Learning To Play

It seems easy enough when you watch other people do it. 

One just casually places the soft pads of one's fingertips gently on the sweet spots on the neck. The other hand strums and plucks with confidence. Steel laughs and hums into the wooden cave, and then the miracle happens: beautiful ballads, haunting love songs, and soft pink lullabies waft forth.

Not.

The reality is that learning how to play my upright bass activates myriad uncharted neuropathways, all clamoring for personal and immediate attention. What note am I supposed to be playing? What string do I need to find, with both hands committed to completely different tasks? The tender tip of my finger needs to press the thick steel string on to the neck at precisely the right spot, and hit it HARD. 

I am to ignore the pain. 

Simultaneously, my right hand has its own assignment: damp the previous note, find and play the new one. All this while my short-term memory gropes for the words, and my ears, lungs, and vocal cords strain to croon like Diana Krall, with the whole thing on pitch and in perfect time. 

I know it's possible. I just don't know if it's possible without peeing my pants.

I'm seeing glimmers of hope, though. I played a whole song without an error yesterday. (Okay, there are only 2 open-string notes in the bass line of "Sally Goodin," so technically, you could do it on a set of well-tuned drums, but still....) I can play both the C and G scales in both directions. I figured out both "Frere Jacques" and "Doh! A Deer" by ear. 

Rick and I even wrote a song together: Silent Angels. We're going to perform it, as well as ten other songs, at a Rett Syndrome benefit concert in Teton Valley.

In front of many attentive people.

Just the two of us.

With nowhere to hide.

Excuse me. Gotta pull on the Depends and practice now.

Griddle Girl Rides Again

I have rediscovered the joys of making pancakes. It's been a while, but I'm back in the griddle.

Part of it is that I have the right equipment. The new cast iron scorcher and I have finally reached detente: I have agreed not to overheat its saucy bottom, and it has signed up for the breakfast "catch and release" program. Between a compliant cooking surface, the sturdy flipper, and enough cooling racks, I had all I needed but the motivation.

The San Jose Mercury News was the unlikely source of inspiration. They ran an article citing a panel of pancake experts, and I quothe: "Use real butter, real maple syrup, and don't beat the batter too much." How can you not be attracted to a food item so simple that a panel of experts couldn't find anything to fight about?

The article also included a multi-batch recipe for straight-up pancakes. Mix the dry ingredients in a big bucket and store in the cupboard. When the maple muse strikes, pull out three cups, add eggs, milk and a little melted butter, and voila! You'll be flapping these jacks before you know it.

The Green Queen

I am not green, yet.

At work today, I threw a personal-sized water bottle in the black bucket when the blue bucket was sitting right there beside it. This does not mean I'm a bad person. I took it back out and put it in the blue bucket. What it does mean is that I have not sufficiently trained myself to make greener choices by habit. The very fact I had a water bottle in my hand at all would be your first clue. 

I'm not okay with this, but I take solace in the knowledge that awareness is the first step in any improvement program. I'm heading in the right direction. Meanwhile, as I tag along at the end of the parade with horse poop on my sneakers, my sister Sandi is at the front with the big baton, leading the grass-roots band. She has the greenest It Starts With Me campaign of anyone I know personally, except maybe Pamela McDaniels, and I only know her from work.

Sandi unplugs her microwave and computer when she's not nuking seaweed for soup or editing stories for her online writers group. She sends old computer bits to recycle depots. She's on a first-name basis with the folks in the health food store where she buys all natural soap and cleaning products. She recycles used tea bags, although I forget for what... does she put them in the soil of her tomato plants to keep bugs away? She signs and forwards online petitions to ban the mining of uranium, and joined millions around the world in "Earth Hour," shutting down her electricity for one hour. Her search engine of choice? Blackle, an energy-saving version of Google.

The thing is, it's not just a focused devotion to a cause. Sandi actually celebrates Earth Day. She loves to sit and watch birds at the feeder, and will grow particular flowers because the hummingbirds like them. She really does stop and smell the roses. And there was nothing better than sitting on the warm rocks at the front of the cottage at sunset, soaking in the softness of the calm lake and listening to the loons.

