Lunch with Pool Kate in Her Magical House

I know,  it seems like I'm always having lunch with someone named Kate.

This time it was with Pool Kate in her magical living quarters in a former elementary school in Oakland.

I've written about her place before and believe me, it's a real treat to be invited there.  Kate's fun, her place is beautiful, and--don't underestimate this--the setting gives birth to fantasies.  Oh, to live here!  The unencumbered single girl (!) in an urban loft!

Back to earth.  We seven range in age from 66 to 89, and we exercise together at the Richmond Plunge on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Most of us read the New York Times and  listen to NPR, so there's plenty to talk about while we exercise.  Plays, opera, and museums are favorite topics.  Profanity and ribald songs (I'm thinking of you, Val) don't raise an eyebrow.  Ranting is acceptable.  We also counsel and help each other out.

 Anne, Kate, Val, and Betty in the pool,

 ...which is also historic

Here's a photo of  Edison Elementary School, also built in 1926.  It was converted to condominiums in the late '80s:

Kate lives in the wing behind big tree, formerly the kindergarten room.  It's a stylish, sun-filled space where we all want to live, or at least spend a weekend.   She could make a fortune on Airbnb:

Art balanced on the chalk tray mounted on the former blackboard.

Lunch came from Sweet Adeline Bakeshop  (quiche and cake), the salad from Kate's own hand.

An embroidered napkin

 Dessert was tall, white, and round:

Sponge cake, strawberries, and  Italian meringue buttercream , which was wonderfully light.

Fossil-like tracks left by raspberries and strawberries

Kate cutting the masterpiece

Too soon, it was time to leave. 

...reluctantly.

 Val and Kate saying good-by

Fall is coming!

On Tuesday, we'll be back at the pool:

I love the mural at the far end, added in 2010 when the pool was renovated

Whatever Happened in Iowa, Let's Stay Friends

"My idealistic side loves Bernie. My pragmatic side thinks Hillary is better prepared overall. I think they both have done a great job at bringing hidden issues out in the open. I refuse to put either of them down. There's too much at stake."--my friend Celia on Facebook this morning.

Thanks, Celia.  I needed to be reminded.

 Let's stop putting down either of them, because there IS too much at stake.

On the New York Times website,  articles about Clinton and Sanders are followed by a huge number of comments, and putting down the other candidate is the name of the game. Each morning I scan the comments, bracing myself for criticism of Hillary.  Then I get mad.  Then I scroll down and start distributing "likes" to anyone who criticizes Sanders.  No doubt there are Sanders supporters who are doing the same.

Stupid!  Pointless!

Who's the real enemy?  Small-minded people like Toxic Ted and the rest of that loony brigade.

How about this, instead?

Isn't great that we have two intelligent, committed, sane Democratic candidates to choose from?  People who will appoint a similarly sane, liberal person to the Supreme Court, if necessary. People who will protect the freedom to choose an abortion and the right of gay people to marry.  People who don't deny climate change.  People who don't think people are poor because they're lazy.

 Both candidates have a lot to offer

Either Sanders or Clinton will do a hell of a lot better job than any Republican running for President.  Let's be thankful for that.  Let's be deliberative and weigh the issues.  We can choose whichever candidate we prefer in the primary and then jump the (relatively) low fence to vote for the other in the general election, if necessary.

I'm lecturing myself here.  No more demonizing.  No more payback "likes."  What's at stake isn't my ego or passion or identity--a sister Baby Boomer!-- but the welfare of the country.  Deep breath. 

   

Greenbaggers, Not Having Children, and Those Jeans

On Saturday, I had a tea party for six friends who donate food to the Berkeley Food Pantry through the Berkeley Neighborhood Food Project.  I call them "the greenbaggers," because everybody gets a green shopping bag to fill every two months.  I collect the bags and take them to the Pantry.

Oh, we had fun!  Two cakes from Masse's Bakery (flourless chocolate cake and spice cheesecake, which was much lighter than it sounds) and a bunch of age 60+ women, all liberal, each with a gratifying sense of humor, and all of them generous. Some of them had never met, but no matter. The party lasted three hours.

Did I think to take a group picture?  Yes, but you can't see much.

The greenbaggers:  Ann, Anne, Suzanne, Valerie, Claudia, Karen.  Plus cakes.

The neighborhood food project now provides about half the food distributed by the Pantry. It's so satisfying to see the food I bought in from the group on a Saturday given out to clients on Monday, when I volunteer. Last month,  I sent out an alert to the group about the need for dry cereal for families, and they donated so much that our combined-weight total was the lowest it's ever been.  Cheerios aren't very heavy.

* * * * *

Yesterday I had one of those lightbulb moments when you wonder why in the hell it took you so long to figure something out.

I was lying on a massage table having my neck and shoulders kneaded.  The young woman with the magic fingers was talking to me about some issues in her life and mentioned that she and her husband have decided they won't have another child (they have a two-year old).  She said there are many reasons, some financial, and it just isn't going to happen, which makes her sad because she's 40, and this is it.

Grieving the loss of a child you might have had is something I can relate to.  I have no children, by choice (my temperament,  lack of patience, desire to focus on other things), but occasionally I feel sad about the loss.  For a while, maybe right up until yesterday, whenever I felt a twinge of sadness about it, I'd think I might have made the wrong choice.

But yesterday, listening to this young woman, I realized that you can feel sad about something and still know that your choice was the right one.  In my case, I've revisited that choice periodically when I'm around small children, and never have I come away thinking I would have been well-suited to being a mother.  Even the adorable girls next door (now 24 and 26), who so enriched my life, were never mine to be responsible for 24/7.  Their mother, Laura, did all the work.

