July has been very good to us. Last week we had Kirk, Julie and Mathilda in town. They were housesitting for old friends up in very south Berkeley. I knew that neighborhood when I worked at Cody’s 4th St. It was mostly rented shotgun Victorians that weren’t well kept up. But the wheels of gentrification are turning. The place the kids sat is a really nice Craftsman bungalow, bought at the bottom of the market ten years ago and now a spiffed up sweetie. It’s happening all over. As I drove my old way home after dropping them off, on every block there were four or five houses already fixed up and others on the way.
We dined with them, visited with them and then on the final morning my Saunders men being silent together. Kirk seems well, the blood numbers stay low and he eats well. Julie is in good shape with some taste and smell vagaries because of her traveling companion. When Mathilda was on the way all Julie wanted was water. All this person wants is pickles. The baby is due in early January. We are starting to talk of going up for Thanksgiving.
Because of scheduling at work, Philip and I weren’t able to take our anniversary weekend until 07/01. On the traveling day he got himself home as soon as he could and everything was packed up. I was hoping to get us to Murphys by sundown, but the I 5 had other ideas. So, we drove up to the hills shrouded in gloaming. But we found the place because our hostess gave perfect directions. Our room was just as advertised, cozy, very private with an ensuite bath, good wifi and a nice strong ceiling fan. It gets really pretty warm in the Sierra foothills in early July.
Breakfast appeared magically out our door and we headed out and  down to some dear smartass winemakers. Some may want fortune, some may want fame, I want to be recognized at the Twisted Oak winery in Vallecito California when I walk from the car. (We hadn’t been there in two years and it was the only wine club we held onto, hoping for better days.)
We were welcomed with two cases and a full description of their contents. I confessed having an ‘06 Spaniard to the lady of the house and she was sharp with me. She forcefully (well, forcefully for her) told me that we must drink it right away and send a review.
Once down the hill and back into beautiful downtown Murphys. There is a little service station on Main whose color changes from time to time, and it is the home of Milliaire Winery. It is our other fav in Murphys. We had cancelled our wine club membership with them but they were so welcoming. We tasted and bought and put the cases (yes that is plural) in the back of the Cruiser. (Otherwise known as the Little Blue Opera House—we can get to Murphys with one opera and an oratorio. What? you thought we listened to the local radio??)
We had a lovely lunch and checked out two of the other 22 tasting rooms in that little town. It was in the second room, Tanner, that a problem raised its head. Power went out, and then it came back on, and then it went out for good. There was a fire a valley away that brought down a tower, so phone, electricity, wifi all were gone. The last time we heard anything was that it would be up by 5:30. So we went back to our digs to relax, read and wait. It didn’t happen. We drove to Angels Camp, no power; in fact we were told it was out all the way down to Farmington. California Highway 4 was dark and would be till Sunday afternoon.
So we went back, packed up, left our lovely little nest and headed out towards Lodi. We’d planned on a night there after the two nights in Murphys. As soon as we turned right on the 49, just out of a dark Angles Camp, there was electricity. We could see lights in houses, there was power in San Andreas and in Valley Springs where we stopped at a lovely little bistro called Taco Bell. But no place for our heads. So, we pointed our faces down into the hot darkness of the Central Valley.
We stopped at the big gas station at the junction of Old 99 and the curve of the 12. There I phoned the Motel 6 with whom we had the next night’s reservation. But there was no room for us. They were full because of the fire. Yet fortune smiled and we found a Budget Inn where the sign said “Vacancy.” Would there be rest for the fire-chased weary?
There was. We were greeted by a lovely young South Asian gentleman who answered the pertinent questions. “Yes, we have a room, yes, we have wifi. Just sign here.” Our room was just past the still populated swimming pool, where children cavorted  in the chlorinated air and gentlemen spoke amongst themselves.   Worn but clean it had a big old hotel air conditioner that made a hell of a noise and just pumped out the cold air. It was perfect. Philip had been able to nap in the afternoon but I hadn’t so he enjoyed the joys of being reconnected and I turned into a blissed out turnip.
The next morning, with the fire behind us (power did not come back to Murphys until Sunday afternoon), we were in search of breakfast and after that, wine. We came to Lodi to taste the Zinfandels for which this appellation is duly famous. But breakfast was necessary as was the cancelation of our reservation at Motel 6. This was far more complicated than I could have imagined. Since I hadn’t left a credit card #, I thought to call just as a courtesy. But no, there was a whole phone process that happily ended as expected. Cancelation without fee.
We found the Denny’s, just off Kettleman Ave. This is clearly where the elite meet in Lodi. Sitting on the bench and waiting to be called, we were told that a specific waitress was the best in the place. And so she was. I was able to inform her that Mr.Sandoval  recommended her mightily.
Have you ever watched line cooks at Denny’s or Ole’s or any other short order place? Well my friends, hear me talking to you. One can go to the Cordon Bleu or the CIA, and these are great institutions, but the grill line at any cafe is where you learn to cook.
Our first stop wasVan Ruiten Winery. We knew little of it but that was also true of Milliaire and Twisted Oak when we first found them over 15 years ago. We went in and started to be simply blown away. This is a very delicate terroir and its base is white clay. Van Ruiten makes clear, specific wines including a Pinot that knocked Philip right to the floor. Having been struck by lightning once, we had some mercy on the suspension of our little blue opera house and headed home.
I love the 12 as it crosses the Delta. There was more rain this year and everything looked lush. After that wonderful breakfast, lunch at Isleton or RioVista seemed superfluous. I just wanted to go home.
And so we did. It had been an eventful and wonderful 25th anniversary trip in the best place in the world, the glorious state of California. With the very best husband, Philip Milton Saunders.

