The ladies embraced in the interior doorway. Walking into the sun flooded courtyard they exchanging polite pleasantries. The Chinchilla coat and Sophia's dog were taken away by the silent, stone faced Mde. Chia. Seating the mildly stoned Isabel at the lovingly arranged table, Sophia urged her client to sample the cheeses. The ever hungry Isabel replied that she wouldn't be able to fit into the collection if she did. The concern arose not by a sudden awareness of corpulence but rather by her having caught a glimpse of the collection assembled in the salon as she sat down in the Courtyard. Sophia had noted both its beauty and the seemingly small size. "Darling", said a rather distressed Isabel, "I thought these were NOT sample size. Sophia replied. "don't worry dear, that Sphinx of a woman can work miracles. I've a chilled bottle of Tattinger, it's perfectly paired with this double cream from Spain, which one is that...oh yes this one with the fig sauce drop " " by the way I've asked Adige to amuse us.. ADIGE ." Sophia called, than leaning towards Isabel she continued "where has that queen gone, most likely on the throne AGAIN, it seems he rented a new man last night with rather an aggressive fist, the poor boy has been slowed down by the workout.., what did he call it... Opera Gloves?...,darling for the first 5 minutes of his retelling his tale I thought he wanted me to order a pair of above the elbow gloves" The intrigued Isabel replied "well what on earth are they than." Sophia yelled. "ADDDIGE do hurry up". Leaning in once more Sophia continued " well it seems that his beau du nuit is a pro who takes his fist and...." Adige swaned into the salon, announcing his arrival with a heavy sigh. Adige began a graceful descent onto the divan next to the french doors opening onto the courtyard, a trace of Dragon dust visible on his nose
"Sophia it is simply wonderful to see you again." "Adige.... Isabel tells me you've been to the Opera?" Adige chortled, " no darling I simply can't stand the boring old noise, but I have been with a man who has magical hands but forgot his Opera gloves" Sophia looked amused, Isabel mildly confused was more intent on the cheeses than Adige's foray into high culture or tricks. "It's slang Isabel, do let's drink I'm feeling suddenly loving and wish to savor the moment with you two girls flutes in hand." Sophia said to "Isabele I'm afraid Adige is giving us a rather poor interpretation of Billie Holiday today" Adige!, Isabele said in feigned disgust," you are a boar, no one wants a heroin user in their set, the minute anything goes missing they are always the first to be accused of pinching it. Where's my Chinchilla...lock it up Mde. Chia, Adige's dealer might be about." Hahaha the mellowing Adige replied, "a social rule from a woman whose husband bottles cheap wine for high school students and grows dope on 100 acres of perfectly perfect Dry Creek appellation land. Tell me Isabel is he still financing your trips and shopping by flying a seasons worth of the finest Kush intothe private airport near your Vail lodge?,' Sophia returned the volley for her client "Now Adige you mustn't become boring or I'll call the police". Isabele, her mouth full of yet another cheese, her hands busy at work slicing a wedge of Stilton and grabbing a slice of bread had missed the round of attempted wit and looking at Sophia said "delectable..how sweet of you to think of it."..glancing towards Adige she loudly addressed Sophia "who on earth is that man's drug dealer? I thought snorted heroin made the addict euphoric, you are clearly being ripped off." "perhaps you should inject it next time" added Sophia. "oh go bother each other.." replied the reclining Adige.
Stepping into the salon Sophia addressed Adige "Darling don't dose off here, be a love and lounge in the courtyard, we've clothes to look at. Adige ever eager to please the rich and fashionable rose quietly, bowed from the waist in an exagerated fashion, he hummed the opening aria of Madame Butterfly leaving the salon and stumbling on the threshold he grabbed Isabel in passing causing her to splash champagne on the floor, "dreadful man" she mockingly hissed and grabbed him firmly by his left ass cheek, shoving him forcefully out of the salon. " perhaps Opera Gloves should be on your shopping list", Adige said," I detect real sexual frustration in your grasp. Barry not up to it these days? " "Foul creature" Isabel replied and closed one of the doors leading into the courtyard.
Sophia had begun the business of her business which was selling the client as much as she could and had missed the exchange. Taking a $16,000.00 Valentino resort suit, the lightest shade of pale pink, in hand she presented it to a seated Isabel. "I thought this would be fun and simply perfect for lunches when you are at your place in the desert" " Isn't it pretty".replied Isabel. SOPHIA this isn't my size" No. It''s a 6 the admiring Sophia said...these are samples" " SOPH! I need a glorious gown for Thursday! This was an emergency shopping trip, don't tell me you didn't remember? " Yes. I've just the thing, but I thought you'd like to see a few of Morris's latest from Milan as well." Sophia was immersed in the beauty of the collection " this is the one that gorgeous Mary Burghoff wore last week at the new gallery opening at the MOMA. Informing most clients that a $12,000.00 dress had been worn locally by another woman would have ended the sale but Mary Burghoff was the impossibly chic, thin, gorgeous woman who knew everyone and was a woman Isabel admired to the point of having a crush. Mary Burghoff was a woman Isabel could never be. Isabel said " I love it! than continued.."you know Mary is single again. That sweet girl, so popular. There was that actor in L.A., you know the one that was in one of those Mafia movies, what's his name.?. Mary dumped him and..." from the courtyard Adige interrupted, "one man is not enough for our girl Mary. you know she dated War, or was it Tower of Power when she was 19, which one was the black group? Now it wasn't the entire band just the horn section...mind you Mary is a lady"
Adige was awake and roaming. "Isabel, come now WOEMIN if you are buying a gown you should also buy the gloves." What is that vile thing talking about? Sophia said to Mde.Chia. "Adige dear what are your talking about inquired Sophia, " MY trick ladies... the manly man Jojohn... solid muscle, 6.4, blonde, dumb as a load of wood but just as hard and ladies the hands of a Maestro. I could arrange a meeting Sophia, how about one Isabel?' JoJohns put me on retainer" "Not for me, I'm not on the market for one of your queer steers".replied Sophia. "He isn't"..." Isn't what?" the mildly annoyed Isabel asked while being undressed by Sophia and Mde. . "he isn't queer, he is married to a perfectly plain, unknowing woman. They live in ...umhh...ahhh Santa Rosa.. he wants to be a fireman. the man wants to put out fires....he could start with the one in my nose...gawd this burns, I think you should let Jojohn start one with you Isabel, I mean he is in your neck of the woods, Barry is never around, just think of it, a hard body, all that kush you age so skillfully in the cellars to put you in the mood, that huge empty faux chateau.. A good bang just might help your diet. $400.00 an hour isn't that much really, think of it as a personal training session:". "HA...help with my diet? leave his number" Isabel replied jokingly. The idea of a successful diet, now that had appeal, all other attempts having failed, this opera glove thing whatever it was might be no more difficult than the rubber waist bands she had worn one winter. "I already have dear, his number is in your purse" her Cartier Gold lighter now being in his pocket.
Sophia approached with the special order gown, a rainbow of colors, clear crystals reflecting the colors and light, each bead sparking a diamond like reflection off the underlying white silk.A complete stunner even in the lady's rather full size 14. "Isabel.. this is it". Silence. Quiet filled the room, the clock ticked, the water played in the courtyard fountain, it was a sublime moment. "my God.. pure beauty, the awed Isabel replied, than a command.."right let's do this Get Chia in here." Mde. Chia ever a silently unobtrusive presence said "I'm here Mrs.Harris, please step onto the platform and into the gown....there.. there.... now carefully" Mde. Chia guiding her into the gown..continued "gently.. now into the shoes please. ...face the mirror" Isabel complied, a meek schoolgirl eager to please the mistress. In fashion Mde. Chia's word was law, not only in this Salon but several others. They all knew the magic of Mde.s handiwork. Isabel respectfully stood at attention, the artist began work, her artistry was gentle and definitive. The full length gown was thick with Austrian crystal beads, each sewn onto the garment by hand, the dress pattern was winter blooming flowers in multi colors, reds, blue, purple, green all arrayed on the background of off white silk. The pieces empire waist bordered by a subtle gold cording. It would flatter all women but was particularly kind to larger women. The gowns bodice was a masterpiece of beading, embroidery and the tailoring arts. The straps were a simple and discrete gold chain. Heavy to carry the gown was equally surprisingly easy to wear, its construction being as much a work of art as the beauty of the colors. It was a master work of the fine art of European Couture. The construction was thought out so that each stitch supported the weight of the gown. The wearer was not burdened by wearing pounds of crystal. It was as Isabel said "utter perfection" Mde. Chia set to work and made a few pin points under the arms and at the side of the bodice. A piece like this was not one to be reworked but merely fine tuned.
"Well than, you'll take it?" YES! replied Isabel" " Wonderful!, now let's look at the other pieces,. I really think this.." "Order them all Sophia, I'm sure I'll have use of them" Isabel replied. The woman was utterly transfixed by the image she saw reflected in the mirror. In this magical gown Sophia was no longer a lonely, too heavy, 50 something, a forever stoned drunkard but the image of what she had been at 28 or rather what she had hoped to be. Gorgeous, relaxed, glamorous, unfailingly chic, thin and above all desirable to her man. The gown had cast a spell on her. Mde. Chia and Sophia knew not to wake this dreamer from the spell, the fashion poppy was taking hold, its hoped for effect and the ride was pleasing. The dreamer was not to be awoken.
The clock chimed half past four. " Oh dear, the time..Sophia help me out of this. Barry is in the city tonight and momma needs to work for her dress money..." In a dance of quick small movements each in precise succession, the gown was off, her own dress stepped into, the wrapdress retied by Mde. Chia, the Chinchilla fetched, the purse retrieved and the cab hailed. Isabel was waved too until she was driven out of sight. The door was closed and locked.
All items sold. An order placed that hour both online and by fax to the Milan workroom for the entire Morris Resort Couture collection, to be delivered in 6 weeks, size 14. Mrs. Barry Harris, $129,000.00 paid in full Black American Express Card. Sophia rose from the computer at her desk in the petite salon, turning the courtyard lights off she walked out into the courtyard and poured the seated Mde. Chia a glass of champagne, smilingly joining her in a silent toast. Adige rushed past the ladies seated in the courtyard to get to the water closet, Mde Chia turned to Sophia and said "always such a delight to see Mrs.Harris." The evening had begun. The purchase was complete.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Isabel- An excerpt from a work in progress entitled ADDICTION
Isabel woke suddenly from her half slumber with an abrupt start, a near panic inhaling of air, her eyes blinded by afternoon sun flooding the dining room through floor to ceiling windows. The rush of euphoria from her aged Kush had left her. Isabel was slam cold sober and a bit dry. The afternoon end of a stoned space entered sometime before lunch. Judging by the remains of the meal left on the Flora Danca luncheon plate, she had heartily enjoyed the meal, as well as a 2003 Cabernet from her cellar's private reserve. The bottle lay on its side on the shining George the Second supper table, drained dry, she vaguely recalled playing spin the bottle solitaire, a game only she knew. A, Baccarat wineglass had been broken and the shards shone bright all over the table.
Isabel now had an enormous headache. A throbbing pain but one that a toke or two would cure. Reaching for her Hermes black Alligator Kelly handbag she quickly found her red Dunhill cigarette case and the Cartier gold lighter. Lighting her perfectly rolled and huge joint she inhaled a long drag, held it, exhaled and repeated the process. The tension left her head, her facial muscles relaxed, ease returned and she felt right again. The silver Louis the 15th mantel clock chimed 3:00 o'clock. Good GOD she thought I've been at lunch for three hours, the realization caused her to giggle slightly. Isabel, she thought, "you are simply a slacker and there is nothing that can be down about it. Three o'clock! what is to be done with you" another toke, than a sudden awakening look crossed her face. "HELL..she yelled, " I have Mde. Sofa's trunk show in 15 minutes" . "Juan!! Jaun!!! JAUN!!! " she yelled " where is that man?", she recalled silently oh that's right he's at the vineyard. " Right, I need to have the concierge hail a car" . She rose quickly and in one step was back in her Alligator pumps, grabbed her cell and called the lobby, "How may I serve you Mrs. Harris?' "I'm running late.. I need a Towncar or a cab, hell I'll take a rickshaw, just have whatever it is ready when I get off the elevator." "Yes. Mrs Harris...I'll see..". Isabel turned it off and tossed it into the Kelly bag. Right- what needs repair...she walked over to the gilt Louis 14th mirror that had cost her husband Barry more than her first new car post -Berkeley, " Hmmm...not so bad"... placing a coat of red lipstick on, she surveyed the rest of her round face, those little queens at MILLS PLACE DAY SPA charged her a fortune but her hair was still perfectly and artfully messed, her makeup looked both irreproachable and flattering. The Art of Kabuki knew no higher form than the artful mask the queens applied to her no longer young face each morning while she was resident in the city. " There. Right ...Lets go". Grabbing the first fur she came across in her hallway closet she threw it over her green Diane Von Faustenberg wrapdress, snapped the Alligator bag that now dangled at her elbow closed and quietly closed the thick walnut door behind her. The door and lock system was activated and the nearly silent noise of it locking reminded Isabel of the sound of a vault door closing.
The elevator door opened and upon entering she noticed her reflection in the brown mirror that lined the back wall...her mouth opened a bit in surprise..she had grabbed her new Chinchilla. It was simply gorgeous. It played well off the Alligator handbag and pumps but was a bit over the top for mid afternoon. " OH Well ", she thought. " I'll simply have to carry it off". The door closed and the speed of the descent from the penthouse on the 38th floor to the lobby and it's nearly motionless ending never failed to delight her. Placing her Chanel sunglasses on Isabel turned to the front as the elevator door opened. "Mrs.Harris", greeted the concierge George or Tony or Bill, she never remembered the names or faces and as she was always a bit stoned and they all were blurrily interchangeable it seemed too difficult to attempt to do so. " I have a Town car for you. but you didn't mention your destination....I assumed you'll have this billed to".. Isabel didn't stop or speak and the man went silent. In fact she never spoke to the help, her own or the building staff. It simply didn't occur to her to do so. Unless directing them the lady kept silent if they were about. The Doorman escorted her to the waiting car and asked "Where to Mrs. Harris?" "Mde. Sophia on Sutter Street" replied Isabel. Settling into the backseat she sunk into the velour seat and didn't hear the doorman utter "stoned again you old cunt" as he stepped away from the departing car.
The driver sped through the sunny streets and Isabel marveled in the magic of a warm, bright, fall San Francisco afternoon, the realization slowly dawned upon her that wearing a Chinchilla was a huge absurdity on" such a warm afternoon. " Oh well I do try to amuse she thought." Arriving at Sophia's, Isabel restrained her eagerness to bounce into the salon, in order to allow the driver to open her door, it was his job after all. He unlocked the door remotely.Isabel waited. She waited, she stared at his reflection. in the rear view mirror, he stared back, neither blinked, he unlocked the door again and motioned that her door was unlocked...."Oh really.."she said loudy..."oh thank you" Closing the car door behind her Isabel uttered a very audible "ASS" but a boozey belch lessened its intended effect. The car sped away and the lady walked the three paces from the curb to the front door of the elegant shop.
Ringing the bell once, twice and three times in quick order, our Chinchilla clad Isabel, 50 something, overweight, stoned and an alcoholic, stood eagerly at Mde. Sofia's locked front door, right hand on her hip, black Alligator bag dangling at her right elbow, the urban glare shaded by sunglasses. Isabel waited. Ringing again once, the door slowly opened inward and the impeccable and impossibly chic Sophia greeted her warmly "Isabel! "What a delightful "
Isabel now had an enormous headache. A throbbing pain but one that a toke or two would cure. Reaching for her Hermes black Alligator Kelly handbag she quickly found her red Dunhill cigarette case and the Cartier gold lighter. Lighting her perfectly rolled and huge joint she inhaled a long drag, held it, exhaled and repeated the process. The tension left her head, her facial muscles relaxed, ease returned and she felt right again. The silver Louis the 15th mantel clock chimed 3:00 o'clock. Good GOD she thought I've been at lunch for three hours, the realization caused her to giggle slightly. Isabel, she thought, "you are simply a slacker and there is nothing that can be down about it. Three o'clock! what is to be done with you" another toke, than a sudden awakening look crossed her face. "HELL..she yelled, " I have Mde. Sofa's trunk show in 15 minutes" . "Juan!! Jaun!!! JAUN!!! " she yelled " where is that man?", she recalled silently oh that's right he's at the vineyard. " Right, I need to have the concierge hail a car" . She rose quickly and in one step was back in her Alligator pumps, grabbed her cell and called the lobby, "How may I serve you Mrs. Harris?' "I'm running late.. I need a Towncar or a cab, hell I'll take a rickshaw, just have whatever it is ready when I get off the elevator." "Yes. Mrs Harris...I'll see..". Isabel turned it off and tossed it into the Kelly bag. Right- what needs repair...she walked over to the gilt Louis 14th mirror that had cost her husband Barry more than her first new car post -Berkeley, " Hmmm...not so bad"... placing a coat of red lipstick on, she surveyed the rest of her round face, those little queens at MILLS PLACE DAY SPA charged her a fortune but her hair was still perfectly and artfully messed, her makeup looked both irreproachable and flattering. The Art of Kabuki knew no higher form than the artful mask the queens applied to her no longer young face each morning while she was resident in the city. " There. Right ...Lets go". Grabbing the first fur she came across in her hallway closet she threw it over her green Diane Von Faustenberg wrapdress, snapped the Alligator bag that now dangled at her elbow closed and quietly closed the thick walnut door behind her. The door and lock system was activated and the nearly silent noise of it locking reminded Isabel of the sound of a vault door closing.
