Movie review: "House of Games"

Without broadcast TV, I am watching a lot of old movies on DVD. I have seen Jeff Bridges in "Fearless", a stellar cast in "The Departed", a perennial favorite "L.A. Confidential" and last night watched "House of Games."  Produced in 1987, written in part and directed by David Mamet, it is a cold look at the world of con men.  I had forgotten how good it was, how even the audience gets pulled into the con.

Lindsay Crouse and Joe Montegna star, she as a psychiatrist trying to help a patient and he as the con man ostensibly teaching her the game.  Things get down and dirty pretty quickly and even though it is a little dated (more than twenty years ago, after all) it still holds up.  You can figure out the con if you try but sometimes it's a lot more fun to just go along for the ride.

I have to admit right up front that I am a sucker for movies about the con.  From "The Sting" to "Nine Queens" to "Matchstick Men" and more, I love getting taken in and hung out to dry. I always fall for the game, always, sucker that I am.  But check out "House of Games" if you are looking for an entertaining, twisty, well done drama. 

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Book Review: "The Unnamed" by Joshua Ferris

After reading "To Be Sung Underwater" in which the prose flowed like water, this book, "The Unnamed" was a jolt.  It is terse, cold, brusque and felt like a piece of staccato music. The characters are not terribly likeable although you might have a bit of sympathy for them and you are compelled to read just to find out what happens to them.

The main character Tim has an unnamed disease:  uncontrollable walking.  He cannot predict when this malady will strike nor can he stop it when it does. The best he can do is keep a backpack with him at all times so once the marathon walking begins he at least has a hat, gloves, new socks, something to shield him from the forces of the weather.  The urge comes over  him at any moment, he could be in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a court case, and he turns and walks away and doesn't stop sometimes for days.  When exhaustion finally overtakes his body he simply falls asleep somewhere. It is up to his wife to find him and pick him up. She finds him sleeping in graveyards or behind gas stations or on park benches, dirty, torn and incredibly weary.

This is a tough story, nothing about it is fun or even remotely like life.  It's an allegory of modern day disconnect.  This man is controlled physically by his body and yet his mind cannot overcome that physicality.  He moves relentlessly without desire, faces brutal weather and exhaustion, has alienated his daughter and wife and co-workers, has no friends and basically no purpose in life other than to obey the command to move.  It could have been depressing but instead I found it more distancing than depressing.

About three quarters through the book I was wishing for a little hand-drawn map of where Tim's walks took him.  Something that would give credence to his unwilling walking.  That would have been too real, it would have made his story seem plausible.  I suppose that's why I wanted it.


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More on the trailer

Cooper and I are settling into our unsettled life in the trailer, albeit somewhat hesitantly.  The bottom line is that it feels so temporary that it is difficult to call it home.  But I have cooked a couple of dinners on the stove-top (there is no oven) and Cooper finds it nice to hang out on the small lawn area at cocktail hour while I sit in a chair and read.  That's the best part of the day.

There is one small problem with trailer living, at least when you are not hooked up to a campground's septic system.  Since the toilet is just a large holding container for the black water (i.e. poop and pee) there is always a slight smell of..... well, poop in the air.  Not terrible, not like an outhouse or a porta-potty on a hot day, but it's there.  Ah, well, I suppose it is just Mother Nature having a laugh at my expense.

This weekend there is a full house at the inn because of a celebrity wedding in town!  Actually, it's not in our town, it is in Napa, but the celebrity has paid for all the rooms and has made all the arrangements through an event coordinator.  Looking at the list of our guests, it is clear that no celebs are staying with us unless they are using their aliases.  I rather doubt it, most high end guests will be spending their weekends at the high-end places in Napa like Meadowood and Auberge del Soleil, where rooms are in the $2000 per night range.  I cannot tell you the name of the celebrity yet, but I will perhaps tomorrow.  The manager of this inn I am working at has been sworn to secrecy lest the paparazzi show up!  But rest assured, while this guy has made a ton of money, he ain't no George Clooney.

That's it for now, another book review tomorrow.

