"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." -Ben Franklin
"Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree." -Antione de Saint Exupery, Flight to Arras
In recent years I have been thinking about night. I used to pride myself on being "a morning person" and surmised that before long I'd become like my father, arousing happily at 4, 5, or 6 in the morning, chipping away at chores, catching up on work, or churning the wells of creativity. And while some of that is true to a degree--I am generally quite productive between 7 and 9 a.m.--I have found that night has more and more become a friend.
Though many nights these days are spent watching TV or Netflix discs, that in itself is enjoyable. And it usually comes after a satisfying day of work, when the sense of accomplishment is at its best. Night is also a time for basketball. There may be no activity I enjoy more than playing basketball (more on that in a future blog), especially in pleasant Bay Area evenings when the sun is beginning its descent behind trees or hills, and there's just enough of a lilting breeze to provide good aeration.
As my aversion to harsh sun has grown (spurned largely by an episode of basal cell carcinoma), my affinity for night has increased. No need for sunscreen, sun hat, sunglasses. In the cool evening air I move faster, focus better, worry less. Night is a time for sweatpants and comfortable old shirts, for hot showers and slippers and couches.
It is night, not day, that has cloaked me in true and rich emotion, has more often than not doused me with a creative spark. Recently in Martinez I bought two new rats at Petco, then dined at Mountain Mike's Pizza. I don't even really like Mountain Mike's Pizza. But at that time, it hit the spot. There were two cops also dining there, and we all stayed past closing. One of the cops was contemplating taking a new job. The other advised him that it would be hard to leave the department, but a solid opportunity. I made another late night run to Rite Aid. On other nights, a stop at Lunardi's is routine. Both stores, in the Palos Verdes Mall just a minute's drive from my home, have been saviors and spots of comfort. When one of the clerks at Lunardi's sees me at 6 or 7 instead of 7:30-9, she says "You're early." The other day I stopped in minutes before the 9:00 closing time to get my usual two mild Italian sausages without fennel, and the guy picked them out and wrapped them before I even got to the counter.
If I've babysat, or attended a pleasant work party at some restaurant, or seen a performance of some kind, I emerge into the night emotionally satisfied, and that satisfaction seems to drape over everything, to cast even the mundane in a slight glow. I have spent some nights at Starbucks, doing homework along with other students, but it only feels authentic if it's at night.
And finally night is a time to also feel somber or sad. It is closer to sleep, where feelings are channeled into dreams or forgotten, and to a new day, when we can begin all over again.
Trail Kid
1979 and age 4, give or take a year
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Glamping
This weekend I went "Glamping." That is a made-up term by my best friend that translates as "glorified camping." She discovered the KOA (Kampgrounds of America) site in Petaluma. For those unfamiliar, it offers all the conveniences of a hotel - showers, a pool, general store, laundry room, playground - along with a couple of rustic touches (a petting zoo and a mining structure) all on a flat campground. Targeted towards families and very RV-friendly, it is situated next to a cow pasture just beyond Highway 37 and modern shopping centers.
So, probably against her better judgment, she invited me to accompany her and her family (husband and two children, the latter of which I have babysat and known for years), their still-new white chihuahua, and her co-worker who we've known since she was a teen and is now an adult in her late 20's on this promising adventure.
On the way in, we stopped at Sonic in American Canyon. I hadn't been here before, but to the rest of my travel-mates it was a mecca of epic proportions, with mouth-watering burgers and hot dogs and milkshakes crowned best in the land. I was not so impressed, especially after stuffing myself way too much far to fast, then boarding the gray mini-van where I couldn't see out the front window during the somewhat-curvy remainder to the site.
After setting up, we played Farkle and I won rather handily besides a respectable second place by Joanna. Somewhere in there Arjun, age 12 in one month, went with me in search of a vending machine at the Rec Hall. No machine, but we played a round of billiards. I was very much in control until that nasty old 8-ball, and he ended up winning on a scratch.