The elevator door opened and upon entering she noticed her reflection in the brown mirror that lined the back wall...her mouth opened a bit in surprise..she had grabbed her new Chinchilla. It was simply gorgeous. It played well off the Alligator handbag and pumps but was a bit over the top for mid afternoon. " OH Well ", she thought. " I'll simply have to carry it off". The door closed and the speed of the descent from the penthouse on the 38th floor to the lobby and it's nearly motionless ending never failed to delight her. Placing her Chanel sunglasses on Isabel turned to the front as the elevator door opened. "Mrs.Harris", greeted the concierge George or Tony or Bill, she never remembered the names or faces and as she was always a bit stoned and they all were blurrily interchangeable it seemed too difficult to attempt to do so. " I have a Town car for you. but you didn't mention your destination....I assumed you'll have this billed to".. Isabel didn't stop or speak and the man went silent. In fact she never spoke to the help, her own or the building staff. It simply didn't occur to her to do so. Unless directing them the lady kept silent if they were about. The Doorman escorted her to the waiting car and asked "Where to Mrs. Harris?" "Mde. Sophia on Sutter Street" replied Isabel. Settling into the backseat she sunk into the velour seat and didn't hear the doorman utter "stoned again you old cunt" as he stepped away from the departing car.
The driver sped through the sunny streets and Isabel marveled in the magic of a warm, bright, fall San Francisco afternoon, the realization slowly dawned upon her that wearing a Chinchilla was a huge absurdity on" such a warm afternoon. " Oh well I do try to amuse she thought." Arriving at Sophia's, Isabel restrained her eagerness to bounce into the salon, in order to allow the driver to open her door, it was his job after all. He unlocked the door remotely.Isabel waited. She waited, she stared at his reflection. in the rear view mirror, he stared back, neither blinked, he unlocked the door again and motioned that her door was unlocked...."Oh really.."she said loudy..."oh thank you" Closing the car door behind her Isabel uttered a very audible "ASS" but a boozey belch lessened its intended effect. The car sped away and the lady walked the three paces from the curb to the front door of the elegant shop.
Ringing the bell once, twice and three times in quick order, our Chinchilla clad Isabel, 50 something, overweight, stoned and an alcoholic, stood eagerly at Mde. Sofia's locked front door, right hand on her hip, black Alligator bag dangling at her right elbow, the urban glare shaded by sunglasses. Isabel waited. Ringing again once, the door slowly opened inward and the impeccable and impossibly chic Sophia greeted her warmly "Isabel! "What a delightful "
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Sid. An excerpt from a work in progess entitled ADDICTION.
Sid bounded into the gym. The parking lot was full of his clients cars so his step was quicker than usual. Sid or rather Sid as Jojohn had a date in San Francisco in a couple of hours and he needed to conduct the deals in the locker room and get some pec. and back work in before heading across the bridge. The john, a regular client named Barry, a retired Real Estate Broker turned vintner, married, lived about ten miles away but they only met in San Francisco. The idea had been Barry's and was motivated by his ever present concern to keep keep it all on the DL. Having the date 85 miles from Healdsburg provided him space to enjoy the sex and relax in the arms of his stud. It didn't matter to Sid. Sid was Sid to all his firefighter friends, all young enough, dumb enough, crooked enough or a combination of all three to not notice or care about the existence of Jojohn. To them Sid was a stand up sort of guy, one that always bought the drinks, shared or scored the best drugs, lied to their girlfriends or wives for them, hunted and skied with them and sometimes, when they were stoned on a good bowl of Kush, would let himself be blown by one or two of them.
Tonight there was no need for extra stealth as Barry's wife, Isabel, was hosting a private party at their winery, Cave Curee. Isabel or so Barry had told him, would be resplendently dressed in a couture evening gown and holding court in their candlelit, flower strewn faux Tusacan tasting room. A room to be completely populated by drunks on the make, hangers on, a friend or two and the increasingly rare liquor wholesale agent. As a result Isabel Harris would be oblivious to time passing or absent husbands. Couture fashion had that effect upon her. Like a drunk with a full bottle everything else simply didn't matter.
Sid knew that this johns wife occupied and not being a factor during the upcoming evening meant that Barry would want added kinks. All light stuff, use of butter instead of lube, domination and complete silence during the whole session. Sid typically finished Barry in about ten minutes and they'd spend the rest of the hour discussing the progress of the garden Sid and his wife Angelina were planting. Barry liked to offer his advice and felt his freely sharing a decade of experience in building a winery, would somehow benefit Jojohn rather than a fifty dollar tip. Barry directed the development or so he thought.of the small garden at the post-war Rancher fixer-upper that Sid and his wife Angelina had purchased in an older part of Santa Rosa. To Sid-Jojohn what mattered most was that the design hide and incorporate his dozen marijauna plants. Sid, like the rest of the north bay, was nothing if entrepreneurial and his mini farm of kush marijauna plants fit in nicely with his real world job as an ambulance driver. Medical Marijauna was a legal easy side business and explained the bundles of extra cash to Angelina
The free weights were just a head, the juice head cage as it was nicknamed was full, he passed by, circled the fenced off area once and headed to the men's locker room. Four big men, each lacking a discernable neck, one looking like a kid in a fat suit, followed him into the locker room. They waited silently and busied themselves by washing hands or trash talking girlfriends. They waited for Sid to be dressed in his workout clothes before silently, one at a time, approaching him. Four quick exchanges, each consisting of an exchange of three one hundred dollar bills for a small, still sealed box with a Pfizer Lab logo on it. The transaction occurred in a very matter of fact fashion. The locker door opened again but as these four were his regulars and he worked out with most of them they all knew the "dealio". Business was conducted in such an unrushed manner that when a stranger happened in on the scene he would not notice anything unusual about the five men's behavior. Business completed. Twelve hundred dollars pocketed, about half profit., locked in his locker made safer by one of his boy's sitting shotgun near it and reading an auto trader magazine. Sid hit the free weights.
Barry liked Sid's pecs pumped up and since this john was $400.00 per session Sid liked to pump the goods. Barry also supplied the heroin they snorted, post hand job, which meant he would be later than the 8:00 o'clock start time previously agreed upon. Barry would need to visit his drug dealer, a decayed old young man called McCarthy, before they met at the co-op that the Harris's maintained but the bank mostly owned on Taylor Street behind Grace Cathedral. That meant Sid could get a full pec.and back workout in, be able to groom and drive to the city unrushed. While lifting on the incline Sid made a mental note to remind himself that Barry liked to be carried around the living room while they both were naked and be masturbated from behind by Sid-Jojohn, he always had him use butter instead of lube and both would stand before the floor to ceiling window which overlooked the spire of Grace Cathedral and Huntington Park far below. Barry liked to ejaculate onto the window and left the dried cum for the housekeeper or Isabel's dog to clean up. Jojohn never came and never had an erection unless one was caused by his steroid use.
Waving goodbye to the teenage girl attendant who yelled " hey you", Sid was buzzed out. No card needed. That was what life was like for Sid, a waved hello from the doorman, attendant, front desk clerk, bartender and he was golden. Being a 6.4, hard bodied blonde party man, known as the go to guy for hot parties, pussy and drugs, had smoothed life's rougher edges. Those rough spots having been caused chiefly by employment in a dead end job answering what he and his partner Skip termed "Mexican panic calls".for the County Ambulance service. At the ripe old age of 25, both found themselves working as County Public Health E.M.T.'s, forever wait listed by a half dozen County fire departments due to a lack, not of training, but by neither having a parent already employed by any one of a dozen Sonoma County Fire Departments.
Life on the economy was either hooked up legit, a Firefighter in San Francisco let's say, or d.l. like being a dope growing steroid dealer. The worst was life as a Mexican. That world, the Mexican one, was one lived in complete illegality. Backbreaking long hours working in Vineyards and on Marijauna farms. The earnings went quickly, to pay off coyotes, triple rents and money sent south.
Sid had chosen the dl and far from lowering his impression of himself, the choice, once the money started to roll in, gave his already inflated ego a huge boost. The cash allowed him to sneer about parts of town where the " help lived". It felt good to be him. Sid couldn't remember the last time he waited to get into a club, paid for a meal, paid for clothes, housing or trips. Life had, for a lowly paid Sonoma County E.M.T., taken off about the time he became known as Jojohn, first in San Francisco than Vegas. Jack off John. That-was how he was known to his tricks, both men and women. A professional date with Jojohn always ended in his date moaning in sexual ecstasy under his 250 pounds of steroid pumped up hard muscled body. While no longer shredded from hours in the gym or running and clearly water bloated from steroid use, it still paid the bills and as long as the bills got paid his wife Angelina was happy. Angelina while not homely was in fact too hard and sharped featured a young woman to ever be called pretty, the wifey was content and didn't mind his frequent "overtime" work as Sid's and she had a far more abundant life than the one her growing up in a trailer park would have given an observer cause to expect.
Sid always said that one of the owner benefits of marrying a homely girl like Angelina was that felt she had won the Daddy D.N.A pool by marrying him . The only problem with that pool he liked to say was that there were no lifeguards on duty. Angelina didn't understand his ardor in making love was not due to his love of her but the effects of the juice. Angelina was simply there.whne sid was amped on the juice it made no difference if it were his wife or an old mans ass under him. What she mistook for a profound union of their souls was 'roid' aggression nothing more.
Angelina was content and embarrassingly proud of the life she had won with her Sid. For won is what she felt she had done everytime she awoke in her house, in her bedroom flooded by fall morning light in the wine country. Knowing her garden lay just beyond the sheet covered window, her man mostly not in her bed, Angelina was very content. For Sid .it was a straight forward trick. Keep her happy and that meant keeping her in the dark about JoJohn and his Johns and Janes. Sid was aided in this by Angelina having an unnatural lack of curiosity.
The other trick, the tricks, were less difficult. That world was a world of quick satisfaction. It was commodity sex. The story told, the bio of Jojohn, was that he was an underpaid Cal Fire Firefighter trying to pay down student loans from S.R.J.C. Fire Tech. It was made believable by his having been a Cal Fire Fighter. What mattered mostly was being good looking,. It didn't hurt the trade that he was also charming, a young married guy. Jojohn spun a story of being caught up trying to pay for his fixer upper house in a down economy. It worked. The tricks, if they cared at all and most did not, would book a repeat date, add a tip or buy dinner, based not upon his story as JoJohn liked to think but by his magic hand job and make-out sessions. Even the johns who had expected more, a lot more, were sated and pleased with the experience.
The use of his powerful right hand to pump out an orgasm for one of his john's was how he paid for the dragon race he was starting to live for. It, the wank, meant nothing to him and it did not matter to him at all if the money was from embarrassed mothers of brides to be, drunk maids of honors, married men or the stray gay tourist to the wine country. It didn't matter to Sid because Sid wasn't there. The moment he started out for a date Jojohn did his thing. No it wasn't Sid and as far as Jojohn was concerned snorting a bit of heroin post trade made it all tolerable and downright enjoyable. Sid-Jojohn felt the sex-money plus blowing the dragon bested his former extra gig of driving drunk tourists between winery tasting rooms and that the resulting morning cramps, diarrhea, and slight shakes of mild heroin withdrawal were no worse than the hangovers he used to suffer through on Mondays after a weekend of Winery jitney work.
The downside of his measured weekly use of blowing the dragon, snorting white Heroin, was that it was from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and more expensive than boiling or smoking the black tar heroin the coyotes brought north. The cost was inching up. Barry supplied date night heroin and passed Sid's order and cash on to McCarthy. Still it was a good time and money was not a problem. Sid had a day job, the steroid dealing, medical Marijauna, the tricking, and Angelina worked as a waitress at the Flamingo Hotel. It was, as a character in a favorite movie of his said, "rich pickings". The burning in his nasal cavity had taken some getting used too but the ensuing euphoria, a feel of being cocooned in sensory pleasure, a soft easing from the pain his overworked out body felt, the quieting of steroid induced rages, made, as he told Skippy for a great boys night out. Sid was he told himself in control, Jojohn was, after all, a mere fiction, a creation of Sid's and Sid was, as everyone knew, married, straight and intent on keeping in shape to answer the call whenever it came to be a Firefighter. The jackoff part, well that just came naturally.Practice had made perfect and his technique varied only by sex. JoJohn took over. The tyrst or session was more like a good grappling exercise than making out. It was all mapped out in his mind. Meeting, making out, stripping, frotage, making out, hand job. No exceptions. Jojohn had made an art of faking noisy excitement and pleasure and once he started there was no stopping. Jojohn, dominated, took it to the mat and the opponent would tap out in 20 minutes. Jojohn took no enjoyment out of the act but like the professional he was participated in the session fully.
Sid, as previously mentioned, was never present but did allow Jojohn to be carried over to gym grappling sessions with newer friends. Sid got a rush when he grappled and overpowered another straight guy. It would start as horseplay, the opponent thrown into submission and than he'd wank him off. Not out of any need to answer any sexual gratification but merely as a power move over an equally fit man. Sid got off on the surprised look the straight jock had on his face at being taken. It was the humiliation it caused the other guy that got Sid off. It was rape by many peoples standards but not in the world of 20 something, steroid fueled bodybuilders, whose frequent, random and uncontrollable erections were as common as their passing steroid rages. The grinding rub outs which resulted from the grappling fights where never spoken of nor planned in advance and since Sid was the gym drug dealer and party source of choice his victims put up with it silently or were banned from what passed as the cool party circuit.
Workout complete Sid headed to the locker room, he or rather Jojohn was ready to go to San Francisco.
Tonight there was no need for extra stealth as Barry's wife, Isabel, was hosting a private party at their winery, Cave Curee. Isabel or so Barry had told him, would be resplendently dressed in a couture evening gown and holding court in their candlelit, flower strewn faux Tusacan tasting room. A room to be completely populated by drunks on the make, hangers on, a friend or two and the increasingly rare liquor wholesale agent. As a result Isabel Harris would be oblivious to time passing or absent husbands. Couture fashion had that effect upon her. Like a drunk with a full bottle everything else simply didn't matter.
Sid knew that this johns wife occupied and not being a factor during the upcoming evening meant that Barry would want added kinks. All light stuff, use of butter instead of lube, domination and complete silence during the whole session. Sid typically finished Barry in about ten minutes and they'd spend the rest of the hour discussing the progress of the garden Sid and his wife Angelina were planting. Barry liked to offer his advice and felt his freely sharing a decade of experience in building a winery, would somehow benefit Jojohn rather than a fifty dollar tip. Barry directed the development or so he thought.of the small garden at the post-war Rancher fixer-upper that Sid and his wife Angelina had purchased in an older part of Santa Rosa. To Sid-Jojohn what mattered most was that the design hide and incorporate his dozen marijauna plants. Sid, like the rest of the north bay, was nothing if entrepreneurial and his mini farm of kush marijauna plants fit in nicely with his real world job as an ambulance driver. Medical Marijauna was a legal easy side business and explained the bundles of extra cash to Angelina
The free weights were just a head, the juice head cage as it was nicknamed was full, he passed by, circled the fenced off area once and headed to the men's locker room. Four big men, each lacking a discernable neck, one looking like a kid in a fat suit, followed him into the locker room. They waited silently and busied themselves by washing hands or trash talking girlfriends. They waited for Sid to be dressed in his workout clothes before silently, one at a time, approaching him. Four quick exchanges, each consisting of an exchange of three one hundred dollar bills for a small, still sealed box with a Pfizer Lab logo on it. The transaction occurred in a very matter of fact fashion. The locker door opened again but as these four were his regulars and he worked out with most of them they all knew the "dealio". Business was conducted in such an unrushed manner that when a stranger happened in on the scene he would not notice anything unusual about the five men's behavior. Business completed. Twelve hundred dollars pocketed, about half profit., locked in his locker made safer by one of his boy's sitting shotgun near it and reading an auto trader magazine. Sid hit the free weights.