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Book Review: "To Be Sung Underwater" by Tom McNeal

 What a pleasure it was to read this book. I could ramble on and on about how much I liked it but you still wouldn't get a feel for it without picking it up yourself.  It is all about the language, the writing, the clarity of every single word and sentence.  The characters are so well drawn it's as if you know them, as they are now and as they were 25 years ago.  How the settings are depicted, whether in a city or out in the wilderness or in a bedroom, are true and vivid without being overly painted.  You can almost feel the change in the temperature when McNeal writes about the sun setting behind the mountains.  You can almost smell the dampness of the enclosure in the trees where the two characters are whiling away the afternoon.  The emotions of Judith and Willy are so true that sometimes you have to put the book down and just wait a moment before reading on.  It's a book where every sentence is to be savored, you don't want to skip around and miss anything.

The story is simple, two young people meet, fall in love, almost commit their lives to each other.  The story starts in the present, when Judith is in her forties, and goes back and forth from the present to their past.  The pace of the story is languid, relaxed, time moving slowly.  Characters stop and take naps, revel in the stillness of laying on a blanket in the grass.  But it is never boring or slow.   

I am not sure I liked the ending but by then I was so captivated by the characters, the sense of place and the story that I didn't care if I liked it or not. I didn't want the book to end, and when it did I had to read the last part a couple of times to be sure I didn't  miss anything.  Read this book if you get a chance and tell me what you think.  There is wisdom in this book about life and love and the land and I cannot wait for Tom McNeal to write another one. 

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Sunday morning thinking

Musings on the trailer life, work and more:

Living in a trailer means several things, some of which I do not wish to contemplate.  However, it does force you to be neat and tidy, concise in your actions and particular about what you store in the small space.  If you leave dirty dishes out, for example, the entire place looks trashy because there is no way to hide the mess.  If you toss clothes on the bed (you can't toss them on the floor because there is no floor space in the bedroom area, the bed takes up almost the entire room) then obviously your bed always is a mess. The good side is that it's rather difficult to loose something because you can stand in one spot and see every surface in the place.  There are few hiding places.  It also means that you can only have a few things on hangers and a few things in the 4 very small drawers so your wardrobe becomes instantly tiny.  Same six shirts, rotated each day, two pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts and some tee shirts and underwear.  One sweatshirt.  That's about it.

The mental gyrations I am facing about living in this trailer are harder to describe.  Yes, I am happy to have a roof over my head that isn't simply the roof of my car.  It is a safe place to live and pleasant enough.  I have water when I turn on the tap and when the days are really hot there is air conditioning as well.  Heat in the winter, lights in the dark, all those things.  I am not feeling sorry for myself but I am feeling some sense of discomfort.  Remember when you were little and you would spin around on the lawn for several seconds and then would stop and the world would keep moving?  That's how I feel.  Like I have landed in this one place but there is no solid ground, things are still tilting around me.  It is disorienting.  How did I get here, at the age of 61, with no secure job and no secure housing?  It is just so odd. 

I am continuing my job search, of course, recognizing that this substitute innkeeper job is just that, a temporary gig.  It would be nice to plan on living in Healdsburg for a while but that possibility seems tenuous at best.  The innkeeper job is something I do well and it's an easy, part-time job, averaging about 25 hours a week.  What I need is something closer to 40 hours. The search continues.

Right now, the best I can do is try and keep the spinning feeling from making me totally nuts. I am reading a really good book and that helps, it makes me focus on someone else's life for a while. 

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Trailer photos

As promised, here are a few photos of my new abode.  It looks bigger than it feels, but that's ok.  Also, if I was much taller I would have been decapitated by now or at least have many bruises and bumps on my head. It isn't made for tall people.  There are several good things about it, one being that since it is so small and space is so limited, you can't really leave things lying about.  Everything gets put away quickly so it stays neat and tidy.  The last photo is of the view I see once I walk out of the trailer, towards my car.  The view I have out the door is of the side of the owner's house which is totally boring.  But really, I don't stand at the door all that often and I can walk down the path and sit on a chair under a tree and read. 

While it does have a table that seats four, two of those four would have to either have no legs or be very tiny. You can see a bit of the bedroom back there and the bathroom is on the right going towards the bedroom. The bed is quite comfy, almost a queen size bed.  Cooper will like it.

This is walking along the side of the trailer, going towards where I park my car.   Not the attractive part of the yard, obviously.  That grassy area is the front yard of the owners. It's quite pretty, actually.