Sandi, you're an inspiration. Happy Birthday! We sent some pretty flowers to let you know we love you. I only hope they were grown in composted organic soil and delivered by a guy driving a Prius.

Dim Sum Touches Heart

It's an incredible heart joy to stumble on a little authentic taste of home when you're in a foreign country. The unexpected whiff of fresh Johnnycake... the first flaky bite of tortiere on Christmas Eve... the scent of fresh-from-the-fryer poutine.... That's how I'd feel about dim sum at Loon Wah, if I were Chinese. 

I'm not. I'm Canadian, so for those less fortunate, the above food items translate into cornbread, spiced ground pork pie, and french fries covered in gravy and fresh cheese curds. But I do know the taste of someone else's home when I encounter it. Don't ask how: it's a gift, and so is Loon Wah. 

I should know, since I have eaten Saturday lunch there almost every week I've been in the SF Bay area for the past nine years. And I'm the one who bores quickly, remember? However, I never tire of the ballet. 

Daniel, Peter, Cathy, Mei and the rest of the crew move through the modest space like koi in a crowded pond, swooping smoothly from table to table with fresh place settings, bottles of ice cold beer, glass tubs of hot chili oil, the occasional fork, and steaming wicker baskets of non-MSG'ed goodness. 

The cart servers fly in from the shadows, and flit away with empty plates. Whatever it is that keeps fish from crashing into one another is in these waters as well. There's an open, unpretentious friendliness not just toward the customers, but between the staff. That kind of energy translates easily across cultures, no matter what's on the menu.

There are a few selections requiring a tad more gustatorial courage to broach than others, best introduced to your more intrepid dining partners (unless you think Aunt Tillie from Tuscon would like chicken feet, straight up). But even people who would prefer eating at the McDonald's next door will find plenty to delight their delicate palates. 

Unwrap a steamed lotus leaf and discover the piping-hot niceness of sticky rice waiting inside. Drizzle rice vinegar on a pot sticker tinted lightly with chili oil and wash it down with a hit of Tsingtao. Wrap your dimples around the dumplings known as "chiu chow." Before you know it, you'll be asking yourself, "How come Mom never made dumplings stuffed with peanuts, chives, and tiny bits of pork in a slightly sweet sauce when I was a little kid? Why didn't she give me beer? Why don't we have a tuba?" 

You'll ask the question because you'll start feeling at home. 

"Dim sum" translates literally to "touch heart," and I guess that's why we keep going back. I'd rather eat at a place that serves "touch heart" than one that only delivers "fill belly," any day.

The Gripper

Spoiler warning: This post contains very girly concepts. If you're likely to break out in a rash at such ickiness, bail out now and come back on Sunday. We'll be posting riveting new ramblings on our favorite Bay Area dim sum restaurant, Loon Wah. It will be much easier on the testosteroney ganglions, I assure you. 

A few years back, I was facing the fashion challenge of being "mother o' the bride" in what was shaping up to be a stinking hot July. I knew I wasn't going to make it through the day in pantyhose. We hates pantyhose. My inner respirator was lodging fair warning of a strike-to-rule union action, and as we all know, it's not nice to fool with your air intake valve. 

Yet, without some shape wear assistance, my dress was going to fall squarely in the category of "too much information." I felt if I could just find something as lightweight as pantyhose with the legs cut off, that would do the trick. Except... I have tried strategic alterations of pantyhose, and it never goes well. In fact, it goes places you had never imagined newly-freed pantyhose could roll themselves in to. 'Nuff said.

Off I went to Macy's "foundational garments" section with grand hopes and a high-limit credit card.

Armed with about 8 different brands, sizes, and control options, I hit the busy dressing room. By the time I had tried on and taken off the first seven items, I had broken a major sweat and had stubbed my toe twice in the "dancing out of tight underpants" routine in the limited floorspace. However, I was willing to give the cause one more shot. Unfortunately, I had left the most robust "control" item to the last.

