The Scenic and the Sentimental

Almost finished

We've been home for two days, and although we've managed to rev up the washer and do mounds of laundry, Jerry and I are each busy catching up with writing down what we did on our trip to Montana.

This takes precedence over grocery shopping and watering wilting plants.  It definitely takes precedence over watching the Republican Convention.  We pass maps back and forth, exchange brochures about places we visited, and marvel that we were viewing bison on Tuesday afternoon and enduring a freeway traffic jam in Oakland on Wednesday night.

So!  The trip went very well, especially once we got into Glacier National Park on the second day of the trip.   First stop in the park: the Village Inn at Apgar, which has to be the most splendidly located motel on the planet. Located at the edge of Lake McDonald, the water just about laps at your door,  and there spectacular views at any time of day.  Here's one:





View of Lake McDonald from our unit at the Village Inn at Apgar

 

 

 

Every unit in this two-story motel has a back door to the parking lot and a front door that opens onto a long communal porch, with a pair of Adirondack chairs stationed outside each door.  The lake view is stunning day and night.  We also had a kitchenette,  which was handy for breakfast and where Jerry claimed part of the table for bug-collecting notes and vials.

 

 

 

 





 

 Later that afternoon, we met up with my friend Laurie, whom I met in college in 1968, and her husband, Joe.  They'd driven up from their home in Helena. To my amazement (not everyone drives a 16-year-old stationwagon), they arrived in a sportscar, Laurie's gift to herself on her 60th birthday.

 

Laurie and her sportscar

 

 

 

Joe during our boat ride on Lake McDonald; the  grown-up version of the barefoot surfer at UCSB.

 

 

 Both have high positions in Montana state government, real Grown-Up Jobs, and Joe's also an in-the-flesh political operative (Democratic, of course).  Their three sons are in their thirties, and they have a granddaughter, Hallie.

 

Later that afternoon, the four of us took a boat ride on Lake McDonald and then had dinner at Lake McDonald Lodge, a classic old railway-built National Park hotel, burnished and authentic and completely charming. Joe and Laurie were staying in West Glacier, just outside the park, not far away, because they didn't book soon enough to get into the Village Inn. (We booked in January for late August.) 

 

Here's a photo Jerry took of Laurie and me, 44 years after our meeting in a dorm at UC Santa Barbara.  I think we look pretty good!  It was lovely to see her and Joe again. 

 

 



The used-to-be 18 year-olds.

 

 

 

And now, back to my journal/scrapbook.  And maybe a trip to the grocery store.  More later...

 

 

Still writing and pasting up the last couple of days of the trip



Montana Adventure

 

 

 

Middle Fork, Flathead River, August 22, 2012

Three hours on the river:  Laurie ( red cap) was a college roommate.   Jerry's behind her.  Our river guide, Dean, sat up high and rowed with two very long oars.   I'm in front of him (my visor blew off).  Laurie's husband, Joe, is on the right in dark-billed cap. 

Four young Missourians sat at the front of the raft and paddled like mad, a lucky break for us oldies in the back.

The rafting company (Glacier Guides, Inc.) stationed a photographer on a rock overlooking a set of rapids.  Some had interesting names:  "The Toilet" was one. Another was "CBT" (Clench Buttocks Tightly).

Upscale Montana on the way to Rustic

We're at Whitefish Lake, about 25 miles from Glacier National Park, where we're off to today.  Our hotel, the Lodge at Whitefish Lake, turned out to be Rich Montana as opposed to Rustic/REI Montana, which is what I expect (and hope!) to find in the National Park.

It may not be Tom Brokaw jetting in from Manhattan, but this hotel is for those who do not  need to ask the price.  And those like to attend fundraisers for a Republican Senate candidate in a tent set up on a lakeside lawn 

We have a room with a beautiful lake-front view, vast bathroom with jetted tub, gas fireplace flickering despite the heat outside (and fierce air conditioning inside).  We also have a view of the private marina, a swimming pool, poolside bar, etc, etc, ETC.  The setting is lovely, just north of Whitefish, which is just north of Kalispell, but the whole scene is a bit rich for my blood, despite the scenery.  I'm a nervous traveler and I like a nice room, especially the first night of a trip, but this feels like an upscale, Caucasians-only, Ralph-Lauren-polo-shirt-preferred kind of place.  Very country-club, Jerry thinks.

