bankrupt nations or ones ruled by terrible despots. Even without insurance, medical costs are never as high as in the U.S. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this country, but when you try to explain it to Americans, most of whom don't know how things are in other countries, they can't understand how broken their system is. No wonder there is so much resistance to a national healthcare policy!

Meanwhile, decent working folk are destroyed by medical costs and private insurers who won't pay up when the need arises. The indigent, the prisoners, the illegals, the ones who can't or won't contribute anything to society are the ones who get free medical care. Big Dog kept seeing prisoners from the nearby Men's Colony (a strange word for "prison") walking around the hospital, shackled and attended by 2 guards to each prisoner. And these guards are the highest paid in the nation, making six figure incomes!

So I guess the lesson learned (and a very expensive lesson at that) is: don't get sick in America unless you're a multimillionaire. If not, commit a crime, get incarcerated and get your free dental, medical, transgender hormone shots, whatever. Get it all!

And for today's work, you get...a potato

Remember Harley? He's back at The Ranch.

"Hey, can I come over and help you guys with any work you have in return for some food?" Harley emailed Big Dog a week or so ago. Harley is now on social security, but he's trying to save up for a car. It's hard to live in Southern California with only a bicycle for transportation. He still has no water or electricity in his house and still spends his entire day at the library, but with his small income, he can stay at a motel every so often to shower. Which was why when we picked him up at the San Luis Obispo train station Friday afternoon, he smelled better than the last time he was here.

But I realize now what it is about Harley that drives me crazy. He is too starved for company, for someone to talk to. And because, normally, his entire social life is a series of casual conversations with strangers, he is the King of Small Talk.

What really gets me about Harley is not that he's too used to not working and a few hours is the most he can put in. It's not even that at 3pm, he's done for the day and into his first beer. Nor that he's already gone through our entire stash of beer. Nor that he won't pick up after himself one bit.

"It's his constant yakking about nothing and sucking up all the thoughts out of my mind that tires me out!" I explained to Big Dog last night. And that brings out the worst in me. It's impossible for me to feel charitable and I wind up disliking him more for making me this way. For making me want to tell him that if we are feeding him in return for labor, then today's pay will be a potato.

Oh god, I am such a mean-spirited bitch. But maybe I will be feeling more charitable at the end of this day, after a few hours to myself while The Boys go off to T's house for Super Bowl and bowls of pozole.

Bummed Out

I don't know what's wrong. I don't feel like making anything, writing anything, sharing much. I used to tell myself that I'm just moving away from internet, but that has nothing to do with having not written much in the last couple of months.... wait, I take that back. I've actually written some poetry in the last few week and in a different kind of style, so that's something... AND I've actually started two new sculptures from a concept that's been in my head for years.

Okay, so I AM doing something other than fighting the ant/aphid infestation on our fruit trees; something other than trapping gophers; something other than taking care of our many guests (yes, it's BB&D -- bed, breakfast & dinner -- season at The Ranch.) But I am in LA overnight and went online to browse some of the blogs I've enjoyed in the past and everyone else has been soooo productive.

I am bummed.

In Withdrawal

After about a week away from the ranch, my body goes through withdrawal. It really needs the air and water that we have up there. In the beginning, it wasn't too bad. We could come and go and while I got a bit depressed at the idea of "going," I'm such an "out of sight, out of mind" person that the farther I got, the less I thought about the place.

Now in our fourth year, that's no longer the case. Each time I leave, it gets worse, and it doesn't help that I go to places with terrible water.

On top of it all, I took my first pharmaceutical yesterday.

Earlier this year, a bone density scan showed that I have exceedingly LOW bone density. As in the dreaded osteoporosis. Not just osteopenia (I am getting all too familiar with these terms now. Ugh.) Five years ago, my bone density was off the charts, it was so dense. What happened? (They measure it differently now, so perhaps my bones were never as dense as the former numbers indicated...)

"Since you're still so young," said Dr. M "we should get you on bisphosphonates. They've had very good results..."

