Selfie Week 5, 2019 – Almost.

I should really provide context for this picture, but I really don’t want to…

I know, I’ve been quiet for a minute. But really, I haven’t been. You see, I’ve written the first Selfie post for 2019 for each of the previous four months!Well, …almost.Almost, we all know, only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Certainly not in blog posts. So, I’ve committed to hammering this out and publishing it because, goddamnit, let’s get this year going!One of the things I meant to write about was resolutions! Both how last years resolutions went and plans for this year. Let’s revisit my 2018 resolutions: 

  • Achieve low-hanging Bucket List fruit: Cross off five bucket list items this year.I got a few – two and a half. #13 “Soak in a hot spring in the middle of nowhere,” #20 “Ride Sherman Pass Road through Sequoia National Forest,” and the half is #8 “Meditate among the ancient bristlecone pines.” I count that as a half because while I did get there, I was too wiped out from the day before to make the hike out to the real ancient bristlecone pines. Instead I had to console myself with the only 3,000 year old trees. So, half. That’s not bad!
  • Selfie Posts! I’m not kidding: One Selfie Post a week. Well, a quick look indicates 21 Selfie posts. 52 weeks a year, subtracting 2 because I didn’t make that declaration until week 3…. that’s 42%. Not bad, still!
  • Stick to a posting schedule: three posts a week.Okay, no sugarcoating this one. The three-posts-a-week thing didn’t happen nearly as often as it should have.
  • 10,000 step daysNope. Didn’t happen with the kind of regularity I was looking for.
  • Shut up and make things! One completed project a month.Yeah, that didn’t happen either.

While I can count at least partial victory in the first two, the other three… yeah, didn’t meet those. But I’m still chalking 2018 up to a win. Maybe I didn’t get my requisite number of 10,000 step days in, but I lost 22 pounds last year, and I’ll take that metric. I do think I need to do a lot more projects, but I don’t think I’m going to hold myself to a number again. In fact, I’m not going to hold myself to any numbers…Before the new year, a few podcasts I listen to spoke about resolutions and one host indicated she doesn’t make resolutions but instead makes “Intentions.” I like that. Here are my intentions for the year already in progress…

  • I intend to cross off five bucket list items this year: I’m keeping this one because I genuinely want to achieve the things on my bucket list, but also because using that list informed my motorcycle trip  this last summer. I deliberately sought out Travertine hot springs off of 395 and I’m not sure I would have in the past, not to mention making an effort to finally get down to Sherman Pass Road. It was a fantastic trip (which I may still put a report up with pictures), and I owe it to bucket list items. There’s a lot more to go. Let’s see what I can do…
  • I intend to stick to a posting schedule: I legitimately feel better when I’m writing, and this will keep me honest. I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t meet my schedule, but I really do want to post as much as possible.
  • I intend to start a regular podcast: This one I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Now it’s really time.
  • I intend to make myself stronger, healthier, and lose another twenty pounds: Okay, I couldn’t help but put another number in there. But it’s reasonable, and the most important part is to get stronger and healthier – if I can do those, the twenty pounds will follow.That’s it for now.

They’re all doable, and I’ll keep you updated on my progress. First selfie post: in the can!

Requiem For A 2007 Pontiac Vibe

The clock always ran slow. 

Every few months I would have to add a few minutes to make up for it. That’s the one main complaint I had against the 2007 Pontiac Vibe that came into my life almost five years ago. Before that it, the Vibe was my mom’s car. The last memory I have of her in that car was her in the passenger seat, stoic, quiet, while my aunt Jean drove to Island Hospital in Anacortes for what would be her terminal diagnosis of an unbelievably aggressive abdominal cancer. While that drive is seared in my brain, it’s not the memory I like to remember with her in the car. That went back a few years before that, when she first bought the Vibe as a replacement for her Saturn. And what a replacement it was! Make no mistake, my mom loved her Saturn, but by the end a couple of the motor mounts had given up and the car shook like a P-51 Mustang even at idle. A litany of other problems finally forced her to the dealership with Jill and Lenny and she got a great deal on the Vibe. I wasn’t there, but I suspect the color – lively and bright “Wave Blue Effect” – as much as anything sealed the deal. It shined even in the dark of the garage when she and I got into it. I don’t remember where we went – out to dinner, I suspect – but I remember her smile as she backed out of the driveway, shifted into drive and started down the road.

