Catching Up with Berkeley

Pictures from left to right, top to bottom: Susan's House, Sprocket (her cat), Lamp Art, Susan and Sprocket, Susan and Abby on banjo, Susan, Abby, Bob, Ingrid

You may have noticed that nothing has appeared in this blog for the past few days. (Then again, you may not have noticed.) Jeanie is just recovering from her wild week in the big city and only now has time to fill you in. (I also had a really weak neighbor’s signal where I was staying, so I could only get online sporadically.)

Getting There

On Wednesday, I snuck out of Benbow Resort early—they probably wouldn’t really have appreciated a van in their park, as I’m discovering about RV spots. However, I had a gorgeous if a little bit icy drive through the rest of the redwoods down into Sonoma and then Marin County, where the rolling hills and strange green fields reminded me of my past life in a Christian commune, over 30 years ago, when my first husband and I used to come out to Marin to get a break from San Francisco. Although much of it is still rural, once you hit Santa Rosa, it’s all nasty malls and such, at least along 101.

I whooped as I drove over the gorgeous San Rafael bridge and over to Berkeley, where, amazingly, I found my friend Susan’s house without incident except some panic as I drove into some air that wasn’t so good.

You can see some pictures of Susan Sawyer’s house above. The glass thing is lamp bodies on a piece of rebar, just some of the amazing art that Susan does when she’s not interpreting for the deaf. (And she used to be a civil engineer. Yeesh.) It’s a sweet little place, and her cat is named Sprocket. Her roommate (with glasses) is Lindsey and a friend, Sue Moon, (red and brown hair) was visiting from Arcata for a mad weekend of dancing and marching against the war (YAY SUE!!!)

I called Susan and then sat on the porch, waiting and playing banjo and talking to Scott on the phone. When she got home from work, she dragged me off to the local hot tub, a sort of secret place run by some hippie philanthropist that is free to those in the know.

I said, “Great, I’ve got a swim suit!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Susan replied. “Naked only.”

Luckily, my old hippie days stood me in good stead. “No problem,” I said. It just sounded too good. (Don't worry--no pictures.)

All around us a zillion flowers were blooming, the lemon trees were gleaming with yellow fruit, and I kept asking, “What’s this? What’s that?” as we walked over. Susan didn’t know. We stepped into the hot tub yard and were surrounded by giant redwoods. Wood platforms lay around the yard for people to lie on in between soaks—it’s a very hot hot tub, about 113 degrees. We showered and slowly lowered ourselves in. There was only one other person there and only one other came the whole time. I lay in a convenient hammock between soaks and on a platform. It was fabulous, and very little chlorine either!

Home I got set up and was fed scrumptious curry. Susan, meanwhile, had made a few calls, so we had some great tunes with another Susan Philips and her husband, Tony.

However, bedtime was challenging. We didn’t really figure out electricity, so it was a little cold, and the street was so tilted that I could hardly stay on my cot. I had some definite ideas about improvements, but one of the saving graces I am taking away from here is the hot water bottle (or “hottie” as Sue Moon calls it with her inimitable Brit accent). Lasts all night if you use boiling water and wrap it in flannel pillowcases!

Working in the Hood

Thursday was a boring work day. I drove over to a pizza and basically café type place and worked on myth. When I returned, of course, there was no parking. I circled, sighed, and then found a space across the street. This time, I was smarter—I drove the van up on the curb a bit, leveling it out. This made for MUCH better sleeping!

That night Susan made more calls and we had great tunes with Abby on banjo, Bill on autoharps, and Ingrid on guitar. Bill and Ingrid and I recognized each other from Centralia, especially once they identified me as “T-Lou’s Mom.”!!! They camp in the desert a lot, so we got excited about meeting up next year at Joshua Tree. (Yes, I’m already thinking about NEXT YEAR’S BIG VAN TRIP!) They are amazing botanists and actually the caretakers for a rare species that no one could find many of. They found ‘em. (Sorry B & I, I forget what.)