EL NINO and the WIND

The wind howls at my front door, the big bad wolf huffing and puffing and threatening to blow down my house made of sticks. The straw mat on the doorstep cannot survive the hound of the forest either, as it tumbles down the deck to the pavement below. The safety of the overhang is forgotten as the rain pelts horizontally against the windows. The clouds overhead are heavy with moisture sucked up from the ocean that threatens to break the seawall and pour into the city. Living on a hill is the only thing that protects me from the high tides that have created a new shoreline in the parkinglot behind the wharf.

Like exploding fireworks in a multitude of colors announcing the imminent arrival of a superstar, El Nino has ridden in on the west wind, daring anyone to not notice his entrance. He is here. He will not be ignored. At first, the conversation is peppered with words of heartfelt gratitude to Mother Nature for giving birth to such a healthy baby boy.

 But soon, the commuters tire of the unceasing pounding. The hospital nurses are tired from pulling double duty as they care for those injured in the multitude of freak accidents that surround the storms. Trees that have withstood the ravages of time have succumbed to the long dry spell and the instant mud bath that covers their shriveled-up roots. The drought had dried up all the twisted and entwined underbrush, leaving nowhere for the rain to go but into the quagmire that is slowly slipping down the hillsides that surround the bay. 

Soon, conversations turn to the appeals to the rain gods to make it stop, to offer some sort of relief. Enough already. Give us a break in the clouds so that we can repair the damages and brace ourselves for the next onslaught of storms. Windshields are pelted with hail and rain so hard that the wipers cannot keep up the pace and wear out too fast. Drivers are moving along, relying on their memory to get them where they need to go, for they cannot really see what is in front of them. Even the arrogant motorists are slowing down, realizing that being late is less permanent than being dead. Many shoppers are deciding that stocking up might be the wise thing to do, for a quick run to the supermarket has turned into a journey of epic porportions.

El Nino arrived on the wings of the wind yesterday. It has only been one day. But the promise of this small child is that he will grow into a strapping young man, ready to sow some wild oats, wreck havoc on the neighbors and leave a lasting tattoo'd impression on our lives. With this much power at his disposal, one would think we would name him. Something strong and mighty. Something to denote that he is a force to be reckoned with. A name that will personify the trouble he will cause. Something that will signify the legacy he is about to leave in his wake. I do believe we should call him Zeus. Thor. Alexander the Great. Oh but no, those names have already been taken by men and gods of greatness. But this is Monterey. I think we could go with something that has a special meaning for us... a name that reminds us of both the joys and the terrors of someone with these characteristics. I've got it.

Dennis. For this El Nino reminds us of another hellion that created havoc. A child who reigned his block, leaving his neighbors with a sense of resignation and acceptance to the fact that hopefully he would one day grow up and move away. And hey. We already have a park in Monterey named after this El Nino. It seems as though we were ready for him. 

So come in on the west wind Dennis. Come and dump your rambunctious rain on our dry dirt. Give us your best beastly weather. We will pull our coats around us a little tighter, throw our hands up in despair, and lock the doors - hoping you will go away and leave us alone in peace.

TRAFFIC BITS

I work in an small office at street level that has windows that face the sidewalk and busy avenue. Every day, three or four times a day, fire trucks wail and ambulances rush down the street, past my window. The police give chase, sirens blaring, and it seems as though the world is coming to a catastrophic end. And this always seems to happen when I am on the phone, in a serious conversation or trying to get a point accross to someone who just isn't getting it.

And I wonder. Where in the heck is the fire? I am beginning to suspect that they are merely going for coffee at the new Starbucks up on Lighthouse. Or maybe the Tuesday five dollar a dozen special on donuts at Red's. There couldn't possibly be THAT much excitement and emergencies in Monterey could there? I feel like Lassie is trying to tell me that Timmie has fallen in the well again, each and every time they go past my office. What is it? Where did they go? And I never read about any sort of siren-worthy news in the paper. Where is the capsized boat? The heart-attack victim at the Aquarium? The overturned vehicle? The doggie trapped in the blazing fire? Where? Where? It's like someone said, "YOU KNOW WHAT?" In a really loud, excited, frantic voice. And when I say, "WHAT?" They just keep on going and don't tell me. It is the audible sucking in of air with the accompanying squeal of danger. The "OH NO!" The "HELP!!!" scream. And then silence. Crickets. Nothing. Well, I'm tired of all this noise. Either get a twitter account and tell me where the heck you are going in such a hurry, call the newspaper and give them a heads up, post something on your city's facebook page... or stop with the sirens. Just go already. It isn't like people won't get out of your way. Heck, they'll even save you a parking space in front of Starbucks. And probably give you free coffee. Just stop interrupting my day with your emergencies that you don't bother telling me about. I'll pull over if I see you in my rearview mirror. You don't have to scare the beejesus out of me to get me out of your way.