Before she died, she indicated she wanted her beloved Vibe to go to the one in the family with the oldest car. At the time my 2002 Corolla was soldiering on with almost 300,000 miles on the odometer, so the 2007 Vibe came as an upgrade. 

Resting after the drive down from Washington

And, though the Vibe came into my life under sad circumstances, it shepherded me through tumultuous times. While it served as a physical reminder of someone vital to me who was gone, the Vibe arrived just as I started my divorce proceedings and helped in my move from the home I’d lived longer than any point in my life – 12 years along the Russian River. It served as a make-shift lumber rack more than once, but most memorably carrying the lumber I used for the bed I still sleep in – it’s astonishing how that beast would swallow 8-foot sections of wood and still allow me to close the back window. It never got as cold for the Vibe as it was when my mom drove it in Washington, but on more than a couple bartending gigs that topped 110 degrees the Vibe never faltered. 

8-foot lengths? Sure! 10- and 12-feet? Yeah, gonna need a flag for that…

I did my best to honor my mom in the car. I always had a pack of Altoids in the glove box. I made sure Jimmy Buffett’s Greatest Hits CD was always in the center console, never far from the radio. Jean told me of the adventures she and my mom had in the vibe, driving the scenic route up to Washington when my mom moved north. I wanted to honor her by adventuring in the Vibe, and that started the first Mother’s Day after she died when I took Highway 1 down the coast to Pescadero where the Vibe and I stopped in at Duarte’s tavern for a slice of pie that my mom loved. Sojourns to visit friends in San Luis Obispo, running out to Reno for the balloon races and a summer drive around Lake Tahoe, camping in Big Basin, midnight drives up Coleman Valley road to watch a meteor shower, an evening picnic on top of a parking garage in Berkeley watching  the sun set over the bay, and countless trips to wineries and vineyards, the Vibe never failed to be a boon companion and I always knew I had an unseen copilot. For the first few years I had the Vibe, if the sun warmed the steering wheel just right it would release the scent of the hand lotion my mom always used for her perpetually paper-dry hands. I’d often put my iPhone on shuffle and more than a few times the sequence of songs seemed to be far less than random. 

There was some deferred maintenance to attend to, but with the busy summer I was able to start to catch up on the needs of the car as it worked its way beyond 200,000 miles. 

And then on Christmas eve, heading out of Guerneville like I have a million times, the rain dislodged part of the hillside adjacent to River Road, and a trail of debris fell into the road, championed by a rock the size of small filing cabinet. 

I swerved. 

It wasn’t enough. 

The rock slammed into the front of the car, exploding against the driver’s side wheel and severing the control arms to that side. The car bounced up with the impact before slamming down to the pavement. Metal against asphalt shrieked as I used to right wheel to help steer-skid to the too-narrow shoulder. 

The clock read 5:42. It was 5:45. 

My insurance company has written the car off, explaining in clear, cold arithmetic how the necessary repairs exceed the resale value of the car, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

I collected everything from inside the car including the Altoids and the Jimmy Buffett CD. I let the tears run unabated as I tried to pack up so many minutes, so many miles into the plastic bags I brought for the task. They’ll go in whatever I get next, certainly, but… it won’t be the same.

And maybe I have a better appreciation now for that slow-running digital clock. I want to go back to that first drive with my mom and slow it down – make the minutes longer, add moments, bend time so that my mom were still here, so that I could still see her smile, so that her car – her last car – would still be intact. Take the time when those amber digits lingered just a few fractions of a second longer each minute and add them together and live there where they were both still with me…

But I can’t. She’s gone. Yesterday I signed the form consigning the 2007 Pontiac Vibe to an ignominious end I’m not even going to justify to write. It’s gone.