This is along the side of the driveway.  I can take a chair out and sit down near my car and read and look out onto the open space past that group of trees.  The stuff along the driveway there are just some of the toys belonging to their grandkids.  I don't get to play with them.  And now you have seen my new digs.  Pretty impressive!  And hey, it's not in Texas! 

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Small, cozy, portable!

Before you all jump on the "trailer trash" bandwagon, I want to assure you that just because my new living digs are portable it in no way means I will now eat a lot of Cheeto's and drink cheap beer out of a can and have oily, greasy hair.  Cheap wine, yes.  Cheap beer, no. 

I am up here in Healdsburg again, subbing for my friend Margaret, who shattered her leg last week and therefore cannot take on the role of innkeeper.  The inn is quite busy this time of year so there are guests pretty much every night which means many days of work for the next two months at least.  I am sorry that Margaret broke her leg, of course, but grateful for the work. 

But working here posed the obvious question:  where will I live?  Getting an apartment seemed too difficult at this point because I don't have enough pay stubs to show to a prospective landlord.  Margaret was kind enough to talk to many of her friends and somehow magically convinced one couple to rent their trailer to me for a month or so!  Yes, a trailer!  It is not, unfortunately, an Airstream, which would have been pretty cool.  But it is decent size, has a nice couch, small kitchen, teeny bathroom with shower and a queen size bed. It has heat, air conditioning and a small TV.  It's on the same property as the owners' house but there is a lot of land there and hey, the price is not expensive and it keeps me off the streets at night.  Cooper has not yet seen it, but I think he will like it.  There are squirrels for him to chase and that alone will give meaning to his life.

It's so odd, this untethered life.  For the first time in 61 years I don't really have a place to live, at least not until this trailer offer.  I am not complaining, at least I am in California instead of other states I could mention.  But still, it's a rather unsettling situation, one that I am trying to simply plow through without a great deal of conscious thought.  If I think about it too much it freaks me out:  no permanent job, no permanent home, no permanent income.  And yes, I know that nothing in life is permanent but this might be taking that philosophy a little too far.

Tonight will be my first night in my new trailer home and will hopefully post some photos of it tomorrow.  First I need to stock up on beer, pretzels, Cheese-whiz, TV dinners and some National Enquirer tabloids so I can do justice to the trailer theme. 

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Back in the USSR

"Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee, it's good to be back home."  Well, no, I recognized the place (not the USSR, but California) right away and gee, it's good to be back home.  It's cold and foggy in Daly City right now, deeply gloomy, depressingly gray and I am so happy about that.  I know I have said this before, but that condition that people get when they haven't had enough sunshine? It's called SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I have the opposite disorder.  I have SDM.  Sunshine Depresses Me.  Not sunshine per se.  Just tons of sunshine.  Too many sunny days make me gloomy.  I like a little sun and then some overcast days.  Then a little sun, like three days and then some rain.  Then some more rain, like 15 days and two sunny days. Then more rain.  In the summer, if it really must be sunny, it is best, for me, if the temp does not exceed 75.  And best if there are a couple of cloudy days per week and the nights cool down to 65, minimum.

So, you can see why my stay in Texas was so shocking. It wasn't just the heat, it was no cloudy days.  Sun, sun, sun, over and over. It was relentless, like a Chinese water torture, drip by drip, sunny day after sunny day, no cool nights. It was as if I was in a science fiction movie, being tortured by light, sunny, happy aliens.  But they weren't aliens, they were just the weather people on TV, every day saying the dreaded words:  TRIPLE DIGITS.   Those two words were like a Satan mantra in Texas, every friggin day I was there.  TD, TD, TD over and over.  I was not happy about that. But I could not change it. I was a prisoner of the weather, sunny, hot and cruel. It was meltingly mad.