Barry liked Sid's pecs pumped up and since this john was $400.00 per session Sid liked to pump the goods. Barry also supplied the heroin they snorted, post hand job, which meant he would be later than the 8:00 o'clock start time previously agreed upon. Barry would need to visit his drug dealer, a decayed old young man called McCarthy, before they met at the co-op that the Harris's maintained but the bank mostly owned on Taylor Street behind Grace Cathedral. That meant Sid could get a full pec.and back workout in, be able to groom and drive to the city unrushed. While lifting on the incline Sid made a mental note to remind himself that Barry liked to be carried around the living room while they both were naked and be masturbated from behind by Sid-Jojohn, he always had him use butter instead of lube and both would stand before the floor to ceiling window which overlooked the spire of Grace Cathedral and Huntington Park far below. Barry liked to ejaculate onto the window and left the dried cum for the housekeeper or Isabel's dog to clean up. Jojohn never came and never had an erection unless one was caused by his steroid use.
Waving goodbye to the teenage girl attendant who yelled " hey you", Sid was buzzed out. No card needed. That was what life was like for Sid, a waved hello from the doorman, attendant, front desk clerk, bartender and he was golden. Being a 6.4, hard bodied blonde party man, known as the go to guy for hot parties, pussy and drugs, had smoothed life's rougher edges. Those rough spots having been caused chiefly by employment in a dead end job answering what he and his partner Skip termed "Mexican panic calls".for the County Ambulance service. At the ripe old age of 25, both found themselves working as County Public Health E.M.T.'s, forever wait listed by a half dozen County fire departments due to a lack, not of training, but by neither having a parent already employed by any one of a dozen Sonoma County Fire Departments.
Life on the economy was either hooked up legit, a Firefighter in San Francisco let's say, or d.l. like being a dope growing steroid dealer. The worst was life as a Mexican. That world, the Mexican one, was one lived in complete illegality. Backbreaking long hours working in Vineyards and on Marijauna farms. The earnings went quickly, to pay off coyotes, triple rents and money sent south.
Sid had chosen the dl and far from lowering his impression of himself, the choice, once the money started to roll in, gave his already inflated ego a huge boost. The cash allowed him to sneer about parts of town where the " help lived". It felt good to be him. Sid couldn't remember the last time he waited to get into a club, paid for a meal, paid for clothes, housing or trips. Life had, for a lowly paid Sonoma County E.M.T., taken off about the time he became known as Jojohn, first in San Francisco than Vegas. Jack off John. That-was how he was known to his tricks, both men and women. A professional date with Jojohn always ended in his date moaning in sexual ecstasy under his 250 pounds of steroid pumped up hard muscled body. While no longer shredded from hours in the gym or running and clearly water bloated from steroid use, it still paid the bills and as long as the bills got paid his wife Angelina was happy. Angelina while not homely was in fact too hard and sharped featured a young woman to ever be called pretty, the wifey was content and didn't mind his frequent "overtime" work as Sid's and she had a far more abundant life than the one her growing up in a trailer park would have given an observer cause to expect.
Sid always said that one of the owner benefits of marrying a homely girl like Angelina was that felt she had won the Daddy D.N.A pool by marrying him . The only problem with that pool he liked to say was that there were no lifeguards on duty. Angelina didn't understand his ardor in making love was not due to his love of her but the effects of the juice. Angelina was simply there.whne sid was amped on the juice it made no difference if it were his wife or an old mans ass under him. What she mistook for a profound union of their souls was 'roid' aggression nothing more.
Angelina was content and embarrassingly proud of the life she had won with her Sid. For won is what she felt she had done everytime she awoke in her house, in her bedroom flooded by fall morning light in the wine country. Knowing her garden lay just beyond the sheet covered window, her man mostly not in her bed, Angelina was very content. For Sid .it was a straight forward trick. Keep her happy and that meant keeping her in the dark about JoJohn and his Johns and Janes. Sid was aided in this by Angelina having an unnatural lack of curiosity.
The other trick, the tricks, were less difficult. That world was a world of quick satisfaction. It was commodity sex. The story told, the bio of Jojohn, was that he was an underpaid Cal Fire Firefighter trying to pay down student loans from S.R.J.C. Fire Tech. It was made believable by his having been a Cal Fire Fighter. What mattered mostly was being good looking,. It didn't hurt the trade that he was also charming, a young married guy. Jojohn spun a story of being caught up trying to pay for his fixer upper house in a down economy. It worked. The tricks, if they cared at all and most did not, would book a repeat date, add a tip or buy dinner, based not upon his story as JoJohn liked to think but by his magic hand job and make-out sessions. Even the johns who had expected more, a lot more, were sated and pleased with the experience.
The use of his powerful right hand to pump out an orgasm for one of his john's was how he paid for the dragon race he was starting to live for. It, the wank, meant nothing to him and it did not matter to him at all if the money was from embarrassed mothers of brides to be, drunk maids of honors, married men or the stray gay tourist to the wine country. It didn't matter to Sid because Sid wasn't there. The moment he started out for a date Jojohn did his thing. No it wasn't Sid and as far as Jojohn was concerned snorting a bit of heroin post trade made it all tolerable and downright enjoyable. Sid-Jojohn felt the sex-money plus blowing the dragon bested his former extra gig of driving drunk tourists between winery tasting rooms and that the resulting morning cramps, diarrhea, and slight shakes of mild heroin withdrawal were no worse than the hangovers he used to suffer through on Mondays after a weekend of Winery jitney work.
The downside of his measured weekly use of blowing the dragon, snorting white Heroin, was that it was from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and more expensive than boiling or smoking the black tar heroin the coyotes brought north. The cost was inching up. Barry supplied date night heroin and passed Sid's order and cash on to McCarthy. Still it was a good time and money was not a problem. Sid had a day job, the steroid dealing, medical Marijauna, the tricking, and Angelina worked as a waitress at the Flamingo Hotel. It was, as a character in a favorite movie of his said, "rich pickings". The burning in his nasal cavity had taken some getting used too but the ensuing euphoria, a feel of being cocooned in sensory pleasure, a soft easing from the pain his overworked out body felt, the quieting of steroid induced rages, made, as he told Skippy for a great boys night out. Sid was he told himself in control, Jojohn was, after all, a mere fiction, a creation of Sid's and Sid was, as everyone knew, married, straight and intent on keeping in shape to answer the call whenever it came to be a Firefighter. The jackoff part, well that just came naturally.Practice had made perfect and his technique varied only by sex. JoJohn took over. The tyrst or session was more like a good grappling exercise than making out. It was all mapped out in his mind. Meeting, making out, stripping, frotage, making out, hand job. No exceptions. Jojohn had made an art of faking noisy excitement and pleasure and once he started there was no stopping. Jojohn, dominated, took it to the mat and the opponent would tap out in 20 minutes. Jojohn took no enjoyment out of the act but like the professional he was participated in the session fully.
Sid, as previously mentioned, was never present but did allow Jojohn to be carried over to gym grappling sessions with newer friends. Sid got a rush when he grappled and overpowered another straight guy. It would start as horseplay, the opponent thrown into submission and than he'd wank him off. Not out of any need to answer any sexual gratification but merely as a power move over an equally fit man. Sid got off on the surprised look the straight jock had on his face at being taken. It was the humiliation it caused the other guy that got Sid off. It was rape by many peoples standards but not in the world of 20 something, steroid fueled bodybuilders, whose frequent, random and uncontrollable erections were as common as their passing steroid rages. The grinding rub outs which resulted from the grappling fights where never spoken of nor planned in advance and since Sid was the gym drug dealer and party source of choice his victims put up with it silently or were banned from what passed as the cool party circuit.
Workout complete Sid headed to the locker room, he or rather Jojohn was ready to go to San Francisco.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sophia's. An excerpt from Addiction, a work in progress
The courtyard wall fountain gurgles and the sound of the lightly falling water breaks the stillness of the day. The noon day sun, full of falls golden light, warms the tiles. The warmth of the air is scented by Tea Roses growing in large blue and white ceramic pots set in the recesses of the California Spanish Colonial Moorish column lined courtyard open to the sky.
Sopia opens the French doors from her petite salon and a lively and an unfailingly groomed Pomeranian bounces into the courtyard, followed by an elegant Sophia. The lady of the Maison places a silvertray carrying a bottle of Saint Germaine wine and Perrier down and returns to the salon to retrive another tray of cheeses and two Saint Louis goblets. A bistro table is set for two in the center of the courtyard, away from the fountain, but close enough to hear it rather than outside noise. Sophia reflects upon the scene she has created. Taking it in with a critical eye, Sophia looks not only to the pristine cleanliness of the sunny rose scented courtyard but also to the effect created by the round table covered in lilac Italian linen pressed to perfection and set with the lightly colored Dresden plates, each piled high with macaroons, cheeses, crackers and set off by Regence sterling and the Saint Louis goblets rimmed in gold. It is a lovely scene. The wonder of it is not in the elegant appointments but that that the light rose scented courtyard could be in Eze or any other quiet village in the Maritime Alpes and not on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco.
Leaving the French doors to the petite salon open allows a half dozen magnificent evening gowns hung on a gilted rolling rack to be seen by her guest seated in the courtyard. The position of the gowns, just in view, seems the right thing to introduce the collection. Light conversation, light food, flowing wine, than perfection worked in silk, tulle, linen Standing next to the gold ballroom chairs placed by the table, Sophia basks for a moment in the sunlight,. fall had been chillier than hoped for but today was bright and felt warm. A burst od spring. Still it was late fall and this was San Francisco not Eze so leaving the doors open to the petite Salon might chill the room. "I'll have Adridge prepare a fire", she thought, a quick use of her i phone and Adige was summoned. Sophia the exceedingly beautiful, perfectly coiffed, effortlessly charming 50 year old owner of this house must sell all the gowns she has sample ordered for her client Isabele. The selection is perfect. A sudden San Francisco fog descending into this private world could make it less so.
Each garment of the spring collection was a masterpiece of the couturiers art. Color, shape, form, every detail thought out and executed flawlessly. Sophia knew every physical asset the client should display as well as every scar or pound that needed to be hidden. Sophia also knows what trend and new style her client followed, as well as every fashion thought that the client had, for the very simple reason that those thoughts had been placed there over the years by a guiding Sophia. The secret was in keeping the client merrily engaged.
Isabele liked conversation and a drink before viewing clothes and when in the right toasty mood would gladly submit to the final pining of a dozen creations. The alcohol was as needed as the gowns. The occasional rebellion rose up among her ladies, usually over cos or time delay and a glass or two would never fail to close the sale. Sophie had long learned to wait for the decision. A sale was always a foregone conclusion. If the dark brown satin evening paintsuit by the new French designer wasn't to the ladies taste than perhaps the Italian gown, taupe and covered in tiny Austrian crystals, a brilliant working of tailoring and embellishment from a season ago would fit the demands of her diary? As confident as she was of the rightness of the selection for Isabeles 50 something pilates toned body and the demands of a winemakers social life, the rolling rack of yet to be viewed gowns, all ordered for Isabelle by Sophia had yet to be purchased and were a substatial investment of time, reputation and guile that needed to sell. The thought of not succeeding briefly annoyed her and tested her practiced look of unflappable perfection that had been cultivated over 35 years of working in the world of created beauty.
." Adridge... where is that fool she thought - pushing the app once again before giving up on 21st century technology. No reply. In haste there arose from our lady a bellowing yell more befitting a teamster than a superbly beautiful woman dressed in an elegant Alexander McQueen white lace dress. Still no reply. Stepping into the long interior hallway that connected the courtyard to the front salon, Sophia bellowed, "ADRIDGE..WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?". Adridge appeared silently at the end of the hall bearing a huge bottle of chilled french vodka and a salver with a set of crimson colored Moser shot glasses. Ghastly thin, Addige personified a qoute of the Duchess of Windsor, " nothing to look at so the only thing to do was dress better than everyone else", Adige did so with flair. Today's custome was a full legnth Venetian dressing gown of velvet brocade, light yellow with teal blue frogging and cord piping, the lining was silk of the deepest shade of navy blue worn over his day uniform of perfectly tailored deep grey flannel pants and a blue and white stripped shirt. " Dear girl I'm not hard of hearing.", Sophia replied "wonderful man, now please do be a useful thing and lay a fire in the salon, I'm afraid it may become chilly" .Adige holding the Vodka bottle up replied, " Dearest that's why I've brought this to your table". Adidge, 45, gay, flabby, was a not particularly sober, not particularly talented decorator, who was very particular only about his clothes, the alcohol he drank at others expense, and most importantly that his tricks be straight or as he liked to say "straight but straying," An expensive french vodka culled from the cellar was his selection today and he placed the chilled frosted bottle dead center on the round table in the open courtyard. Sophia removed it at once and striding into the petite salon placed it behind the daybed facing the four sided mirror, away a bit but still handy to the rack of clothes should need arise to confront the image reflected in those mirrors.
Sophia's clients knew no world other than one of calm perfection. A world as sweetly scented as the abundant floral arrangements she changed daily in the petite salon. Worry was simply unknown and if it did arise, typically went no deeper than a feeling of general anxiety associated with the fear of hosting a boring dinner party. A vodka drinking, gay male interior designer, while not an unknown companion in Isabelle Harris's set, would distract from the sale and the sale of the collection, all of it, was the reason for this tete a tete. "Oh you.... bother you're such a puritan Soph." saidAddige. "Adige be a dear,... build the fire!" The command issued was answered by a resigned shrug and Adige as ever was eager to sing for his supper among the rich and Sophia's clients were that, the international rich, swept pass Madame and did as commanded. "Don't light it and do be neat, keep the area clear near the ottoman and don''t get in Mde. Chia's way. "
Mde. Chia was a superbly skilled and perfectly ancient tailor, one rumored to have escaped the Reds in Mde Chaing Kai Shek's personal entourage. Information which overawed the younger clients and caused no end of amusement to Sophia's old guard ones, who all knew that Mde. Chi'a had grown up on Larkin street and was as American as Betty Bloomer. Her tailoring skills having been acquired from her grandfather and a keen, honest, love of the work. Mde. Chia's cost was prohibitive but eagerly paid for as her skilled use of a needle could transform a 10 into an 8 and make the client who was wearing an off the rack 12 feel 18 again. That was the magic they paid for and pay they did. Mde. Chia also had a wonderfully reassuring smile and an ability to blend into the woodwork unless needed. Mde Chia brought forth an ice filled Christofle champagne cooler from the mini cabinet hidden in the corner and retrieving the bottle of vodka from behind the daybed placed same in the cooler and set both on the granite topped 18th century bombe chest nearest the mirrors opposite the apricot colored Louis 15th marble mantelpiece where Adige was skillfully building the start of a future fire. "Adige where are the glasses"..."lowrd woman..enough " roared the kneeling man. " Have I been called here to amuse our Isabel or be a house slave...? HA! piped in Mde. Chia , a rank rebellion is what this is and it will stop at once.. I order it so" , Grabbing the vodka a mock imperial Sophia playfully cried out Comrades here's a toast to the success of our mission.". Sophia filled three Moser shot glasses and passing the salver between them insisted that each.take a glass. " A toast than ...here's to us." they clinked the bottom of the others glass and raised the glass to their lips. The doorbell in the front salon chimed. A gulped drink followed by a breathless Sophia ordering "Quick..Adridge drape yourself over the ottoman and do be amusing Mde. Chia test the lights over the gowns and the ones over the step platform in front of the mirrors .. oh and fresh glasses. A delighted Sophia checked her makeup in the mirrors.
Sophia, a picture of elegant composure, glided into the courtyard scooping up Coty the Pomeranian and strode down the long hallway through to the front of her Salon and answered the door. It was the client.
Sopia opens the French doors from her petite salon and a lively and an unfailingly groomed Pomeranian bounces into the courtyard, followed by an elegant Sophia. The lady of the Maison places a silvertray carrying a bottle of Saint Germaine wine and Perrier down and returns to the salon to retrive another tray of cheeses and two Saint Louis goblets. A bistro table is set for two in the center of the courtyard, away from the fountain, but close enough to hear it rather than outside noise. Sophia reflects upon the scene she has created. Taking it in with a critical eye, Sophia looks not only to the pristine cleanliness of the sunny rose scented courtyard but also to the effect created by the round table covered in lilac Italian linen pressed to perfection and set with the lightly colored Dresden plates, each piled high with macaroons, cheeses, crackers and set off by Regence sterling and the Saint Louis goblets rimmed in gold. It is a lovely scene. The wonder of it is not in the elegant appointments but that that the light rose scented courtyard could be in Eze or any other quiet village in the Maritime Alpes and not on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco.
