Zora Travels

Capsizing & chocolate dipping

On Saturday, I attended my first baby shower with dj's.  Thick pulsating reggae, hip-hop, soul, and funk shook the naked and faded blue wood floors at Mara's house.  Ginny's friends had come to celebrate the November arrival of her son.  This autumnal boy shall soon frolic in a vibrant home filled with carved Guinean statues, turn tables, crates of old records, and a cat named Bunny. 

So how does one throw a baby shower for a momma-to-be who's a reggae dj and a dancer?  Well, first, you pile gifts into Ethiopian-hued bags; red, yellow, and green tissue paper gush between binkies, towels, and tiny onesies.  Then, you invite people of both genders and all ages, to sip sangria and Red Stripe from green cups.  Filipino flan, lumpia, rice, and salmon jockey for position amidst pita chips, hummus, salad, and fruit.

And of course....you have a chocolate fountain.  I was thrilled for the second time in my life to put my fountain to use.  This little number was on super-sale just in time for my 30th birthday...and got pulled from the darkness of our garage for this occasion.  Skewers of dried fruit, marshmallows, creme puffs, and bananas bathed in creamy dark chocolate streams.  It was a big hit with both young and old.  I felt it my obligation to dip everything in...for quality assurance purposes.  Daniel seemed doubtful of my need for such thorough testing and somehow, at his every turn, I was forever wiping cocoa from the corner of my lips.

This celebration came on the heels of a morning spent in the bay kayaking.  We are taking a two week class and in the midst of our premier paddle through the serene canals of Naples, I challenged Daniel to a race.  We dug in and paddled wildly towards the next bridge...passing pirates, duffy boats, and luxurious homes.  A few feet away from certain defeat, I dug deeply on the right; I felt the kayak twist into the water...and spilled right out into the foulness.  Now, it's key to mention that this water is gnarly.  Boat bilge, suspicious foam bubbles, floating masses, and strong odors hover in the canal water.  Yet, there I was, dumped out, kayak filled with water, chapstick floating towards a dock.  I remembered my training from several years ago and managed to scamper back into my kayak after a few tries.

Slightly embarrassed and really wet, I paddled for another hour.  Enjoying the serenity of slicing a feathered paddle into the water, cutting along the surface with a smooth sun glistening overhead.  It was a beautiful morning filled with laughter, surprises, and a well-deserved hot shower upon returning home.

On Sunday, I found myself focusing on mindfulness and breathing in another of Sasha's yoga/meditation workshops.  Mara had gifted me a lovely afternoon of peace and reflection for my upcoming birthday.

And so it is....I slid into my week.  A week that holds anti-balls, Daniel's flight to visit Berkeley, dinners with Claire's girls, wedding celebrations for the Boose's, and perhaps a Rolling Stone documentary viewing at my mom's.

***Below is a photo montage from Ginny's baby shower.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Horizon looks bright

Although my temptation was to pretend this haircut never happened, I know one day I'll laugh.  When I remember my 24 hours of feeling like I was wearing the hair of someone else, someone with a gigantic personality, who walks into a room, owns it, gives strangers the stink eye or a high five, and eventually gets covered in tattoos.

My evening ended as it had the night before...in Joseph's chair.  He said he wasn't surprised to see me, although I was surprised to have called him.  I had never before asked for a hair "re-do" but he simply smiled and chopped, making everything pixie, and even...slashing the silly tails and swoops.

I danced a little Irish jig yesterday after leaving Number Nine.  I had dropped off my fancy "food service" resume and ended up chatting with Peter for a few minutes.  He's a fellow worker bee at the noodle house with a derby hat, salt-and-pepper beard and a mega-watt smile.  He said that Marta, the owner with blond hair piled high like Marilyn Monroe and ruby red lips, asked him to put stars all over the resumes of people he liked.  He put stars on top of mine.  We shook hands, I struggled with the door, heart beating, excitement surging....and jig dancing as I bounced off the curb.  We'll see what happens!  My real interview may be within a few days.  I want this job.  I want to wake up, saunter 10 minutes down the street in a funky little outfit, hair waxed, dark lipstick, and serve people bowls of pho and noodle salads.  I want to ask, "Would you like regular or jasmine-lychee iced tea?"   

Another unexpected bonus yesterday...my substitute teaching account was easily reactivated in Long Beach.  I then spoke with a good friend who is a vice-principal and will email out my pin number to all of her colleagues for their "preferred sub" lists.

So, although my current job yields no pay since the end of August...my horizon looks bright.  This weekend shall host myriad adventures with kayaking class, musical baby showers, meditation/yoga workshops, and a hunt for our Spanish adventure...and perhaps an interview that lands me the job at the hipster noodle joint.  Things are looking up around here!

