Brave New World?

Mark listened to a podcast about a new musical group - Pomplamoose. He was so impressed that he bought their "album".... but he had nothing to show for his purchase. The "album" was an MP3 file on iTunes. And this couple make all their own recordings in their San Francisco home/apartment. Once they finish a song - a 1-2 day project - they upload it to YouTube. The video is also done by them - a new style of what-you-hear-is-what-you-see. To check it out - click here for Pomplamoose. And NPR has had several stories about authors who now publish their own works - either through a small company that prints on demand or as electronic media. On this last trip, when I inched my way down the aisle on the plane to the bathroom, I noticed how many people had laptops, iPods, Kindles and other electronic stuff. My seatmate had a new iPad. BTW, he played games the whole time. All this makes me realize that I am living in a time of vast changes. My grandmother was born at the beginning of the 20th century and died almost at the end. I marveled at all the changes in the world that she had lived through - cars, airplanes, space travel, computers, TV..... and many more. How did she handle all that change and not feel overwhelmed? And now I find myself in the same boat. The old record store, the morning newspaper, the land line telephone are all fading away. And I am just fine. I guess that you have to embrace the change or cling to the past. So I am shifting my paradigm and moving forward. We don't buy CD's anymore - we buy MP3 files. I don't buy books anymore (well, rarely) - I use the library and downloads. If I need to learn something, I check out Google. My laptop (not my desktop) gets hauled around the house like a magazine. If I need to know the capital of Botswana, I can find it on the Internet - not in an encyclopedia or atlas. I need a recipe for the cauliflower Mark picked in our garden - I look online.  And in a tiny house where space is a premium and we have very little room for bookcases, no books is not so bad. We opted to not get a land line for the phone when we moved.  I like this better as I can put my cell in my pocket and never miss a call. Well, if I feel the vibration, I don't miss it. We rarely watch one of the standard TV stations. We download programming through our Tivo box and watch - COMMERCIAL FREE - what we want when we want. All these changes are great! And, just think - my granddaughter will know no different. This will all be her normal. It is not a good or a bad thing..... it is just a thing that is happening. But I do worry that as we move on, we will lose some of the wonderful parts of the past..... like the smell of a library filled with books. So I guess I will think about what will be gone for awhile.

Montreal is Far from NoCal

We left the sunny NoCal climate and came to Montreal where it was cold and raining. At first, I was excited. REAL weather and REAL cold. But soon, the thrill wore off. Mark and I were here to attend Dylan's final recital. He graduates from McGill this June with a degree in Early Music. His specialty is harpsichord. The concert was held in Redpath Hall on the McGill campus. The lovely granite building built in the 1890's used to be the library. We sat in a vast hall surrounded by lead-paned windows, dark wood trim and a spectacular German-built organ towering in front of us. The first half of the recital included solo pieces.

In the second half, Dylan played a piece for two harpsichords that he arranged and a Bach concerto with a Baroque orchestra. The entire evening was a real treat. As I sat listening to the beautiful music in the beautiful space, I was taken back to Dylan's early musical career. He began by sitting next to our church organist watching eagerly as Jon adjusted manuals and pedals and played two keyboards. But to play the organ, he had to start on the piano - not his idea of a fair deal. So he banged and wished for time on the organ. As that memory faded, I watched Dylan's fingers fly over the two keyboards making music that was tender and soulful and lively and sparkly. And full of his love for the sound and the instrument. He has come such a long way. And we, his family, are so proud of all he has achieved. And we look forward to all he has before him. And more concerts too!

Montreal is not NoCal for sure. First, it's a big-city city....meaning that is has lots of tall buildings and streets full of cars. I know that San Jose has tall buildings in the downtown. But it is a small part of downtown. And I never feel overwhelmed by the size or amount. Montreal has a great metro system. Unlike San Jose, Montreal's metro is underground. And surrounding many of the stops is the Underground shopping experience. This is really amazing. It goes on and on for many miles and many layers. This is because in the winter, no Montrealer in his/her right mind would spend a spare second OUTSIDE shopping. The only reason to be outside in the winter is to play hockey. And whether you are 7 or 70, you played, play, know someone who plays or played, wish you could play, or just hope someday to play. the Montrealers all love their team - Canadiens or Les Habitants (the Home Boys). Or, if you are a local, the Habs. And this is Stanley Cup playoff time. So EVERY NIGHT there is SOME team playing some other team. And all Montrealers are watching or talking about the last game played or the next game to be played. Makes for exciting dinner conversation. It will be good to get back to reality in San Jose. Where all they talk about is...... the Sharks and hockey. Oh well.

