It was a beautiful drive--rainy, but so green! Lots of folks think I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley is boring to the max, but I like it! The hills and agriculture (minus the feed lots, I must say) are lovely to me any time of year, but especially spring.
I arrived in Glendale at my little hotel on Glenoaks at about 3:30--plenty of time to settle in. One of the women in the class had arranged for a block of rooms at the Homestead Studio Hotel, which was very nice--including a kitchenette. My hummus looked quite lonely in the apartment-sized fridge. It was just about 10 minutes from stage one, which was an informal gathering at a lounge in the Hilton down the road.
The person from my class with whom I had been in closest communication over the years is my friend, Brett--and we had often lost touch for many years at a time. Last actual eye contact had been at the 25th. He lives in Saratoga, near San Jose, and we decided to attend this thing very nearly on the condition that the other also be there. He was the first classmate I saw as we were driving around in the parking lot under the Hilton.
No fancy dinners. No loud music or dancing. Just visiting. That's what we all wanted. I guess that makes us sound like the geezers we are, now. The Hilton thing was overwhelming: about 50 folks, all hugging, and exclaiming and trying to catch up too quickly...so many half-conversations interrupted by another and another in a two-hour talk-fest. A few good friends I hadn't expected turned up, too! This sort of thing is fun, but so exhausting for the cave-person-likes of me.
Next stop was the home of the parents of one of our classmates who live up in the hills above town. I had to follow someone to find it. It was lovely, and quieter, and we had brought snacks and desserts to eat. Conversations could be longer, but it was so difficult not to be distracted by a new arrival behind the present chat one was having. I'm very bad at managing this sort of thing.
A few hours later, some (including me) had been invited to, yet, another home for more of the same. I stood up to get my stuff together and knew I wouldn't be making that one.
During the conversations Friday night, so many locations in Glendale had been referenced and it was clear that, for me, nearly all the streets and landmarks had been wadded up in a ball and thrown in a dark corner of my brain. I couldn't remember where anything was. On top of that, Glendale has changed quite a lot in the last 40+ years and I have passed through just a very few times to assimilate those changes. Our high school, for one thing--we were the last class to occupy the old (c.1911) building. The "new" one (c.1969) had no memories for us. Freeways cut through town after we graduated, including the street on which our old house is located. Huge buildings grew downtown and shopping centers mushroomed. Even our landmark church had been destroyed by the '71 earthquake and rebuilt. And our families had moved away shortly after we had.
So, Saturday morning, I took myself on a 3 1/2-tour of Glendale. I visited the high school, junior highs (middle schools, now, and I had attended both) and the two home neighborhoods. I even cruised one of Tom's parents' former houses. I crisscrossed all the main streets and some of the little ones, from Brand Park to Forest Lawn. and Burbank to Eagle Rock. I got reacquainted with Glendale--and it's prettier than I'd remembered.
There were two more scheduled events. The first was the main one for the weekend. It was just a stand-up snack/dessert affair in a room at Brand Park where some of us went early to set up our art and the food. I think about 70 people attended, all told (our class numbered close to 600). We made our own name tags from photo-copied yearbook pages and just stood around talking--a little more laid-back, this time. In the background, someone (I'm not sayin' who) tried to play some louder music and get some karaoke going, but it didn't take. He had missed the memo, clearly.
It was all fun and the artwork was impressive and eclectic and we all had a big time trying to cover some of the span of years that had passed between us in an impossibly short time. We broke after three hours, or so and split up for dinner. Our little group--quieter and more targeted, still--ended up at a hip, wine-fanciers'-sort of restaurant on South Brand in our own room. With all of that, though, Brett and I still hadn't spent much time talking just to each other, so we planned to meet for breakfast next morning.
Which we did. It was a great way to tie it all up. He left to catch a plane back to Saratoga and I started my little journey back to Grass Valley.
Am I at "an age" where this sort of thing matters more to me? We are among other things, accumulations of our memories, and I feel as though I gained access to more of them this weekend. We knew each other in the first 20 years of our lives and I'm reconnecting with some of these same souls at the beginning of, perhaps, the last 20 years for most of us. We looked a bit (sometimes more than a bit) different and the yet the same. We sounded more the same than different. Of course, we were quite aware of many who were no longer with us--two of my best friends as a senior among them. That didn't make any sense, at all.