SARATOGA BURGERS

If you know my husband, you know that he is rather peculiar as to where and what he wants to eat.  "People just don't know how to cook," he says.  "They think salt and pepper are the only spices," he bemoans.  He is pretty sure that the chef is NOT cooking with love or even paying attention half the time.

So it is with great pleasure that we dine out at a restaurant that wows my husband.  Without breaking the bank.  We found ONE such place in Saratoga.  Village Burger Bar.  Now, some people may want something more fancy - but we like sitting at the "bar" and ordering our food.  It lends itself to a more relaxed atmosphere and you can talk to other people.  And my husband LOVES to talk to people.

We "built" our own burger, ordering it just so.  My husband is a medium rare sort of person and I am a medium well.  We made a bet that the cooks wouldn't get it right.  They never do.  The "cooks" in this kitchen were all women (ahem) and each of them had a different task.  The grill cook.  The condiments girl,  the buns lady, the produce goddess.  All working together, enjoying themselves.  I think that might have made the difference.  They were laughing and having a good time.

And our burgers were perfect.  Just the right temperature.  Not over salted or under spiced.  As close to perfection as a burger can get.  Exactly as ordered.  Imagine that.  A damn near perfect burger NOT cooked by my husband.

We enjoyed each bite.  Along with truffle fries that were divine.  Mmmmm.... makes me want to go back again next week.  And the week after that.  You can bet every time we go to San Jose now, we'll organize the trip to head over the mountains to Highway 17 and past Saratoga.  A detour stop for lunch at the Village Burger Bar.

Can't wait! Oh great, now I'm hungry. If you're hungry too.... visit their website at http://www.vbbsaratoga.com/.

MONTEREY SUMMER

I hail from Southern California. "Hell" my husband called it after living through one particularly hot summer. A place where 10 days of 100F plus degree weather was common. In November. Heat is nothing new for me. I remember Summers and Autumns in SoCal where it was so hot you could do science experiments on the sidewalk. A "dry heat" the natives said. The kind of heat that sucked the air out of your lungs when you stepped outside your front door. The kind of heat you stopped, squared your shoulders, and braced yourself for at the door, just before you left the comfort of an airconditioned building. So you can imagine my amusement when someone told me that we were having a heat wave in Monterey. It was going to get over 70 degrees they said. Seventy? Seventy in Los Angeles is the temperature where you think, "gee, I'd better grab a sweater just in case I get cold." Over 70F in Monterey - next to the water? How hot could that possibly be? I remember my first experience when the temperature rose up to 83F degrees here, along the coast. Oh good lord. Women were practically naked. Men were showing off their pasty white, albeit ripped chests. I've never seen so much reflection off of bare skin before! Not a scarf to be found, nary a sweater in sight. Men and women were stripped down to the basics of summer wear, lounging by the water, trying to "cool off" in the oppressive onslaught of a mercury overload on the local temperature gauge.

I've lived here six years now. It is mid-March and we've had several days where the little red dot on the thermometer has gone over the three-quarter mark and has crept upwards toward the 70F line. I find myself wearing layers and sandals to work. I leave the house in the cool of the morning, only to be stripped down to the lowest acceptable level of business wear by noon. I find myself wondering if it is okay to turn on the fan in my office when the temperature gets above 60F. Is it hot in here? And I find myself wandering outside as often as possible. The heat warms my aching bones that stiffened up over the winter nights. Monterey heat puts a spring in my step and makes me want to head down to the harbor to watch the sea otters frolic in the ocean. The orange blossoms are in full bloom in the courtyard of my work and the sun shines through my window. I watch as the blue jay outside of my window builds her nest and it makes me think we've completely skipped spring and have moved right into a Monterey summer. Have you seen my flip flops?

LOST IN THE WOODS

We were lost.  It wasn't hard to do.  A right hand turn instead of going straight.  Or maybe we went straight instead of turning left.  I'm not really sure.  But it was pretty evident that we were hopelessly lost.  The path we were on kept climbing up into the redwoods.  We saw a sign and it told us that the road would narrow for the next eight miles.  We eventually lost the yellow line that marks the middle of the highway and we were having to squeeze up against the side of the mountain to let cars going the other way pass.  Odd thing that.  We didn't see any cars ahead of us or behind us going the same way.  Just a semi-steady stream of day trippers headed down the mountain.