Gardens in NoCal

We live in Japantown. And the gardens in our neighborhood show the influence of the Japanese culture with some beautifully landscaped spaces. The best example is the Buddhist temple.

The combination of textures and materials and shapes are pleasing to the eye. But not all the landscape here is as well done..... In fact, some of the "landscape" is a bit bizarre.
People seem to avoid landscapes and plantings that require any sort of maintenance. It is not uncommon to see plantings like this. The cement IS textured.... and the bush IS sculpted...... sort of. But look - no grass to mow. How practical. In fact, some home owners dispense with ALL grass -

  This saves time mowing.... and gives you more place to park - I kid you not. And can even be carried out throughout your ENTIRE backyard. How nice. And weird. This front yard does have a wall around it to separate the yard concrete from the sidewalk concrete.
But, best of all, are the street tree trimmings. When walking to and from the light rail, I pass MANY trees that look ..... well, you decide.

This is one of those poor trees at night. Pretty scary when seen in the dark. And imagine MANY of them in a row with orange street lights and long dark shadows and a bit of a wind......

Across the street from our house, the neighbor just trimmed her trees. They were so pretty and the leaves were just starting to come out - that lovely spring green. I asked Ron-who-knows-all why people do that. And the answer? Hold on....... according to Ron, SO THEY WON'T HAVE TO RAKE LEAVES. I don't get it. Why have the trees in the first place? Well, the city requires each house to have two street trees. But who wants to rake? So grow the tree and keep the branches and pesky leaves cut off. Voila!! I feel so conventional with real grass and real trees with leaves. It must be a Maine thing.

Whining/Wining in NoCal

When you live in California, you must drink California wine. And when you live in NO Cal, you must go to California wineries. After all, the Mecca of California wineries - Napa and Sonoma - is just 1.5 hours away. Mark and I belong to 3 California wine clubs. When living in Maine, we had to receive shipments at our PO Box in New Hampshire. So, when we moved here, the wineries suggested we just drive up to pick up our club wine. What a great deal! We would save hundreds of dollars in shipping and we would have a good reason - other than because we live here - to go to the Wine Country. So, on a rainy cold not-so-special Saturday, Mark and I jumped in the car and headed up. There are several options for "heading up". If you stay on the peninsula, you must plow through San Francisco and cross the Golden Gate bridge. Very scenic but LOTS of traffic. And if you head up the East Bay, you must plow through Oakland. Again, lots of traffic and not so scenic. So we went out of our way a bit and took 680 at the base of the brown-now-green hills to the East north. Mark and I enjoyed it..... Garmin Nuvi did not. We had asked it to get us to Frog's Leap in Napa by "the fastest route". And 680 was not it. I was driving and finally asked Mark to just turn her off. Even without Garmin Nuvi, we managed to arrive at our destination. The vines were mostly bare with a few green leaves bravely daring the gray cold and easing their way out. I figured who would possibly come up here on a day like today....... Then we tried to find a parking place in the lot at Frog's Leap. It was beyond full with cars parked off the lot on grass. And limos..... s-t---r-e----t-c--h limos hovering around the entrance. We parked (barely) and entered the tasting room. It was a ZOO. Mobs of people everywhere... all tables, chairs, couches, corners full of people clutching wine glasses and laughing and talking LOUDLY.  We finally found someone who could get us our club wines and even offered us a taste of what they were pouring. We straddled our box of wine clutching our tastes of wine to our chests and mobs of people pushed past us. I thought that this was silly - it must be that Frog's Leap just has a great reputation for a good place to taste wine. Yes, they have great wine. Yes, they have a beautiful tasting room with lots of atmosphere. Yes, they even offer tasty little nibblies to have with your wine. So that must be it. I grabbed Mark and the wine and headed for the car. On to #2...... And THAT parking lot was full too! Joseph Phelps is a bit more expensive and I thought that fewer people would be there tasting. HA! There were even MORE stretch limos out front - a traffic jam of them. And the tasting room was hopping. So we tasted a bit, collected our stuff and headed out. We drove over the hill to Sonoma and the final wine club winery - Armida. You couldn't get TO the parking lot for the cars and limos. And it was three deep at the tasting counter. I looked around flabbergasted at the number of people tasting wine..... I'm not sure that they all were OLD enough to be tasting wine. My image of a quiet afternoon with a few elderly people (like us) tasting wine leisurely was totally wrong. THIS is what all the young people in NoCal do on a weekend - visit OUR three wineries! Again, we straddled our box of club wines, tasted a bit and headed out...... Well, not really. I know it sounds like we just sipped and ran. But we didn't. We sipped.... and, oh. That one is quite tasty. And very reasonable...... should we get a case or just half a case? And a few bottles of the other one too? Why not! So our trip to the car each time was under the staggering weight of SEVERAL  boxes. And the trunk was getting full... So we decided it was time to head home. In the bumper-to-bumper traffic with everyone else. Did we save money by NOT shipping our club wine. I think NOT!