The next morning, I dined on bacon, grapes, and a cup of hot chocolate which burned the taste buds right off my tongue on the first sip. My travel-mates also had a breakfast sandwich involving Hawaiian bread, but I declined. We dropped a couple pieces of bacon, to become a running joke, but Churro the dog got the last laugh as the discarded meat slipped into his stomach.
We made late afternoon plans based on KOA program offerings, but with nothing in between and no laptop the day seemed a long haul. How have we become slaves to our electronic devices! We went on an official tour which included a stop at the Bocce ball court. I gladly explained the game to all and Joanna and Arjun faced off against Perry and I while 10-year-old Sariana watched and Garnet watched Churro in the neighboring dog park. Perry soon decided sitting in the shade was preferable and played only on one end. I fell behind 2-0, went on a 5-0 run, then watched in horror as the opposition stormed back and came away with the 7-5 win.
Then we stopped by the Rec Hall and got a share of Arcade Games. I got revenge on Arjun at billiards, Joanna set records at Carnival King, and I had an unexpected thrill with Crusader such-and-such driving game. Sariana got the pants beat off her by her mom at air hockey and Perry fell to Joanna in the same.
Upon returning to base camp we played Bang!, an ingenious card game in which six characters--three outlaws, one renegade, a deputy, and a sheriff--try to outwit each other. The outlaws win by gunning down the sheriff, the renegade wins by being the last one standing (killing in order the outlaws, deputy, and sheriff), while the sheriff and deputy are victors by vanquishing the outlaws and renegade. In play you can shoot, put up a protection, or throw everything in to happy or unhappy chaos. It is one of the most interactive and enjoyable games I have ever played. Joanna brought it, and she has a history now of finding such games (usually at Black Diamond Games in Concord), sharing them successfully at her job in school-age daycare, and then at occasions where we are together like this.
After a two-hour stint at the pool, we visited the petting zoo, went on a Scavenger Hunt which earned us a chocolate Kiss, and took a hay ride around the camp. During the ride I mostly looked for non-CA license plates, and found quite a few, endeavoring me later to make a list.
Our dinner consisted of hot dogs, asparagus, watermelon, and corn on the cob, all except the melon roasted on the KOA's little grill. We headed to the pool deck to watch Life of Pi on a large screen. They show a movie every night, and the new The Muppets had been playing the night before. Now Life of Pi was my top film of 2012 and no one else had seen it. I happen to be reading the novel right now and am in the latter third of the book. I was so excited for my friend and the kids to see it.
I gave them some prep (no, it's just about a tiger on the boat, that's what I thought, too, before seeing it the first time). The weather was perfect. We had good seats. But alas, even a glorified home movie simulation cannot even remotely capture the magic of the big screen, there were the interruptions of the pool in the background and several kids up front who popped in and out of their seats throughout the movie, and poolside lights wiped away some of the visual magnificence of the film.
In the end Garnet liked it "better than I thought I would" but wasn't blown away, Arjun surmised it was "depressing," and Sariana decided it was "weird." To their credit, they watched the whole thing, genuinely were impressed by parts, and much of the layered meaning of the film I would not expect kids of their age to understand. Meanwhile, Joanna left for a key portion and Churro--well, he just slept under the blanket.
When we got back the kids voluntarily went to bed and the adults played a game called "Cards Against Humanity." Another Joanna discovery, this game is somewhat like Apples To Apples, but involves filling in blanks and lots of adult humor. Some of it is very crass or offensive. At first I was being a stick-in-the-mud and discarding many cards which I felt were unfit. However, as the game wore on I loosened up considerably, and by the end of the night - 12:30 - we all had laughed to the point of tears. I even won the game, an irony which was not lost on my teammates. Really, I cannot even describe some of the things which befell us with hysteria. But let's just say that among many others, a sentence involving Bill Clinton, nakedness, and a bearskin rug could not have been more hilarious.