All of this continues to impress upon me the value of the newer tools we have to stay connected to people. I, myself, have terrible skills in this area. Facebook, for all its faults, facilitates the connections in such a way as even I can manage. I'm grateful for it. And I hope it will make more of this kind of weekend possible as we continue on...
The photos, in order from the top: a yearbook cake decorated like our senior year (actual book on left); at the home of a classmate--Dave Ida displaying some random item he'd seen lying around; Kathy, Karen, Chuck--all Roosevelt peeps, in fact, Karen's and my fams lived in the same apartment on Palmer; Jill, Brett, Louie and Louie's daughter at Brand Library; Brett and Jill at Palate.
I can wallow with the best of them! Nostalgia is one of my favorite substances in which to indulge, though I try not to abuse it. Actually, it's quite difficult to abuse when you have a memory as poor as mine is. So I need help: and who better than some old high school chums who are in the mood, as well? So that's what we all did last weekend.
Over the last number of months, there has formed and grown, via our cool toy Facebook, a group of Glendale High School graduates of my class ('68), many on whom I have not laid eyes for, lo, these last 42 3/4 years. I have attended three reunions--10, 20 and 25; there was one other, but I couldn't make it. Therefore, the most recently I've seen any of these folks is almost 18 years ago, now. To say the least, I've been terrible about keeping in touch.
Most of the people joining up on the FB site are classmates that I certainly remember and liked, but was not particularly close to via common classes or activities. Still, it was so interesting to share memories and to learn what some had been up to for the last, oh, 40 years, or so. Out of that process, an idea grew to have a mini-reunion. From all the input over a few months, last weekend happened. Another by-product of the site and the reunion-planning was that I became more acquainted with several of my classmates who have spent their careers in art. So, another part of the reunion activities included an art show with about six of us participating.
But first, I had to get there. I like to drive, plus I wanted to take some pieces of calligraphy and a few baskets and a couple of display tables, etc. The first event was planned for 5pm Friday, so I calculated about 7-8 hours of travel and allowed for settling into the hotel. If you've seen the blog posts from these last few months, you know that we've had quite a snowy winter, including pre- and post-. It became obvious by early Thursday afternoon--Tom's birthday--that I might get snowed in and not be able to leave on Friday morning as planned. So, I chained up the Sube, threw in the tables, art and pot-luck food (for two of the events) and carefully drove out to the closest county road, which is Greenhorn by our mailboxes, 3/4 miles away, where I hoped a county plow would have it cleared by the time I needed to go the next morning. 
Then I hiked back. Tom and I had planned to go out that evening to celebrate his birthday, but I ended up making dinner and chocolate cake, instead, which worked out fine. And the power stayed on, which was extra-fine (and unusual). That's Tom at the top of the page, of course, holding his four-layer apple/sour cream chocolate cake (which, naturally, we gilded with a bit of Cherry Garcia).
Next morning, at about 7:30, with the rest of my luggage (including three annuals that I'd stupidly forgotten to put into the car the day before), I set out in the falling snow on foot to get to where I'd left the car, hoping that Greenhorn had been plowed. There I am, ready to go, then, in the next shot, looking back at Tom, who is delighted not to have to accompany me--you have to mag in to see how big his smile is.
The next pic is that of my boot tracks as I hike toward the car. Upon arrival at Greenhorn, however, I saw it had not been plowed, and lots of snow had also piled up around the Suby. I threw my stuff in, started the engine, began to clean the windows, and then to kick wildly at the snow in front of the car to try to make a path over to some truck tracks in the road I thought I could use to drive out.
Then, I heard a lovely sound--indeed, the loveliest in this particular situation: a little tractor-plow chugging over the hill. It was one of our neighbors, Mike, who had come to scrape the snow away so that his wife (who also drives an Outback) could get to work. So, here you see a shot of Mike gallantly making a path to the tire tracks on the far side of the road, which I could, then, follow to a plowed street in town. And I was on my way by 8:15!
(cont'd)
Another big storm stomped through last Friday. Far less heralded than the last few big ones, we didn't consider it a factor as we made our plans to drive to San Francisco for the weekend to celebrate Rachel's and Mike's birthdays (Mike's is 8 days prior to Rachel's, which was on Sunday). By Saturday morning, we were looking at another foot of snow on the patio table-gauge and everywhere else. Another thing we had was no power--again.