The young woman and I commiserated.  I told her that for me, the hardest time was when I was 38-42, when I knew window of opportunity was closing.  It would get easier, I told her.   You can have a fine life without children or with only one.  Not that you sometimes won't feel sad about the loss of what might have been.  But it doesn't mean you should doubt your choice.

Driving home, I could breathe a lot more deeply, in part due to the massage, but also: Why had it taken so long to figure this out?  Maybe because I'd never talked to a younger woman in the throes of making that choice, and I'd never articulated what I already knew, on some level.

 * * * * *

The jeans I mentioned in  the last post are continuing to be terrific.  They have ample stretch and the added benefit that they don't crease! Yes!  No crease marks from sitting.  I may go back for more. Now, if I can just stay away from the leftover cake.

 Thank-you, Not Your Daughter's Jeans!

Tea Party Extraordinaire

Violet is not a person but a bakery/restaurant in London.  This sign directed Anne R. and me to a wonderful tea party near Pt. Reyes Station this weekend to celebrate the publication of The Violet Bakery Cookbook  by Claire Ptak,  a West Marin native and daughter of my good friend Elisabeth.

Rampant flower artistry all over the Historic Olema Schoolhouse, an event space transformed for the occasion, right down to marigold petals sprinkled in the bathtub of the restroom (didn't get a picture of that).

 

Anne and I arrived during set-up, and soon we were shooed outside so that the pastries and teapots could be arranged on small tables.

 Still setting up

 Beautiful tablecloths:

What vehicle gave up its seats?

We finally staked out a table:

 Because coral.  And the crocheted doily.

 Then we went out on the deck, where there was bubbly and a friendly crowd to talk to.

When we returned to our table, this had been centered on the doily:

 A selection of pastries from the cookbook

A tier-by-tier description:

Savory scones with leeks, ham, and Parmesan

Cupcakes with quince (pink), salted caramel (beige) and chocolate (self-explanatory) frosting.

 Scones and Violet Butterscotch Blondies. The latter are indescribably, wickedly, delicious and you must have one before you check out of this world, I don't care how many calories they are.

Our teapot

Us.  (Yes, pearls.  It was a tea party.)

This woman happened to be one of our table mates.  She was also a career counselor on the Berkeley campus who directed me to the part-time job in Entomology in 1974.  The rest is history.  (What are the chances?)

 Claire was interviewed before this hometown crowd, people who'd grown up with her or watched her grow up.   She started working at the Bovine Bakery in Pt. Reyes Station when she was 15, and after college and a stint as pastry chef at Chez Panisse ended up in London because she married an Englishman.  Now she owns the Violet Bakery in East London and is a food star herself.  Soon she'll be writing a Saturday column in The Guardian.

Local girl makes (ultra) good

Explaining that the rush for sweets and caffeine is from 3-5 pm in England, rather than in the morning, which is when Americans most need reviving.

The book itself:  Reader, I bought it a few weeks ago and read it cover-to-cover.  I may never bake anything in it--although the banana bread is extremely tempting--but I can attest to its merits as an engaging, well-written account of how she became the baker she is,  including the tricks she's learned and shares with an open hand.  Lots of information.  (Barbara Pym talks about women keeping devotional and cookery books next to the bed in case insomnia strikes. Which it did, and this book was the perfect entertaining and relaxing antidote.  Please take that as a high compliment, Claire.)

After the talk, people bought books madly:

   Yes, Alice Waters wrote the foreword

I spent a certain amount of time wondering if the baby girl Claire's expecting in January would a) have her mother's dimples, and b) prove to be another wonderfully artistic baker/stylist, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.

 At a baby shower the next day

Can't Choose Your Neighbors

We've had an exceptionally close relationship with neighbors on one side of us, Laura and her daughters.  We've celebrated Thanksgiving with them, and for years the girls adopted my Christmas tree.  Jerry and I have flown to their college graduations on the East Coast.  I spoke at their bat mitzvahs.

 Celebrating Leah's graduation from Tufts in 2013

Neighbors on other side have been problematic. First, there was a single lawyer who turned the place into a boarding house.  We hardly ever spoke to him, because he was rarely home.

Ten years ago, he sold his house to a family of five with young children.

This has not been a happy relationship.  I won't go into the details, but the easiest route seemed to be not to speak.  It's been difficult and unsettling.

A couple of years ago, this family moved across the country and rented their house to another family of five, who were quiet and delightful.  My shoulders dropped.  I opened windows I'd kept shut, literally and metaphorically.  I left the shutters open all day.

This week, the renter-family moved out, and the owners returned.  Their presence felt HUGE, like this:

 Actually, their house is no bigger than anyone else's

There was unpleasantness over the state of the house and the renters' security deposit.   Neighbors have taken sides. Some aren't speaking to each other. 

The owner-family is loud, and I'm constantly opening and closing the windows in my studio, depending on their volume.

 Closed window and drawn shade in my studio

I think about my mom and the kind of friendships she made with neighbors in our San Jose housing tract in the fifties and sixties. Virtually all of the women were housewives with children in the same school that my sister and I went to.  They gossiped.  They borrowed from each other.  They lent each other maternity clothes.  They commiserated. 

My mom didn't like every single one of them, especially the "trollop" in short-shorts who petitioned against fair housing.  My mother slammed the door in her face.  But generally it was copacetic.  The trollop lived on another block.

Obviously, I'm not going to move because of this tension.  I tried drawing the neighbors' house more to scale to see if that would help:

 It did, a little.   But my house still feels like less of a refuge.