Shortly after retiring, having been amazed we hadn't been run out of town (we were gently shushed by the staff during Farkle the previous night), we were treated to some early morning fireworks when an argument ensued a few spots over. It began with a man telling a group to keep it down and stop using profanity because it was keeping his wife and kids awake. Things erupted shortly with a woman shouting "you head-butted me, I'm bleeding! I'm a mother, I have children!" and wailing on and on. Let's just say she did not sound like Betty Crocker, to say the least, and the bruhaha elicited gawking long before sympathy. Staff were called, and then police, but none of us actually saw how it ended. At any rate, the next morning the only sign of trouble was a sorry-looking Cadillac and a bevy of beer bottles around the area where it had occurred. Apparently, the initial mixing which caused the elevated noise in the first place was a guy hitting on another's wife.
I was the first awake on Sunday, arising at 7:00. I read from Life of Pi, then visited the cows and the three tan donkeys in the nearby field. I had seen them the day earlier and found the donkeys to be quite friendly. Today they were somewhat hesitant until I decided to feed them. One snatched up a leaf off the ground which had fallen from a tree just overhead. I took off a branch and the donkey gobbled it up straightaway. I fed all three but before long a few cows sauntered over for a helping.
By this time a girl and her mother had come to the fence and were already doing the same. We fed them for awhile but the mother was worried about being "caught." Perhaps it was the nice cool morning and my already high spirits and energy combined with Life of Pi (in Hindu religion, which is referenced in the material, cows are sacred), but when I saw those cows stick out their bluish tongues and swallow the leaves, and felt the breath shooting through their nostrils, I felt in some small way, for a brief moment, I had touched God.
I tried to rouse the kids to go with Churro and I on walk looking for out-of-state license plates, talked about mining coming up, and just generally annoyed both them and Joanna. At last they let the poor pooch out (a sacrifice), and the dog and I canvassed pretty much the entire campground. I added eight more states to the list for 28, as far-reaching as Maine and Vermont in the north, and Florida in the south. Utah seemed to be the most popular, although British Columbia took the Canadian crown and made a nice run.
Breakfast consisted of bagels, cinnamon rolls, and bacon, as well as hot chocolate and fruit. Perry made a Starbucks run. I went with grapes and the roll, which was delicious.
There wasn't much left of the morning. We had to pack, I took a shower, and eventually we all convened by the "Miner's Camp." Water comes down a chute into two gutters in a row arranged in a perpendicular fashion. In the wire-bottomed panning trays you dump in a bagful of coarse sand. After sifting it in the water below, you come out with gems, emeralds, fossils, and other such goodies. There's different packages you can buy, and the kids had done one bag the day earlier while I was getting a sandwich. While in a long line, I decided to get a couple of bags for us to share (it's $1 off during the 4-5 hour, though we thought it'd be a more substantial discount). One was a kind of mega-pack which included special components, in a designer drawstring bag. All told I spent $30 on rocks. Hmm.
The kids and I mined and the very special surprise was a large quartz rocks glittering clear and purple. It started out as a hunk of gray matter so I was very impressed. The kids and I split the loot to our liking. The extras were donated back into the mining trays.
As we pulled away, the van was packed to the gills and the kids happily occupied themselves with electronic gadgets and headphones. Having no other task to really occupy me - reading would make me carsick, the scenery was familiar and boring, and I wasn't driving - I resorted to chatting with the adults. Jo drifted off and Garnet tuned me out in parts, so the conversation focused between man and wife, which was probably how it should be, and I was carsick anyway but very pleased. Though we'd only gone an hour's drive away and been gone less than 48 hours, we may as well have been away for five days. It was odd, but even in the midst of all that civilization, I felt I had just been on vacation.
So, probably against her better judgment, she invited me to accompany her and her family (husband and two children, the latter of which I have babysat and known for years), their still-new white chihuahua, and her co-worker who we've known since she was a teen and is now an adult in her late 20's on this promising adventure.
On the way in, we stopped at Sonic in American Canyon. I hadn't been here before, but to the rest of my travel-mates it was a mecca of epic proportions, with mouth-watering burgers and hot dogs and milkshakes crowned best in the land. I was not so impressed, especially after stuffing myself way too much far to fast, then boarding the gray mini-van where I couldn't see out the front window during the somewhat-curvy remainder to the site.