I detest the idea of pumping pharmaceuticals into my body, but I decided to try it for a while and see, since taking calcium, vitamin D and living a very active lifestyle weren't doing anything. The Doc also assured me that this particular drug did not damage the liver. (Ha! EVERYTHING damages the liver!) But most of all, I didn't want to shrink as I age. I'm small enough as it is. My grandmother was a tiny, tiny woman by the time she passed away in her late-90's. The last time I was in Japan, I was shocked to see how mother who had always been a larger woman than me was now a teeny little thing. My grandmother never had a single fracture and my mother has only had one broken bone in her whole life. I realize that Vanity is at the core of my decision to go with the drug and I don't like that, either. Nature has probably designed me to shrink as I age. (I am picturing myself literally disappearing as I grow old.) Is it good to go against nature? Should I become a tiny old woman or a dead not-so-old-but-normal-sized woman?

Plus now, I am feeling the pain of millions of uninsured Americans. These drugs are expensive!! You'd think I was buying street drugs! No, I bet street drugs are cheaper.

Some (most?) people are so casual about pharmaceuticals but for someone who's avoided them all her life, taking that little (and oh-so-expensive) pill yesterday was a very major step for me. I held it in my hand, wandering around the condo like a goofy Hamlet, wondering "to take, or not to take." In the end, economics won out.

"Well, you've already paid for it. You might as well."

Would I use the same argument if I had gotten a cyanide tablet during a moment of intense depression? I scare myself sometimes.

Ten Reasons to Love This Town

I'd been to Arcata several times in my last incarnation (figurative, not literal.) Coming from Big Bad Tokyo, it seemed like the cutest, quaintest, teeniest town I ever visited. Now that I am spending so much of the year at The Ranch, where the nearest town is even smaller (but not nearly as cute or quaint) this place is bustling!

Aside from the fact that we have actual internet connectivity at a 21st century level, there are many reasons why I still love this place.

* It will always be Hippie Central
While some of the original flower children have "grown up" ("And a few have become thorns! Ha ha ha!" cackles Big Dog with glee) there is always an influx of newer, younger bohemians looking for that Utopia, keeping Arcata the most left-wing town in the U.S. (as far as I know.)

* Big Business (note capital letters) is not welcome here
"That's why the area remains depressed," bitch the old-timers who may have once been happy to panhandle for food money. "It's too anti-business here!" Yes, they burned down every McDonald's that tried to open shop in town until Mickey D finally got it. "You don't deserve a McDonald's!" they said in a huff on their way out. There IS a McDonald's out on the edge of town, but if you want burgers, you can get great ones at V&N's or Stars, so who needs terrible fast food? There are no Starbucks, no Barnes & Nobles, no Bed, Bath & Beyond, no Sears, no WalMart... I think the only franchise/chain outfits are Safeway, Longs, and a gas station or two.

* Everyone is Community Minded
Actually, the town is very supportive of its businesses. Everyone makes an effort to buy local. So if you have a unique product or service (or even a not-so-unique product or service) this is a great place to start. On our first night back, we met a young man in a local bar who told us about his upcoming mead business. "Mead? You mean like the beverage?" I asked. Sure, I read about it in old novels, but... He told us about how he's already gotten his honey sourced and his label designed. "It's going to be a honeycomb between two redwoods with a bee on top!" Sweet!

* Creativity Abounds
And they never put on that "I'm an artiste..." attitude. The first time I came here, I met a big group of artists. They were awesomely good, but many had day jobs as car stereo installers, sales clerks, etc. "I can't believe this!" I told Big Dog back then. "If these people lived in Tokyo, they would be the biggest sensation! They'd actually be rich, I think." Every small town has its group of artists, but the people here are really, really good. It must be the long, dark winters. Central California is just too nice most of the year to be sitting inside making art (as I am finding out very quickly!)