Leaving the French doors to the petite salon open allows a half dozen magnificent evening gowns hung on a gilted rolling rack to be seen by her guest seated in the courtyard. The position of the gowns, just in view, seems the right thing to introduce the collection. Light conversation, light food, flowing wine, than perfection worked in silk, tulle, linen Standing next to the gold ballroom chairs placed by the table, Sophia basks for a moment in the sunlight,. fall had been chillier than hoped for but today was bright and felt warm. A burst od spring. Still it was late fall and this was San Francisco not Eze so leaving the doors open to the petite Salon might chill the room. "I'll have Adridge prepare a fire", she thought, a quick use of her i phone and Adige was summoned. Sophia the exceedingly beautiful, perfectly coiffed, effortlessly charming 50 year old owner of this house must sell all the gowns she has sample ordered for her client Isabele. The selection is perfect. A sudden San Francisco fog descending into this private world could make it less so.
Each garment of the spring collection was a masterpiece of the couturiers art. Color, shape, form, every detail thought out and executed flawlessly. Sophia knew every physical asset the client should display as well as every scar or pound that needed to be hidden. Sophia also knows what trend and new style her client followed, as well as every fashion thought that the client had, for the very simple reason that those thoughts had been placed there over the years by a guiding Sophia. The secret was in keeping the client merrily engaged.
Isabele liked conversation and a drink before viewing clothes and when in the right toasty mood would gladly submit to the final pining of a dozen creations. The alcohol was as needed as the gowns. The occasional rebellion rose up among her ladies, usually over cos or time delay and a glass or two would never fail to close the sale. Sophie had long learned to wait for the decision. A sale was always a foregone conclusion. If the dark brown satin evening paintsuit by the new French designer wasn't to the ladies taste than perhaps the Italian gown, taupe and covered in tiny Austrian crystals, a brilliant working of tailoring and embellishment from a season ago would fit the demands of her diary? As confident as she was of the rightness of the selection for Isabeles 50 something pilates toned body and the demands of a winemakers social life, the rolling rack of yet to be viewed gowns, all ordered for Isabelle by Sophia had yet to be purchased and were a substatial investment of time, reputation and guile that needed to sell. The thought of not succeeding briefly annoyed her and tested her practiced look of unflappable perfection that had been cultivated over 35 years of working in the world of created beauty.
." Adridge... where is that fool she thought - pushing the app once again before giving up on 21st century technology. No reply. In haste there arose from our lady a bellowing yell more befitting a teamster than a superbly beautiful woman dressed in an elegant Alexander McQueen white lace dress. Still no reply. Stepping into the long interior hallway that connected the courtyard to the front salon, Sophia bellowed, "ADRIDGE..WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?". Adridge appeared silently at the end of the hall bearing a huge bottle of chilled french vodka and a salver with a set of crimson colored Moser shot glasses. Ghastly thin, Addige personified a qoute of the Duchess of Windsor, " nothing to look at so the only thing to do was dress better than everyone else", Adige did so with flair. Today's custome was a full legnth Venetian dressing gown of velvet brocade, light yellow with teal blue frogging and cord piping, the lining was silk of the deepest shade of navy blue worn over his day uniform of perfectly tailored deep grey flannel pants and a blue and white stripped shirt. " Dear girl I'm not hard of hearing.", Sophia replied "wonderful man, now please do be a useful thing and lay a fire in the salon, I'm afraid it may become chilly" .Adige holding the Vodka bottle up replied, " Dearest that's why I've brought this to your table". Adidge, 45, gay, flabby, was a not particularly sober, not particularly talented decorator, who was very particular only about his clothes, the alcohol he drank at others expense, and most importantly that his tricks be straight or as he liked to say "straight but straying," An expensive french vodka culled from the cellar was his selection today and he placed the chilled frosted bottle dead center on the round table in the open courtyard. Sophia removed it at once and striding into the petite salon placed it behind the daybed facing the four sided mirror, away a bit but still handy to the rack of clothes should need arise to confront the image reflected in those mirrors.
Sophia's clients knew no world other than one of calm perfection. A world as sweetly scented as the abundant floral arrangements she changed daily in the petite salon. Worry was simply unknown and if it did arise, typically went no deeper than a feeling of general anxiety associated with the fear of hosting a boring dinner party. A vodka drinking, gay male interior designer, while not an unknown companion in Isabelle Harris's set, would distract from the sale and the sale of the collection, all of it, was the reason for this tete a tete. "Oh you.... bother you're such a puritan Soph." saidAddige. "Adige be a dear,... build the fire!" The command issued was answered by a resigned shrug and Adige as ever was eager to sing for his supper among the rich and Sophia's clients were that, the international rich, swept pass Madame and did as commanded. "Don't light it and do be neat, keep the area clear near the ottoman and don''t get in Mde. Chia's way. "
Mde. Chia was a superbly skilled and perfectly ancient tailor, one rumored to have escaped the Reds in Mde Chaing Kai Shek's personal entourage. Information which overawed the younger clients and caused no end of amusement to Sophia's old guard ones, who all knew that Mde. Chi'a had grown up on Larkin street and was as American as Betty Bloomer. Her tailoring skills having been acquired from her grandfather and a keen, honest, love of the work. Mde. Chia's cost was prohibitive but eagerly paid for as her skilled use of a needle could transform a 10 into an 8 and make the client who was wearing an off the rack 12 feel 18 again. That was the magic they paid for and pay they did. Mde. Chia also had a wonderfully reassuring smile and an ability to blend into the woodwork unless needed. Mde Chia brought forth an ice filled Christofle champagne cooler from the mini cabinet hidden in the corner and retrieving the bottle of vodka from behind the daybed placed same in the cooler and set both on the granite topped 18th century bombe chest nearest the mirrors opposite the apricot colored Louis 15th marble mantelpiece where Adige was skillfully building the start of a future fire. "Adige where are the glasses"..."lowrd woman..enough " roared the kneeling man. " Have I been called here to amuse our Isabel or be a house slave...? HA! piped in Mde. Chia , a rank rebellion is what this is and it will stop at once.. I order it so" , Grabbing the vodka a mock imperial Sophia playfully cried out Comrades here's a toast to the success of our mission.". Sophia filled three Moser shot glasses and passing the salver between them insisted that each.take a glass. " A toast than ...here's to us." they clinked the bottom of the others glass and raised the glass to their lips. The doorbell in the front salon chimed. A gulped drink followed by a breathless Sophia ordering "Quick..Adridge drape yourself over the ottoman and do be amusing Mde. Chia test the lights over the gowns and the ones over the step platform in front of the mirrors .. oh and fresh glasses. A delighted Sophia checked her makeup in the mirrors.
Sophia, a picture of elegant composure, glided into the courtyard scooping up Coty the Pomeranian and strode down the long hallway through to the front of her Salon and answered the door. It was the client.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Demodee classe inferieure de la mode or Fools attire
It was a singular pleasure for this gentleman to assemble the items and accessories to be worn for the day. Assuring himself that each item was in excellent repair and of the current fashion, he pictured himself in the events of the day, checking both weather reports and online crime reports for the specific locations he would visit before deciding on level of luxe. It was all well and good to entertain idea's of the new frugality but standards must be kept and appropriate levels of attire for the season and city were simply not negotiable. In fact negotiating on level of dress was never a passing thought. Frugality may have entered the cultural lexicon but that translated to one new suit added to his well developed wardrobe rather than three. Standards for grooming with attendant cost were exempted from the wise new regime of thrift. The guiding maxim remained wear what fit, was flattering and appropriate for season, weather, time, place and always under dress if not certain.
Fashion for him wasn't a matter of striving, he had always dressed above what his peers would have thought prudent and he had long ago embraced a singular style so that what would be held as pretentious on others was natural for him.. It was simply a matter of sense and fun and as it was far from being an obsession it was deemed a most healthy thing to do. The gentleman liked clothes. It was fun to pair pocket square to shirt and tie, cuff links to suit, socks to play off pants and cut. Layers were always a delightful idea, as were hats, gloves and bags. The gentleman delighted in dressing for a late fall crisp bright day in San Francisco as it often offered him the chance to wear topcoat, scarf, gloves and sunglasses. Black was avoided save for a cashmere topcoat and an Irish dinner jacket. He held black as being far from chic and in fact found that color to be mournful looking on all men. The gentleman did own a black suit but it had last seen the light of day at a funeral. It was no longer a fashionable cut but he kept it as he felt it somehow respectful to wear an out of fashion black suit to a funeral. That idea most likely a result of his years spent at an all boy's Roman Catholic College Preparatory conducted by Religious Brothers who wore contemporary black suits as Habit and reinforced by the sensible and proper tones of his membership in the Episcopal church.
This particular day he dressed in a very casual manner. The attire dictated by a date to luncheon in an area that had long ago deemed it mandatory that professionals should dress casually. A dictum of casual fashion didn't require frumpy or dour and it seemed a good idea to pair a red cashmere crewneck cableknit sweater over a black polo shirt, worn under a black Burberry downvest with novacheck lining. An absurdly expensive pair of jeans worn with a rugged cowhide belt from Barney's and zippered black half boots completed the look. It was a habit of his to mentally add up the cost of the items and the closer he got to $2,000.00 and still not being in anything he'd wear to his own office made him feel much like what he felt a supporter of Louis XIV did as he dressed to dine with sans-culotte. Adding a Swiss watch, signet ring, French wallet and as it was a rainy day, a British umbrella and grabbing a briefcase and portfolio he found the tally to be just under $4,000.00. Armed with this knowledge he bravely set forth into a world which for millions had been made grim by year's of unremitting bad financial news.
The gentleman's own situation was more or less like a good deal of other middle class Americans, one thought twice about purchases and planned vacations instead of indulging in madcap last minute flights but a small private income, a car bought and paid for and a charming house located in a solid neighborhood, one without a mortgage and remodeled during the years of the boom, softened the screaming headlines of ruin, destitution and political incompetence. In fact, when he desired, his days could be spent in his small gardens or reading in his tiny library enveloped in the world of Graham Greene and the Mitford sisters. The gentleman felt himself fortunate but did keenly miss those the economic tide had swept far away. It was a paradox that as much as he loved fashion and luxury the lack of ownership of items of splendor by friends or lovers was never a bar to intimate friendship and acceptance. Associates with gracious manners acquired were held on equal footing with those to the Manor born. It was all simply a way of getting through life pleasantly and the crassness of the times had made the kind heart a dearer than usual thing. The gentleman felt keenly not the lose of value on investments so much as the theft of friends by hard times and the passage of time.
Business was at hand and business was to be conducted. The journey south a pleasant drive through scenery unchanged by the passing years of suburban sprawl. The destination, a former agricultural town, a ,place now filled with headquarters of companies that have revolutionized communication, entertainment, research, news, literature, university education, employment, shopping, government, music, in fact the whole interchange of commerce and the private lives of people throughout the world. The capitalization of these companies is, he knew, the envy of the business world and billions are possessed by hundreds and millions by thousands of the employees in this small peninsula town situated between the bay and the Santa Clara Mountains. It wasn't the wealth of the place that struck the gentleman from San Francisco, no that was long established and expected, it was the ever present feel of there being several economic divides in the town. Each unique and uninterested in the other. Uninterested chiefly because of years long habit of the one being disinterested in the other and nothing, not the end of agriculture nor te demise of mainline suburban dreams would change that. They were, he thought, much like jugglers rings, each holding in common being metal spheres tossed in the air but nothing else, as they never interlocked or met. The old line suburban town with one or two reminders of the agricultural past went about its affairs along side a work a day poor immigrant Asian community that manifested its business presence in shockingly ghetto stores and horrid ethnic themed cafes. Both were shadowed by the unfathomable power and wealth of the tech corridor by the bay.
The unifying theme, he soon was made aware of, was that to a man the populace was poorly dressed. It wasn't that they were dirty but at some point someone or everyone decided that frump was the mode of the day. The gentleman decided that like a rigid English Puritan the new religion of tech. held fashion to be suspect. This was grimiest Boston in golden California, the fashion ethos being of those who were educated in a studied ignore of New York chic. 40 somethings in t- shirt and sneakers, 20 somethings in polo shirts and cargo shorts, old women in soiled slacks and hideous windbreakers all reminded the gentleman of the pictures he had seen of the Chinese cultural revolution. Even those remembered images did not compare to the shock the gentleman from San Francisco felt in seeing men of a certain age, clearly by bearing all men of education, property, travel, full of life experience and holding deep responsibility in business firms of note dressed as if they were set to clean bathrooms. The gentleman thought the esteem which the wide world held the Lions of Capital was greatly reduced when said Lion dressed like a rag a muffin or refugee from Cuba! The gentleman thought, well this is a fine thing "all well and good you may have millions but if that is how you dress and present yourself. well than really what's the point and frankly it makes you uninteresting and rather suspect. If the man in venture capital or angel funding is this sort and that sort is a full on slacker unable to buck the tide of the socially challenged, why should I deal with him? Than the idea occurred to him that these sorts were the upper middle class, a class that always wished to look like the truly rich and profoundly powerful. Those sought after leaders of the worlds new age were the sorts sometimes spied by the bayside but mostly not as they all worked in sealed off self contained worlds and little needed the downtown. It than occurred to the gentleman that they, the residents, were long accustomed to posing as if being members of, if not actually being leaders of society and they merely were continuing the habit by following the dress of the truly ruling class. They, the powerful, no longer wore bespoke suits, no that was for Communists in Shanghai, here the gentleman from San Francisco observed, the rich or more precisely described, men that are merely millionaires who are to a man made miserable by the knowledge that they are not billionaires, dress as janitors, They are held in contempt by the billionaires as being a stupid sort of fellow. Stupid in that rather than hold true to their own idea's of class and dress they ape the manners of under 40 billionaires who all dress like undergraduates.
The absurdity of discussing business with a fat sixty year old grey haired male lawyer clad in jeans and a shirt with tails out is not for the faint of heart or at least not to conducted over lunch. It also, thought our friend, showed they had no backbone, for they willingly sacrificed attractive dress for that of a fool. What else, thought the gentleman from San Francisco could an ancient 60 something professional of either sex dressed in ragged jeans be called? The fools attire, demodee classe inferieure de la mode, is all the rage. The gentleman cancelled his lunch plans and sitting down to dine alone thought it well that he had learned long before never to believe that clothes made the wearer your friend. It did however more than ever make it the mark and measure of the man.
Fashion for him wasn't a matter of striving, he had always dressed above what his peers would have thought prudent and he had long ago embraced a singular style so that what would be held as pretentious on others was natural for him.. It was simply a matter of sense and fun and as it was far from being an obsession it was deemed a most healthy thing to do. The gentleman liked clothes. It was fun to pair pocket square to shirt and tie, cuff links to suit, socks to play off pants and cut. Layers were always a delightful idea, as were hats, gloves and bags. The gentleman delighted in dressing for a late fall crisp bright day in San Francisco as it often offered him the chance to wear topcoat, scarf, gloves and sunglasses. Black was avoided save for a cashmere topcoat and an Irish dinner jacket. He held black as being far from chic and in fact found that color to be mournful looking on all men. The gentleman did own a black suit but it had last seen the light of day at a funeral. It was no longer a fashionable cut but he kept it as he felt it somehow respectful to wear an out of fashion black suit to a funeral. That idea most likely a result of his years spent at an all boy's Roman Catholic College Preparatory conducted by Religious Brothers who wore contemporary black suits as Habit and reinforced by the sensible and proper tones of his membership in the Episcopal church.
This particular day he dressed in a very casual manner. The attire dictated by a date to luncheon in an area that had long ago deemed it mandatory that professionals should dress casually. A dictum of casual fashion didn't require frumpy or dour and it seemed a good idea to pair a red cashmere crewneck cableknit sweater over a black polo shirt, worn under a black Burberry downvest with novacheck lining. An absurdly expensive pair of jeans worn with a rugged cowhide belt from Barney's and zippered black half boots completed the look. It was a habit of his to mentally add up the cost of the items and the closer he got to $2,000.00 and still not being in anything he'd wear to his own office made him feel much like what he felt a supporter of Louis XIV did as he dressed to dine with sans-culotte. Adding a Swiss watch, signet ring, French wallet and as it was a rainy day, a British umbrella and grabbing a briefcase and portfolio he found the tally to be just under $4,000.00. Armed with this knowledge he bravely set forth into a world which for millions had been made grim by year's of unremitting bad financial news.