After setting up, we played Farkle and I won rather handily besides a respectable second place by Joanna. Somewhere in there Arjun, age 12 in one month, went with me in search of a vending machine at the Rec Hall. No machine, but we played a round of billiards. I was very much in control until that nasty old 8-ball, and he ended up winning on a scratch.
The next morning, I dined on bacon, grapes, and a cup of hot chocolate which burned the taste buds right off my tongue on the first sip. My travel-mates also had a breakfast sandwich involving Hawaiian bread, but I declined. We dropped a couple pieces of bacon, to become a running joke, but Churro the dog got the last laugh as the discarded meat slipped into his stomach.
We made late afternoon plans based on KOA program offerings, but with nothing in between and no laptop the day seemed a long haul. How have we become slaves to our electronic devices! We went on an official tour which included a stop at the Bocce ball court. I gladly explained the game to all and Joanna and Arjun faced off against Perry and I while 10-year-old Sariana watched and Garnet watched Churro in the neighboring dog park. Perry soon decided sitting in the shade was preferable and played only on one end. I fell behind 2-0, went on a 5-0 run, then watched in horror as the opposition stormed back and came away with the 7-5 win.
Then we stopped by the Rec Hall and got a share of Arcade Games. I got revenge on Arjun at billiards, Joanna set records at Carnival King, and I had an unexpected thrill with Crusader such-and-such driving game. Sariana got the pants beat off her by her mom at air hockey and Perry fell to Joanna in the same.
Upon returning to base camp we played Bang!, an ingenious card game in which six characters--three outlaws, one renegade, a deputy, and a sheriff--try to outwit each other. The outlaws win by gunning down the sheriff, the renegade wins by being the last one standing (killing in order the outlaws, deputy, and sheriff), while the sheriff and deputy are victors by vanquishing the outlaws and renegade. In play you can shoot, put up a protection, or throw everything in to happy or unhappy chaos. It is one of the most interactive and enjoyable games I have ever played. Joanna brought it, and she has a history now of finding such games (usually at Black Diamond Games in Concord), sharing them successfully at her job in school-age daycare, and then at occasions where we are together like this.
After a two-hour stint at the pool, we visited the petting zoo, went on a Scavenger Hunt which earned us a chocolate Kiss, and took a hay ride around the camp. During the ride I mostly looked for non-CA license plates, and found quite a few, endeavoring me later to make a list.
Our dinner consisted of hot dogs, asparagus, watermelon, and corn on the cob, all except the melon roasted on the KOA's little grill. We headed to the pool deck to watch Life of Pi on a large screen. They show a movie every night, and the new The Muppets had been playing the night before. Now Life of Pi was my top film of 2012 and no one else had seen it. I happen to be reading the novel right now and am in the latter third of the book. I was so excited for my friend and the kids to see it.
I gave them some prep (no, it's just about a tiger on the boat, that's what I thought, too, before seeing it the first time). The weather was perfect. We had good seats. But alas, even a glorified home movie simulation cannot even remotely capture the magic of the big screen, there were the interruptions of the pool in the background and several kids up front who popped in and out of their seats throughout the movie, and poolside lights wiped away some of the visual magnificence of the film.
In the end Garnet liked it "better than I thought I would" but wasn't blown away, Arjun surmised it was "depressing," and Sariana decided it was "weird." To their credit, they watched the whole thing, genuinely were impressed by parts, and much of the layered meaning of the film I would not expect kids of their age to understand. Meanwhile, Joanna left for a key portion and Churro--well, he just slept under the blanket.
When we got back the kids voluntarily went to bed and the adults played a game called "Cards Against Humanity." Another Joanna discovery, this game is somewhat like Apples To Apples, but involves filling in blanks and lots of adult humor. Some of it is very crass or offensive. At first I was being a stick-in-the-mud and discarding many cards which I felt were unfit. However, as the game wore on I loosened up considerably, and by the end of the night - 12:30 - we all had laughed to the point of tears. I even won the game, an irony which was not lost on my teammates. Really, I cannot even describe some of the things which befell us with hysteria. But let's just say that among many others, a sentence involving Bill Clinton, nakedness, and a bearskin rug could not have been more hilarious.