* Economically it's depressed, or is it?
"Any big business that set up shop here would be able to employ thousands!" bitch the pro-business minority. True. The small mom-and-pop businesses just can't compete that way. (Nor would they be able to compete in any way if some big box store came this way and actually made it, though that is highly unlikely.) There aren't a whole lot of jobs. No wonder so many people get involved in growing/selling pot. It's relatively easy to start up such a business, you will have lots of experienced people to help you, there's a very good market for the product, and, best of all, until it is decriminalized, the 420 business is tax-free! So, on the record, the median income here is pretty low, but in actuality, who knows. Students pay their way through college, couples buy nice homes with plenty of cash, etc. all without having to sell your soul. And most of them probably have prescriptions that allow them to grow their own anyway, so until they sell to non-prescription holders, it's all legal. ...Right?

* Materialism is the scourge
You won't know that there are any wealthy people here because no one wants to be perceived as materialistic. There are tons of junker cars, junker bikes, thrift stores. Everyone looks like they are wearing 30 year old clothing. (In my case, I really am!) Here, Big Dog and I are not the eccentric weirdos we are elsewhere.

* It's GREEEEEN
In every way. From the Green Party (Arcata elected the first-ever Green party city council majority in 1996 and was the first city in the nation to pass a law nullifying the USA PATRIOT Act) to its eco-consciousness to the land around, everything is green, green, green. It has the most amazing wastewater treatment system in the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, was the first municipality to ban the growth of any type of Genetically Modified Organism within city limits (with exceptions for research and education,) and has more hydroponic supply stores per capita than anywhere else (needs fact checking.) And there's been an on-going campaign to preserve the Headwaters Forest from logging for years.

* It's Young
More than 30% of the population are between 18 and 24, and the median age is around 26 years. The City Council, and at times even the mayor, is sometimes composed in part by college students. (There's a college student in the Council right now.) But more than actual chronological age, it's a youthful town. Or maybe I should say, ageless. My mother who came to visit a few years ago couldn't stop giggling over all the grey-haired "youngsters" skateboarding around town. We all think we're 18 here.

* It's got a Heart
And I don't mean compassion for the homeless, but a geographical heart. Most American towns no longer have a center. Arcata still has its Plaza and what an active plaza it is! From the weekly Farmer's Markets to the start of the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race to the Oyster Festival to the weekly protests to all the "freegans" just hanging out or sleeping, it is a plaza much like the zocalos of Mexico.

* The Local Baseball Team is named after one of my favorite foods
Arcata is home to the Humboldt Crabs, the nation's longest continuously operated semi-pro baseball team that's played every season since 1945! And they serve soy dogs at the ball park.


Okay. Now, here is one reason why I may not love this town as much in the years to come:
I see more and more people here who seem to have come only because of Arcata's cannabis reputation. They have no social or ecological awareness. They are disrespectful of others. They come here, live in the shrubbery by the freeway or in the Community Forest and leave behind tons of trash. Plastic bottles, plastic bags, grungy blankets. Their use-and-discard mentality has no place here. Somehow they think they belong because they don't work and don't own property. They should have stayed in Idaho...or Utah...or wherever.

The other reason why not to love this town? It's that four letter word that starts with R......

Sleeping with Linda Blair

That's what it's like sometimes. Big Dog has such restless body syndrome that sharing a bed with The Dog is like sleeping with Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

"The power of Christ compels you!" I feel like shouting at the twitching, flailing, jumping, levitating, restless form. Especially if it's been spinning around like that for hours.

Sometimes the flailing arms will hit me in the head. Sometimes the twitching legs will kick me.
Maybe I need some Holy Water. Maybe I need to stab him with a crucifix.

Maybe we need to find separate beds. Or better yet, bedrooms.

Happy (Belated) Year of the OX

It's a week late, but Happy Year of the Ox.

It's OX, honey. Not BULL., despite what I keep seeing all over the place. I know. It's kinda like a prayer in this economy, but in this economy, we need more oxen, less bull. Therein lies the problem.

Envious

There are times I become very envious of Americans.
I remember reading a British writer who was envious of the American ability to be casually friendly with total strangers. That's one of the things I love the most about the US, but what really makes me envious is their political optimism.

