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Merry Christmas, Folks!
Before I get to the description of how things went at our huge and festive Holiday Gala, I want to tell you about some celebrating we did much earlier in the season. In fact, it was the first week of November. Oceana, George, Rocco, Lynne and I went to see the gingerbread house in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. I must confess that when I first heard about this outing, I was more jazzed about hanging out with the aforementioned crew than I was to see some oversized gingerbread dollhouse. I was sure it would be artistic and expertly crafted and all, but I was somehow underwhelmed at the prospect.
When we walked in the door of the hotel, the first thing we saw was a beautifully decorated tree so big we could barely see the limits of it. After taking pictures in front of it, we walked around to the other side, and my jaw dropped. In front of us was a full-size, two-story house, complete with windows and stairs and large archway leading to the hotel's lovely lobby on the other side. There were tables inside the house with paper and crayons, and children were happily coloring. The entire structure was made of gingerbread. The experience was touching and magical.
We took pictures here, too, and read all the statistics about how many thousands of individual pieces of gingerbread went into its construction. We then walked through the arch into the Fairmont's large, elegant lobby, beautifully draped with garlands and lights. A talented pianist, who looked a bit like Clarence, the angel in It's a Wonderful Life, played Christmas songs while the five of us lounged on a couple of couches, drinking cocktails, eating hors d'oeuvres and chatting. At one point, a woman came in with her four-year-old daughter, who was dressed in a black and white holiday dress of velvet and chiffon. The child was immediately enchanted by the piano music, and spent a good 15 minutes freestyle dancing around the piano in a style reminiscent of Isadora Duncan. Her mother, apparently as delighted as we were, never took her camera off her. “Is that stills or video?” I asked her. “I wish it was video!” she replied, mock-forlornly. The piano player was tickled by the young dancer as well.
At a house meeting several weeks later, Karen, who is a professional folk singer, said she'd like to schedule a time for us all to sing Christmas carols together. Sierra, who works at the Lake Merritt Boating Center, responded by saying that every year the Center had a tradition of taking people out on a boat at night and singing carols on the lake. This sounded like a great idea to us! Karen called up and reserved the entire boat just for us Morehousers and a few friends and family. On the scheduled night, we all showed up at the dock just before 9pm. Sierra was dressed in a complete Santa outfit. She wouldn't wear the beard, however. “I tried it and it itched too much. So I'm Mrs. Santa,” she said. After plying us with hot cider and cookies, she had us all get on board the boat, which was decorated with Christmas lights. She handed out songbooks, cast off the lines, and started driving us around the lake, itself softly illuminated by the famous “pearl necklace,” the string of lights that borders its entire 3-mile perimeter. Out on the water, in the relative dark and quiet, we sang our carols together.
As you may recall from earlier posts, I'm a bird-watcher. I noticed that there were flocks of water birds that could faintly be seen in the dark swimming away from the boat. Sierra took the opportunity to steer us over to the corner of the lake that had been cordoned of for the protection of the birds. She gave me a little halogen flashlight and, as we floated passed, I shone it on the sleeping pelicans (both white and brown), egrets, and herons that I had until then seen on the lake only during the day. This was a fun bonus. Then, after a last round of carolling, we headed back to the dock, thoroughly happy from such a convivial event.
You know, I still haven't gotten to the description of our big Gala. Oh well, it'll have to wait until next time!
Until then!
Best Regards,
Gerry
The only difference between a coward and a hero is which way they run when they're afraid.
-- Vic Baranco
Season's Greetings, Friends!
Please accept my apologies for not having written in so long. We've been very, very busy, thank God!
Lynne and I are going to be on the East Coast in January to visit our families. We will be attending Jane's Mark Group on Wednesday evening, January 12, and we'd love to see as many of you there as possible. We'll send out the details later, but we wanted to make sure you saved the date.