They are two separate issues: that of being snowed in and that of having no power. This time the "snowed-in" side of the stormage equation was more of a concern, as we had actually planned to go somewhere. We did give it a try. We chained up the Suby and tried to drive from in front of the house (photo) up to the top of the driveway. We didn't make it.
We'd pretty-well decided that we were stuck. Around 3:45 in the afternoon, as Tom and I sat in the kitchen by a bright window doing puzzles and knitting (you figure out who was doing which), we heard the faint mechanical music of Super-Neighbor Scott's little snowplow chugging it's way up the long steep driveway. It took us an hour to pack and close down the house.
A rainy San Francisco seemed almost balmy as we picked up Dylan on our way to Rachel and Mike's. Their new place is in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, just south of the Mission area. 
Dylan has just moved, as well, and Tom helped him on Sunday for an hour or so to finish up the process. His new digs are in the northern end of the Mission district. I have lost track of all the SF neighborhoods in which our kids have lived, but their transiency has helped us learn the city layout pretty thoroughly.
We got into town about 8, Emi joined us soon thereafter, and we all spent a wonderful evening eating Indian (the sub-continent) pizza (fabulous), playing Scattergories and laughing our heads off. Raining like crazy outside.
On Sunday, Rachel's birthday, the four of us went to tasty Mexican breakfast at a local hole-in-the-wall establishment. I ordered sopes, a rare treat. Later, after Tom and Dylan came back from schlepping sofas, we muddied up all our shoes in a nearby park throwing the flying round things which were among the birthday gifts. Clearly, Rachel and I need a little more practice. It's that last little flick of the wrist, I think.
All against the background of a bit of March Madness. Fun weekend. More brownies for Scott.
Tom and I drove home that night to a very cold (44 degrees inside) house and simply flicked on the lights...
When it comes to strong preferences, you can count on me. I prefer not to call them addictions, because, well, who likes to say out loud that they might be addicted to anything? Besides, it's not like I should be checking into rehab or anything...unless you know about a facility for the recovery from an addiction to--pizza.
I love pizza. I love it. If there's pizza on the menu, that's what I'm getting. In my defense, it's really quite nutritious, right? Grain, veggies, dairy. Lots of dairy. A couple of years ago, Tom and I designated Sunday evenings as "pizza night". Now that I actually write it out, I guess it seems a little goofy for sixty-somethings to have a specific meal weekly meal devoted to pizza--or anything, for that matter. Sounds like a church youth-group come-on. But there it is.
Just as it is pertaining to my little problem with ice cream (sweet stuff in general, truth be told), I really do appreciate quality. Yes, the fine, painstakingly hand-made chocolates at Dorado are truly divine (AND gorgeous!) and, given one, would eat it very slowly and enjoy the ride, but I'm also very happy with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (FYI).
It's the same with pizza. Lefty's and Hot Italian serve amazing pizzas. But, have you tried DiGiorno's? DiGiorno's is our go-to safety-net meal. Big, chewy, tasty, lots of cheese--and done in 20 minutes. We've tried most of the other brands generally found in a supermarket frozen-food case. Take it from us.
Mostly, though, I make our Sunday pizza from scratch, including the dough. It usually takes about 2 to 2 1/2 hours from yeast in the water to lovely, hot fresh pizza.
The dough is key, obviously. It is a subject about which there are myriad, and strongly-held opinions. There are those, for example, who would never use the kneaded dough until at least the next day and up to five days later (development of fermentation). For some, the ingredients, including the correct form of the yeast, are very carefully measured (and bread flour--hard winter red--is preferred, not "all-purpose").
But everyone agrees that it's mostly about the kneading. I just throw the ingredients together (including, normally, about half whole wheat and half ordinary all purpose), but I knead it for at least ten minutes. Some say it should be much longer (to achieve a nice stretchy "baker's window"). But I compromise. I also sometimes knead in garlic and herbs, which isn't exactly standard. And, no, I can't throw it around, like they do in restaurants. I understand why they do it--the centrifugal force makes a nice fat edge--but I can stretch it and get a similar result.