Yesterday we drove 4-1/2 hours from Spokane Airport, across Idaho, and into Montana.  We had a lengthy period of making a wide circle around Spokane Airport trying to find a Walmart to buy a few items, but after that, we hit the highway for real and the scenery improved considerably.  There were appealing conifer views and then the aridness of the eastside of the Continental Divide.  We were glad to arrive here at 7 pm Mountain Time, have a casual dinner in the lakeside restaurant, and collapse.

Later today, we meet up with one of my college roommates, Laurie, and her husband, who have lived in Helena for years and know the ropes.  They are REI-type people.  Get me to my demographic...

View at sunset

Playing Hookey From Packing

This afternoon, we escaped packing for our Montana trip (plane leaves at 9 am tomorrow).  We set out to go to San Francisco via San Rafael.

First, we drove over the Richmond Bridge, spied a food truck line-up at Larkspur Landing, stopped, and ate a second breakfast sitting in the sun.

Food Truck where we bought lunch.  It's based in Berkeley.

Jerry's sausage, egg, and biscuit sandwich

Then, very spur-of-the-moment, we walked crossed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard  to see if a ferry to San Francisco was leaving soon, but,  alas, we'd just missed one and the next one didn't leave for three hours.  Bagged it on that and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and into the fog.

We made our way along the western edge of the Presidio and through Sea Cliff to the Legion of Honor Museum, where there were two shows that looked interesting.

La Parisienne, 1945, Rene Bouche

The first was "Rene Bouche: Letters from Post-War Paris," wonderfully evocative pen and ink drawings of post-war Paris.  Vogue sent him there to cover the first couture shows in 1945, and he absorbed the culture of the times and wrote "letters" that appeared as illustrated articles in the magazine.  Well-worth seeing.










The show du jour was  "Man Ray and Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism." Many people and a poignant story. Ray and Miller were artists in Paris between the wars and lived together as lovers from 1929-1932. The show explores "the lingering effect they had on each other's art." They were friends until Man Ray's death in 1976. Many of the works were lent by Miller's son.

Self-Portrait in Headband, 1932, Lee Miller.  She began her career as a model.

Les Larmes, 1932, Man Ray.  The tears are glass balls, the piece a tribute to the grief he felt at the break-up with Lee Miller

Back outside, we saw no fewer than four bridal couples having photos taken in the courtyard of the museum and out in front on the lawn, with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop.. All the brides wore strapless dresses.  They and their bridesmaids shivered under jackets between photos.

Bride and bridesmaids shiver while groomsmen are photographed in the Legion of Honor courtyard

It took an hour and a half to drive back to Berkeley!  Much traffic.  Now we're scurrying around packing.  No blog posts while I'm away, most likely.  No WiFi in Glacier National Park.

Ciao!

Feed Your Neighbor

So I wasn't going to do it. 

The Berkeley Food Pantry just launched a new program, "Berkeley Neighborhood Food Project," to collect food from people in the community.  I could have signed up to be a neighborhood coordinator, but I didn't want to knock on doors on my block, and I didn't want to be responsible for collecting, say, 50 bags of food from people every two months.

But last week, on its first "harvest day," the Pantry collected over 800 pounds of food through this program, which is based on a very successful one in Ashland/Medford.  And I found out I can ask just a few friends if they'd like to join up, not 50 strangers.  So I'm in.  Tentatively.  No pressure!

If you'd like to join up, here's how it works.

 

•  I give you a snazzy green bag.

• You buy one food item a week for the Pantry. (We have a list of needed food, all non-perishable.)

• You leave the bag outside your door every two months, on the second Saturday of even-numbered months.

•  I collect it and leave another green bag.

• Repeat.

That's it.  The USDA is cutting back on what they give the Pantry, we have more and more new clients, and people from every zip code in Berkeley and Albany come in for food, from the bay to the hills. We regularly give food to homeless people who live in shelters or on the street anywhere in the East Bay.