The gentleman's own situation was more or less like a good deal of other middle class Americans, one thought twice about purchases and planned vacations instead of indulging in madcap last minute flights but a small private income, a car bought and paid for and a charming house located in a solid neighborhood, one without a mortgage and remodeled during the years of the boom, softened the screaming headlines of ruin, destitution and political incompetence. In fact, when he desired, his days could be spent in his small gardens or reading in his tiny library enveloped in the world of Graham Greene and the Mitford sisters. The gentleman felt himself fortunate but did keenly miss those the economic tide had swept far away. It was a paradox that as much as he loved fashion and luxury the lack of ownership of items of splendor by friends or lovers was never a bar to intimate friendship and acceptance. Associates with gracious manners acquired were held on equal footing with those to the Manor born. It was all simply a way of getting through life pleasantly and the crassness of the times had made the kind heart a dearer than usual thing. The gentleman felt keenly not the lose of value on investments so much as the theft of friends by hard times and the passage of time.
Business was at hand and business was to be conducted. The journey south a pleasant drive through scenery unchanged by the passing years of suburban sprawl. The destination, a former agricultural town, a ,place now filled with headquarters of companies that have revolutionized communication, entertainment, research, news, literature, university education, employment, shopping, government, music, in fact the whole interchange of commerce and the private lives of people throughout the world. The capitalization of these companies is, he knew, the envy of the business world and billions are possessed by hundreds and millions by thousands of the employees in this small peninsula town situated between the bay and the Santa Clara Mountains. It wasn't the wealth of the place that struck the gentleman from San Francisco, no that was long established and expected, it was the ever present feel of there being several economic divides in the town. Each unique and uninterested in the other. Uninterested chiefly because of years long habit of the one being disinterested in the other and nothing, not the end of agriculture nor te demise of mainline suburban dreams would change that. They were, he thought, much like jugglers rings, each holding in common being metal spheres tossed in the air but nothing else, as they never interlocked or met. The old line suburban town with one or two reminders of the agricultural past went about its affairs along side a work a day poor immigrant Asian community that manifested its business presence in shockingly ghetto stores and horrid ethnic themed cafes. Both were shadowed by the unfathomable power and wealth of the tech corridor by the bay.
The unifying theme, he soon was made aware of, was that to a man the populace was poorly dressed. It wasn't that they were dirty but at some point someone or everyone decided that frump was the mode of the day. The gentleman decided that like a rigid English Puritan the new religion of tech. held fashion to be suspect. This was grimiest Boston in golden California, the fashion ethos being of those who were educated in a studied ignore of New York chic. 40 somethings in t- shirt and sneakers, 20 somethings in polo shirts and cargo shorts, old women in soiled slacks and hideous windbreakers all reminded the gentleman of the pictures he had seen of the Chinese cultural revolution. Even those remembered images did not compare to the shock the gentleman from San Francisco felt in seeing men of a certain age, clearly by bearing all men of education, property, travel, full of life experience and holding deep responsibility in business firms of note dressed as if they were set to clean bathrooms. The gentleman thought the esteem which the wide world held the Lions of Capital was greatly reduced when said Lion dressed like a rag a muffin or refugee from Cuba! The gentleman thought, well this is a fine thing "all well and good you may have millions but if that is how you dress and present yourself. well than really what's the point and frankly it makes you uninteresting and rather suspect. If the man in venture capital or angel funding is this sort and that sort is a full on slacker unable to buck the tide of the socially challenged, why should I deal with him? Than the idea occurred to him that these sorts were the upper middle class, a class that always wished to look like the truly rich and profoundly powerful. Those sought after leaders of the worlds new age were the sorts sometimes spied by the bayside but mostly not as they all worked in sealed off self contained worlds and little needed the downtown. It than occurred to the gentleman that they, the residents, were long accustomed to posing as if being members of, if not actually being leaders of society and they merely were continuing the habit by following the dress of the truly ruling class. They, the powerful, no longer wore bespoke suits, no that was for Communists in Shanghai, here the gentleman from San Francisco observed, the rich or more precisely described, men that are merely millionaires who are to a man made miserable by the knowledge that they are not billionaires, dress as janitors, They are held in contempt by the billionaires as being a stupid sort of fellow. Stupid in that rather than hold true to their own idea's of class and dress they ape the manners of under 40 billionaires who all dress like undergraduates.
The absurdity of discussing business with a fat sixty year old grey haired male lawyer clad in jeans and a shirt with tails out is not for the faint of heart or at least not to conducted over lunch. It also, thought our friend, showed they had no backbone, for they willingly sacrificed attractive dress for that of a fool. What else, thought the gentleman from San Francisco could an ancient 60 something professional of either sex dressed in ragged jeans be called? The fools attire, demodee classe inferieure de la mode, is all the rage. The gentleman cancelled his lunch plans and sitting down to dine alone thought it well that he had learned long before never to believe that clothes made the wearer your friend. It did however more than ever make it the mark and measure of the man.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Dharma and housekeeping
It's back, it was gone but now like the proverbial bad penny, it's back. It's no good looking the other way, looking past it or even on the bright side. IT is back and must be dealt with now and yes most likely dealt with for the rest of the day and evening. The only thing to do about it is meet it head on, than, THAN, there might be some small hope that it will not become the weekend house-guest. An uninvited, uninteresting boar of a house guest. A smelly, frustrating in all aspects, guest. One that consumes the whole day with need and is simply the worst way to spend a sunny fall Saturday. Housework!
It arrives as a plastic utility bucket full of special cleansing, polishing, buffing, scouring lemon scented potions. An increasingly rare one is for use on the 240 year old English table, the same for the 238 year old chair from London and their American cousin the 200 year old table from Philadelphia, the one which presently finds occupation as a bar in my dining room, so too is it used on the cherished new old friend, the 230 year old tall-case clock from Mad George's capital city. If this particular sauce is good for the Goose, it is sauce for the Gander, so it is freely also used on more recent family heirloom pieces. All treasured relics of the life of a very prosperous great -grandfather, bought from a store famous for furnishing Nabobs homes in a city that new how, from the time T.R thought it progress to save our most spectacular natural landscapes. It is also the serviceable yet unbearably oily mixture, which promises to revive wood, though I dare use that only on pieces bought in my youth. Another bottle for leather, yet another for crystal and glass. A soap mixture for floor, woodwork and fireplace mantel and surround. All simply all, to be kept away from wool carpets, swags, tassels,throw rugs, silk tablecloths, throw pillows and paintings. The list of what on what, where and how is simply too long and detailed to relate and has caused the hired cleaning team to be banned from two rooms, than finally, as idled help is never a desired housekeeping budget, let go entirely.
I simply could never relax when they were about. The thought of a harried cleaner using the wrong solution on the wrong piece was so horrifying I'd put on house slave clothes, greet them at the door, set them loose on bedrooms and bathrooms, halls, study, boudoir and kitchen, than I'd begin work on the living and dining rooms. I soon saw the wrong bordering on weirdness of being unpaid day labor while two or three ladies and gentlemen were happily cleaning away elsewhere in my house. Had I been unable to achieve Zen about it I would not have simply stopped booking them and took the work on wholly myself. The fact was and is that I simply do it better or at least as well. An added benefit is that. I have no fear of theft ( that's never happened) I never am late nor leave early and I trust me with the pieces that are rarer than most.
That doesn't mean I haven't broken things. I have, oh, have I. Naturally when I have screwed up the courage to 'fess up to my Miss June ( a.k.a. my 91 year old mom) it's because a favorite piece once belonging to her grandparents has been broken and the lady had noticed it gone from the niche it had resided in for decades. The work I destroyed was ba 2 foot tall, 100 year old statue of a farm woman bearing water and a stunningly elegant in its simplicity 19th century Swabian Crucifix. I've also shortened a flute being played by a boy in 18th century costume so that it appears more the jew harp than enlightenment period instrument. The fool really is me, I've let a semi- trained, upright walking, Ape loose in a room full of furniture promised to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In addition and in summation I simply do not like it. THE HOUSEWORK!
It, however, is a tireless task master. It needs to be done. I've reached somewhat of a compromise. I will entertain this boar no more than four times a month. I treat it as my Dharma though it really is more like a non paying John. My housekeeping gods appeal to you. Oh the remembrance of Venice in fall. Jove rescue me from the Vestals slavery. Than it is what it is, it needs to be accepted and if at all possible embraced. It is an exercise at once fiscal (no charge) physical (did you know you can burn 150 calories per hour doing a rumba with a vacuum) and philosophical (the dust, like life, is transitory) but good good it is BACK.
Oi vey I think I need a union.
It arrives as a plastic utility bucket full of special cleansing, polishing, buffing, scouring lemon scented potions. An increasingly rare one is for use on the 240 year old English table, the same for the 238 year old chair from London and their American cousin the 200 year old table from Philadelphia, the one which presently finds occupation as a bar in my dining room, so too is it used on the cherished new old friend, the 230 year old tall-case clock from Mad George's capital city. If this particular sauce is good for the Goose, it is sauce for the Gander, so it is freely also used on more recent family heirloom pieces. All treasured relics of the life of a very prosperous great -grandfather, bought from a store famous for furnishing Nabobs homes in a city that new how, from the time T.R thought it progress to save our most spectacular natural landscapes. It is also the serviceable yet unbearably oily mixture, which promises to revive wood, though I dare use that only on pieces bought in my youth. Another bottle for leather, yet another for crystal and glass. A soap mixture for floor, woodwork and fireplace mantel and surround. All simply all, to be kept away from wool carpets, swags, tassels,throw rugs, silk tablecloths, throw pillows and paintings. The list of what on what, where and how is simply too long and detailed to relate and has caused the hired cleaning team to be banned from two rooms, than finally, as idled help is never a desired housekeeping budget, let go entirely.
I simply could never relax when they were about. The thought of a harried cleaner using the wrong solution on the wrong piece was so horrifying I'd put on house slave clothes, greet them at the door, set them loose on bedrooms and bathrooms, halls, study, boudoir and kitchen, than I'd begin work on the living and dining rooms. I soon saw the wrong bordering on weirdness of being unpaid day labor while two or three ladies and gentlemen were happily cleaning away elsewhere in my house. Had I been unable to achieve Zen about it I would not have simply stopped booking them and took the work on wholly myself. The fact was and is that I simply do it better or at least as well. An added benefit is that. I have no fear of theft ( that's never happened) I never am late nor leave early and I trust me with the pieces that are rarer than most.
That doesn't mean I haven't broken things. I have, oh, have I. Naturally when I have screwed up the courage to 'fess up to my Miss June ( a.k.a. my 91 year old mom) it's because a favorite piece once belonging to her grandparents has been broken and the lady had noticed it gone from the niche it had resided in for decades. The work I destroyed was ba 2 foot tall, 100 year old statue of a farm woman bearing water and a stunningly elegant in its simplicity 19th century Swabian Crucifix. I've also shortened a flute being played by a boy in 18th century costume so that it appears more the jew harp than enlightenment period instrument. The fool really is me, I've let a semi- trained, upright walking, Ape loose in a room full of furniture promised to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In addition and in summation I simply do not like it. THE HOUSEWORK!
It, however, is a tireless task master. It needs to be done. I've reached somewhat of a compromise. I will entertain this boar no more than four times a month. I treat it as my Dharma though it really is more like a non paying John. My housekeeping gods appeal to you. Oh the remembrance of Venice in fall. Jove rescue me from the Vestals slavery. Than it is what it is, it needs to be accepted and if at all possible embraced. It is an exercise at once fiscal (no charge) physical (did you know you can burn 150 calories per hour doing a rumba with a vacuum) and philosophical (the dust, like life, is transitory) but good good it is BACK.
Oi vey I think I need a union.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Pine Cones, Eucalyptus Leaves and a wall scaling dog named Barney.
The heady fragrance of drying Eucalyptus Leaves, dusty, musky and sweet, a smell that mixes minty and bitter, permeated the air throughout the Forest. The warmth of the week has turned the path into a quarter mile long perfume factory for my mutt Barney. The decay of the leaf releases the oil, a healthy perfume smell, not unlike a SPA, permeates the area. Pine Tree needles mix in and the essence of the two transports you to sylvan pastures, miles away from the city. Barney being far more sensible keeps his head or rather snoot, focused on the business of the walk. That chiefly being play. Play being chiefly toss!
Pine cones are as much a welcomed toss as any glow in the dark tennis ball and the fun of digging a tossed cone out of a pile of decaying leaves is, for Barney, akin to that of a lady on an outing to the Fragonard scents showroom in Eze, discovering the perfume oil worn when still a young beauty. One, they might both agree, simply needs to dig in and get on with the business of finding the right essence! I recall the choices at that particular showroom to be rather daunting, made all the more challenging by the very skilled saleslady urging me to mix the scents. The idea to create one that was even more unique than those on offer. The goal being a sale. My hesitation gave away my inability to read French and the rather kind lady, all at once so very casual and chic, urged me to consider the bottles of brushed steel that contained, I was informed, the firms more popular scents. I felt no less triumph in discovering Santel for the first time than Barney did in retrieving the tossed Pine Cone. My Euros meant far less to me than the crushed dog cookies he was duly rewarded with did to Barney and his satisfaction at the transaction, Pine Cone for treat, far exceeded mine at purchasing the brushed stainless steel canister. The walk continues a pace until another scent trail is discovered.
The joy of a dog as walking companion is in the taking joy in the joy the canine has in simply everything. They are, as best expressed by a truly loving lady, "Gods free spirits". If living fully in the moment, every moment, is the best way to live and I feel it is, than my mutt Barney lives life fully daily. The bliss is apparent. The range of expressions on his loving face while he is about the business of discovering and following smells, is worthy of the stage. Rapture is the only word which properly describes his expression, mirth brightening his eyes, when my best boy hears the word cookie. If there is an Academy Award for Best Puppy as Actor, than it would go to Barney. The sly smart boy will, in order to gain a second or third cookie, begin his whole range of tricks. When near a 4 foot tall retaining wall he will charge ahead, leap and crawl scale to the top of the wall and begin a varied array of tricks In no set order but at double quick time Barney will sit, shake hands, lie fully down, roll over and flirt with the prettiest brown eyes any dog has ever been graced with. Next Barney will works those baby browns. A charm technique the result I am certain, of a 3 three week long stay at a Kennel favored by Female early retirees from Silicon Valley. First a sultry over the shoulder back glance, than if that has failed to gain the desired treat, followed up by a full sulk from a sitting position. That last look being Barneys tried and true secret weapon. All at once it says. " but daddy I love you so much and you are making me sad", BAM the resolve goes, cookies are dispensed and the revived canine leaps up and is off for more adventure.
It, the solitary walking of a loving dog, has a wonderful way of being both reflective, engaging and centering. It is impossible to not tone down. The mind calms down allowing memories of other companion dogs to sneak into the moment. A boys first love is his first dog and the loss of it is often the first experience of death that a child will have. There is no way to mitigate the pain felt by losing your true play companion and the experience is a step in the long eventful march towards adult life. The brush against my leg is Barney dropping a Pine Cone at my feet, a begging demand of a round of toss, retrieve, cookie reward,.begins and brings me back fully into the present day world of a being in the moment with a too old to be adopted pound rescue mutt I renamed Barney. It is an hour well spent!
Pine cones are as much a welcomed toss as any glow in the dark tennis ball and the fun of digging a tossed cone out of a pile of decaying leaves is, for Barney, akin to that of a lady on an outing to the Fragonard scents showroom in Eze, discovering the perfume oil worn when still a young beauty. One, they might both agree, simply needs to dig in and get on with the business of finding the right essence! I recall the choices at that particular showroom to be rather daunting, made all the more challenging by the very skilled saleslady urging me to mix the scents. The idea to create one that was even more unique than those on offer. The goal being a sale. My hesitation gave away my inability to read French and the rather kind lady, all at once so very casual and chic, urged me to consider the bottles of brushed steel that contained, I was informed, the firms more popular scents. I felt no less triumph in discovering Santel for the first time than Barney did in retrieving the tossed Pine Cone. My Euros meant far less to me than the crushed dog cookies he was duly rewarded with did to Barney and his satisfaction at the transaction, Pine Cone for treat, far exceeded mine at purchasing the brushed stainless steel canister. The walk continues a pace until another scent trail is discovered.
The joy of a dog as walking companion is in the taking joy in the joy the canine has in simply everything. They are, as best expressed by a truly loving lady, "Gods free spirits". If living fully in the moment, every moment, is the best way to live and I feel it is, than my mutt Barney lives life fully daily. The bliss is apparent. The range of expressions on his loving face while he is about the business of discovering and following smells, is worthy of the stage. Rapture is the only word which properly describes his expression, mirth brightening his eyes, when my best boy hears the word cookie. If there is an Academy Award for Best Puppy as Actor, than it would go to Barney. The sly smart boy will, in order to gain a second or third cookie, begin his whole range of tricks. When near a 4 foot tall retaining wall he will charge ahead, leap and crawl scale to the top of the wall and begin a varied array of tricks In no set order but at double quick time Barney will sit, shake hands, lie fully down, roll over and flirt with the prettiest brown eyes any dog has ever been graced with. Next Barney will works those baby browns. A charm technique the result I am certain, of a 3 three week long stay at a Kennel favored by Female early retirees from Silicon Valley. First a sultry over the shoulder back glance, than if that has failed to gain the desired treat, followed up by a full sulk from a sitting position. That last look being Barneys tried and true secret weapon. All at once it says. " but daddy I love you so much and you are making me sad", BAM the resolve goes, cookies are dispensed and the revived canine leaps up and is off for more adventure.