A Little Hawaii

Mark and I have been testing the restaurants in Japantown. After all, it is a short walk - 2.5 blocks - to the main strip. So, last night we tasted a little bit of Hawaii at Hukilau. I didn't realize that there was a unique cuisine associated with the islands. When walking through Japantown in the evening, we had noticed that the restaurant was usually packed and customers waiting on the sidewalk. Mark, in his usual fashion, checked it out online and learned a bit more about the place. It was started by three guys from Hawaii who missed the small town meals they had enjoyed at home. So they started a restaurant. Now, there are three restaurants - one in Japantown, one in San Francisco, and one in Honolulu. On their web page, they state:
"At the Hukilau, you will be transported back to your favorite "plate-lunch" restaurant in small town Hawai'i, you will hear the strummings of live Hawaiian music like "uncle" used to play at family gatherings, and you will also be able to order tropical cocktails just like at the bars on Waikiki."  Sounded great! So we went......
Thursdays feature dinner drink specials and 50% off selected food items. Appetizers and beer were half off. Good start..... We decided to try poke (pronounced POE-kay) and chose the avocado and tofu poke. It came in a little wooden dish shaped like a fish. The tofu was breaded and deep-fried - very tasty. All was mixed with green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, bits of seaweed and a special Aloha sauce. It was very yummy. We also decided to try musubi..... Now, I have to explain a bit about this one. According to Mark's research, first you soak cooked rice in pineapple juice. Then you layer it on top of the seaweed that they use for sushi. You then fry a slice of SPAM - yes, you read it, S-P-A-M, and place that on the rice. Roll it all up to look like sushi and VOILA! Spam musubi. We noticed MANY happy young adults drinking tropical beverages in martini glasses and gobbling up VAST quantities of spam. Maybe the martini glass contents helped. The last time I ate spam, I was sitting around a campfire unwashed, smokey, tired and starving. Mark joined in with the rest of the happy munchers and gobbled his down smiling the whole time. I nibbled a corner..... hmmmm... I didn't realize that Spam could taste fishy..... oh, that's the seaweed. Remove the seaweed..... another nibble.... better - but still fried Spam. Good thing it was half price and only $1. So now on to the entrees..... I decided to try the Kalua Cabbage - kalua-style BBQ pork stir-fried with cabbage. And the sides that come with EVERY meal - TWO scoops of white rice AND mac salad..... That's right. A traditional home-style meal in a small town in Hawaii includes Spam and macaroni salad. Hmmmm....... The kalua-style BBQ was a North Carolina style - vinegar based and not tomato/catsup. It was very tasty - even mixed with lots of cabbage. You can get breakfast any time here too. One of the specials is a loco moco. It is basically a "mountain of rice" (their words) with a meat on top (burgers, sausage....), two fried eggs on top of that and THEN cover it all with gravy.... Hmmmm...... Now, in all fairness, they did have fish entrees and salads and other things that I would have thought were typical cuisine. But I certainly learned something new about food in the islands!
To read more, visit Hukilau's website - click here