Lizzye's Trail Inn: Sierra Mesa Girls

Lizzye's Trail Inn: Sierra Mesa Girls:     How did all of this happen? Well, it’s Janet Starcevich (née Bourgeois) fault. She fb messaged me on 03/09/15. Janet was sitting at her...

Sierra Mesa Girls

    How did all of this happen? Well, it’s Janet Starcevich (née Bourgeois) fault. She fb messaged me on 03/09/15. Janet was sitting at her husband’s hospital bed and throwing a long net. She caught me. And then in Feb. of this year, I heard from Catherine Adde. She lives just up the street from my Mommy/Julie on Canyon Crest. And somehow we stared talking about getting together with other Sierra Mesa girls. It seemed so simple.

(this is Janet, ain’t she gorgeous?)

I come down to my old home town once a year. I get in my little car, go to Oakland Airport, get on a Southwest flight and go to Burbank Airport. This is the easiest flight in the world. Katherine E. Jenkins (the previously mentioned Mommy) has her birthday on May 3rd. The Kentucky Derby is run on the first Saturday of May. What do these two days have in common? Somewhere in the beautifully twisted DNA of my mother’s family is a gene for the love of horses. My Aunt Esther had it, Uncle Danny had it and Uncle Sam was a bookie. My sister Julie read every book on horses by the great Marguerite Henry. Every first weekend in May I come back to the house in the Upper Canyon to celebrate my mother and to watch the horses run.
In previous years, we used to cram ourselves up into my old bedroom, the smallest room of the house, because that’s where the old big TV was. We crammed ourselves into that little room with the big screen so Mommy could see the race. There is now a much bigger and easier-to-move screen in the living room.
And there is a piece of the rub. You see, if the big TV is down in the living room, where it is comfy and warm and the old lady can hold court, why shouldn’t we just watch horses run all day? Well, we did and it was so luxurious. But other people needed me.  Catherine needed me. I promised to call her and meet up at her mom’s house. I didn’t, I was watching the horses with my Mommy and Sestra for which there is no excuse.
My sister and I finally tore ourselves away and went down to Claro’s Arcadia. I had ordered two trays from our favorite Italian deli to take to the party, more about that later. I gave my name and the lovely young man said they didn’t have the order. The order was in San Gabriel. I started to get testy because the website didn’t tell me that it went directly and only to the San Gabriel store. When I called I said I wanted to pick up at Arcadia, three times. The same lovely young man said he could do the trays in about ten minutes. And so he did. We were out of the store in time to get to Catherine’s parents’ place by 2. I just adore good customer service.
We got up to the party house right at 2 and dropped off the completely unnecessary trays. The table in the dining/family room was already groaning under the offerings of 20 middle aged women. This party was going to be grand but what was it doing at Catherine’s parents house and not at Mommy’s? Very simple, look at the numbers. My sister’s beautiful side garden can, with its delightful Mission style fountain, hold about ten people, 13 at a stretch. And we don’t have enough chairs. By the week before the party/reunion the guest list hovered around 20. How did this happen? The answer has everything to do with the glorious and organized Catherine. In real life she is a very important and high end travel agent.