Shortly after retiring, having been amazed we hadn't been run out of town (we were gently shushed by the staff during Farkle the previous night), we were treated to some early morning fireworks when an argument ensued a few spots over. It began with a man telling a group to keep it down and stop using profanity because it was keeping his wife and kids awake. Things erupted shortly with a woman shouting "you head-butted me, I'm bleeding! I'm a mother, I have children!" and wailing on and on. Let's just say she did not sound like Betty Crocker, to say the least, and the bruhaha elicited gawking long before sympathy. Staff were called, and then police, but none of us actually saw how it ended. At any rate, the next morning the only sign of trouble was a sorry-looking Cadillac and a bevy of beer bottles around the area where it had occurred. Apparently, the initial mixing which caused the elevated noise in the first place was a guy hitting on another's wife.
I was the first awake on Sunday, arising at 7:00. I read from Life of Pi, then visited the cows and the three tan donkeys in the nearby field. I had seen them the day earlier and found the donkeys to be quite friendly. Today they were somewhat hesitant until I decided to feed them. One snatched up a leaf off the ground which had fallen from a tree just overhead. I took off a branch and the donkey gobbled it up straightaway. I fed all three but before long a few cows sauntered over for a helping.
By this time a girl and her mother had come to the fence and were already doing the same. We fed them for awhile but the mother was worried about being "caught." Perhaps it was the nice cool morning and my already high spirits and energy combined with Life of Pi (in Hindu religion, which is referenced in the material, cows are sacred), but when I saw those cows stick out their bluish tongues and swallow the leaves, and felt the breath shooting through their nostrils, I felt in some small way, for a brief moment, I had touched God.
I tried to rouse the kids to go with Churro and I on walk looking for out-of-state license plates, talked about mining coming up, and just generally annoyed both them and Joanna. At last they let the poor pooch out (a sacrifice), and the dog and I canvassed pretty much the entire campground. I added eight more states to the list for 28, as far-reaching as Maine and Vermont in the north, and Florida in the south. Utah seemed to be the most popular, although British Columbia took the Canadian crown and made a nice run.
Breakfast consisted of bagels, cinnamon rolls, and bacon, as well as hot chocolate and fruit. Perry made a Starbucks run. I went with grapes and the roll, which was delicious.
There wasn't much left of the morning. We had to pack, I took a shower, and eventually we all convened by the "Miner's Camp." Water comes down a chute into two gutters in a row arranged in a perpendicular fashion. In the wire-bottomed panning trays you dump in a bagful of coarse sand. After sifting it in the water below, you come out with gems, emeralds, fossils, and other such goodies. There's different packages you can buy, and the kids had done one bag the day earlier while I was getting a sandwich. While in a long line, I decided to get a couple of bags for us to share (it's $1 off during the 4-5 hour, though we thought it'd be a more substantial discount). One was a kind of mega-pack which included special components, in a designer drawstring bag. All told I spent $30 on rocks. Hmm.
The kids and I mined and the very special surprise was a large quartz rocks glittering clear and purple. It started out as a hunk of gray matter so I was very impressed. The kids and I split the loot to our liking. The extras were donated back into the mining trays.
As we pulled away, the van was packed to the gills and the kids happily occupied themselves with electronic gadgets and headphones. Having no other task to really occupy me - reading would make me carsick, the scenery was familiar and boring, and I wasn't driving - I resorted to chatting with the adults. Jo drifted off and Garnet tuned me out in parts, so the conversation focused between man and wife, which was probably how it should be, and I was carsick anyway but very pleased. Though we'd only gone an hour's drive away and been gone less than 48 hours, we may as well have been away for five days. It was odd, but even in the midst of all that civilization, I felt I had just been on vacation.
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