Bunny & the baguettes

This is my new neighbor, Bunny.  She just moved in a few blocks away and brought with her the lovely Ginny.  Their new home is quaint with red-stained decks and lush greenery that flourishes in the yard.  It will be great to have them close, especially as Ginny's baby enters the world this fall.

Yesterday was the epitome of a Southern California summer.  The type of Thursday that will soon be impossible until next year...a soothing morning yoga class, scrambling an egg white breakfast, scavenging for beach chairs in the scary garage, driving through thick traffic to Laguna Beach, picking up an iced-coffee, searching for a parking space....and finally, sinking my toes into the warm sand for the afternoon.

Crescent Bay is this year's beach of choice.  A narrow slice of smooth sand nestled between sea-bird coated cliffs, clear blue waves that gently crash upon the shore, lack of cross current that allows for swimming, and most importantly --- clean bathrooms with soap and toilet paper.  Our merry group of seventeen scattered our towels, umbrellas, and chairs and frolicked in the turquoise water for hours.  Mara's family is a solid eight people +1 (the newest addition is debuting this fall).  Emmanuelle brought her three boys.  The visiting French teens bring the count up by three...and then there's Ginny +1 and me.

How do you know when your're at the beach with French people?  Because instead of tearing open that bag of Dorritos or munching on a granola bar, you find yourself tearing off hunks of baguette.  All around you are children and teens happily eating plain chewy bread...not asking for toppings or scooping out just the doughy center, but enjoying their beloved cultural carb.  I reminded myself yesterday (for the millioneth time) that French should have long ago been my language of choice.  Every day I encounter opportunities to use it, strangely more than the Spanish, which envelopes Los Angeles and naturally, more than my beloved German, which is scantly heard except for the tour busses that empty in Yosemite or San Francisco.  Out of the seventeen of us at Crescent Bay, fifteen spoke French.

I wonder what a trip to the beach may hold for our group next year?  Daniel and I will have returned recently from our adventure in South America (we hope), all of our possessions still in storage, readying for our move to his MBA program of choice.  Mara and Lionel will have welcomed their seventh child into the world; Diega will be a big sister; Antonia may be traveling in Greece after graduating high school; Ginny will be toting a music loving infant...and I just hope that Emmanuelle will not forget to bring baguettes. 

Columbia is a possibility

I just plucked an aged Berenstain Bears book out from under my tush and grinned.  Tomorrow night I'll be snuggling Daniel under our faux-suede duvet in our monstrous bed; there will be no puzzle pieces lodged in between our pillows, no sincere requests to read Llama, Llama, Red Pajamas "just one more time," no warm babies lying on my chest and occasionally gifting me with a blue-eyed gummy smile...and I'll think back to this patchwork place that I spent so much of these past three weeks.  Thorin who suns himself in the bright corner leaving behind a carpet of dark hair; Ewan who stashes his books and plastic dinosaurs for evening play.

Before writing this post, I had just come in for a drink of water after sticking various rubber finger puppets in the copper twirly on the porch.  This doo-dad is guaranteed to deliver hours of optical illusion to any eave from which it drops.  My mother bought one for each of us at the Sunday farmer's market.  Tucked between the white tents bursting with blueberry lemonade, buffalo jerky, and donut peaches was a gnarled wood pyramid dripping with copper twirlies.  As the metal spirals spin, the object appears to splash up from the coils, when actually there is no movement.  It really is quite fun and I hope all of my future guests will enjoy the orange hued contraption once we hang it on our porch.  I will be certain to document future visitor's reactions in their varying forms of amazement.

These past few days have been luxurious for my senses.  Warm oiled hands kneaded my doughy back at an Aveda spa (Gracias, Kathy), my mother arrived sculpting blintzes swimming in berry sauce, peach cobbler melting in homemade frozen yogurt, and snapper lightly resting in butter.  She has a way of placing both food and memory into the mortar and pestle to mash the two inseparably into your consciousness.  I shudder to think of others, including myself, making these dishes...pure sacrilege to fathom someone else dishing up these delights; however, I'm keenly aware these recipes were not genetically ingrained.  They came down from a quartet of influential women.  Seasonings and general culinary knack hail from Lola, Southern staples from Deanne and Bettie, and the coup d'etat ---peach cobbler from Margaret.