Some Assembly Required

Natalie is coming to stay this summer! She will be in the dressing room. In preparation for her arrival, Mark and I have been planning ways to move our necessities into our room and to find a better place for Natalie to sleep - other than the fold-out couch for several months. And where do you go to find solutions to  these kind of problems? IKEA of course! So, we found a loft bed that would fit over the couch and allow Natalie a place to sleep AND a place to sit or dump stuff AND still have a postage-stamp-sized piece of floor to throw clothes on. In NoCal, we have at least 2 Ikeas in the area. The closer one - in Palo Alto - did not have the bed we wanted in stock. So I drove 1 hour up to Oakland to get the bed. AND I fit it in my Honda Accord! It came in 3 boxes and stated that some assembly was required...... Well, Mark is an engineer. So NO PROBLEM! Mark opened the boxes and laid everything out.....

He found the directions and began to study them..... Hmm......
Seventeen steps..... not too bad........ no words..... just pictures...

And does this picture mean it has 27 steps?
Or 27 parts?

It was a bit confusing........
As you can see from the directions, Ikea KNEW that it would be confusing and that Mark would NEED my help. I even brought the pencil (behind my ear of course!). There were caps for the top and bottom of each support..... caps that, in the picture looked slightly different. And in reality were slightly different..... but did NOT look like either cap in the pictures. We put the wrong set on the wrong end. Oh dear. And, yes.... it DID make a difference when you got to step 12. And notice who got to carry the hammer..... it was for beating the bed when it didn't exactly go together as shown in the pictures.  And so it began......

I smiled and held things and made sure the pencil stayed in place. Mark sweated and grunted and squeezed in behind the couch and banged and grunted some more..... And then I did the last step and the trickiest - putting the sticky-backed sandpaper-type anti-skid strips on the ladder rungs EXACTLY straight and in the center. And the bed was up! Notice the new quilt and pillow sham that fit perfectly on the bed... and the STRAIGHT anti-skid strips..... and all the space on the couch.

You don't see Mark collapsed in the living room drinking a big

glass of water and taking a well earned rest. We needed a few things from Target so I ran over. And GUESS WHAT? Patio stuff was on sale! Now I must explain..... In NoCal, space is a premium. So driveways are not for cars but for children's play space and garages are for storage or play space. And decks are outdoor living rooms for almost 3 seasons. Our deck - which is very large and very empty - faces west and gets LOTS of sun in the afternoon. The two bedrooms (on that side) also get lots of sun and get hot - especially Natalie's room-to-be. With her new bed just under the ceiling, I was concerned that she would cook in the night in a hot bedroom. And Mark has been hinting about eating breakfast and dinner on the deck. So, when I saw gazebos on sale...... I just HAD to get one. AND the one large box fit in my Honda! So, after getting a nice Target employee to help me load it, I brought it home. And on the side of the box, it stated....... some assembly required. But we were on a roll here. And Mark was watered and rested. So we jumped in to Project #2......
First, remove all pieces from the box and look for directions.....

What few directions Mark can find are written by a non English speaker - something like "attach piece A to piece B with screw 1a. Be careful not to spread frame to wide." Hmmmm......... And shown in the directions under "Tools Needed" is a picture of a step ladder. We don't HAVE a step ladder - just a step STOOL. So we start putting up the sides figuring we will find SOMETHING to use when we get to that step - which is #3 out of 3. Mark grabs a B and attaches the end of an A. I get another B and hold it in place at the other end of A. Mark asks if it matters which way it is attached.... I look and it seems to be OK. So he bolts away.  We get all the A's and B's up.....(note use of step stool in picture)