(This was us in 1967. Some of us were in another full 6th grade class because this was the Baby Boom and our school needed 1 1/2 classes each of 5th & 6th grade. Look hard at the photo of Miss Cade. She was as glamorous as a Vegas showgirl. She drove a Mustang and went away on Easter vacation with that black hair and came back a platinum blonde.)

Sweet Jesus Catherine knows how to throw a party. She offered her parent’s house once the tally went over 15. I keep on talking about the party without defining it. What I first thought of as a get together with Catherine and Nancie and anyone else who was in the area that day. It became the grand gathering of women from as far north as Janesville, as far east as South Lake Tahoe. Debra and I came from the East Bay and Karen (pronounced: Kahren) from Los Osos. And they came because Catherine asked them. She set up the FB group, she was the contact, she was the hostess extraordinaire who made this all happen. And this was the Sierra Mesa School Girls Reunion.
I showed up with my ancient Mother. She had been asked for by several of the attending ladies. Janet’s and Catherine’s mothers were also in attendance. There was Karen Veblen, there was Linda Kunahiro and Janet Shapiro and Shelly Johnson and and and. It was pure heaven.
They were so sweet to me and sang the round that my mother taught me and I seem to have taught the rest. It was a splendid party.
Go to parties,my sweets. Meet old friends, tell old stories and figure out who you are now.
You never know what will happen.

poachng

Richard and Vickie picked us up at 9:30am. We, the four of us, went to Orinda to do some poaching. We are in search of a new music director. Dr. David Farr, having served the Church devotedly with his music and his scholarship, decided to retire. St. Paul’s needs to find a new choir boss. That’s what we were doing in Orinda.
The processes of choosing a new music director is fraught with misunderstandings. What do we as a church need? What do we as a choir, who have sweated so much blood and gotten so good, need? How do I do as a Congregationalist not blow up a meeting of sweet Episcopalians trying so hard to be nice to each other that nothing is being done? No, I don’t understand why the Episcopal Church runs itself the way it does, but it does.
Philip, the non-believing Liturgy-loving Baptist and Vicki, without whom St. Paul’s Music would collapse, are both on the search committee. Your humble servant is not, for reasons noted above. Thus it was surprising  when Philip asked, “Do you want to go to Orinda Community Church on our Sunday off?” He gave me the bona fides on the organist/choir director and I was very impressed. So armed, we headed east to Orinda.
It was a beautiful day on the other side of the hills and Vicki knew where we were going. And where that was, was a beautiful A-frame church where we were sweetly and graciously greeted. And there, in fact was the rub. We seated ourselves on the left hand of the main aisle, in the back (to quote the great Dr. Mary Ellen Kilsby, “the unholy amen corner”). There we sat, five (Sarah Smith joined us) strangers to Orinda Community Church, and tried to be unobtrusive. We failed spectacularly.
The first tip off was that nobody knew us. We shook the hand of anyone who offered, smiled and said we were just visiting. Now, this line might have worked if there had been just Sarah or even just V & R or P & E. But no, there we were, the five of us, sitting in a row and singing way too well. One can only say “we’re just visiting” so many times before it sounds ridiculous.
The music was why we were there and it did not disappoint. The choir was 17 strong with two first rate soloists, baritone and tenor. Thy did a handsome job on the anthem they sang, “Draw us in the Spirit’s tether” by Harold Friedell. We know this so well we were singing along and that was one more nail in our unobtrusive coffin. Then there was the keyboard music. The organist in question did elegant and complex changes on “the Lord of the Dance.” As the service continued and I took Communion at a UCC church again for the first time in over three decades, I was offered a Cup of juice or wine for intinction. I went for the juice and was taken all the way back to Welch’s grape juice in little glass cups, in beautiful trays passed by friends to each other. Ah yes, I remember it well. Sap that I am, I wept for nostalgia and joy at being in a Congregational church again. They have pew Bibles but why they use the Methodist Hymnal is beyond me.
We did our due diligence and listened the postlude. The director/organist played holy hell out of Buxtehude. On a very limited instrument he was able to show his real stuff. Damn, he is good, his choir is good and I for one want him very much. Now the hard work began. Could we get out of the church without one more lovely person asking what we were doing there? Not a blessed chance. From where we were sitting there was no way out except through the classic Congregational greeting line. If we tried to go out the side door, on the far right side, it would be just too obvious. So I stepped up and faced the gentle minister. “So what brings you to our church?” He was being so nice. I looked up into those mild sweet eyes and said “Do you know your organist is looking for another job?” He was a professional. First he said no and then the penny dropped. He shook my hand and I almost ran out the front doors.
We the poachers met briefly in the parking lot and exchanged first impressions. My fellow felons were not unduly wroth with your humble reporter. What else was I supposed to do? LIE? No, that wouldn’t have worked, I’m not that good.