In the meantime, here's what's been happening so far this holiday season: December's festivities started off on the first Saturday of the month. Lynne and I drove down to Jack London Square on the Oakland waterfront, which we had been wanting to do since we first moved here. It's a festive place with shops and restaurants and promenades. We had dinner at Scott's Seafood Grill and Bar, which is right on the water. As we were walking in, I asked Lynne if she'd be willing to wait longer in order to get a table by the window overlooking the harbor. “Yes I want a window table, and no I don't want to wait for it.” I've learned not to give voice to my skepticism at such times. Sure enough, when I asked the hostess if there were any window tables available, she said "Of course!", and took us immediately to what appeared to be the only available one. (Score another one for my wife, The Manifester.) The restaurant was beautiful, elegantly lit and festooned with holiday garlands. From our table we got to watch several boats decked out in Christmas lights glide by in the dark. It was a very romantic evening.
Earlier that day we at the Oakland Morehouse had hosted an Introduction to Pleasurable Group Living. The teachers were Marilyn, Ilana, Jack and our very own Sierra. Lynne and I were in the course, along with several of our housemates. There were also new students from a variety of locations and backgrounds, all of whom were articulate, inquisitive, open-minded, and seriously exploring the idea of living in an intentional community. It made for a very dynamic three hours of conversation. I particularly enjoyed the review of the history of group living, culminating in the invention of the postwar, experimental two-in-a-box lifestyle, complete with television programming like “Ozzie and Harriet,” to show people what their own lives were supposed to look like. As one of the teachers said: “Turns out Big Brother wasn't watching us; we were watching Big Brother.”
One of the benefits of group living is that there's always the potential for a party to start at any moment. A couple of nights after the IPGL, a bunch of us were hanging out in the kitchen around 9:30pm discussing plans for our upcoming Christmas Gala, when Karen, bless her heart, decided it was a perfect time to break out her ice cream collection. Karen is an ice cream freak, and has a particular fondness for unusual flavors. She brought out seven or eight different pints, opened them, and passed out spoons and bowls. Oceana, in the meantime, had been having us sample different brands of eggnog in order to choose one for the gala, and Jillian offered a bottle of brandy to spice up the samples. Some folks were even observed combining ice cream, eggnog and brandy.
That's just the the beginning of the fun we've been having this month. The next time I write I'll let you know, among other things, how the gala went and where to go for the January 12th Mark Group.
Until then!
Best Regards,
Gerry
The only difference between a coward and a hero is which way they run when they're afraid.
-- Vic Baranco
Hello Friends,
Wow, what a trip! I swooped into New York on a Thursday for six days so I could work with my mother helping her prepare for her big move to her new home at the Atria senior apartments on the Upper West Side. It was also going to be a chance for her and me to spend some actual time together. We hadn't seen each other for six months – not since Lynne and I moved out here to California. During this first visit back to New York, I would also end up squeezing in Sunday lunch with Deborah and Keith in the garden of a lovely Italian restaurant, plus go to a huge, awesome Mark Group at Sexy Spirits, before swooping back home to the Oakland Morehouse on Wednesday.
Even though I was three thousand miles from home, I experienced several Morehouse miracles while helping my mother decide what to keep and what to discard of her belongings. For years, there has been a very large pegboard in her office. Since before I was born, possibly as far back as when my parents first got married in 1949, that pegboard has been collecting tools, mostly of my father's acquisition, that I also had used on countless occasions. To give you an idea of how far back this goes, the collection included a large pipe wrench that had its original price written on it: $3.29. The same wrench today would cost anywhere from $15 to $35.
My mother planned to take none of these items with her to her new home, and the two of us were in despair as to how to dispose of them. I mentioned our dilemma to my sister and she suggested craigslist. I posted an offering of all the tools for $100 and the requirement that the buyer must come pick them up. Within an hour I got a response. A man came over the next day, paid my mother $100 in cash, packed up every last tool (except the hammer, pliers and two screwdrivers he insisted my mother would need during the process of moving), and left. It was like a dream.
Then there were the books. My mother has always been an academic, an intellectual. At age 19, she was graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe. Our challenge was to dispose of the 86 shelving feet of books she had amassed over her lifetime. I knew she would want to take some of them with her, but the vast majority had to be removed from the apartment somehow.