And now for the final step.... #3 where we need the step ladder. That is because we have to put the canvas on the top. And not just ONE piece of canvas. There is a small mini roof-type piece that goes in the center allowing hot air to escape from the top. Mark begins looking in the garage for a step ladder. Our landlord MUST have one in there somewhere..... no..... OK, then how about a saw horse? Meanwhile, I go in the house and bring out one of the tall chairs we use at the eat-in counter in the kitchen. Both are taller than the step stool. But far from a step ladder. And I am not very steady, remember? So we open up the canvas and start to fling it over the roof supports and leap and hop around getting it higher up toward the center. And finally I have to climb onto the chair to ease it over the peak. But I'm not quite tall enough to get the mini canvas over the extra peak. So Mark climbs up onto the chair and works it over. Phew! We feel like we have REALLY accomplished something. And we are almost through. We just have to slip the ends of the canvas onto the ends of the roof poles.... JUST. So we start tugging and grunting and sweating and swearing..... and two out of EIGHT are done. Mark is on the chair and asks me to get on the saw horse and push up on the pole so he can slip the canvas over the edge using a SPOON as a tool. I try to hop onto the saw horse and proceed to skin my shin which starts bleeding..... And then I'm up and pushing and Mark is spooning and grunting.... and then the spoon slips and his thumb is bleeding..... and then all the corners are in and we are sweating and bleeding and very proud of ourselves. And I tie on the privacy screen (on the side toward our neighbors 19.8 feet away) so that we can have breakfast out under our new gazebo and I won't have to be completely dressed and quaffed.

And as I gaze at a happy and tired Mark sitting under his gazebo, I can't help but remember the darling table and chairs on sale at Target...... Honey, want to run over to Target? And, you guessed it, we get 4 fake wicker chairs  2 cushions/chair AND a fake wicker table with tempered glass top. And they almost fit in the Honda. We have to take them out of their boxes and Mark has to run BACK into Target to buy a bungee cord to hold the trunk closed. But we get them home.... and put them on the deck under the gazebo..... and, there is some assembly required.

Mark gets some tools and doesn't even bother to look for directions. He is a pro by now. I unpack cushions and tastefully arrange them on the chairs while he screws and grunts and sweats again. And then the table top is carefully placed on and the chairs are artistically arranged and the other patio furniture is placed to complement the gazebo and it looks great.

And I get out some wine - Californian, of course - and sit down for a well deserved rest. Honey, should we run over to Home Depot to get that composter we saw last week? I'm sure the box will fit in the Honda......

Howdy Neighbor

Our house in Maine sat on 1.6 acres and was surrounded by trees, bushes, gullies.... space. Here in NoCal, we are on, what the locals consider, a large lot with a spacious backyard and room for a second garage behind the current one. Several of our neighbors actually build second homes on the same backyard space. So when I start complaining about being so close to our neighbors, the locals don't understand. Mark and I have developed a little morning routine.... when he is ready to leave for work on his bike at o'early o'clock, I (in my pj's with wild hair and half closed eyes) stand on the deck holding his water bottle and saddle bag. He has to give me a kiss before he gets each item (I know, I know..... just TOO cute). Well, in the "winter" when it was "cold" outside, our neighbors kept their windows closed and curtains shut. So I felt pretty private standing out there. Now that we are well into spring and it is warmer, the neighbor has his window open. I must tell you about this window....... it is 19.8 feet from the edge of my back door to his window frame (I measured when he wasn't home). There is a cement driveway and a small bit of weeds between the window and my door. So NOTHING obstructs his view.... OR his HEARING! All of a sudden I realized how LOUD I was talking to Mark each morning. I'd say, "Do you think you are getting away from here THAT easily?" or "Come back here you hunk of burnin' love"..... you know, silly married stuff. Oh dear. While I feel it is important to be neighborly, I was a bit embarrassed that I was revealing TOO much neighborly-ness. So, this morning, I dragged Mark OFF the deck and INTO the laundry room (our NoCal version of a mud room)  before smacking and whispering. Mark told me not to worry as the neighbor was in the shower and probably couldn't hear us.. Oh dear - TMI.
Daisy is also learning to become more neighborly..... or not. She likes to go out in the afternoon to "patrol" HER yard. She watches for other cats and critters running them out of HER space. Then she can grab a salad (from the lawn) and a bit of sunbathing before she comes back in to cool off. One morning, a new neighbor came by for breakfast....

As you can see, this neighbor LIKES breakfast.... AND elevenes..... AND lunch......AND dinner...... He/she heard that Daisy was having Chicken Feast with Gravy for breakfast and thought to stop by to share. Daisy was NOT impressed and did NOT want to share. She yowled and howled and he/she just kept asking politely to come in for a bite. I finally couldn't take it and scared them both away... the neighbor sadly waddled off the deck with a wistful look over his/her shoulder. Daisy ran to another window to make SURE he/she left.
We are all still adjusting to being a part of a close community.