Loretta Castorini: What am I going to tell him?
Cosmo Castorini: Tell him the truth. They find out anyway.

The work goes on.

letter to the presidents

I sent this letter at the change of the year. I have heard nothing from either gentleman.



Rev. Albert Mohler, President
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 2825 Lexington Rd.
Louisville, KY 40280
Dear Brothers in Christ,
Rev. Mark Labberton, President Fuller Theological Seminary 135 N. Oakland Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91101

      I come to you with an honest question that I cannot answer. As a grandmother I have children to guide. As a Christian in the World, I must show the love of Our Lord to non- believers. My question is compelling because of my love for the Church Temporal in all of her sorrows and historical sins.          Why, Dear Sirs, does the Evangelical aspect of the Protestant Church obsess about homosexuality?
     Evangelical is a loose term because all Christians are called to evangelism. Conservative as a term for your schools doesn’t make much sense to me. Great scholarship is done at both of your institutions. But the attention of Evangelicals to one of the 617 Laws of Kashrut confuses me greatly. I have seen both of your photos online. Neither of you wear facial hair (Lev. 19:27) and you seem in those pictures to be wearing blended fabric (Deut. 22:11). So what is it about Lev. 18:22? Gentlemen, I just don’t get it.
     The obsession with homosexuality is not limited to the Protestant Church. The Roman and Greek churches have been terrified by man love since their inception. (No one mentions woman love in our Scriptures.) But I am asking this question of you because it is the Evangelical aspect of the Protestant Church that is making all of the noise against marriage equality. Rome has too many other problems and does not like to explain. The Greek/Russian/Syrian churches are, I hate to say it, moribund. They are not my concern as I live in this blessed land whose Constitution enshrines the separation of Church and State. But it breaks my old liberal heart to see the Church Temporal held up to ridicule. Sometimes I am left to saying, “You can’t choose your family,” because I simply don’t understand. I can’t fight the argument because it has never been clearly explained to me.
     You, both being scholars far beyond my ken, know the hard history of our faith. In this great land we have had to break through the theological supports of slavery and of the subjugation of women. Those supports were canards and deserved to be broken. How is marriage equality different? The laws of marriage in the Hebrew Scriptures have nothing to do with one man and one woman. Please explain to me, by the mercy of Christ, why this particular Hebrew law is more important than all others.
     I do understand, my brothers, that you will not respond to me directly; you are the leaders of great seminaries. But I do hope that you delegate my question to someone who can give me an answer.
Yours in Christ,