Japanese are completely jaded when it comes to politics. We've been driven to the brink of annihilation, to the depth of hell by our politicians, it's a wonder we have any trust left at all. When was the last time any Japanese person had any real hopes for his/her prime minister? Most of the time, we're just holding our breath, hoping he (and I can only use the male gender pronoun here!) won't screw things up big time. (Imagine having a succession of Karl Roves governing your country.) Change the world? Ha. Just don't muck things up for your own people! (And because of our history, we are really leery of any politician who starts meddling in other countries' affairs.)

Return of the Kitchen Nazi

"See?" Big Dog tells our guests when I don't take them up on their offer to help in the kitchen. He'll raise his right hand in a "Heil!" salute just to irritate me further.

He and his family have been calling me the Kitchen Nazi for some time now. Guess that's what you become when you were raised in a Food Fascist household.

I didn't realize it while I was growing up. I thought all families were pretty much the same -- moms made everything from scratch, you ate together, talked about the food (alot!) I remember begging my mother to buy some TV dinners. As a child, the mass-produced flavors of these packaged meals were so exotic and exciting!

My brother is a Complete Fascist when it comes to dinner, too. Absolutely no TV! Sit up straight! Elbows off the table! Chew with your mouth closed! Are you going to talk or eat? You can't do both at once.
"It's important to instill proper table manners when they're young," he says of the Pupster, who at five can handle his chopsticks with more grace and dexterity than his aunt. But it's not just table manners. He's expected to have opinions of what he's eating, what he'd like as his entree or side for his next meal.

Instead of plonking down a bowl of cereal in front of him for breakfast, he usually gets a choice of Western or Japanese breakfast. On weekends, he can make individual requests. They rarely just put a heap of something in front of him and tell him to eat it, or else. My family has managed to make the Pupster interested and involved in his eating and because of this he'll eat nearly everything, and will eagerly try new flavors.

What a surprise when I found out other families were not like this! For the longest time, Big Dog made me insecure about my cooking because he would eat without comment.

"My eating IS the comment. If it were bad, I wouldn't eat it," he told me when I asked about this and kept eating without so much as a grunt of acknowledgment about the food. It cracks him up to eat with my family because we talk non-stop about the food.

I should be grateful for Big Dog's "training" because I've found that many people don't comment about the food they are eating. And it seems to be more so here in the U.S.

For as much food as the average American shovels into his mouth, he doesn't think much about what he's eating. And maybe that's it. Maybe America has so much food (and so much terrible food, too!) that it's no big deal. In cultures with a developed civilization but less than an over-abundance of food, we see more thought put into the food. People learn to use an incredible variety of ingredients, stretch what they have, make the most out of little. Kaiseki is all about making a Big Deal out of something as ordinary as a chunk of carrot.

I remember a conversation I had with a former colleague in Tokyo. He's from New Mexico and he was telling me how silly he thought the Japanese were with their obsession with food.

"A girl I used to date was always going on about 'let's go eat something oishii (yummy)' but we should eat to live, not live to eat," he told me quite earnestly, stuffing his face with a sad-looking salad at a franchise American restaurant in Tokyo.

"Why don't you just put steaks and tuds on the barbie?" Big Dog would suggest, watching me whirling around the kitchen in a dervish frenzy trying to concoct something interesting for our tidal wave of guests.

"Boooooring!" I'd say and continue rolling the 20th fresh-off-the-vine grape leaf dolma.
But after this summer, I am finally getting it. The guests really would rather have a nice steak than ten mysterious/exotic/scary new dishes, all completely labor intensive and exquisite. This is not a country brimming with gastronomic curiosity.

Undeterred, though, I continue to experiment in the kitchen. Walnut-sauce-covered-meat-stuffed-roasted-pasilla chiles, spicy poached peaches, strange new pickles, a different kind of bread each week, all kinds of chilled soups, fresh and aromatic herbs for salads, exotic meat rubs and marinades... I'm ready to buy a goat and make my own goat cheese! Or raise a pig for my own sausages!

"No wonder I'm so skinny," Big Dog sighed. "It's all this artsy fartsy food you're making."

If I were a real Kitchen Nazi, I would stop serving people like Big Dog. My diners would only be people like this.