I'm not prone to anxiety attacks, but by the time I had struggled and squished myself into place, I will confess to a rising level of panic. It was like sticking your head through stair railings: once you got there, the view wasn't as great as you had anticipated, and now you were facing the really tricky part. 

I needed out. Quickly. 

It became apparent that the only way I could successfully liberate myself was to roll the whole shebang off my thighs like a rubber band off a newspaper. The beast came to life, picking up steam as it hit my ankles, whistling off into the corner of the dressing room. After a few jerky death flails, it lay in a four-inch square of unrecognizable spent spandex. I let out a little hysterical bark. The changing room chatter dulled to an alert silence.

I clearly was not going to spend good after-tax dollars on an apparatus that would have been banned by the Geneva Conventions. However, I couldn't bring myself to return the involuted mess to the attendant in its current condition. 

Grabbing what looked like the waist hole with my right hand, I felt for the thigh opening with my left. I got it on the first try, so I gave 'er a good yank and, voila! I wrenched it back into its correct orientation, holding it extended at full arms-length for five seconds so we were both clear as to who had the upper hand. Unfortunately, instead of letting go of the waist opening, the stress of the previous fifteen minutes caused me to lose my head. I let go with my left hand first. The elasticized thigh opening came ricocheting directly towards my face, with the price tag boomeranging around the edge. The stinging impact left me with a gaping wound on my nose. 

Okay, "gaping" might be a stretch, but it was bleeding.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, I started to howl with laughter... in a nervously quiet dressing room. A voice from three cubicles down called out, "What ARE you trying on? I want one!" 

I looked at the offending tag. "It's called 'The Gripper.'" In seconds, one could hardly hear oneself pant for breath over the ensuing snorts and sniggers.

The nose wound has healed, but the emotional scars remain. So... this should explain a lot.

The Cheese Kid In The Carmel Cheese Shop

We wandered in and weren't five steps across the threshold before The Cheese Kid was unwrapping the cellophane off of half a wheel of some cheese so creamy and delicate he didn't cut it: he scraped off two glistening pearls on to the sides of a wide knife, like butter. Without so much as a "Hello... allergic to dairy?" he leaned across the counter, paddle extended. 

So right off the bat, I figured out you don't have to cut the cheese. (And to all my readers who delight in a good ol' fashioned sophomoric flatulence riff, I say: be strong!) You are apparently permitted to scrape, paddle, rip, dip, or squish a mouthful off the round in whatever way gets the job done. For someone who has been trying to hack delicately away at melty Camembert for decades, this comes as a great relief. And this from a twenty-something to whom we had not yet been formally introduced. 

"Here, try some of that. It's a saucy little 2006 goat's milk Gouda with hints of butter and dill, made in the direct light of a full moon by Armenian trolls. It's a big seller." Honestly, I can't quite remember exactly what he said. All I remember is thinking, "I'm in cheese sample heaven, and it doesn't even look like there's a tasting fee." The sample details elude me, but what lingers is just how freaking good the cheese tasted. 

I don't know if we looked like we were wealthy, or large consumers of cheese, or hungry, but the wheels kept rolling on to the sample cutting board. With an evening "sampler" cheese plate in mind, though, we had to get down to it. But how to "pair" cheeses?

"Well," said Cheese Kid, "I like to think of the process by theme."

I'm telling you, if this retail gig doesn't work out for CK, there is a robust career in consulting waiting for him in Silicon Valley. Anyone who can answer a "how to" question with a full-blown thinking model is gold in these parts.

"I go with either year, milk type, region, varietal... anything that helps compare one thing to another."

What epiphanies abound in that sentence! I love that there's no wrong answer here, just like Bill and his theory about wine pairings. I always appreciate the opportunity to be right.