OK, TMI, deep breath,  but now I am back in the land that I know, the coast I love and random parts of my random families that I love.  I drove 3,000  miles, almost exactly, from Texas a week ago. I drove through these states:  Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and back to California. Nine states in 6 days, three thousand miles, a huge national park and numerous state parks, several doggish motels and perhaps two nice ones, one really awful meal and many apples, cheese and cracker dinners.  Two McDonald's Egg McMuffins, four small double lattes from Starbucks, lots of BeerNuts, four yogurts taken from my free crappy breakfast buffets provided by the many motels I stayed in, a roll of Starburst, one Snickers bar, many raisins and dried cranberries, one package of Peanut M&Ms, two Lean Cuisines bought at local markets and nuked in the privacy of my sleazy hotel room, a pint of Johnny Walker, a pint of Jack, two bottles of wine, a box of animal crackers, some bad beef jerky and at least ten large bottles of water.  Really, that's all I can remember eating in the six days on the road. Nothing good. Never had a pizza delivered to my room, although I thought about it often. Never really went out to eat because that was never an option in the small towns I stayed in. 

Here in Daly City it is quiet and nice and it is like being home.  Tomorrow I leave again, moving northward.  I hope I can find a more permanent perch than what I have had the last week and I think that is possible. Maybe. Perhaps.

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Straddling state lines

Yesterday's drive started off in Idaho, crossed over to Washington state for 100 miles and then into Oregon. I drove all the way down US 395, a road I have driven dozens of times from Reno south, but I have never been on this part of 395.  It's quite nice, some forest and a lot of high desert and no one on the road.  The speed limit in OR is 55 mph, which doesn't work for me, of course, so I sped along at 75.  No cops.  Drove along some beautiful lakes, flat, almost like salt lakes and ended up in a teeny town last night called Lakeview, although it doesn't really have a view of the lake but perhaps in the olden days it did. It does have a few of many unsavory looking houses and a lot of dead grass.  Today I am looking forward to passing Goose Lake which straddles the California and Oregon border.

I should be back in the bay area in a couple of days.  Today I think I will be able to stop near Sacramento and see where my Mom is now living, since she has moved into a kind of retirement community and I yet to see it. After that, who knows.

Goose Lake, supposedly.  Although these two photos don't look like the same lake!  I soon will know which one is the imposter, which is the true lake.

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Montana to Idaho to California

Left Montana yesterday and drove mostly along Hwy. 12 which skirts the Lewis and Clark trail.  Beautiful drive, once again. Landed in Lewiston, Idaho which is just on the border of Idaho and Washington and pretty far south, not far from the Oregon border.  I was planning on buzzing around WA and OR for a little while but I got a call last night that a friend who lives in Healdsburg just broke her leg.  Since she manages a substantial bed and breakfast inn there I expect she is going to need a fill-in innkeeper and that could be me!  Therefore, I am hitting the road this morning, Sunday, and heading to Sonoma County.  I should be there in a couple of days.  Meanwhile, I am taking an easterly approach to that end.  I have driven through Oregon and California on the west side but not down the eastern side so I will see what that part of the world looks like.  More to follow at the end of this day.

Book Review: " Moneyball" by Michael Lewis

Two books that I can report on, "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis and "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain, but tonight, boys and girls, I am focusing on the former.  "Moneyball" has just been made into a movie which baffles me because the book has little action except for perhaps two or three recounting of two or three particular baseball games.  This is not a baseball book about a great star or even a great team, although the Oakland A's are the team of focus here.  But unlike baseball books that tout the struggles of one poor kid who claws his way into the big leagues or books that are all about a team's rise to the top, game by game,  this book is more about science, statistics and the cold hard facts of players on bases. In fact, a good portion of the book is devoted to a little known self-published baseball writer, Bill James, who created a theory that statistics mean more than a player's record. James' small published pamphlets attracted the attention of a small handful of baseball aficionados and eventually the attention of Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A's.

I could go on and on and tell you what happens to the A's but that's all history.  What I can tell you is that this is a fascinating story about how mathematics and statistics changed a baseball team within one year of play.  It also explains how these theories of math and science and numbers are  more than mere theories, they are proven realities.  The entire phenomenon of "Fantasy Baseball" is based on these statistics, whether the players of these fantasy teams know it or not.

Within the explanation of how these number games can shape teams are stories of different players and different games and different management styles.  While the book might not make you see baseball in a different way, it will certainly make you pay attention to a sport that is much more than men hitting, fielding and pitching.  Check it out.