It, the solitary walking of a loving dog, has a wonderful way of being both reflective, engaging and centering. It is impossible to not tone down. The mind calms down allowing memories of other companion dogs to sneak into the moment. A boys first love is his first dog and the loss of it is often the first experience of death that a child will have. There is no way to mitigate the pain felt by losing your true play companion and the experience is a step in the long eventful march towards adult life. The brush against my leg is Barney dropping a Pine Cone at my feet, a begging demand of a round of toss, retrieve, cookie reward,.begins and brings me back fully into the present day world of a being in the moment with a too old to be adopted pound rescue mutt I renamed Barney. It is an hour well spent!
An idyl in the City: A trip to an Ice Cream store
An idyl in the City: A trip to an Ice Cream store: There is one thing San Francisco style is defined by, which if you know San Francisco at all is no surprise, that being the juxtaposition o...
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
A walk to an Ice Cream store
There is one thing San Francisco style is defined by, which if you know San Francisco at all is no surprise, that being the juxtaposition of opulence and the ordinary. Rather than lessen the impact of the grand or shame the plain, here at least, more often than not, opposites compliment and foil the other. Each in turn showcase the very elements the other lacks or overstates.
The reasons for a continued celebration of cultural clash are rooted in our history. The magnificent hotel rising up from the bones of a Clipper ship. A Canvas miners tent pitched next to a Monterey Colonial. The post '06 Nabob converts his town mansion into a store and apartment building and opens for business next to a credible copy of a English country Gothic Cathedral. The row of cleverly painted carpenter gothic townhouses interrupted by the stray Spanish neo-colonial facade The work not a result of early facadeism but a disgrace foisted upon one of the painted ladies in the distant past by an owner attempting to stay fashionable in the ever hopful game of collecting fashionable rents. The visual effect on the streetscape is much like encountering a group of elegant ladies, all of a certain age, whose wiles are more discrete than fresh and noticing that one or two of the ladies has had "some glamorous work" done. It can cause a less experienced gentleman a moment of pause. The charm of the rest of the group is perhaps appreciated for being more genuine and less taxing of a fellows smile.
The reasons for a continued celebration of cultural clash are rooted in our history. The magnificent hotel rising up from the bones of a Clipper ship. A Canvas miners tent pitched next to a Monterey Colonial. The post '06 Nabob converts his town mansion into a store and apartment building and opens for business next to a credible copy of a English country Gothic Cathedral. The row of cleverly painted carpenter gothic townhouses interrupted by the stray Spanish neo-colonial facade The work not a result of early facadeism but a disgrace foisted upon one of the painted ladies in the distant past by an owner attempting to stay fashionable in the ever hopful game of collecting fashionable rents. The visual effect on the streetscape is much like encountering a group of elegant ladies, all of a certain age, whose wiles are more discrete than fresh and noticing that one or two of the ladies has had "some glamorous work" done. It can cause a less experienced gentleman a moment of pause. The charm of the rest of the group is perhaps appreciated for being more genuine and less taxing of a fellows smile.
A very sweet example of this sort of San Francisco style is found at a rather plain-jane store named Swensons Ice Cream. Located on Cable Car line at the corner of Union and Hyde. The corners there being uneventful ones on otherwise fashionable Russian Hill. Russian Hill is elegant San Francisco writ small on a half dozen densely built up blocks. Each house jealous of views of the bay and rare sunlight. The result is a lot of sophisticated, well heeled people living in rather small houses, too close together but then that could describe much of residential San Francisco in the teens.
The rich that seek domestic bliss upon its slopes were once bohemian rather than the Nabob rich of Nob Hill. That difference ended decades ago and Russian Hill is now home to "establishment" sorts. Swensons is a holdout from decades past. The long gone time when flats and tiny cottages were home to working artists and fishermen's families, living cheek to jowl with wealthier raffish residents. The very mix of people created a lovely village within the glorious city.
Very chic pocket sized restaurants replaced corner markets decades ago and their wine lists are as complete as any Napa winery, the produce as fresh and select as the finest farmer's market. The prices ignoring the financial crisis. The sidewalks are crowded with table and chairs set outdoor in an attempt to cultivate a Roman dining experience but one requiring that all spare space be filled by outdoor heaters. The romance of al fresco dining being somewhat challenged by our climate. The sight of chic pretty women sitting out of doors at tiny tables, inclining their heads towards their lovers, shivering in the cold is simply a sight not seen elsewhere in California during summer. The overall effect can be mere urbane pretense and yet the passing cable car and bellowing fog horn ground it all in a subtle San Francisco urban reality which is at once chic and timeless. All at once it is authentic, unique, lovely and not found elsewhere in the world. It is the perfect setting for Swenson.
The rich that seek domestic bliss upon its slopes were once bohemian rather than the Nabob rich of Nob Hill. That difference ended decades ago and Russian Hill is now home to "establishment" sorts. Swensons is a holdout from decades past. The long gone time when flats and tiny cottages were home to working artists and fishermen's families, living cheek to jowl with wealthier raffish residents. The very mix of people created a lovely village within the glorious city.
Very chic pocket sized restaurants replaced corner markets decades ago and their wine lists are as complete as any Napa winery, the produce as fresh and select as the finest farmer's market. The prices ignoring the financial crisis. The sidewalks are crowded with table and chairs set outdoor in an attempt to cultivate a Roman dining experience but one requiring that all spare space be filled by outdoor heaters. The romance of al fresco dining being somewhat challenged by our climate. The sight of chic pretty women sitting out of doors at tiny tables, inclining their heads towards their lovers, shivering in the cold is simply a sight not seen elsewhere in California during summer. The overall effect can be mere urbane pretense and yet the passing cable car and bellowing fog horn ground it all in a subtle San Francisco urban reality which is at once chic and timeless. All at once it is authentic, unique, lovely and not found elsewhere in the world. It is the perfect setting for Swenson.
Swenson is, in addition to being the only ice cream store left in the city's north end not given over to tourists, superb! The shop's 20th century ordinariness is its charm. The storefront window on Hyde Street features an ice cream making machine which is lovingly maintained and is used in the preparation of the solid if not expansive choice of flavors. Its well cared for metal has a mellowed glow. Can there be anything more joyful in the mechanical world than a lovingly cared for Ice Cream machine? Waiting patiently (mid-day, mid-week is the best time for quick service, a rare hot Friday night being the worst) you can, when the interior door is open, see shelves lined with large dark brown glass bottles full of flavoring syrups. Bold script written on labels of tan paper announce flavors. While I wait for service I indulge in a fantasy of donning a white lab coat and mentally play for a moment the mad scientist concocting ever more scintillating tastes of delight. I for one would die happily of Swiss Chocolate Orange Chip overdose. It would a worthy end if my demise yielded a low calorie, low fat version of the superb caloric laden delights without sacrificing portion size. I think there would be no finer reason to be celebrated. That is not to be. Swensons is a well run place whose employees have no time to spare to indulge the whimsey of a 21st century foodie on a stroll.
I only allow myself the treat if I stroll before, during and after my eating the decadent scoop. Luckily, the views in the neighborhood are their own reward and I happily set out, melting indulgence in hand.
The location is equal part San Francisco plutocrat, plebeian, historic and modern. The class of toil resident on the hill is chiefly represented by young urban professional's who rent Romeo flats. The monthly rates paid to absentee landlords would have been extravagant annual salaries when Jack London was sailing on the crested bay below. Strolling with quickly melting cone in hand I slowly pass dollhouse size house after doll house sized house. Many painted colors chic 15 years ago when a golden age had been declared and now sun faded in the mist. The views are still superb butonce bright futures are shadowed for the moment in gloom. Gloom being the chief color offered up in post Great Recession San Francisco. The painting of houses in the colorists latest choices is no longer deemed prudent in the post speculative property market.
Rising in stark counterpoint on a block otherwise dominated by a 19th century plutocrat's octagon sided mansion is a Brute design highrise. It is an arrogant and ugly thing. Its salesmens pitch fullfilled in unrelentingly horrid design. Floor after ever higher floor housing units promised built to offer the resident superior views over the lower floors. The crescendo of poured concrete is unremitting until the Penthouse floor is reached. There two story floor to ceiling windows cap the bleak Stassi headquarter design. This Penthouse is where a Getty and his childhood friend, now a middle aged politician, held youthful orgies fueled by an excess of hedonism, drugs, booze and stupidity. This part of Russian Hill, once intended to have the look of a Tuscan hill town ruled by a benign oligarchy more Dante than Medici is more Benito than Fellini around this brutally placed mid century monstrosity. It does inform even the mildly attentive stroller about the arrogance of last quarter 20th century modern building design arrogance.
The casita sized villa's of Russian Hill Lane are made more glorious by the shadow of the simply wrong and massive. The rightness and charm of small house and garden much like a strong American arm, fist and finger answer to the International style nightmare down the block. The juxtaposition is made tolerable.perhaps even chic by the view of the Ferry's on the bay below. A blast of a foghorn, the sound of the clang of a Cable Cars bell rung by the gripman to announce the cars jolting start, feeling the warmth of late afternoon sun and the mellowing effect of a scoop of Swiss Chocolate Orange Chip Ice Cream softens the harshest of sights and Russian Hill plays its part in the fiction of 21st century San Francisco.
The spell cast is not unlike that cast by the fictional Pied Piper of Hamlin.. Where have all Hamlin's children gone? On a mildly misty late summer afternoon, fog horns blasting, a cone melting in hand, as a black Audi sedan driven by a handsome man drives past I think I might know. Listen very carefully and in the stillness of the fog you can hear a flutes note wafting here and than there. Careful now the lotus is having its effect!
The spell cast is not unlike that cast by the fictional Pied Piper of Hamlin.. Where have all Hamlin's children gone? On a mildly misty late summer afternoon, fog horns blasting, a cone melting in hand, as a black Audi sedan driven by a handsome man drives past I think I might know. Listen very carefully and in the stillness of the fog you can hear a flutes note wafting here and than there. Careful now the lotus is having its effect!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Walks with my dog!
Anytime spent in San Francisco will inform even the dullest of souls that it's the typography of the place that creates a unique sense of place. The streets simply rise up to meet you, creating villages out of blocks that would, in a flatter place, merely be addresses further down the street. It separates too. My own street of neatly maintained little homes is more connected to the Medical University just through the cloud forest and the very grand houses perched further up the mountain than to the rows of similar little sweet homes that steeply descend the other side of the mountain. Though truly part of my neighborhood, the steep drop from 850 feet above sea level to 150 feet, the arduous climb back up again, precludes my including them in my daily walks with my dog.
The spell is enhanced by the light. In fall that filtered light embraces city and coast. The summer fogs end and golden toned hues lighten the space with joyous azure, pinks and whites. The city presents itself to those travelers hardy enough to climb the highest peaks an appetizing array of sweet fresh sights and smells, colored by coastal hues playing off mountainous coasts and great inland sea. The only place I have visited that resembles its gentle splendor is the divinely decayed capital of Portugal, Lisboa! There too barrio's are carved upon hilltops, villages huddle around parks and every hill has a view of the Ocean and massive river that meets it, crossed by a rusty colored span much like ours.
Any traveled European who has visited the United States for more than a week and finds themselves in San Francisco will state that they are more at home here than elsewhere in the nation. The compactness of the place, the active street life, people gone mad with a celebration of food as art all served up with a wealth of music playing everywhere. A small place, half its people from elsewhere, speaking dozen's of different languages and dialects continually create and reinvent a city whose people have a unifying language in music and food. It is the surest language of nurturing love for the world's sojourner's that rest for a time within the golden gate.
Food! It's the language understood by us all. It matters not if you're Asian, European, San Franciscan or a visitor from the exotic East. East, that place settled and populated east of the Sierra's but ending at waters edge well before London and Paris. East! The indistinct large place ones distant ancestors originated. My neighbors the Wong's hold a similar view of the mysterious place over the water in the far West. The place from which, in the hazey distant past, The Wong originated. This originator of his race on the Ohlone villages ruins, after climbing the golden mountain and seeing that it was good, settled down, rolled a dumpling or two ate one and served the other to a gentleman from a far away place named Brewster who in turn spoke of it to a gentleman from Brazil who thought that that just might be the thing to serve with his roasted coffee.
The universality of excellent food is the language spoken most readily upon our hillsides glowing in the golden fall light. It is understood by everyone.
The spell is enhanced by the light. In fall that filtered light embraces city and coast. The summer fogs end and golden toned hues lighten the space with joyous azure, pinks and whites. The city presents itself to those travelers hardy enough to climb the highest peaks an appetizing array of sweet fresh sights and smells, colored by coastal hues playing off mountainous coasts and great inland sea. The only place I have visited that resembles its gentle splendor is the divinely decayed capital of Portugal, Lisboa! There too barrio's are carved upon hilltops, villages huddle around parks and every hill has a view of the Ocean and massive river that meets it, crossed by a rusty colored span much like ours.
Any traveled European who has visited the United States for more than a week and finds themselves in San Francisco will state that they are more at home here than elsewhere in the nation. The compactness of the place, the active street life, people gone mad with a celebration of food as art all served up with a wealth of music playing everywhere. A small place, half its people from elsewhere, speaking dozen's of different languages and dialects continually create and reinvent a city whose people have a unifying language in music and food. It is the surest language of nurturing love for the world's sojourner's that rest for a time within the golden gate.
Food! It's the language understood by us all. It matters not if you're Asian, European, San Franciscan or a visitor from the exotic East. East, that place settled and populated east of the Sierra's but ending at waters edge well before London and Paris. East! The indistinct large place ones distant ancestors originated. My neighbors the Wong's hold a similar view of the mysterious place over the water in the far West. The place from which, in the hazey distant past, The Wong originated. This originator of his race on the Ohlone villages ruins, after climbing the golden mountain and seeing that it was good, settled down, rolled a dumpling or two ate one and served the other to a gentleman from a far away place named Brewster who in turn spoke of it to a gentleman from Brazil who thought that that just might be the thing to serve with his roasted coffee.
The universality of excellent food is the language spoken most readily upon our hillsides glowing in the golden fall light. It is understood by everyone.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Enveloping Fog!
The fog during the summer months lays thick along the coast of central California. It is the stuff of literary legend. Twain's comment, " the coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco" is the most often quoted by guidebooks that seek to instruct the casual summer weekend visitor on what to wear when! The freezing blasts leave most unprepared as they "do" San Francisco for the day. The merchants of schlock peddle poorly made fleece windbreakers with SAN FRANCISCO printed across the front, contrasting the worst in seasonal bright colors with black script, to the suffering fools on the route of tourist traps which we allow to infest our wharf area's.
In summer only the hardiest of souls brave the cold blasts of thick gray clouds to walk the dog. It is the definition of dreaded chore to do so. The childhoods of generations of San Franciscan's have many cultural disconnects from the rest of the United States of America, some due to the limitations imposed upon our choices due to the compact nature of our densely built city, others stem from needed restrictions which are common enough in urban area's. The one most unique to our tiny city is that though municipal firework displays are mounted each year to celebrate the Glorious 4th the actual viewing of the display of patriotic fevor is limited to those few souls who are able to find a parking space near the water's edge. In an annual folly worthy of the best Kafka story the city father's mount wonderful firework displays that are seen by nearly no one in San Francisco and mostly by the residents of Oakland and Marin. The moment marks the revolution chiefly in continual booms and an orange glow originating way above the clouds. Still the fog has its magic. One magical trick the fog has for me is that when flying either home or away from San Francisco we always pass over the Mt. Sutro Tower and its top third is the sole recognizable landmark in a sea of white cloud. I know that my house and gardens are just below and a bit to the left. Makes me fell rather special.
The billowing wisps are tailor made for twilight games of hide and seek. In fact it's very possible to hide out in the open if one steps away just far enough. The resulting giggling will always give the player away. Twilight, that lovely faded light, lasts from morning until nightfall, making the whole day one singular white grey period with no shadows to mark the flight of the sun's journey. Sundials are not much used in San Francisco gardens and time passes very silently. The savvy gardener will plant windblocks and privacy screens into the domestic landscape, so it is very possible to spend hours reading on a bench in a sheltered garden nook. On the mountainsides the fog creeps quietly over the woodlands of the densely forested valleys and deep canyons of the Crystal Springs Watershed and everything, people, gardens, flower, houses, are held in a Brig-a-doon sort of stasis wherever the coastal fog holds court during the summer. The fog rolls out and it is still 1962, the slumber induced by the enveloping clouds is that deep, the magic of it is that it causes time to stand still. That magic disappears in late August early September when the remembered bright lights of early June are replaced by the shadows of fall amid crystal clear days. A week or two of warmth before the crispness of true fall. It is a time of high frolic that is gives meaning to the word JOY! I recommend it highly.