The gas gauge had dipped below the quarter-tank mark and the sun was beginning to dip as well.  The dense green forest we were in was cool and dark and damp.  It was truly beautiful, but the worry marker in my head was rising exponetially to the drop in temperature and daylight.  We knew which highway we were on, but we had no idea where it ended up, how long it would take to get to our mystery destination, or even if there was a filling station at the other end.  Our GPS didn't work because there was no signal in those hills.

My husband knew before I did that I was getting a bit aprehensive about this adventure.  He told me simply to follow my intuition.  My intution was screaming to turn around.  Head back to where you know there is a gas, food, and civilization.

So that's what we did.  Right there in the middle of the narrow road, we did a U-turn.  Don't you know right about then it was a traffic jam on that deserted road.  Four of five cars were impatiently urging me to hurry as I lumbered the truck across the road, back, forth, perfectly executing a twelve-point turn.  But I made it and we were headed back down the hill.

We found the road we had missed back a ways.  Discovered some quaint mining towns that had been in those hills for a hundred years.  We refueled and made it safely home.

As with many of life's adventures, this one had a spiritual message.  See, life is kind of like that excursion.  Am I on a road without a roadmap?  Am I running out of energy and have no idea where I am going? Am I climbing and climbing, enjoying the view, but aprehensive about where I am going to wind up?  Is it getting dark and those beautiful woods are starting to look scary?  Have I reached a point where I realize that I have not prepared myself for this journey?  Is it time to stop.  Trust my intuition.  Back out of the potentially dangerous situation.  Head back to safety and home?

We will go back to those woods.  But know this.  I now know where that road winds up.  And next time, I'll have a plan, a full day of sunlight and a full tank of gas, and sensible shoes and a jacket.  I want to explore those woods.  I want to stop and smell the forest.  And I want to be prepared for whatever adventure awaits.  And a map.  I want a map.

CHA CHA CHA CHING!

Our arrival to the Peninsula coincided with the major dip our nation's economy suffered back during the middle of the first decade of the 21st century.  You could feel the pinch here in Monterey and knew you were going to be awake for the entire nightmare.  Attendance was down at our local tourist attraction, there were fewer cars on the road - albeit they were still driving slower than frozen honey, and you could get tickets at the Jazz Festival's window a few minutes before the main arena's showtime.  That has changed.  Apparently, when everyone was busy stooping over to pick up that stray penny, the economy took a swing for the bleachers.  

As many of you who know me know, I spend every other Sunday at my volunteer job at the local tourist hotspot.  Lately, the crowds have been overwhelmingly, well, crowded.  Stroller parking is a premium, and entire families are posing under the life-size model of an orca, trying to get that perfect Christmas Card Photo to share with all their friends.  And that isn't the only place that seems to be booming...  Downtown has added another bar (because that is what Alvarado Street needs) - which isn't technically a bar, but a brewery.. where you can buy beer... and alcohol... and pick up women at the, oh wait, yes.. bar.  Not only that, but Golden State Theatre (spelled the old-fashioned way) has taken on new owners who are determined to bring a sense of culture and adventure to the  locals and tourists alike.  We recently went to hear a Beatles tribute band (not good) and got passes to their National Geographic Series (much better!) set for the summer months.   There are now long lines at the grocery store, the drug store, Trader Joes, and Starbucks.  Well, for the record, Starbucks never had a short line...   Last weekend was the reggae festival at the fairgrounds.  Sold out.  Crazy busy on the streets.  People walking up to the bus as it was stopped at a red light, begging to be let on (regulations say no).  

Traffic.  Yes. We have traffic.  Being a transplant from Los Angeles, I used to scoff at the locals' idea of traffic.  Three cars at a stoplight was considered traffic.  But now there is serious traffic.  On these one-way, two-lane streets, it has become common to sit through two or three revolutions of a red light, waiting your turn.  Everyone is still slower than frozen honey, but at least now they have an excuse.  I still do my environmental part and ride the bus - but these days I'm not alone and it is taking nearly twice as long to get home.

And Summer, although by the calendar it's not here yet, has unofficially arrived.  Do you know how I know? The trolley is running.  You can hear its bell clanging as it goes down the middle of downtown, headed for its loop back and forth to the Aquarium.  And you know how I know the economy is on the mend here in Monterey?  That trolley is loaded with people.  In the middle of the week.  I can only imagine what it is going to be like on any given weekend during the summer.  I think I'll just walk thank you.