As for toppings, for me it's all about the cheese. Usually, it's whole-milk mozz (for its fabulous melting qualities) plus one or two other cheeses, including Jack, gorgonzola, parmigiano, romano, chevre, or whatever. Most of the time I don't use pizza sauce, just olive oil, with seasonings (hot pepper flakes, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper), but pesto is probably my fave. I do make tomato sauce from time to time. 
We also like mushrooms, olives, artichoke hearts, carmelized onions, fresh or sun-dried tomatoes, etc. NO green peppers. Ever. Dylan loves raw eggs cracked over the top during baking. My favorite restaurant pizza? Probably pear/gorgonzola at Lefty's or California Pizza Kitchen. I've made it at home, but I usually don't have the ingredients lying around--plus I'm a little lazy.
Alton Brown advocates a large, unglazed tile that sits permanently on the bottom surface of the oven to get the best results from home-baking. I haven't gotten one, yet, but I do use a pizza stone on the bottom rack with the temp cranked up to 450 or 500 and get pretty good results. I don't have a peel (big paddle), yet, and will probably make one one of these days. That way the stone could be hot before the pizza even hits it.
I haven't mentioned Tom's pizza preferences and that's because he's pretty happy with whatever comes out of the oven, thankfully. He probably has a more generally accommodating attitude about food, in general, which has (heh heh) played right into my hands, all these years. So far, he's perfectly content to humor my foodie tendencies--some of them perhaps a bit more extreme than consuming pizza at least once a week (a topic for another time). At least he hasn't yet suggested professional help...
Ha! Well, I won't repeat the last post, though it would all be appropriate. Exactly one week after the last storm, a bigger, colder storm came blasting through, cutting our power for 4 1/2 days, this time, and leaving us under two feet of new snow. There was snow way down to 1000 ft (we're at 2500) at this latitude.
But, we keep learning, right? So, for example, instead of putting food outside in bins to keep it cold, it turns out to be more convenient and at least as effective to pack large containers with snow and put them in the fridge and freezer. I had already buried the frozen DiGiorno's in the snow (under ordinary circumstances, our go-to last-minute meal option), so I just left them and dug 'em up this morning. Next time we're too lazy to cook, we'll discover how they fared.
Little treats every day help. Swedish Fish, popcorn, pudding, pancakes. A bit sad that something like that works for us sixty-somethings, but there you go.
Also, we discovered that, with this much snow, our little, all-wheel drive Suby can't negotiate our steep, hilly/curvy driveway/road, even all chained up. We got stuck on Echo Glen and needed our wonderful neighbor, Scott, to dig us out with his little Bobcat. We had to leave the car about 1/4 mile away, at the nearest plowed road and hike back home. Next day, though, Scott made it all the way to the top of our driveway with the mighty little plow, so we could park at home, again. Scott's the man!
LOVE the snow--but it's really the power thing that makes it a bit of a challenge--especially for Tom and his work. So. We will have ourselves a generator by next winter. Keeping the computers going and the toilets flushing would make a storm mostly pure fun without the negative undertones...
Today, we have "liquid sunshine" all day (and tomorrow?) to help with snow-removal (though it will be around for many weeks, even if no more white stuff falls from the sky). It's a warmer, gentler storm, this time.
It's always a little disconcerting to me that, as an avowed tree-hugger, I miss certain things so much, like my computer, indoor running water, a phone or a brighter light. I've become very accustomed to a lifestyle that doesn't have to set aside hours a day to keep fire going for warmth or snow melted for washing. 
We rely so heavily on there being some kind of power available at all times. Oh, we'll solarize at some point, of course. And get a more efficient furnace, etc. Still, my personal mantra of "simplify where ever possible" doesn't seem to show up in any significant way as our being any different than the average energy-hog American. Certainly, we haven't measurably sacrificed.
(By the way, there's a shot of a PG&E truck--a favorite sight in these parts--parked near our mailboxes the day before power was restored.)
But, that's an ongoing challenge and we'll keep at it. Meanwhile, we're grateful for the beauty AND the usually-available power we still consume as we live out here in the trees. We know that it's special to live in the boonies with all the comforts of city folk.
It was a beautiful drive--rainy, but so green! Lots of folks think I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley is boring to the max, but I like it! The hills and agriculture (minus the feed lots, I must say) are lovely to me any time of year, but especially spring.