Iris and I both watched as my mother, hopped up on iced-coffee, and maybe slightly in response to my sour-faced response to "maybe we'll wait on the cobbler," began to plunge into our 22 lb. box of Johnson Orchard peaches with vigor at 10pm.  She pealed and diced each peach, juice spilling over her hands into the pan below.  Flour, cubed butter and water danced delicately in a glass bowl until a rolling pin could nudge the crumbling strips into being.  Soon, the sugar-sprinkled buttered pastry mounted gushing peaches and the pair caramelized together in a hot oven.  Cobbler wafts began just as the ice-cream maker slowed its churn of homemade vanilla frozen yogurt.  My own twin contraption awaits my lactose intolerant fantasies when I get home to Long Beach (thanks, Sparky).  And that was just on Saturday.

Crusty sourdough plunged into bowls of vibrant carrot ginger soup; yellow beets, pears, and shaved parmesan dressed in a delicate vinaigrette; velvet spring risotto with peas and drizzled with olive oil; Tuscan chicken with goat cheese on foccacia found us on our mother-daughter Sunday afternoon.  We drove for several hours through valleys, in the shadows of the Manastash ridge, into the lush Cascade greenery to find Snoqualmie Falls.  A waterfall splashes 268 feet below the picturesque Salish Lodge (our dining digs are in the upper left of this photo).  Flower baskets gushed, mist from the falls dabbled the chamomile flowers clinging to the cliffs, and the sun shone with gentle radiance on a day filled with conversation.  Both our minds and mouths wound along the highway with questions and perspectives.  We discussed the beauty of sisters and female friendship (when sisters didn't come), my eventual wedding (of which we lightly plan even though "the question" still looms), my parent's divorce (an oldie-but-goody), and a passionate discussion of how Daniel and I "should absolutely NOT go to Columbia" in January (about which I could not muster up enough evidence to counter adequately).

We passed cows grazing near lakes dotted along the highway, horses galloping near dilapidated barns, and she told me of the temperature alarms and smudge pot lighting that used to wake up our neighboring orchardists in the Methow Valley.  During the spring, if the apple buds freeze, the crop is ruined, thus, back in the 70's low temperatures would set off a string of alarms.  Our family friends, the Stennes Family, would awaken, throw on some work clothes and hastily run from row to row, lighting smudge pots.  The thick black smoke and heated oil slightly warmed the air amidst the trees saving the buds and ensuring for at least one more day that the crop would survive.  I was fascinated by the romanticism of this frantic lighting.  I saw dark images of overall-clad farmers, soot on their faces, kneeling down beside the gnarled apple trunks and fanning flames they prayed would cast a warm enough embrace.  Flickering flames casting shadows on worried faces spread throughout the lush apple valley...livelihoods completely naked to Nature's lashing.

With full cameras and bellies, we drove towards home with fewer words and stopped in an old mining town that used to play Cicely, Alaska on television.  Passing time listening to gravel crunching underfoot and leathery Croatian men banter outside of a store hawking dusty Northern Exposure memorabilia.  An enormous Marlin Brando mural (from Wild One) painted on a lumber canvas and famous cafe facades and radio booth windows were captured.  My favorite Roslyn moment was looking up to watch the lanky biker cross the road, all but a denim heart around his genitals covered in worn black leather, faded boots grinding gravel, a tobacco stained beard hiding a gentle smile as he put out his cigarette in the coffee can at my feet, twisting the butt in his fingers until the filter and unburned remnants sprinkled into the sand.

My mind spun with images and my stomach churned the cheesy memories of Shane's homemade pizza as I wriggled under the quilt last night.  My mother and I each lay with our backs facing our opposing lamps, pajamas and pillows, feet and books, all slowly settling into night.  If only Michael Landon had popped his head up the ladder, kissed my braided bonnet head, and said "Goodnight, Half-pint" I would have been certain that I had just spent the day on the prairie.

Letting the Girls Free

Here I am this morning.  Chipped ruby toes, slippery lotioned legs, and a wrap that I picked up on a hot summer afternoon in Portugal.   I was walking along the beach of Portimao, trailing farther and farther behind this Australian guy that I'd met on the Lisbon train.  I immediately noticed the mounds of glistening skin bubbling on the beach and knew that nude sunbathing was the norm.  I needed a wrap; a garment that would allow quick cover for my girls in the event that I was traumatized.  At any moment the two German girls we had met were going to bare their mambas and frolic in the water.  I cast furtive glances as we settled into the sand.

I rationalized that everyone was nude on the beach.  All shapes and sizes were browning quite nicely.  British pensioners with opaque rolls of flesh spilling onto the sand; fathers in the buff hauling water up to an awaiting sand castle.  Look at the face....only the face.  Yet my distorted American sense of body image, the notion that only young taut bodies should ever don swimwear near water, held me captive in my new wrap.