letter to the Anglican Comunion

      The Anglican Communion is tying itself into knots trying to square the circle of bigotry in the name of Christ. Poor dears, you have tried to do this impossible thing in the past. You supported slavery and fought very hard against women’s suffrage. Yes, there were primates of the Anglican Confession piously nattering about God’s will while Isobel Pankhurst was being force fed in prison. Well, Lambath Palace is behind history’s eight ball again and you are tut-tutting at the Episcopal Church of America just because we love weddings.
       bigot: A person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions
Origin:Late 16th century (denoting a superstitious religious hypocrite): from French, of unknown origin. ( Oxford English Dictionary)
 This definition is so clear and so damning. “A religious hypocrite.” The Church Temporal is that imperfect knowledge of Christ which lives in the world and history. The Church Temporal has preached and lied. It lied about the Jews thereby creating its greatest sin. It lied about slavery. And it lied about queers in all of its history.
First we must acknowledge that nobody in the Hebrew Scriptures cared about who women loved. There is not one statement or law about women loving women. And there is but one single verse about men loving men and that is Leviticus 18:22—”Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” That’s it, that’s all there is. There is no more about man love than there is about wearing blended fabrics (Deut. 22:11) or facial hair (Lev. 19:27). And yet the Church Temporal has made itself mad and cruel, so very cruel, on the subject of men loving men. What is the deal?
Why is homosexuality the worst thing that anyone in the Church Temporal can think of? Not slavery, not the subjugation of half the human population, but simply the love of man for man. And this pernicious bigotry is tearing at the very heart of the Anglican Communion. All that we in the Episcopal Church of America have done is to let loving, believing Christians get married. What, y’all don’t like marriage? No that’s not the problem. The problem is the British Empire and its aftermath. The problem is colonialism and overcompensating.
The Anglican Communion is embarrassed. It is embarrassed by its colonial history, the history of how it came to Africa and how it set its roots there, a foreign religion imposing itself on cultures it did not understand.
We in the Untied States know this song too well. We brought our fellow human beings to our shores in chains. We denied them the use of their languages and religions. We forced our faith on them. Yet that faith miraculously became their own, sustaining their lives and feeding their liberation.
I have no problem with evangelical religion. Evangelism sits at the heart of Christianity. Francis Xavier was perhaps the greatest evangelist after St. Paul.  And he knew that to spread the Gospel one must know the culture to which it would be spread. He was the father of cultural anthropology. But the evangelical mission combined with empire is just bad for everybody. Send out the missionaries, but never support them with armies. We did it so many places and got it so wrong. Hawaii and the Presbyterian missionaries is only one example. The Bible supported by the Rifle did not work for us. And this is what the Anglican Communion is facing right now.
Dear Anglican Brethren, you know that anti-queer bigotry is real. And you know that it is not Christian. But you turn yourselves inside out to “accept cultural differences.” You are so afraid of offending your post-colonial nations that you won’t do the work of evangelism. Our job as Christians is to speak the truth of Christ and his Grace. Where there is hatred or denial we must sow love. Where the Church finds racism, it must fight it. Where it finds the hatred of women, be it cutting, plural marriage or the under-education of girls, the Church must fight it. This is our love and duty to Christ. As an evangelistic faith we have to preach to all the World. And sometimes, because of our long and dirty history, we have to address and take out the beam in our own eye.
Why the Anglican Confession and larger Church Temporal is so anti-queer is a question I cannot answer. What matters is that we can fix this sin.  In my lifetime I have watched a very homophobic nation, my own, change to full equality. It’s not that hard to do and so much love can be taught. The father doesn’t need to piously deny his daughter or son. The mother doesn’t need choose between her child and her faith. These easy lessons can be taught to anyone. But, it seems, Lambeth Palace does not choose to do the work. Rather than lead the Anglican African churches to the love of all, it succumbs to colonial guilt. “I cannot tell you what to do now as I told you what to do in the past down the barrel of a gun.” Well folks that is the history of the Church Temporal. Just cowboy up and do your job of love.
Get over your Anglican selves. You have destroyed some of your very best: Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde (to mention only two) were ruined by this strange fear of man love.
Changing a theology that was wrong from its inception is not very hard. You can flail around and deny the Episcopal Church of America a seat at the governing table, but we will just go on our merry way and take our money with us. Or you can just admit that you are on the wrong side of history again. You can open your arms and hearts by letting loving faithful Christians get married. It really isn’t as hard as you think it is. Oh, and by the way, just to remind you, we did “open a big can of whoop ass on you at Yorktown.”