And another piece – one of the last, tangible, physical reminders – I have of my mom is gone, too.

Postscript. 
I went through my phone looking for pictures for this post and found surprisingly few. However, so many more pictures of adventures and trips and gigs I looked at the pictures and immediate thought, “I remember the drive there!” Even the pictures without the Vibe in it came about because of the car. Do me a favor if you would: if your car means more to you than just a car – and there’s nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong! But I know some of you have cars that mean as much to you as the Vibe did to me. Go out and take a picture of your car (or truck!). Just do it. And then hug your vehicle. Or, if you’re worried what the neighbors will thing, just pat it and say thanks.

Five Things This Week: week 48

Okay, yeah, this is a little (or a lot) late. But, here, look! Recipes!! 
Atlas Obscura
If you ask me to describe my ideal house, I’m not going to spend much time on the bedroom or bathroom count. I couldn’t care less about the material of the counter tops, the finish of the appliances, or the openness of the floor plan – though, I mean, hardwood (or laminate, I’m not picky) floors would be nice. What I would focus on is the garage, because that’s essential to me. This article references a number of important garages and offers a little lament that they may be dying out. Seriously, give me a three car garage with a little living space above it and I’ll be one happy camper.
Esquire
On December 15, Bruce will close his one-man Broadway show and that same show will premiere on Netflix the same night. I can’t wait. If you can’t either, you might want to check out this wonderful interview with The Boss.
Real Clear Life
Staying in the music theme, the headline makes this sound like a straight-forward concert review but it’s not. Instead it’s a long-form meditation on the importance of music, memory, and performance through the lens of a one of Bob Dylan’s shows on his current tour – I don’t think he even mentions where or when the show occurred. It doesn’t matter. The writing is beautiful. I’ve never seen Bob Dylan live. Curiously, this tour looks like it skipped the West Coast for some reason. Maybe they’ll circle back. Not that I could afford to go anyway, but still, with an endorsement like this…
And now, two Thanksgiving recipes!
Project Pumpkin Pie II: Gourd Will Hunting and Top Secret Pie: Rooting For You
Recipes
Last year Fern insisted sweet potato pie was the only true pie for Thanksgiving and looked askance when I declared pumpkin pie was superior to sweet potato pie. So last year she made her sweet potato pie and I… I scoured pumpkin pie recipes to build the best pumpkin pie ever. That was the first Project Pumpkin Pie. Which spices? The crust? Oh, I’m intimidated by pastry so I went with a gingersnap crust. This year, the sequel, Gourd Will Hunting. Shocking admission: I didn’t change the recipe this year at all. Bonus: as Thanksgiving approached it sounded like Fern wasn’t going to get a chance to make her sweet potato pie this year. Oh, that didn’t stop her from talking trash about my pumpkin pie. So, I started a secret parallel project to device a surprise sweet potato pie. I’ll be honest, I didn’t put in as much effort as I did in Gourd Will Hunting. For instance, I used a pre-made pie crust shell. But it turned out great! Here’s that recipe: Top Secret: Rooting For You.
Recipe
I didn’t change either the brine or the rub this year, and that was deliberate. Last year the bird was amazing. Seriously, one of the best I’d had. And here’s the bizarre part: I made it! I know, I know, I’m just as shocked as you! So, this year I endeavored to replicate the same situation. I can accept that last year I got lucky – maybe it tasted so good because I was tasting the fruit of my efforts! This year I would do everything the same and be ready to taste whether the brined and rubbed bird tasted just as good.
Dear Reader, the bird was divine.
The brine is taken from one my brother, Jay, used from a Traeger grill recipe and the rub is from a FoodTV recipe – The Neeley’s, I think. Doesn’t matter. Together, they make for a magical combination.