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Bozeman, MT

Tonight Cooper and I are in Bozeman, Montana.  Nice town. There is an old part and a new part which makes sense since it is a gateway of sorts to the Yellowstone N.P.  People can stay here and then drive 90 minutes into the park so the new motels are a result of that proximity.  The old area is cool, it looks sort of like the downtown of Alameda, about a mile long, one main street, a mix of old and new restaurants, pubs, shops, bookstores, Indian crafts (not readily available in Alameda) and some nice old architecture.  I could possibly live here although the winters are probably brutal.  But you can still buy a house here for under $300,000.00.

Enough about that. Below are a few photos I took with my new teeny camera.  Seriously, I need more practice.  I would have added more but perhaps tomorrow. My computer is pretending it has power over me and will not load any more photos.  Little does it know that I can throw a glass of water on it and make it die. I have that power and if it continues with this attitude I might have to show it who is really the boss!  Ha!  Watch out for water in your face, 'puter!

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Yellowstone National Park

Yes, I know I need to show you photos and I will, hopefully tonight. I had to buy a new camera (don't ask) but since it cost me less than $90 I am not too unhappy about it.  But I have to load the software on the computer and then download stuff, so be patient.

Yellowstone Park is gorgeous, of course, and massive.  And very crowded.  Cooper and I were in the park by 8:30 this morning and spent about six hours driving various roads, taking photos, taking little walks, and we still could have spent more time.  It's confining with the dog because you cannot take dogs on any trails and they must be either in the car or less than 100 feet from the road at all times.  Obviously I didn't get to take too many hikes but I did leave him alone a couple of times to see some vista views.  Huge scenery, huge mountains and rivers, boulders, everything a national park really needs.  In some ways it is not as dramatic as Yosemite but it still has jaw-dropping views.  If Yosemite was the size of a tea cup, Yellowstone is the size of a salad plate.  It is almost twice the square miles of Yosemite.  

I expected crowds and for the first couple of hours the traffic through the park was light.  By 11:30 it had increased dramatically, to the extent that most of the parking lots that overlooked some grand waterfall or view were packed.  I didn't even bother getting in the car queue for the Old Faithful Geyser, you can see it probably better on youtube.  But even with the cars (and can we talk about those humongous things that are larger than SUV's, they are about 30-40 feet long and they never pull over and they can't turn and they are all driven by old, retired people who are afraid) the day was great.  I didn't see as much wildlife as I wanted but I did see buffalo, deer, some dead jackrabbits, hawks and some creature that must have been from Kansas, with sandals and high white socks and two fanny packs that were sagging with god knows what and a checked shirt that almost, but not quite, covered his extended belly.  A checkered-belly fanny-packer, that must be what it was called.

There were still some residual wildflowers (they bloom very late in high altitudes), blues and pinks and yellows and there were fields of gold with blue streams running through them that made you think of heaven.  A lot of people were fishing, mostly fly-casting and that was nice to see, a national park with people doing more than double parking to snap a shot of a buffalo.  There are geysers all over the place and thermals that give off steam all the time.  It reminded me of the trip Tom and I took to Portugal and we were on one of the Azores Islands, Sao Miguel I think, and everywhere you walked in town there was water boiling up out of the ground.  I was also reminded of the islands off Sicily, especially Volcano, when we hiked to the top of the sleeping volcano and steam was blowing out of holes in the ground, smelling of sulphur.  Since Yellowstone has a huge volcanic history, it's no wonder it also has a caldera that is still active.

Ah, to be on the road.  I know I have said this before but I am always in awe of the glorious beauty and variety of our country.  It's that way in any country, of course, and I have had the great fortune to see it, as mentioned above.  But I don't think enough of us take the time to just explore the USA.  You all know I am not one for touting the virtues of this country but it is so diverse geologically and topographically and culturally that I think everyone should take a long road trip at least once in their lives and see some of it.  I stopped in Laramie, WY because my camera had a bizarre error message on it.  At the gas station where I filled up I asked if there was a Best Buy or a similar place.  The woman looked at me with a small sense of pride and said "No, we have small stores here."  She directed me to a Radio Shack a couple of blocks down and the young guy who was running that shop was great.  It was nice to know that there is a medium sized city without a Best Buy or a Walmart or Target.