If you live within 30 minutes of my house, let me know, and I'll drop off one of those snazzy green bags.

Especially needed

Hey, Take It!

On Saturday we cleaned out the garage and took a bunch of random junk to the dump.   Left behind was an old bike that Jerry bought when campus parking fees for professors rose to a level he refused to pay, and he took to biking to work.  That was 20 years ago.  Since then, we bought new bikes.  The old bike was in the way.

It was also too good for the dump and too much trouble to sell.

I had a flash:  We'd hose down the bike, fill its flat tires, and leave it unlocked somewhere and see what happened.  We'd be recycling, and it would be an interesting social experiment.  Jerry thought I was crazy, but he went along.

We drove the bike to a gas station, filled the tires, and rolled it across the street to the racks in front of the North Berkeley Library.


Here's what happened:

Saturday, 3:12 pm--Parked the bike at the library. No lock.


Saturday, 3:35 pm--We drive by.  To our amazement, the bike is still there. We agree that on Southside or on campus, it wouldn't have lasted ten minutes.
















Saturday, 9:50 pm--I drive down to the library to check.   Still there!










Sunday and Monday--Periodic drive-bys . Bike still there. How long could this go on?

Tuesday, 12:55 pm--We stop on our way to Berkeley Bowl, and I tape a "FREE" sign to the seat.

Tuesday, 1:50 pm--Bike gone!  That was fast!

I'd love to know who took it, whether they'd seen it sitting there for days and wondered what the story was, or if it was just someone who happened along.  Whatever, we live in an honest neighborhood!  I began to wonder if I could stick a "FREE" sign on anything, items I don't even own and see what happens.  Don't intend to.

Cocktail Time

The fabulous Leah B., who lives next door, is home for two weeks.  She's been in Boston since June, working as a camp counselor, and she's headed back at the end of next week to begin her senior year at Tufts University.

We had to catch up!  What to do, where to go?  She decided margaritas sounded good for a lazy summer afternoon, so after a few false starts, we ended up at Cesar's in North Berkeley, sitting at a table outside, drinking margaritas and eating tapas.  I don't usually drink at 3:30 in the afternoon, but what the hell.

Am I a lucky person to be taken into the confidence of twenty-one year old  I've known since she was four?  Yes!  It's the next best thing to having a daughter of my own.  My neighbor Laura did me such a favor having two girls she's always shared with an open heart.

I learned this yesterday:  You do not want to be coping with the current college dating scene.  Many questions arise:  Are you just friends?  With or without "benefits?"  Are you dating, which is a big step even if you've been going out for months, and requires mutual agreement?   I'm glad I'm out of the fray, but I wouldn't mind being gorgeous and 21. 

What Would You Do?

 A specialist I see charges $50 if a drugstore calls for a refill authorization and $10 if  I e-mail her about anything.  She insists on keeping patients' credit card numbers on file, and she charges your card immediately if a drugstore contacts her.  Which happened on Monday due to drugstore error, and I got a receipt (not a bill) from her yesterday for $50.

She's in a medical specialty in which there are very few good doctors in our HMO/Preferred Provider Plan, and my required new-patient appointment with her cost a lot of money.  If I switch to another doctor, I may have to pay a similar exorbitant fee.

I could limp along in this pretty much trust-free doctor/patient relationship, or I could contact another doctor, see if I like him/her (and the fees),  try another, and perhaps another.

This kept me awake last night. 

Time Out

I woke up 15 minutes before I was supposed to be out the door for the pool this morning and had to rush around to collect my gear.   At the pool, everyone was talking about Paul Ryan, whom my friend Val called, "the evil spawn of Adolf Hitler and Michelle Bachmann."  Everybody laughed like mad.   Val is British and very smart.

I resolved not to read one more thing about Paul Ryan or Romney, but I came home and read the New York Times online.  I got riled again.

Later, I walked over to the mailbox and saw this on our front path: garden clippings with water left from the early morning sprinkler.  Ryan-Romney receded and I took a deep breath. 

Next week we're going to Montana for ten days, to Glacier National Park, where there will be no TV, no cell phone reception, no WiFi. That means no travel blog, but also no Republican convention. I'm really looking forward to it.