God's Church

My father was a gardener. Oh, a fancy title that didn't quite fit on the business cards he printed up by hand was "Landscape Design and Architect" but I am pretty sure he was okay with the gardener title. He used to say, "it's a noble profession. Afterall, the first job God gave Adam was to tend the garden..." He loved puttering about, creating spaces for plants, putting seemingly unrelated bushes together, knowing that when they bloomed they would create a canopy of color for the birds to nest in. He helped me plant a seed in the front yard one time, without telling me what it was. Thirty years later, it was a towering redwood tree, right there in the middle of a Los Angeles suburb. I wonder if the humans of the future will marvel at its placement and wonder from whence it came?

Dad used to say he wasn't a practicing Christian, but rather a practical Christian. Oh, he would stuff himself into a starched shirt, put on a bolero tie, dress up in a fancy suit with suspenders, polish up his cowboy boots, slap on some Old Spice and with three fingers, place his Stetson on top of his head just so. We would climb into the truck and head out to our brick and mortar church. Sometimes, we left really early in the morning, all gussied up, only to wind up in the little church 150 miles from home where they looked forward to our visits because I was the only person they knew that could play the piano. Those church days would turn into singing days, sermons forgotten, protocol and structure set aside just so they could sing their praises to Jesus on the days they had someone to play along and keep them on tune.

But the best church days were the days when I would find dad in his easy clothes and he would tell me to put on my jeans and my boots and grab my jacket. I knew we were doing something different because he would have the all the fixins' for a picnic lunch spread out on the table. Peanut butter sandwiches cut into fours, oranges and apples all cleaned and polished, celery sticks and carrots cut up and put in baggies. He put as much care into prepping our lunch as he did primping for regular go-to-meetin' church services. We would pile into the old green Chevy and head for God's Church. Dad wasn't one for maps, so we would just head for the hills and see where the road took us. Many times I remember him saying, "I wonder where this road goes?" as he would make a sharp right and head off into the unknown.

Out of the city, into the mountains above our home, sometimes exploring out into the desert that sat behind the mountains, I discovered a whole new language of God. I discovered spiritual lessons that made more sense than my book lessons were trying to teach me. I found that all of God Nature is connected to a Source of Life, that, if you pluck or pull or detach nature from its source, it will stay pretty for awhile, but it will eventually wither up and die. I learned that God Nature is not to be feared, but it is not to be disrespected either. I learned that there were plenty of paths to explore, but it was wise to always look to where you were putting your hands or feet before you actually put them there. I learned to be quiet in God Nature and to listen with my heart to the different creatures that surrounded me. I found out that you cannot see wind in God Nature, but you can see how it moves the trees and the bushes and even the smells through the forest. In God Nature my father showed me the true circle of life - how nothing goes to waste, but rather, even when it dies, it goes back to God Nature to nurture and nourish the next generation. In God Nature I learned that I never had to fear death, only to embrace it as part of living. On these forays into God Nature, I discovered colors that just couldn't be reproduced out of my crayon box. The purple lupines that looked like a royal carpet spread across the hills, the shy pale violets resting in the rotting wood of a fallen pine tree. The shades of green that varied from the graceful palm fronds by the pool of water to the moss on the rocks behind trickle of a stream as it washed over a cliff.

All of these things my father showed to me... he didn't lecture, he didn't try to impress me with his knowledge. He would simply place his big hands on my shoulders, quietly willing me to stand still and listen and watch. His delight was in my joy of awareness. In watching as my eyes grew big with wonder at the deer standing in the clearing or the fascination with the fuzzy ants carrying their larger-than-life finds back and forth with the determination of a creature with a purpose. He would ooh and ahh at my discoveries, as though it was the first time he had seen the seeds some squirrel had poked inside a pine cone or had ever smelled the pungent sage I had crushed between my fingers. Getting dirty was never punished, nor was getting my feet shoes wet and muddy. Clothes could always be washed or replaced if needed. God Nature was to be experienced full out, no holds barred, with eyes and arms wide open. I was taught what was to be left alone (skunks, porcupines, and poison oak) and what you could pick up and touch (fall leaves, pine cones, and frogs if you could catch them). I learned what you could use in God Nature to survive and what to do if you get lost. I was never afraid in God Nature.

Long after my dad was too frail to go to God Nature, I would do my best to bring it to him. I still brought my discoveries, my wonders, my fascinations. And on warm spring days, I would get my father dressed in his easy clothes, three-finger place his hat on his head, and wheel him out to the garden where we would sit quietly, watching, listening, and breathing in God Nature. Look over there, do you see it? Shhhh.. quiet now. If you sit real still, you're gonna see something beautiful.. Something God created just for you.