In summer only the hardiest of souls brave the cold blasts of thick gray clouds to walk the dog. It is the definition of dreaded chore to do so. The childhoods of generations of San Franciscan's have many cultural disconnects from the rest of the United States of America, some due to the limitations imposed upon our choices due to the compact nature of our densely built city, others stem from needed restrictions which are common enough in urban area's. The one most unique to our tiny city is that though municipal firework displays are mounted each year to celebrate the Glorious 4th the actual viewing of the display of patriotic fevor is limited to those few souls who are able to find a parking space near the water's edge. In an annual folly worthy of the best Kafka story the city father's mount wonderful firework displays that are seen by nearly no one in San Francisco and mostly by the residents of Oakland and Marin. The moment marks the revolution chiefly in continual booms and an orange glow originating way above the clouds. Still the fog has its magic. One magical trick the fog has for me is that when flying either home or away from San Francisco we always pass over the Mt. Sutro Tower and its top third is the sole recognizable landmark in a sea of white cloud. I know that my house and gardens are just below and a bit to the left. Makes me fell rather special.
The billowing wisps are tailor made for twilight games of hide and seek. In fact it's very possible to hide out in the open if one steps away just far enough. The resulting giggling will always give the player away. Twilight, that lovely faded light, lasts from morning until nightfall, making the whole day one singular white grey period with no shadows to mark the flight of the sun's journey. Sundials are not much used in San Francisco gardens and time passes very silently. The savvy gardener will plant windblocks and privacy screens into the domestic landscape, so it is very possible to spend hours reading on a bench in a sheltered garden nook. On the mountainsides the fog creeps quietly over the woodlands of the densely forested valleys and deep canyons of the Crystal Springs Watershed and everything, people, gardens, flower, houses, are held in a Brig-a-doon sort of stasis wherever the coastal fog holds court during the summer. The fog rolls out and it is still 1962, the slumber induced by the enveloping clouds is that deep, the magic of it is that it causes time to stand still. That magic disappears in late August early September when the remembered bright lights of early June are replaced by the shadows of fall amid crystal clear days. A week or two of warmth before the crispness of true fall. It is a time of high frolic that is gives meaning to the word JOY! I recommend it highly.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
True California!
I've recently begun a love affair. It leaves me, sweaty, breathless, aching, covered in tiny bites and scratches yet desiring more. When I'm not worshiping my new love I can only think about the moments spent together, of new intimate tricks played and my own abilities. I anticipate greedily the next encounter. I'm jealous of the time spent away and have bitten off more than a few heads of fools who delay me in attending my much anticipated scheduled meetings with my love. The encounters always leave me feeling satisfied, refreshed and if but for a moment, completely speechless. It is profoundly moving. It is a true of truest loves and like many lovers it is entirely one sided. My new love barely notices my existence, treats me as being utterly insignificant, a state of being with which I readily agree. Should I grow up? Move on? Never, not while I can move! This love sustains me in my life, without it I would be merely another urban wretch. A man creature shriveled in decay, despondency and dependency. My new love leaves me smiling, keeps a bounce in my step and best of all, when I'm in the heat of it, burns up a lot of calories. It leaves me with an incredible sense of being free. It's done in the sunny wide open. It is solitary hiking in the Mid -Peninsula Open Space Preserve!
The Wilderness- Oh wild California. True California, untouched in its' primordial splendor. The blessings of ancient Oaks shading me and myriad forms of life from the burning mid day summer sun, the scent of the Oak a heady perfume matched only by wet Redwoods. Manzanita, Lichen, giant Ferns, fleeing Lizards, Turkey Vultures waiting, ever waiting, silently, knowingly patient, fixtures set upon limbs of dead trees. The enduring archetypal sound of Owls hooting in Redwood groves so dense that even at high noon daylight filters to the Forest floor weakly, creating a never world of ever twilight, transporting the listener back thousands of years, to the sounds and sights our ancestors experienced when living under the towering intertwined branches of the worlds primeval forests. Forest's that covered whole lands. This wildland relic of pre-Columbian California is within hiking distance of the Valley and University most responsible for the shattering of old ways of communication and conducting business as usual. The technology and limitless amounts of capital controlled by a very few individuals, that very force which has made whole industry's obsolete is within hearing at the trailheads but fast disappears as the sojourner makes his way into the wilderness.
The sylvan setting and gentle riparian sounds are rarely disturbed by the hubbub of the neo-Nabobs setting the course of 22nd Century California ten miles down the mountain. The insatiable appetite of a few hundred individuals set out to acquire ever more billions with no regard for the democracy that nurtured them is for me a more frightening reality of destruction than the real chance of an encounter with a wild Pig, Coyote or Mountain Lion. In such an encounter, the beasts of the field and forest act as they must to a human interloper within their world- the injury caused by a chance battle more understandable than enduring the crushed markets caused by the creative destruction of the beast of prey known as the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist. The wonderful reality is that the all embracing largeness of the wilderness of this True California evens the playing field for all. The Mountain Lion doesn't much wait upon ceremony and has a real disregard to the size, location and variety of bank accounts and investments. The neo-Nabob is on equal terms with every other child of nature in the wilderness and benefits more from the utter disregard that that very wilderness, my new love, holds us all in. That disregard frees them if only for the moment from self imposed rules. There is nothing as humbling and yet little that is more grounding, or that which can right side over the top ego's than a vista through ancient Oaks across deep forested canyons full of Mountain Lions, Coyotes, Foxes, on a perfection made eternal spring of a True California summer day. To not fall madly, profoundly in love at such a moment is simply to be dead to the world It is an all consuming love I wish everyone to encounter!
The Wilderness- Oh wild California. True California, untouched in its' primordial splendor. The blessings of ancient Oaks shading me and myriad forms of life from the burning mid day summer sun, the scent of the Oak a heady perfume matched only by wet Redwoods. Manzanita, Lichen, giant Ferns, fleeing Lizards, Turkey Vultures waiting, ever waiting, silently, knowingly patient, fixtures set upon limbs of dead trees. The enduring archetypal sound of Owls hooting in Redwood groves so dense that even at high noon daylight filters to the Forest floor weakly, creating a never world of ever twilight, transporting the listener back thousands of years, to the sounds and sights our ancestors experienced when living under the towering intertwined branches of the worlds primeval forests. Forest's that covered whole lands. This wildland relic of pre-Columbian California is within hiking distance of the Valley and University most responsible for the shattering of old ways of communication and conducting business as usual. The technology and limitless amounts of capital controlled by a very few individuals, that very force which has made whole industry's obsolete is within hearing at the trailheads but fast disappears as the sojourner makes his way into the wilderness.
The sylvan setting and gentle riparian sounds are rarely disturbed by the hubbub of the neo-Nabobs setting the course of 22nd Century California ten miles down the mountain. The insatiable appetite of a few hundred individuals set out to acquire ever more billions with no regard for the democracy that nurtured them is for me a more frightening reality of destruction than the real chance of an encounter with a wild Pig, Coyote or Mountain Lion. In such an encounter, the beasts of the field and forest act as they must to a human interloper within their world- the injury caused by a chance battle more understandable than enduring the crushed markets caused by the creative destruction of the beast of prey known as the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist. The wonderful reality is that the all embracing largeness of the wilderness of this True California evens the playing field for all. The Mountain Lion doesn't much wait upon ceremony and has a real disregard to the size, location and variety of bank accounts and investments. The neo-Nabob is on equal terms with every other child of nature in the wilderness and benefits more from the utter disregard that that very wilderness, my new love, holds us all in. That disregard frees them if only for the moment from self imposed rules. There is nothing as humbling and yet little that is more grounding, or that which can right side over the top ego's than a vista through ancient Oaks across deep forested canyons full of Mountain Lions, Coyotes, Foxes, on a perfection made eternal spring of a True California summer day. To not fall madly, profoundly in love at such a moment is simply to be dead to the world It is an all consuming love I wish everyone to encounter!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Longcase Clock
"....It was bought on the morn of the day he was born...", one of the manifold charms antique furniture has is its' ability to transport you to past times merely by its presence in your life. Such is the charmed hold my two longcase clocks have on me. One, a solid mahogany-beveled glass paneled Edwardian gem, was purchased at W.J. Sloane and Company by my maternal great-grandparents sometime after the great fire had destroyed their house. The elegant clock stood for its first 65 year's in the hallway of 519 Castro Street, the Victorian set of flats above one of their stores, which become their main residence after they choose to cut their house on Baker Street into units in response to the massive housing shortage post '06. The new homes location in the than country, belied the furnishings and fittings of the interior. San Francisco was still very much a gentleman's adventure pre-World War 1 and gentleman had longcase clocks, study's, dining room, a formal parlor and back parlor. The rooms may have been liliputan in size compared to the massive scale of the Nabob mansions but the furniture, art and endless amounts of bric-a-brac would, at least in this instance, did not have pail in modesty had any comparison been made.
It has stood in elegant silence in my front foyer for the last 40's years. It has silently witnessed the maturation of several generations as well as the passing of several. It's use as a lucky touchstone by my grandmother, who would touch one of it's wood columns for luck as she passed on her increasingly infrequent strolls through the house, has long ended and its deep resounding chime has been silent even longer still. The beloved heirloom is mostly an elegant reminder of past times, a cherished relic of a beloved branch of my family. It also foils rather well my George the Second, George the Third and Federal period pieces. It's a great layer in a roomful of 4 centuries of fine furniture, ( the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st centuries all being represented).
In the mornings I awake in my bedroom suite the first thing I recognize is the refined elegance of the George the Third longcase clock standing against the far wall from my bed. It's highly polished wood gleaming in the morning light. I never fail to smile when I see it. I've no idea who originally owned it and I love playing a story game which has no end of versions but will start with. I was made in the year 1783, than any number of versions of the following... of loyalist flight from newly independent Unites States, bought by a loyalist American to furnish his new London townhouse on the day his son was born and given to his son on the day his son was born when Waterloo ended the Wars started when Louis was King and given to his son on the day he married in the year that Victoria ascended the throne, than passed to a daughter on her wedding day the year Albert died, and left to a nephew upon her death the year Shaw opened his first play in London, than given to a grandchild the year Victoria died to mark the birth of a son who married the year the treaty of Vesailles was signed who presented it to his son upon downsizing from the manor house to a bedsit in Brighton the year Ireland ended its's love affair with English Royalty and India was no longer the Empire. Who in turn gave it to a grandchild that found it all to dark and had it auctioned off to purchase a Eurobox! Which caused it to be bought by me in the year a sailor landed in my life when the second boom of the 21st century was in flower!
It has its spell and I adore it!
It has stood in elegant silence in my front foyer for the last 40's years. It has silently witnessed the maturation of several generations as well as the passing of several. It's use as a lucky touchstone by my grandmother, who would touch one of it's wood columns for luck as she passed on her increasingly infrequent strolls through the house, has long ended and its deep resounding chime has been silent even longer still. The beloved heirloom is mostly an elegant reminder of past times, a cherished relic of a beloved branch of my family. It also foils rather well my George the Second, George the Third and Federal period pieces. It's a great layer in a roomful of 4 centuries of fine furniture, ( the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st centuries all being represented).
In the mornings I awake in my bedroom suite the first thing I recognize is the refined elegance of the George the Third longcase clock standing against the far wall from my bed. It's highly polished wood gleaming in the morning light. I never fail to smile when I see it. I've no idea who originally owned it and I love playing a story game which has no end of versions but will start with. I was made in the year 1783, than any number of versions of the following... of loyalist flight from newly independent Unites States, bought by a loyalist American to furnish his new London townhouse on the day his son was born and given to his son on the day his son was born when Waterloo ended the Wars started when Louis was King and given to his son on the day he married in the year that Victoria ascended the throne, than passed to a daughter on her wedding day the year Albert died, and left to a nephew upon her death the year Shaw opened his first play in London, than given to a grandchild the year Victoria died to mark the birth of a son who married the year the treaty of Vesailles was signed who presented it to his son upon downsizing from the manor house to a bedsit in Brighton the year Ireland ended its's love affair with English Royalty and India was no longer the Empire. Who in turn gave it to a grandchild that found it all to dark and had it auctioned off to purchase a Eurobox! Which caused it to be bought by me in the year a sailor landed in my life when the second boom of the 21st century was in flower!
It has its spell and I adore it!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Alleys and a Sailor in dress whites!
An adventure on a foggy summer Saturday morning, a culinary sort of ramble about in the city, found me walking rather hurriedly down a south of market alley. The alley was a surviving textured surprise not expected to be in the mix of soulless neo-mid-century buildings, the sort that can be anywhere in the urban world, boring office-condo-retail-garage things, squat whole city block buildings, a study of uniform awfulness and arrogant purpose. That purpose chiefly being quick profit over architecture that celebrates the human condition and singleness of place, light and air. The glass and steel dreck gave way via a quick turn to a half block of surviving brick buildings of an earlier century. All left with exterior marks of previous use and age. Loading docks, metal door joints rusted, rolling doors sodered shut. The intent of mixing old with the new failed dismally in providing relief to the yawning nothingness resultant when everything within two miles is b built within three years time. The tastes of planning commissions with mandates to impose style-less non-choice fails to achieve much more than preservation of some of the skyline and light. The boom of the turn of the century, long gone, another boom come and bust and still a third whispered about where those trading in office space gather, "the next tech boom as big as '98" ,- reminds me of the NEP men in Rand's Russian works, trading brick a brac and worthless shares in a speculative frenzy amongst the tsarist ruins of pre-Stalin Soviet Moscow. Get it while you can bub there will be a shortage soon. The shortage is mostly in urbane taste. The destruction of the patina of the city is criminally evident in redevelopment projects such as these. How Chinatown has escaped is more an exercise in racist neglect than oversight but there around the edges the undertow of redevelopment pulls at the fabric of the city's culture.
Mid- alley I came upon three very fit young white men, milling about, just across from them a half dozen very obese, very made-up young women lounged about the dirty loading ramp of a former warehouse. Briefly it seemed like the South of Market of my 20's- 40's, handsome young people kicking back, still tripping from the nights alcohol and drugs consumption, sobering up outside a massive club in an old warehouse. The lack of both seedy sexuality and decadence caused by an assembly of spent handsome men wearing completely destroyed couture clothes, prevented the scene from being a reduex of 90's SOMA clubland. So too the absence of coupled off shirtless bi muscle men.
I waited for the most sublimely handsome of young men, the sort that holds their very masculine sexuality a little too close for too long, to step aside before peering into what was the cause of the alley way crowd. EUREKA! This was no sex club or illegal after hours spot but a breakfast takeaway stand carved out of warehouse's brick wall. Those overly made up obese women ween't dealing drugs they were eating grits! I got some game, much as I would have a dozen years past at a club s admission rope and stepped up to the butch girl employee. Maintaining my "been hipper longer than you have been alive" old guy stance, I asked for a moment, than with all the bravado I used to have ordering a Tank and Tonic down the block at a long demolished disco, I ordered the deep fried chicken breast and waffle. I'd gone southern.
Amongst the newly homogenized nothingness of destroyed former clubland and industrial San Francisco, now overflowing with utterly uninteresting 20 -30 somethings, mostly transplanted from elsewhere USA, working at the wrong other end of the train line that services Silicon Valley, all studies dressed in anti-fashion fashion merchandised by smarter merchants, was an honest soul food take away stand. There it was the there that Stein found lacking in her hometown across the bay. A place to celebrate. In quick time I was handed Sherman's booty, a choice southern meal. The portion sizes were frankly daunting. I walked away with a takeaway box containing enough calories and carbs for two meals. The waffle was a revelation of what a waffle should be and was before moms began passing toaster waffles off as a hot breakfast. The deep fried chicken breast was fresh, tender, moist, hot perfection.
The alley, the handsome men, the game on kid overly made up simply huge young women, gave the whole experience a feeling more like the end of the first date I had with a U.S.N Sailor in dress whites, you knew your mom might not approve but was it too much fun not to take a bite. Like that first date that one bite led to an experience that was a wholly satisfying one. I felt a little naughty too but my goodness what could be more wholesome than a date with an American sailor in dress whites? Only a hearty breakfast of southern breakfast staples consumed leaning against a brick warehouse wall in an alley on a foggy San Francisco morning that's what! Come to think of it where was that first date with Chief Stern?. I decided to be naughtier and double up on the sweet ice tea and syrup. Until fleet week returns this is the only reason to be in an alley.... alone.