Again, help came from the extraordinary women in my life. Lynne reminded me that our friend Jill had started a business selling old books on the internet, and that she lived within blocks of my mother. I called Jill, and my triumph at hearing that she'd be happy to unburden my mother of all her books was exceeded only by the pleasure of talking to her on the phone. I would have loved to have spent time with each of our friends individually on this trip, and regretted having had to turn down several invitations to do so. But here was Jill, with a perfect excuse for a brief social visit. She came over and we had a nice hug and a quick chat. She then spent 20 minutes inspecting my mom's collection of books and announced that, if she were to come over for one or two hours a day for the next two weeks, she could remove every volume. Mom was thrilled. At last report, there are now 86 feet of empty bookshelves in her apartment.
These were some of the highlights of the trip. Thanks so much, Suzanne, for the ride from JFK. I apologize for having given you directions that got you lost in your own neighborhood, although it was a great excuse to hang out longer with you. Thanks to Deb and Keith for the seriously fun meal together. Thanks to the Mark Group Leaders for putting on a great Group, and thanks to Margret, Tina, John, Topaz, Armin, Jane and Park for adding your friendship to the proceedings. Thanks also to Tiffany for the late night pickup when I landed back at SFO. Most of all, thanks to Mom for setting the whole thing up.
New York was indeed a nice place to visit. Even better was returning home to my wife, my dog and my wonderful housemates. Our California Adventure continues, as you'll hear about in future posts.
Best Regards,
Gerry
The only people who deserve happiness are the ones who can have it.
-- Vic Baranco
The day after I wrote the last post about my recent experiences with the Snowy Egrets, I believe I received a sign from the local Snowy Egrets that they, as a group, were aware of my recent intense attention on them.
I was on my morning walk along the lake when I spotted a Snowy Egret flying low across the water, headed for the edge of the lake wall, where it landed about 20 feet ahead of me on the side of the path. I had frequently seen gulls hop up onto the wall and stand next to the stream of human pedestrians, but not egrets. As I got within about 10 feet of it, it waddled to the middle of the sidewalk, amidst all the people walking to and fro. This surprised me even more. An egret's feet are not really adapted to walking on a concrete path, so it was an odd sight; it was as if I were watching a cartoon of an egret. Then, when I got within five feet of it, it pooped right in the center of the path and then ran back to the edge of the wall. As I drew even with the bird, I was close enough to touch it, and it seemed to look me in the eye before it took off across the lake again.
As we all get to interpret our lives however we like, I choose to believe it had been sent by its people to say, “Hi!”
Dear Readers,
Recently, while standing at the railing overlooking that little section of Glen Echo Creek that dawdles through Adams Park on its way to Lake Merritt, I watched a Snowy Egret do its classic super-slow-motion walk through the shallow water looking for fish. Its foot appeared to quiver in pain each time it took a step. A Snowy Egret's legs are black, and its feet are bright yellow, so it's easy to see them under the surface of the water. This one's right foot appeared to be missing some or all of its toes. The bird was essentially walking on a club foot. This was surprisingly upsetting to me. I felt bad for this creature who seemed doomed to spend the rest of its life having to survive by hunting in pain.
I didn't tell Lynne about this experience for a couple of days, as I was certain that, given her empathy with animals, it would bring her down even more than it had me. Then, that Saturday morning, we were breakfasting at the IHOP in Emeryville, and I saw that my withholding a communication from my wife was putting distance between us.
"There's something I haven't been telling you because it's kind of negative, but I can feel that it's getting in the way of me relating to you that I'm not saying it.”
"OK, I get it. What is it?”
I told her the story of how it had so disturbed me to see this poor crippled bird.
"First of all,” she said, “Animals adapt. They don't sit around wondering 'Why me?' when a catastrophe happens. If they get injured, they adjust and get on with it. That's how they survive.” I started to feel better. “And besides,” she added, “he might have been born that way. For all you know, he might never have known any other way.” I was by now quite happy I had brought it up, as she had so simply and elegantly given me a winning context for the situation. I finished my scrambled eggs in a much better mood and feeling much closer to Lynne.