It's also why I like to find small motels if I can, or small coffee places that are owned by a person, not a corporation. (Although I must admit, Starbucks has saved my sorry ass many times.)   Same with food. I don't eat much at chain restaurants for the simple reason that I like to know a person is cooking my food, not a corporate clone.

OK, that's all for my preaching.  I am going to post this blog and try and get some photos and post them later this evening.  Thanks for reading, the three people who I know do faithfully.  And those of you who do sporadically as well.

Here are two stock photos for now.

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Colorado - Wyoming

Drove from Golden, Colorado to Dubois, Wyoming, which I call Blanche.  I keep looking for Tennessee Williams, or at least someone yelling "Stella" on the street but I suppose that isn't going to happen.  We drove in on Hwy 287 and it was part plain and boring and part beautiful, land formations with red and tan and white striations and green valleys with blue streams running through them.  This town Blanche, oops, Dubois, is small, just some motels and gas stations, lots of shops with Indian crafts.  It's about an hour from the south entrance to Yellowstone Park. Turns out you can't take dogs in the park too much but we (me and little Cooper) will figure that out tomorrow. Perhaps we will have to depend on the kindness of strangers!

I had a brilliant thought the other morning that I thought I would share with you and you can share it with people who are on a serious food budget, or are homeless, or unemployed and watching their pennies.  On Tuesday night I stayed at a chain motel in a row of three other chain motels.  They all advertise a free breakfast.  Now, we all know how crappy these breakfasts are, right?  But here's the thing:  when you walk into the breakfast lounge, no one ever asks if you are a guest of the hotel. No one knows who you are because the morning shift is not the shift who checks people in. Therefore, anyone can walk into any of these motels and have breakfast!  (Not that they would want to, but that's another story.)  The least noxious parts of these breakfasts are the fresh fruit and the bowls of small containers of decent yogurt.  If a person looked clean enough and not too creepy or needy, that person could easily come in, get some fruit, some yogurt, perhaps a muffin, maybe a cup of coffee, and just walk out the side door like they were going to their room!  Voila!  Free food!  Is it stealing?  Well, yes, but I am sure the motel owners, if they had any kindness or morals, wouldn't really mind.  And a person without food gets to eat something good.  Win, win.  Sort of.

Finally, I don't think I ever mentioned the Texas tradition of highway road stops dedicated to Jesus.  Not kidding.  There are huge billboards out in west Texas reminding drivers when they are coming up and they even have diners with names like "Heavenly Burgers: the Lord's Best Burger!"  Again, not kidding.  You can stop, pee, have a Jesus burger and probably even gas up your car!  Salvation, sustenance and fuel, all in one spot.

OK, time for bed.  Cooper and I are getting up early to hit the park before the RV's clog the roads. 

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Still moving, not sure where

Drove many miles today, through Texas, a little of the panhandle of Oklahoma and all the way through Colorado.  Nice drive for the most part, all small roads, two lanes, but the speed limits on those small road are 65 MPH.  Nice.  Was going to spend some time in the national park here, near Denver, but I have decided to hit the road tomorrow and go through Wyoming and spend Friday and some of Saturday in Yellowstone, which I have never seen.

Tonight we are in Golden, Colorado, the home of Coors beer and many other breweries.  I didn't plan on being here but the weather was too wet and too foggy and it became too difficult to figure out where I was going. (I am not good at reading a map while driving 70 MPH and got tired of pulling off the road to read the map. It was the first time I longed for a GPS and hopefully the last.)  It seemed better and safer to just get out of the car.  We are actually in a small hotel on Main Street in Golden.  The weather cleared up early evening so Cooper and I had a good walk along the river. 

If I wasn't tired I would attempt to send some photos from today but maybe tomorrow.  The following will suffice:  the first one is a giant (like ten feet) metal sculpture of a trout.  It looks better in person and I might take a photo of it tomorrow myself.  The second is just the golden arch over Main Street. 

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Ack! Still in Texas!

One forgets how big this friggin state is!  We spent last night in Amarillo, about six hours from Grand Prairie.  Up early to hit the road again.  Am still mulling over where to go today and how to get there but I think my four brand-spanking new tires will take me where they think I should be.  I will let you know at the end of the day where we were and what we saw.

Adios, Texas!