an unanswered letter

Rev. Albert Mohler, President
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 2825 Lexington Rd.
Louisville, KY 40280
Dear Brothers in Christ,
Rev. Mark Labberton, President Fuller Theological Seminary 135 N. Oakland Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91101
I come to you with an honest question that I cannot answer. As a grandmother I have children to guide. As a Christian in the World, I must show the love of Our Lord to non- believers. My question is compelling because of my love for the Church Temporal in all of her sorrows and historical sins. Why, Dear Sirs, does the Evangelical aspect of the Protestant Church obsess about homosexuality?
Evangelical is a loose term because all Christians are called to evangelism. Conservative as a term for your schools doesn’t make much sense to me. Great scholarship is done at both of your institutions. But the attention of Evangelicals to one of the 617 Laws of Kashrut confuses me greatly. I have seen both of your photos online. Neither of you wear facial hair (Lev. 19:27) and you seem in those pictures to be wearing blended fabric (Deut. 22:11). So what is it about Lev. 18:22? Gentlemen, I just don’t get it.
The obsession with homosexuality is not limited to the Protestant Church. The Roman and Greek churches have been terrified by man love since their inception. (No one mentions woman love in our Scriptures.) But I am asking this question of you because it is the Evangelical aspect of the Protestant Church that is making all of the noise against marriage equality. Rome has too many other problems and does not like to explain. The Greek/Russian/Syrian churches are, I hate to say it, moribund. They are not my concern as I live in this blessed land whose Constitution enshrines the separation of Church and State. But it breaks my old liberal heart to see the Church Temporal held up to ridicule. Sometimes I am left to saying, “You can’t choose your family,” because I simply don’t understand. I can’t fight the argument because it has never been clearly explained to me.
You, both being scholars far beyond my ken, know the hard history of our faith. In this great land we have had to break through the theological supports of slavery and of the subjugation of women. Those supports were canards and deserved to be broken. How is marriage equality different? The laws of marriage in the Hebrew Scriptures have nothing to do with one man and one woman. Please explain to me, by the mercy of Christ, why this particular Hebrew law is more important than all others.
I do understand, my brothers, that you will not respond to me directly; you are the leaders of great seminaries. But I do hope that you delegate my question to someone who can give me an answer.
facebokan unanswered quesionYours in Christ,

Houston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2B_Q4LkRUY

Yes, it’s the Gatlin Brothers, yes it’s C & W and it’s been the song in my heart for a month. All through the madness that is Christmas at the store, through the music and celebration at church, Houston has been the bell ringing in me. For it holds two women who are the world to me.
The friends you make in early youth are deeper and stronger than any heart can comprehend.  In 1967 Sierra Mesa School in Sierra Madre CA was a grammar school bursting at the seams. Two full 5th grades, a full 6th and a split 5th and 6th. We were the Baby Boom. It was there that I met my first real friend, her name is Sarah Foote. I believe my first formal words to her were “hey kid, do you want to go swing on the swings with me?”

 
(If anyone sees these girls, please contact Katherine Jenkins. They are out and about and probably causing trouble.)