I did eventually let the girls free.  In an instant, the wrap flew back and my chest plunged into the gritty hot sand.  There I lay.  Nervous.  Now, I was technically sunbathing nude.  My back bare to the Iberian sun.  I prayed the Aussie would soon invite the Germans into the water and I could shift positions.

My body image has never been higher than the months that I lived in Cologne with Fadi.  Turkish and Kurdish women, confident in their curvaceous figures, infused my life.  Women who sauntered through their apartments, nibbling chocolate, smoking cigarettes, indulgently smearing Nutella on pumpernickle, and sipping sweet Turkish tea from delicate gold-rimmed glasses as I scrawled the translation of "Alle Beni Pulla Beni" in my journal.  Their grace and sensuality in voluptousness created a more forgiving and accepting space in my mind.  A space that I've long since been seeking to recapture despite my society's persistant reminders that my body is far from the Western ideal.

If there was a nude beach in this valley...I'd run down their right now and let my girls free.

Hmmm...just writing that made me a little nervous.  I think I'll just play Barış Manço and twirl around in my wrap. 

Kicking the Patchwork Quilt Blues

I am sitting here on a patchwork quilt feeling slightly blue... staring down at my neglected tennis shoes, questioning whether I can really muster up the energy to go to the gym.  Daniel's plane flies overhead back towards Seattle and his last soft kisses from an hour ago still linger on my face.  Our last minutes together spent alongside the river, taking cheesy photographs, and enjoying the breeze and the sound of rushing water.  My nephew yammers downstairs about a toy.  My niece requests attention with a sweet little cry.  One black furry dog sighs at my feet.

Four amazing days with Daniel at my brother's, my dad's, and Courtney's have come and gone.  By this evening, we'll be back to frequent emails and phone calls again until next Monday when I come home.  We realize we have been extremely spoiled these past two summers.  Both of us on summer vacation; nothing on our agendas except new cocktail recipes, chasing tennis balls, and relaxing together with our books or the paper.  I can rationalize that I have nothing to complain about...a spectacular man, a loving relationship, supportive friendship, only 8 more days apart...but still I miss him and his green Vespa t-shirt already.

Our river rafting adventure yesterday was incredible.  Daniel's cousin, Jake, was even able to join us for the trip.  You couldn't have asked for a more serene float down the Wenatchee River.  The sun beat down with 85 degrees, the water was crisp and cool, and the cooler full of beers and snacks made the 4 hour ride even merrier.  Courtney's husband, Carl, who grew up on the river, guided us down in his father's grey raft.  He backed us into mossy caves with sparrow nests, pointed out osprey habitat, spun folklore about trolls up waterfalls and apple juice pipe lines, surfed mid-stream, and managed to even put us into a few exciting rapids.  But the majority of the ride was mellow.  Calm enough for beers to ride comfortably in the cleavage pocket of your life jacket.  There was even time to relish chicken pita sandwiches atop old tires and crates on a sandy island.

The evening held soft tacos and mojitos (with fresh mint from Courtney's yard).  Funny napkins, twinkling lights, a vibrant sunset, and a foamy hot tub finally put our sun drenched brown faces into bed.  It's hard to look across the table at friends, wonderful friends who you would love to eat dinner with a couple times a week, and realize that it will be at least another year until you see their smile in person.  To look at my 12 year old Godson, Jonah, and his 1 year old brother, Abram, and know that a teenager and toddler will greet me on this porch upon my return.

I have lived most of my life split between Washington and California.  The southern state becoming ever more my foundation of home with school, work, social network, and my mother's family.  The northern state forever holding the families of my father and brother, my dear friend and my childhood.  It's a perpetual tug o' war of my heart....always enjoying one at the expense of the other.  The price of admission for so many children of divorce and the simple geographical spread of our global society.  The internet, cell phones, and Jet Blue have given us this sense that we are all closer than reality.  You think you're maintaining friendships and relationships from afar with a depth that new technology allows but something is missing.  Today I know what the flowers look like on Courtney's porch.  I can see her watering them, grimacing about the aphids on the leaves.  Next year these flowers will have died, been replaced by new ones...and I probably won't even notice, but this means something.  It means that those little things that we take for granted, pass in time, change over the years, and geography and yearly visits can only recapture the big moments.

I should be grateful that I know Ewan's favorite food and book and toy.  These things will change...Iris will walk and talk in a year...but I will have been a part of it for now.  Speaking of being a part of it, I'm going to leave this patchwork quilt, shove my gym shoes aside for yet another day, smile that Daniel is now in Seattle hunting for dinner at the airport, and go see why Ewan is making so much racket on the stairs.