Of equal importance is that this approach keeps your cheese-mixin' options open for years into the future. As I tend to bore quickly, plan to be around for a long time, and intend on eating a lot of cheese, that's good news. In addition, consider the permutations and combinations of the major food groups of Northern California: an unlimited variety of cheeses, wines, olives, breads, tapas, and chocolates. Youíll quickly belly up to the astounding reality that even if you never leave the San Francisco Bay area, you wonít have to eat the same meal twice for as long as you can keep from tipping off the perch. And if you travel at all, the possibilities are equivalent to thinking, "How far is up?"

Thanks, Cheese Kid. You're quite the culinary philosopher. Plus, you sell great cheese.

[Note: The word "cheese" appears 16 times above. By all measures, that's a LOT of repetition, so I did a thesaurus search to see if I could mix it up a bit. No joy: further research revealed that the only synonym for "cheese" is "tofu," and that's only true in those awful health food stores that sell fake cheese.]

How Not To Look Old

I'm just going to have to get the ugly facts on the table right up front.

I have bought and read the book How Not To Look Old

I love it.

I've learned tons. I have been through both my shoe and clothing closets with a gritty determination I normally reserve for removing burnt-on lasagna from a favorite casserole dish. (It happens, on occasion.) I've dumped dark lipsticks I had worn just the week before. I had Jafar cut in bangs. I've bought more new face goop than I have ever owned before so I can look like I still don't need it.

I liked the straight up, "Girls, we're gonna call a wrinkle a wrinkle" writing. She knows that women want to buy a little tub of reasonably priced pink froth, pat it on their face, and look better, thinner, AND younger.

"Diet and exercise are essential to staying healthy over the long haul. There isn't a woman alive who doesn't already know that. Eating salmon and doing yoga are good things for sure, but they won't give instant results. Other anti-aging books tell you to run a bath, light a candle, chant and practice acceptance. Not this one. We want real, visible, results." Speaking on behalf of all over-the-long-haulers of a certain age, I say, "Sign us up!"

You'll note the shift to the plural pronoun there. I decided it was such a great asset that I would give copies to all my long-haulish friends. And that's when it got tricky. How do you give women in the salmon/yoga/candle/acceptance stage of life a book with the title How Not To Look Old staring them right in the face? Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks.

But I love my friends, so I decided to brave the possibility of offense. Having given away at least 12 copies so far, I'd like to share what I've learned.

Order drinks. Make sure at least half a Cosmo is down the hatch before before handing it over.

Wrap it. The gentle alcohol buzz, coupled with the pleasure of tugging on bows and peeling back tape, will still be fresh by the time the implication of the title sinks in.

Avoid saying things like, "This is for you! It's great. Hope you enjoy it." All true statements, but coupled with the title, you may find yourself sitting alone at a table with two half-consumed Cosmos, a huge plate of nachos, and the bill. It's much better to consider something like, "You don't need what I'm about to give you. However, you have given me so much great advice over the years, I know you'll have other friends you'll want to loan this to. Think of this as a gift for your library."

Finally, immediately flip to the chapter on how to buy great jeans. Highlight the section on how to recognize "mommy jeans" in your own closet, and kill them. Point out you can learn how to choose the right shoes for your perfect jeans, what kind of pockets and how high up, etc. Most importantly, have a sticky note on the "Brilliant Buys" pages that give specifics on where to buy all the brands mentioned at a wide range of prices. Then slide quickly to, "And look! It's the same thing for the chapters on glasses, hair, make-up, underwear...."

How not to look old in your underwear?

By the time you take a breath, she's ordered two fresh Cosmos and is canceling her evening appointments. She's got some reading to do. And, she's still your friend.

I write this today because the book is coming out in paperback in just a week or so. You will buy this book (if I haven't bought it for you already). And then you'll want to share it with your friends. And now you know how it's done.

xxxxxxxxxxx

May 9, 2009
P.S. Dear Anonymous, thanks for your question, "Is there an equivalent book and set of lessons for men?"

Beyond "don't wear a hat when driving" and "avoid hitching your belt directly under your nipples," I am sad to say I think you're on your own. So far... Where there's a demographic, there's a book. Hang in there.