Mid- alley I came upon three very fit young white men, milling about, just across from them a half dozen very obese, very made-up young women lounged about the dirty loading ramp of a former warehouse. Briefly it seemed like the South of Market of my 20's- 40's, handsome young people kicking back, still tripping from the nights alcohol and drugs consumption, sobering up outside a massive club in an old warehouse. The lack of both seedy sexuality and decadence caused by an assembly of spent handsome men wearing completely destroyed couture clothes, prevented the scene from being a reduex of 90's SOMA clubland. So too the absence of coupled off shirtless bi muscle men.
I waited for the most sublimely handsome of young men, the sort that holds their very masculine sexuality a little too close for too long, to step aside before peering into what was the cause of the alley way crowd. EUREKA! This was no sex club or illegal after hours spot but a breakfast takeaway stand carved out of warehouse's brick wall. Those overly made up obese women ween't dealing drugs they were eating grits! I got some game, much as I would have a dozen years past at a club s admission rope and stepped up to the butch girl employee. Maintaining my "been hipper longer than you have been alive" old guy stance, I asked for a moment, than with all the bravado I used to have ordering a Tank and Tonic down the block at a long demolished disco, I ordered the deep fried chicken breast and waffle. I'd gone southern.
Amongst the newly homogenized nothingness of destroyed former clubland and industrial San Francisco, now overflowing with utterly uninteresting 20 -30 somethings, mostly transplanted from elsewhere USA, working at the wrong other end of the train line that services Silicon Valley, all studies dressed in anti-fashion fashion merchandised by smarter merchants, was an honest soul food take away stand. There it was the there that Stein found lacking in her hometown across the bay. A place to celebrate. In quick time I was handed Sherman's booty, a choice southern meal. The portion sizes were frankly daunting. I walked away with a takeaway box containing enough calories and carbs for two meals. The waffle was a revelation of what a waffle should be and was before moms began passing toaster waffles off as a hot breakfast. The deep fried chicken breast was fresh, tender, moist, hot perfection.
The alley, the handsome men, the game on kid overly made up simply huge young women, gave the whole experience a feeling more like the end of the first date I had with a U.S.N Sailor in dress whites, you knew your mom might not approve but was it too much fun not to take a bite. Like that first date that one bite led to an experience that was a wholly satisfying one. I felt a little naughty too but my goodness what could be more wholesome than a date with an American sailor in dress whites? Only a hearty breakfast of southern breakfast staples consumed leaning against a brick warehouse wall in an alley on a foggy San Francisco morning that's what! Come to think of it where was that first date with Chief Stern?. I decided to be naughtier and double up on the sweet ice tea and syrup. Until fleet week returns this is the only reason to be in an alley.... alone.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tea with Miss Viola Mooney and G. Bernard Shaw
One of the singular pleasures of living on the central coast of California is the delightful experience, albeit an acquired taste not universally well regarded, of a bracing chill fog and resulting rain like mist in the summer months. While the rest of California is baking to shades of gold and brown, the fortunate residents of coastal communities from Santa Barbara through Sonoma, enjoy highland mists and resulting Brigadoon disappearances and reappearances of houses, dogs, children and beloved landmarks. Today's fog was a gentler herald of the deep fogs of August, that storm tossed month when trench-coats, gloves and hats must be worn. and the fog is a seemingly madly driven fierce force bent on the destruction of all but the hardiest gardens.
Today's silver white clouds gently wafted in, silencing the noise of the city below our mountain, hiding everything, beautiful or common in it's whiteness, enveloping all in sweet silence. It's a child 's paradise of hide and seek but also perfect for a lovers embrace. All is enveloped in a cloud of white. Four grand houses, built in the magnificent neo-Monterey Colonial style popular in San Francisco in the 1920, lavishly spread over simply huge lots. One landed Don's villa next to another, their garden walls, outbuildings and towers deeply rooted on the slopes of the mountain. The sum total of the four, covering in their combined lots. an area half the size of the original village of Yerba Buena, the sum total having a good deal more rooms, better views and far more civilized inhabitants than that town now lost in history's mist. After an hour or so spent wrestling , playing hide and seek and being pulled about the steep streets by a dog aggressive beagle boxer mix in an atmosphere ready made for the Scottish Opera, refreshment, as reward for both master and dog is needed.
The rite, long established but until recently much disregarded, of afternoon tea, provide such refreshment and a perfect moment to reflect upon the goodness of stillness. The choice of tea is a brisk Irish Breakfast with accompanying tea sandwiches made of butter and raspberry jam and other's of cheese. The setting is a warm well appointed room, full of 18th century furniture and 19th century garnd tour art, the tea service a jolly 21st century set meant for solitary use. The choice of companion is the witty conversation provided by Miss Viola Mooney of 1966 Vallejo Street or more precisely the written wit within her 1911 edition of G. Bernard Shaw's,The Unsocial Socialist. Miss Mooney, for I would not dare address the lady as Viola, came into the ownership of this deep blue leather and gold embossed book in April of 1916. I came to own it eight decades later by making a purchase of dozens of books in a used book store on Polk Street, mere blocks away from Miss Mooney's house on Vallejo. The solid and stately house Miss Mooney brought her Bretano's edition home too is long gone, having been replaced sometime in the late 20's or early 30's by large luxurious apartment buildings since turned into co-op's. I've no idea who Miss Mooney was but as she was of my maternal Grandmother's generation and class, or so I have deduced by her clear penmanship, choice of book, quality of edition and address of residence, I have a fairly good idea of her.
My Miss Mooney is a jolly young lady, who has quite gotten on from the terror of the great fire and earthquake that forever served as her generations Rubicon, each survivor having crossed over from the imperial 19th century city's ashes to the start of modern San Francisco. The fair of 1915 had been a resounding success and Miss Mooney, I am certain, was a lady of the ragtime era wholike the city she lived in knew how! Shaw's tale of earnest young ladies of county families boldly moving forth into the pre-world war one social reform movements must have echoed her own views of all that was modern. San Franciscoo was new, well new again and all that had been, had been swept away in the firestorms ten years previous, In San Francisco the grandest mansions and ruins of Imperial America's splendor are daily replaced by even grander modern buildings of the settled modern west.
Miss Mooney's European sister's crossing of their Rubicon, was far more brutal than even the destruction of a city by earthquake and fire. The recording angel would have no end of trouble recording the breach of class and caste of young woman thrust into experiencing the unrelenting bloodbaths, that by April of 1916, had eroded the foundations of Empires in floods of slaughtered men. The collapse of the sweet world of English school girls of County families in 1911 was by than complete. But than for Miss Mooney in the San Francisco of April 1916 the distance to Flanders fields was greater still than even the distance for me in San Francisco of June 2011 to the hillside forward posts of Afghanistan. We each of us, in our time, enveloped in the calming stillness of walking in white silver clouds, fortified by of a cup of tea, taken in warm well appointed rooms, amused by the wit of Shaw and enjoying if for a moment the lifting of the fog which is the passing of time in San Francisco, united if but for 30 minutes across the divide of 95 year's over by the magic of out city's light,air Shaw and tea.
Today's silver white clouds gently wafted in, silencing the noise of the city below our mountain, hiding everything, beautiful or common in it's whiteness, enveloping all in sweet silence. It's a child 's paradise of hide and seek but also perfect for a lovers embrace. All is enveloped in a cloud of white. Four grand houses, built in the magnificent neo-Monterey Colonial style popular in San Francisco in the 1920, lavishly spread over simply huge lots. One landed Don's villa next to another, their garden walls, outbuildings and towers deeply rooted on the slopes of the mountain. The sum total of the four, covering in their combined lots. an area half the size of the original village of Yerba Buena, the sum total having a good deal more rooms, better views and far more civilized inhabitants than that town now lost in history's mist. After an hour or so spent wrestling , playing hide and seek and being pulled about the steep streets by a dog aggressive beagle boxer mix in an atmosphere ready made for the Scottish Opera, refreshment, as reward for both master and dog is needed.
The rite, long established but until recently much disregarded, of afternoon tea, provide such refreshment and a perfect moment to reflect upon the goodness of stillness. The choice of tea is a brisk Irish Breakfast with accompanying tea sandwiches made of butter and raspberry jam and other's of cheese. The setting is a warm well appointed room, full of 18th century furniture and 19th century garnd tour art, the tea service a jolly 21st century set meant for solitary use. The choice of companion is the witty conversation provided by Miss Viola Mooney of 1966 Vallejo Street or more precisely the written wit within her 1911 edition of G. Bernard Shaw's,The Unsocial Socialist. Miss Mooney, for I would not dare address the lady as Viola, came into the ownership of this deep blue leather and gold embossed book in April of 1916. I came to own it eight decades later by making a purchase of dozens of books in a used book store on Polk Street, mere blocks away from Miss Mooney's house on Vallejo. The solid and stately house Miss Mooney brought her Bretano's edition home too is long gone, having been replaced sometime in the late 20's or early 30's by large luxurious apartment buildings since turned into co-op's. I've no idea who Miss Mooney was but as she was of my maternal Grandmother's generation and class, or so I have deduced by her clear penmanship, choice of book, quality of edition and address of residence, I have a fairly good idea of her.
My Miss Mooney is a jolly young lady, who has quite gotten on from the terror of the great fire and earthquake that forever served as her generations Rubicon, each survivor having crossed over from the imperial 19th century city's ashes to the start of modern San Francisco. The fair of 1915 had been a resounding success and Miss Mooney, I am certain, was a lady of the ragtime era wholike the city she lived in knew how! Shaw's tale of earnest young ladies of county families boldly moving forth into the pre-world war one social reform movements must have echoed her own views of all that was modern. San Franciscoo was new, well new again and all that had been, had been swept away in the firestorms ten years previous, In San Francisco the grandest mansions and ruins of Imperial America's splendor are daily replaced by even grander modern buildings of the settled modern west.
Miss Mooney's European sister's crossing of their Rubicon, was far more brutal than even the destruction of a city by earthquake and fire. The recording angel would have no end of trouble recording the breach of class and caste of young woman thrust into experiencing the unrelenting bloodbaths, that by April of 1916, had eroded the foundations of Empires in floods of slaughtered men. The collapse of the sweet world of English school girls of County families in 1911 was by than complete. But than for Miss Mooney in the San Francisco of April 1916 the distance to Flanders fields was greater still than even the distance for me in San Francisco of June 2011 to the hillside forward posts of Afghanistan. We each of us, in our time, enveloped in the calming stillness of walking in white silver clouds, fortified by of a cup of tea, taken in warm well appointed rooms, amused by the wit of Shaw and enjoying if for a moment the lifting of the fog which is the passing of time in San Francisco, united if but for 30 minutes across the divide of 95 year's over by the magic of out city's light,air Shaw and tea.
Monday, June 20, 2011
TAKE A HIKE! .....
I've had the the very good fortune of discovering hiking in the countryside and woodlands. Both right next door in Sutro Forest as well as in the Marin Headlands, the Crystal Springs Watershed and further north in Jack London's beloved Glen Ellen. I have long been a devotee of walks around San Francisco, t hat thanks to the topography of the tip of the peninsula, is part aerobic, part pilates and if done while carrying bags, briefcases packages or a child can be strength conditioning too. Like all good workouts hiking should be done when hydrated and rested. I find I need nothing more than comfortable shoes, thick socks. a sweatshirt hoodie and 5 minutes to warm-up by stretching. Choice of shorts or jeans is dependent solely upon the wind chill factor which is reliably variable in the coastal counties during the early to mid-summer months.
The adventure is greatest for me when I am first on a new trail. The path can at times seemingly go on for endless miles and the novice hiker may need to be reassured that they are not lost nor are they there yet. It is also best to leave at home, for the sake of friendship, any whiners that may be in your circle. A periodic gentle reminder to yourself and any companion that hiking, like all grand voyages, is that the journey has its own justification and is its own reward.
My own rewards have been as varied as being surrounded by wildflowers as tall as a tall man, waiting for a family of wild turkey's to cross a path, mama turkey leading her playful chicks into high wild grass, a gloriously colored snake sliding across a path as quickly and grandly as the Mad Hatter on his way to Tea at the Ritz. A bobcat so fixated on his next meal as to completely ignore my passing presence, a gorgeous baby deer bounding out of the shrubs, followed by a Doe and a rather timid second baby deer. This hikers spellbound into waiting, waiting, watching them fill up on the abundant shrubs and bushes which grow under Redwood trees. Silence broken only by the sweet sound of a stream., bee's and the occasional screeching cries of a Raven or Eagle. There is no end goal other than to immerse yourself, if but for a few hours in a series of moments where the role of modern western man is brought low or at least in line with the natural order.
Given the complete development of the bay area these adventures are more like a fin-de-siele walk in the Vienna Woods rather than the California of my great-great -great grandfathers. I can't but recall the lines of Steinbeck's pioneer grandfather regretting the apparent domestic timidity of his mouse hunting grandchild. A situation he viewed as the start of the end of the triumph of western man. That if that be progress it was in fact our decline. In truth what seems high outdoor adventure to me would appear to my pioneer ancestors or my younger friends from the north of California to be a pre-dinner walk in an estates parkland than hiking in the country. Truth be told for me the fun and adventure of discovery is as real in the near wilds of the headlands and the watershed as in Yosemite. The chief difference being the wildlife is less varied and more used to humans and access to the outback is quicker in the bay area but all hiking has the same risks. A sprained ankle, getting lost or bitten are very real hazards whether one is hiking 10 or 300 miles from the urban core.
The amazing feel of accomplishment one feels after completing an arduous hike is like besting your time in a race. Being in nature,feeling right sided as to your individual place in it simply puts everything else into perspective. I feel a good hike in the country of say two hours duration has a way, in its way, of connecting us however briefly, to our hunter gatherer nomadic ancestors. It is an arch-type brought to motion which does remedy so many ills of our urban life. Joyfully celebrate your ability to walk by observing the glory and power of our mother nature remembering your primal citizenship in meadow,hill, mountain or woods holds no greater weight than that held by the other animals in the wild but sustains us all.
Get out and take a HIKE
The adventure is greatest for me when I am first on a new trail. The path can at times seemingly go on for endless miles and the novice hiker may need to be reassured that they are not lost nor are they there yet. It is also best to leave at home, for the sake of friendship, any whiners that may be in your circle. A periodic gentle reminder to yourself and any companion that hiking, like all grand voyages, is that the journey has its own justification and is its own reward.
My own rewards have been as varied as being surrounded by wildflowers as tall as a tall man, waiting for a family of wild turkey's to cross a path, mama turkey leading her playful chicks into high wild grass, a gloriously colored snake sliding across a path as quickly and grandly as the Mad Hatter on his way to Tea at the Ritz. A bobcat so fixated on his next meal as to completely ignore my passing presence, a gorgeous baby deer bounding out of the shrubs, followed by a Doe and a rather timid second baby deer. This hikers spellbound into waiting, waiting, watching them fill up on the abundant shrubs and bushes which grow under Redwood trees. Silence broken only by the sweet sound of a stream., bee's and the occasional screeching cries of a Raven or Eagle. There is no end goal other than to immerse yourself, if but for a few hours in a series of moments where the role of modern western man is brought low or at least in line with the natural order.
Given the complete development of the bay area these adventures are more like a fin-de-siele walk in the Vienna Woods rather than the California of my great-great -great grandfathers. I can't but recall the lines of Steinbeck's pioneer grandfather regretting the apparent domestic timidity of his mouse hunting grandchild. A situation he viewed as the start of the end of the triumph of western man. That if that be progress it was in fact our decline. In truth what seems high outdoor adventure to me would appear to my pioneer ancestors or my younger friends from the north of California to be a pre-dinner walk in an estates parkland than hiking in the country. Truth be told for me the fun and adventure of discovery is as real in the near wilds of the headlands and the watershed as in Yosemite. The chief difference being the wildlife is less varied and more used to humans and access to the outback is quicker in the bay area but all hiking has the same risks. A sprained ankle, getting lost or bitten are very real hazards whether one is hiking 10 or 300 miles from the urban core.
The amazing feel of accomplishment one feels after completing an arduous hike is like besting your time in a race. Being in nature,feeling right sided as to your individual place in it simply puts everything else into perspective. I feel a good hike in the country of say two hours duration has a way, in its way, of connecting us however briefly, to our hunter gatherer nomadic ancestors. It is an arch-type brought to motion which does remedy so many ills of our urban life. Joyfully celebrate your ability to walk by observing the glory and power of our mother nature remembering your primal citizenship in meadow,hill, mountain or woods holds no greater weight than that held by the other animals in the wild but sustains us all.
Get out and take a HIKE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)