One-Pot Monday Night Dinner

After three hours working at the Food Pantry on Mondays, I'm in no mood to cook.  In fact, my friend Judy and I usually compare notes on what we're going to have for dinner while we're driving home.  Leftovers or take-out are usually the answer.

Tonight, though, I threw together a very easy, healthy casserole.  I found the recipe years ago in a book about reducing high blood pressure through diet.  I quit the job that gave me high blood pressure, so now I add a little salt.  It's a serviceable weekday meal, tasty and easy, and the leftovers nuke well.

Imaginative cooks out there:  Let me know if you see ways to make this more interesting.  Add diced ham, for example?  Carrots?

Lentil Casserole (serves 4 very generously)

3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
3/4 cup dry lentils (I use French green lentils)
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 cup raw brown rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 tsp crushed basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 350.  Oil a casserole dish.  Soak lentils in boiling water for 15 minutes; drain; rinse.

Throw everything into the casserole dish, except 1/2 cup of the cheese.  Cover and hurl it into the oven.  Bake 1-1/2 hours, stirring twice.  When the lentils are tender, sprinkle the other 1/2 cup of cheese on top, leave dish uncovered, and put it back in the oven until cheese is melted.

Ready to go into the oven

FDR: Da Bomb

FDR and Eleanor  listening in 1942

I'd just finished reading a profile of Rep. Paul Ryan in the August 6th issue of The New Yorker, when lo, and behold, Romney chose him as his running mate.  I was amazed.  Not too frightened, because I don't think they're going to win.

I hope.

The profile outlined the original Ryan budget plan: partially privatize Social Security,  end Medicare and replace it with a system  that  gives seniors a lump of money with which to buy private health insurance,and repeal the Affordable Care Act (how elderly sick people will be able to buy private health insurance beats the hell out of me).   End Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor, and give block grants to the states, instead.   No cuts to the military. 

Reader, I took this personally. Privatize Social Security?  What about FDR, who launched Social Security in 1935?  My parents adored him.  Don't even think about criticizing the man who came to England's rescue during the war (my mother was British) and implemented the Depression-era programs that enabled my dad to work his way through college doing manual labor.  My dad also went to graduate school on the GI Bill and bought his house with a Veterans Administration loan.

In other words, he had government help.  He also worked hard, paid taxes, put two daughters through the University of California, and died solvent.  Jerry's dad, who deplored FDR, collected Social Security for decades (he was just shy of 100 when he died).  All our elderly family members were enrolled in Medicare, which was hitched to the Social Security Act under Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

More government help.

And now Paul Ryan comes along, son of a wealthy family but let's overlook that, who wants to unravel many of those programs.  He may be right that the federal deficit demands that entitlement programs be re-tooled, and he has removed some of the more controversial ideas from his original plan.  But implicit in his vision is the belief that they aren't really necessary.  Do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and part of Social Security,  and people will be fine if they just work hard enough.  And save money.

Saving is great, but it's hard to do when the US economy is riding on your shoulders and if you don't spend, we're all going to slide into the deep lake of recession and not everyone  knows how to swim and some find weights  tied to their feet.  Spend/save/spend/save--what do they want us to do?

There's hardly anyone left who remembers the days before Social Security, and if they do, it's when they were children and didn't need retirement income.  No one in their right mind who isn't an economist can truly want to undertake investing their last-chance, do-or-die safety net money for retirement on their own.  Who'd know what to do?  Who trusts the banks and investment firms that sell "retirement investment products?" 

Come back, FDR.  Return with your vision, your pragmatism, your empathy.  Bring Eleanor with you.  Send her out to talk to people in food pantry lines, mothers of Head Start kids, people running out of unemployment eligibility.  She was a great listener. You were a great implementer.  Under you, people actually had faith in the government.

Big Box Retail

Yesterday afternoon I went to REI, Target, and Costco, all three.  If I'd set out to do three big stores--well, I wouldn't have.  Way too much, especially for a Friday afternoon.  I'd have been stressed out, dashing from one to the other.