As I walked along Lake Merritt the next day, I passed a different Snowy Egret -– one with two normal-looking feet -- feeding in the water fairly close to the lake wall. I suddenly stopped to watch more intently because it seemed to me that, each time it took a step, with either its right foot or its left, its leg quivered. It occurred to me that what I had been assuming were convulsions of pain in the club-footed bird might actually have been a fishing technique. By shaking its feet as it walked, the egret could agitate the silt on the lake bottom to flush out any small fish or other edibles that might be hidden in there. I almost laughed out loud at myself standing there by the water as the joggers huffed by me.
As always, I passed the creek in the park on the way home. I looked over and saw that the club-footed egret was there again, only this time it was in repose. It was standing sleepily on one foot, as herons and egrets sometimes do.
Guess which foot it was standing on.
Thanks for reading.
Best Regards,
Gerry
The thing for a man to be enthusiastic about is the woman he's with. The thing for a woman to be enthusiastic about is herself.
-- Vic Baranco
Hi Folks,
We're baaack! Remember, if you'd like to review any of the posts that led up to this one, please feel free to click here.
The story continues as Tiffany and I were sitting on the couch on the second floor in our effect uniforms, talking in quiet voices while the Effect Course was finishing downstairs. This couch is across the hall from the door to Sierra and Jess' bedroom, which was open, as it usually is (an endearing quality of theirs). We speculated as to whether they were actually inside up in their loft bed. We concluded that they probably were, given that they had just come back on a 25-hour plane flight from Africa earlier that afternoon. Where were they going to go?
As if in confirmation, a few minutes later, Sierra walked down the steps from the bed, stretching and yawning. She looked at us and giggled in appreciation to see two uniformed effect staff sitting in the hall outside her room. She asked what time it was, and we told her it was 9:30.
"Wow,” she said, “We've been sleeping for, like, eight hours. Jess is still asleep.”
She started to rub the side of her neck, complaining that all that sitting on planes had not sat well with her. I offered to give her a neck rub (I am a full-service effect person.). When she said yes, I stood up and had her sit on the couch while I massaged the knot that was bothering her. This was, of course, quite enjoyable. She used the time to describe to us the segments of their flight from Capetown to Johannesburg to Germany to Washington, DC, to San Francisco.
After about five minutes, she thanked me for the massage, stood up and walked back into her room. She saw Jess coming downstairs from the loft bed and she said with a certain pride, “Jess, come look at our Maid Brigade,” and pointed to Tiffany and me sitting side by side on the couch. He smiled in that Mona Lisa way he does.
As 10 o'clock approached, I took off my bowtie, unbuttoned my top shirt buttons and went outside to bring our car around. I had arranged with Lynne that, once the Effect Course ended, she would escort the newly-graduated student down the front steps to the street and into the car for our return trip. I waited while Lynne opened the back door for her to get in, closed the door, then joined me up front.
In the rear-view mirror, I could see our passenger smiling in contentment. She explained that Kate had made a point of telling her that I had not yet done an Effect Course, so she understood she could not divulge anything of what had happened during the evening, a circumstance that seemed to tickle her somewhat, as if she had something over me. It was a pleasantly mellow, late-night ride back to her house, as classical music played from the car radio.
After arriving at her place, Lynne accompanied her to her door, said good night, hugged her, and got back in the car. Without saying anything to each other, we seemed to agree that we had enjoyed the peaceful mood that had been set, and we continued it on the ride back to our house. When we got home, we chatted with a tired and happy Kate about how the car ride had been. She told us she was glad the student had had the restriction of not being able to reveal anything to me, as she had thought it would deepen her experience of the course to digest it silently as we drove.
It had been a rich, full day. At the beginning of A “Typical” Day (Part I), I mentioned that the only thing that could be said to be “typical" about our days here at the Oakland Morehouse is that they tend to end with us crashing headlong into our luxurious bed, exhausted and gratified in equal measure. This day was no different; it was the next thing we did.