I am leaving the land of the Lone Star, Long Horn Steer and Double-Discounted Six-Pack this morning!  Saying goodbye to the Land of the Triple Digit Temperature Marathon and the questionable logic of Governor Perry. 

Instead of heading due west to California, I am taking a circuitous route, going north and west through the top of Colorado, then north into Wyoming and Montana.  I'm not sure how long I will extend this journey as there may be a bit of work for me soon in the SF Bay area, but as long as I have the time I will continue to take some back roads and visit some states I have yet to see.

Texas has been an experience.  If you have read any of my blogs in the past two months you already know about the weather. And wouldn't you know it, yesterday was the first morning I walked outside with the dogs at 7:00 and it was cooler outside than inside!  The temps at night fall to around 68, which is lovely.  Still in the mid 90's during the day.

However, TX has been more than just hot weather.  Not a lot more, granted, but the people are really nice, the Mexican bakery has delicious tortillas (better than in California, actually) and I have made some tasty dinners, including a great salsa with peaches, fresh corn, the last handful of cherry tomatoes, a little jalapeno and some lime juice.  With a bbq pork tenderloin it was perfect.  I also read tons of books, made some new recipes and watched way too many episodes of "Chopped" and "Kitchen Impossible."

I am looking forward to hitting the road, as usual, and will send some photos back to  you when I can.  As they say in Texas, au revoir for now!

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A week later......

Yes, I have been ignoring my blog for lack of much to say and because last week I actually was busy for three days!   Jenn was in Philadelphia to visit Hurricane Irene and she passed a catering gig on to me, all by myself.  Sixteen people, menu mostly created by the hostess, in Dallas on Saturday.  I spend Friday morning getting lost in Dallas to buy the groceries she needed from the vendors she chose.  Friday afternoon was spent prepping and cooking, as was all Saturday morning.  Lots of courses, lots of work to get ready for the dinner.  I was at the dinner location in the late afternoon, finished preparing everything, serving and then waiting for them to all eat so we (myself and one server) could begin the clean-up.  Since all the dishes, glassware, flatware and serving pieces were "special" none could to into the dishwasher so all were done by hand.  I got home about thirty minutes past midnight, exhausted.

But the money was good and Sunday was a day of rest.  It was good for me to do it.  I was hesitant about taking on such a challenge because I had never cooked for that many strangers before, by myself.  It is one thing to cook for your friends and family and it never matters if there are 8 or 18 or 28.  It's always fun and no one cares if the green beans are a little overcooked or if the bread is store-bought.  But if someone is paying you to make a delicious dinner, it has to be spot-on, those green beans need to be perfect.  Plus cooking for strangers in a strange home means you don't get to have a glass of wine while cooking, you don't get to laugh with your guests, you can't assign tasks in the kitchen ("Martha, will you come and stir the corn while I carve the meat?") and no one offers to do the dishes.  The atmosphere is completely different.  But I did it, it was very successful, the guests and the hostess were quite happy and I got a chunk of change to put in the bank. 

Of course, money comes, money goes. I now need 4 new tires on my car before I take off for the west coast.  Sigh.  My unemployment benefits have ceased and I still don't have a job.  I spend a couple of hours each day applying on-line and am keeping my fingers crossed that something will come my way soon.

We are in for another triple digit temperature day.  In fact, every single day I have been in Texas the temp has been over 100.  When I was in SF for 5 days the Texas temp dropped to the mid 90's but zoomed back up the moment my plane landed back here.  According to the weather map, the entire US is being baked to a crisp right now. The only areas not blazing hot are the very edges of the northern parts of the coasts, both left and right.  And Governor Perry here in TX doesn't believe in global warming!  What a guy!

I wanted to be on the road back to coolness by now but with the new information about the pitiful state of my tires, it looks like I won't be hitting the road for another day or so.  And then it's Labor Day weekend, and I don't want to be driving along with all the rest of the Americans so I might wait til Sunday or Monday.  Jenn is seriously lobbying for me to stay ("....but there is no reason for you to leave other than the crappy weather and so why don't you just stay another week or so......") but I am jonesing to leave.  So I will.  Soon.

A book review is forthcoming, as is a new recipe.  Stay tuned.

Zucchini fritters, coming soon.

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