Earth Day

Strange how we talk of "saving" the planet. Don't we know that the planet will no doubt continue spinning around the sun a long time after it's completely inhabitable? Save the ability for life to exist on earth, is more like it. I've also noticed a lot of media attention on the subject and am distressed at the optimistic spin they try to put on the whole thing. "Well, we've woken up just in time!" "Now that everyone's on board, we can start to make progress."

I hate to pop anyone's balloon, but it's already so late.

And population control still seems to be The Big Taboo. No one wants to go there, but with the human population growing at this alarming rate, nothing we do will matter.

How did we celebrate Earth Day 2008? By driving down the coast of California, once again, of course! Polluting the air with our pick-up truck, buying $3.89/gallon gas, even getting a fast food burger on the way!

We'd actually left Arcata yesterday, pulling a small U-Haul trailer stuffed with some furniture, paintings and books that Big Dog had kept in the Victorian for decades. I'm not sure what we accomplished by making this trip now, but it had to be done at some point and the thought was consuming Big Dog.

Once again, rambling through the string of tie-dye towns, each with smiling girls in long skirts and boys in dreads trying to hitch a ride. We would have gladly picked them up if there was any room in our truck.

We stopped for the night at the Motel 6 in Ukiah. For years, we avoided these franchises and stayed in rickety little motels, all of which were operated by East Indians. I think the Indian motels are actually one big franchise. They just give each one a different name to confuse us.

The people in the next room were coughing all night. Hack, hack, hack. Gee, I hope their germs don't seep through the walls... After a while, though, I began picturing a couple of kids with a huge bag of pot rather than old folks with emphysema.

"They're kids!" Big Dog confirmed for me this morning as he brought in two small styrofoam cups of coffee from the office. Yappari! Just as I thought.

As I set my cup of coffee on the night stand, I noticed that there were bits of un-vacuumed green stuff littering the floor between the bed and night stand.

The Dreaded SSSS & The Long Way North

"You'll have to come over this way," said the TSA staff at Phoenix airport. We were already 20 hours into our trip north, from Mexico. A flat tire on our plane kept us south of the border an extra night, we had just had to fork over 18 dollars on our first meal of the day -- our meal vouchers were $5 each! not even enough to buy a crappy in-flight sandwich ($7) -- Big Dog was furious and swearing to go talk to the supervisor. Now this.

"Why?"
"See this code here?" the security guy points out four S's printed on my boarding pass.
"What, so this is the airline targeting me for an extra security check? For what possible reason?"
"I don't know, ma'am. You'll have to ask the airline."
Big Dog was livid, but kept his cool for the moment while I went into my Super Strip Search Security clearance.

We suspected Harold at the connections desk. Not only was he not very helpful to us, he was snippy and rude to his co-workers. Maybe being the only male there made him that way, I don't know.

This wasn't the first time we'd been on a disrupted flight. Big Dog and I had had our plane diverted on its way to Tokyo to help a man suffering a heart attack. We made an emergency landing in Anchorage and had to stay there overnight. But that was a Singapore Airlines flight and not US Airways. On that flight to Tokyo, the airline staff did everything it could to make us as comfortable as possible, pre-arranging a giant midnight buffet dinner at the hotel in Anchorage. If they hadn't, there wouldn't have been anything to eat anywhere at that hour. When the bus picked us up in the morning, we went straight to our plane and onward with minimal downtime. This time, it was chaos every inch of the way.

"I felt like we were cattle," mumbled a friend who was sharing the same first leg of the trip north.
"Yeah. They might as well have had electric prodders," I agreed.

That's the sad story of much of the service industry these days. Especially airlines. Somewhere along the way, they have forgotten that we are customers. After 9-11, too many of the airline staff behave like prison guards, nannies, mental hospital orderlies.

Was it a coincidence that during this long journey north, I pick up a discarded newspaper and opened it to an article on how United and US Airways will only allow 1 piece of checked baggage per passenger from May?

"Travelers will get used to it, and then all the other airlines will follow," commented an airline spokesperson in the article. We get less and less all the time, but most of us just accept it. Like cattle. No wonder they treat us like that.