I met Kathleen Victoria Potter when both of us were in the girls’ choir (the Chantettes, I couldn’t make that name up) at Pasadena High School. Under the tutelage of the mad and brilliant Caroline Shannon, we learned “Wir eilen mit Schwachen,” the first Bach I ever sang. Dear friends I tell you, I learned more music under that crazy woman’s hand than I would for many many years.
Through the magic of Facebook, Kathy found Sarah who also found me. Kathy lives in Houston, Sarah in College Station, and they agreed to a meeting. Then the magic happens. Philip gives me the very best Christmas present in my life. He gives me a trip to Houston Texas, to see my friends. Let the wild rumpus start.
SouthWest flies into Hobby airport in the southern area of Houston. My flight was very easy if a little late. The clouds parted just as we went over the Sierras and it was so glorious to see them covered with snow. We also passed over Lake Powell and Chaco Canyon. A seat mate of mine had a smart phone and we looked at the Southwest application that is supposed to tell the traveler what they are flying over. It is useless. Lake Powell is still very low but a true vision from the air. The great kiva and spiral mound of Chaco Canyon are very clear from ten thousand feet and no less awe-inspiring.
Hobby Airport is pretty easy to get around in with very clear signage. Having checked my bag, being an old woman, I waited with my fellow travelers as the our bags slowly slid down the carousel. My bag is way too generic and looks like everyone else’s but I did find it and wondered where my ride was. Well, my ride had been trying to call me. Yes I do have a little cheap flip phone and yes it was charged. But I never answer it. I called Kathy and she said “Go out the big glass doors where you will see two tall blondes jumping up and down.” I went out the doors and there were in fact two tall blondes, one who had not seen me in 40-plus years, jumping up and down and squeaking. The wild rumpus had officially started.
We all talked at once, trying to catch up immediately. Rationally we knew we had four days together. We were not being rational, at all. Kathy knew how to get us where we were going, to her and Jack’s lovely home in the Clear Lake suburb of Houston. This was also my first view of a city that has no planning or zoning department. Once on the freeway south, I saw the ugliest, over-built city in my experience. Clear Lake is a planned sub-division that has no center. There is no downtown, no place to shop, go to dinner or even walk around of a warm evening.  Just acre upon acre of houses, very similar but not “little boxes” that were built for NASA folks and supporting companies. Mostly made of brick in six or seven styles, from two-bedroom bungalows to Tudor fantasies with curved archways over the front doors. The most disturbing thing about the houses in Clear Lake is how low to the ground they are. No built-up porches, no cellars and certainly no stilts. I will return to my problem of water and where it goes later.
I got to the house with the blue door (Kathy went to Bath and had the full Jane Austin experience. There she saw homes with front doors painted Bath Blue. She came home and painted her front door, which is never used, a deep handsome blue). We went into Chez Bacon through the back door where we were met by the dogs: a sweet and very Yorkie person named Bonnie Woo and a mad whirligig of puppy named Daisy. Even to this complete cat person, Kathy’s fur folks are why people have dogs. The guest bedrooms are upstairs and beautifully appointed. Sarah and I shared a bath and all was right. Once ensconced, we met back in the kitchen, had tea and beautiful cheese and slowly the gates of love opened.
I married late. I was 36 years old when Philip and I made our promises to each other. My darling friends married earlier and to the wrong men. Their stories are universal, crossing all classes, races and cultures. When one is in an abusive marriage, there seems to be no way out. But both of them are now free, Kathy for pushing nine years and Sarah only a year and a half. There were tears that first afternoon and not a few. I do not understand this singular yet common pathology and when I don’t understand I get angry. Never angry at my friends but at the creatures they married. Kathy called it righteous indignation. No, my love, it is simple rage and I must be very careful of its seductive power. Both Kathy and Sarah have allowed me to use their names and tell their stories briefly.
Jack came home from work and found us pulling ourselves together but as teary as expected. The men of the house were so careful of us three, giving us time and space to spend with each other. Someday I may describe the love story of Kathy and Jack, but not here. Jack is built like a buff rugby player, has a warm, resonant baritone, works at NASA (more later) and adores the ground upon which Kathleen Victoria walks. Nicolas Shumny is the son of the house and graduate of IU. He once saved his mother’s life. One of Jack’s joys is playing the guitar and singing. Sarah has learned the ukulele, which she brought. They sat on the sofa in the living room, went through song books and made the music of the trip. Kathy loves cowboy songs and especially “Riding Old Paint.” Somewhere in the depths of her phone is a video of Sarah and Jack playing, Sarah singing and your humble servant joining in. She may show it to you if she wishes.
Kathy said she wanted her house to have a name, just as mine does. Well, my house is called “The Prancing Pony.” We even have a sign which was given to us by very dear friends. Her place was in pretty bad shape when she came to live in Clear Lake. She taught herself to do everything, hang drywall, paint and even some rudimentary plumbing. She and Jack turned the house into a thing of beauty. And what does she call this handsome and welcoming home? “The Crack House.” That is my girl.
After a lovely dinner, the party retired to the upstairs family room and watched the first episode of the monumental HBO series From the Earth to the Moon. I love this series and refer to it as Spaceman Spiff. I was surprised that Jack, the true 25-year NASA man, also admires it. Once the show was done so were the older members of the party and we went to our beds. Nicholas could watch whatever he wanted. I laid my head on a pillow where there was no Philip and slept anyway. And so ended the travel day.
All hail Sam Houston, great son of Tennessee and shining star of Texas. But really Sam, get a damned planning department because that’s your name on this hash of a city.