It's been a pleasure chatting with you, friends.
Thanks for reading.
Best Regards,
Gerry
The trip to enlightenment is more fun than being enlightened.
-- Vic Baranco
Hi again, everyone!
Previously on A "Typical" Day: Lynne and I had just dropped off the Effect Course student at the Morehouse and we were now headed off to go out to dinner together.
Early on in Lynne's Evaluacy, Linda had taken her for a pedicure and then afterward to lunch at a restaurant called Barney's on Piedmont Avenue. Lynne had liked the place and had expressed a desire to return there sometime for dinner, so Barney's was our destination this evening.
At the end of an earlier post, I mentioned the many and varied charms of Oakland. Well, Piedmont Avenue is one of those charms. It's about five blocks of unique, festive, eye-pleasing shops and restaurants – most of them locally owned - along a gently sloping street. It being such a pleasant neighborhood to explore means parking can be a challenge. We managed to find a space, however, about a five-minute-or-so walk from the restaurant. The weather was slightly chilly that evening (just right for the rust-colored leather jacket ), but otherwise the air was clear and fresh with occasional scents from people's gardens, so the walk to and from the car just added to the specialness of our time together.
As soon as we entered Barney's, I sensed a unique feel to the place. It was quite busy, and there was a convivial hum. At the same time, I couldn't characterize it as noisy. A very warm but not pushy waitress found us a table. Lynne ordered the falafel platter, I the Piedmont Salad, and we also got a strawberry milkshake to split between us (Lynne had had one on her previous visit and insisted I experience it.).
The shake was awesome, and, believe it or not, the salad was even better! It had chunks of feta and bacon and fresh slices of crisp red onion. It was the best salad I'd ever had. The perfect accompaniment to a strawberry milkshake. It was so gratifying I couldn't eat the whole thing, and I had the friendly waitress box up the remainder for me to take home. It was a memorable restaurant experience and I look forward to going there again.
I had to get back to the house for my 9pm to 10pm effect shift, so we drove home in time for me to change into my uniform. When we walked in the front door, there was an impressive hush over the household, as everyone had his or her attention on the theatrics going on in the bunk room, where the Effect Course was still in progress. Connected to the bunk room by a pocket door is the dining room, where the staging for the course was happening, including, I speculated, changing of costumes and props for the various actors involved, who all talked in whispers as they slipped quietly in and out of the room.
Enjoying the backstage intensity of it all, I went down to my room, changed and came back upstairs. Normally I would head for the kitchen at this point to do the dishes, etc. However, the only part of the first floor that wasn't off limits to Those of Us Who Hadn't Done the Effect Course was the front hallway, the kitchen being too close to the bunk room presumably to risk either unintended noise being heard by the Effect Course student or hints of the content of the course being overheard by uninitiated folks like me. So I sat down on the blue couch in the front hallway.
After a few moments, Tiffany, who had also not had an Effect Course, joined me on the couch. For some reason, she was also wearing an effect uniform, and for some reason, I never asked her why. So there we were, two people sitting on a couch quietly wearing uniforms that stated simultaneously “We are here to serve,” and “We are invisible.”
There was a problem, however. The couch faces the main door to the dining room, which is a pocket door as well. This particular pocket door will sometimes roll back open six inches or so once it's been closed. This was uncomfortable for me because it meant we kept being able to see into the dining room by default. I felt as if we were making it awkward for the participants, who were attempting to keep everything secret. I suggested to Tiffany that we go sit on the couch in the second floor hallway, across from Sierra and Jess' room. We would be out of the way, we could converse without disturbing anyone, and we would still be available if anyone needed us for anything.
This change of venue led to a delightful home-after-an-extremely-long-plane-flight encounter with Sierra, which I'll be more than happy to share with you next time. Until then, my friends!
Best regards,
Gerry
The word surrender exists because it's an experience everybody wants to have... under the right conditions.
-- Vic Baranco