The original errand was to buy water bottles for our trip to Montana. It's hot in Glacier, and we plan to do some hiking. Found these at REI, BSP-free:

Took fanny packs along to make sure these would fit

I checked out the clearance racks in the women's department and found a pair of lightweight Royal Robbins shorts (well, bermudas--does anyone still call them that?) and a loose cotton top on sale:

A bargain--and they fit

The socks at REI were too pricey, plus a lot of them were wool.  Too itchy, I don't care what they say.  Target was just down the road, so I decided to go there. Binged on socks.   Bought some for me and some for Jerry, plus underwear for him.  (Do all wives buy their spouse's underwear?  Whenever he needs more, Jerry talks about going to Penny's in downtown Berkeley, which has been gone at least 20 years).

Socks and undies cheap at Target

By then I was hungry, and I began to have a fantasy about a Costco roast chicken, plus I wanted some more of the egg-white quiche they stock.   Costco was just a bit farther down the road, so why not?  Bought more socks for Jerry, the chicken, the quiche, a few odds and ends that of course added up to just shy of $100, including a flat of the apple juice Jerry likes, which comes in funny little round bottles:

Jerry's favorite .  The bottles look like something they hand out at an elementary school

It was after 4 when I drove home with all this loot.  I was all set to launch into the chicken when I remembered I had a date with three friends at Cesar's in North Berkeley for drinks and tapas at 5. Lugged in the flat of apple juice bottles and a box of Pellegrino water, tossed the plastic bags of socks and undies on the kitchen table, changed into a black top to look somewhere near sophisticated, and dashed off to Cesar's.  My friends had already arrived and were drinking cool, dark-pink glasses of rose and starting in on crisp strips of potato done with rosemary.

Banished: The Brute and Fat Dog

New and Untested

The Brute

I know they look almost identical, but the one on the left is my new cheap 'n cheerful suitcase from Ross.   I bought it the other day for our upcoming trip to Montana.  It replaces the bag on the right, which is smaller but two and a half pounds heavier.

 I call the heavy suitcase "The Brute".  It's so sturdy that I could throw it under a jet and it'd probably survive. But  the cost of all that reinforcement is weight.  They don't tell you that in the luggage store when you're giddy about a trip to Paris.  You buy what they say is going to last a lifetime (except the company already went out of business and the handle broke). And you pay a lot of money.

The last time I used The Brute was when we went to Chicago in the spring, and I vowed never again.  I've put in my time with that bag, hauled it on trips to Europe, Canada, the East Coast, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.   It rolls fine, but there are times when rolling isn't an option, and then I just want to throw it.   In fact, I did throw it once,  off a train.  Jerry, standing on the platform, was wide-eyed.  It missed him, and nothing inside broke.

After I bought the new suitcase--and it was Senior Discount Day at Ross. so I saved $6.50--I got obsessed with the idea of finding a smallish totebag that would sit on top of it so I could pull the whole works, piggy-backed.  This is the kind of thing you get fixated on if you travel very much: chasing a better, lighter, more convenient, velcro'ed, zippered arrangement.

Fat Dog

I have a tote, actually a "weekender," that matches The Brute.  I think of it as Fat Dog, at least when I pack it (Jerry took it to Romania with everything he needed for a week, and it was surprsingly light).  I have to embrace it like an overweight legless dog and haul it  that way down the long concourses from plane to Passport Control,  everyone else sprinting past me.  This pisses me off and makes my back ache.

New tote

I had in mind something lighter and smaller than Fat Dog.   I found a Baggalini tote on Amazon that sits squarely on top of the new roller bag, with a pocket on the back that fits over the roller bag handle.  The new tote is dark gray with fushia lining, which gives it a certain panache Fat Dog lacks.  I'm in love with it.  We're not leaving for another week and a half, but I've got it packed and ready to go.  There's even an elastic loop to stick my lipstick through.

Next year, we're going to be traveling for a solid month, and I'm already hot on the trail of a larger carry-on tote with wheels that I can roll from the plane to Passport Control and then lift on to my roller bag.  I found one online, another Baggalini, but I want to see it before I commit.

Does the quest for a perfect bag ever end?

 

Survival Kit for the Colonoscopy Waiting Room

I always assume no reading material and a blaring TV, so I took:

1. Laptop (journal catch-up)
2. Latest New Yorker
3. "Wild," by Cheryl Strayed
4. Camera (you never  know)
5. iPhone (e-mail if no wifi)
6. MP3 player (to drown out TV)
7. Ziploc bag of trail mix and two nonfat chocolate cookies
8. Bottle of water

If know--I were tech-y, I could have cut the number of gadgets by at least half.  Instead I lugged all that.


This time it was only a two-hour wait while Jerry had a routine procedure.

Eventually, a nurse collected me, and I found him drinking apple juice. She thought I was terrible to take his picture, but his hospital gown perfectly matched his eyes. 

Results were fine.

Seamless Entertaining

Jerry and I went to dinner at Mike and Agnes's house on Saturday night, so I could gather some food tips in my quest to Find New Things to Cook.  And I did, but not in the way I expected.   It was more like A New Way to Think about Food and Feeding People.

A friend once commented that you want to go to dinner at someone's house not for the food but to see their style. 

Mike and Agnes's style is seamless and down-to-earth.  Dining table set with Agnes's collection of Fiestaware and garden flowers; an array of pre-dinner munchies set out on a counter; a tomato salad composed on a platter; a peach pie at the ready.  Mike barbequed chicken, whacked it into easy-to-serve pieces after it was cooked, and we ate.  Wine in sensible juice glasses, none of that easy-to-topple stemware (the one in the photo was for pre-dinner prosecco).

And all of this followed by fresh peach pie.


Agnes, who's in my quilt group, had told me that Mike does most of the cooking (she does the baking), so I asked him about recipes.  He's an intuitive cook, a natural, and he knows ingredients and isn't afraid to experiment--but quantifying it?  Not really happening.

"We actually have a somewhat monotonous diet, e.g., Friday night almost always hamburgers, but really good ones," he wrote in an e-mail.  "We just buy a mess of stuff every Sat and then argue every night about how we're going to throw it together, but all fresh food."

Out of  the "mess of stuff,"  he concocts Macaroni and Cheese with three cheeses, ham, spinach, onions, cayenne,  and oregano, baked until extra crispy.  Also Paella, with arborio rice, chicken broth, and saffron, "everything else optional" (I questioned him about this, and he suggested sweet Italian sausage, boneless chicken thighs, green beans, prawns, scallops, and cod as possibilities). Pizza with Trader Joe's dough, "just roll out and add stuff."  He makes pesto in large batches and freezes it.  BBQ Chicken, quartered and marinated in lemon for an hour, sprinkled with salt and pepper, cooked over a hot fire, which is what we had for dinner.

Every Saturday morning the two of them do the week's shopping: Trader Joe's, a produce shop, and a place to buy meat/fish.   They both work full-time, and on on weekdays they decompress before they start cooking.  Which means they often don't eat until 9:30 or 10 pm.

"We've learned to go to bed on full stomachs," Agnes says.



Mike was surprised to hear we don't own a grill.   He recommends the small Weber grill, below,  for people who don't want an intimidating rig from Home Depot. Not as good as charcoal bbq-ing, he says, but pretty good. For us, it'd be fine.

Weber, "Gas Go-Anywhere" grill, which Mike and Agnes take camping; Agnes has actually baked bread in one of these.

God knows what people make of our entertaining style (a host who's off-the-dime on pouring wine and making drinks, a jumpy and forgetful hostess who probably ought to drink nothing in order to keep her frayed wits about her).  I can guarantee they'd see a contrast between our style and Mike and Agnes's.

  

I've been thinking about this. My parents fussed and put on a show when they had people to dinner.  I just fuss.  There's nothing relaxed about it, nor about my approach to cooking in general.  I don't experiment, and I don't have fun.  I certainly don't "throw it all together."  It's a chore.  And a super-serious one when it comes to feeding other people.

I don't know if  I'll ever be laissez-faire enough to inventory the fridge and type the ingredients into Google to see what to cook, which Mike says he's done.  But a take-away here--besides part of the peach pie; Jerry was over the moon--is that having fun with food conveys itself to guests and makes things more enjoyable.  A word I don't really like, but honest God, it applies here. A gift to yourself and to whoever crosses your doorstep.  What a concept.