The sun blasts its rays through the relentless wind while we stroll along the cliff's edge. Tiny spring flowers brace their stems and fragile petals against the low lying blasts blowing in off Bodega Bay's angry waves. Our dirt path winds around the slowly eroding drop offs that slip down towards forbidden beaches of craggy rock and eddying water. Off in the distance is Point Reyes National Seashore that hugs the coastal lip of the greater Bay Area of California and inland are the tiers of cottages and mansions holding sentinel to the horizon's diminishing trace.
Birds flit in and out of scraggly bushes along the path, sing their ocean tunes into the salty air. And I picture them in congregation here at the water's edge, across the bay on telephone wires, swooping in anger towards anyone and everyone. The horror of what lies in my child's memory. The fear of every bird walking on our grassy lawn or sitting on some tree's branch.
"Fight back," I say! Although, I'd much rather have them go after those doing the shooting and plucking and jamming. Innocent people should always be spared.
Bummer, Man!
New to Santa Rosa, J. and M. have made a weekend pact of getting out to explore the greater Sonoma county. Along for the visitor's ride, we drive east over to Sonoma Lake, surrounded by green on the Google map. With this winter's California rains, Sonoma Lake actually has water in it. We secure a trail map from the visitor's center and since trout are spawning, we plan to walk later into the fish hatchery to watch the process of collecting trout to monitor for facilitating the process of insuring the future of baby trouts.
Down behind the building, a series of man-made "steps" have been built so the Steelhead (now) and Salmon (later) can leap through the rushing current towards the processing area. We walk along the steps to watch trout work their way into the force of the running water as they return back "home" to spawn. "Go trout!" |
It was a dark and Stormy Night....
Monday afternoon on the Sonoma County Literary Update page holds only one Santa Rosa listing: Snoopy's Writers at the Warm Puppy Cafe at the Ice Arena. 1-4 p.m. Anyone can drop in to write and share. And so I Google up the directions and wind my way across town. I walk into the entrance of the arena and take a sharp left into the Warm Puppy Cafe nested along the tall glass wall overlooking the ice where young skaters figure eight practice runs around the rink. I scan the small tables in the cafe for "writers' writing, but see none. But, over to the side is a small room, so I peek my head in. An older woman sits with her computer at one end of the table and a young woman types frantically on her keyboard at the other end. Between them sits a small sign: Snoopy's Writers. The older woman looks up at me, and I ask if this is the writing group. She smiles and welcomes me to the long table. I tell her my "traveling through" story. Over the next two hours, two more women arrive and share that they are working respectively on a novel and a screenplay. I explain my travel writing and backstory. In honor of National Poetry Month, we offer original poems sucked out of our personal writing folders. I do get some blog writing done, but mostly share in the exchange of those wishing to have witness to their writing. Our time slot comes to a close as writers retreat out of the room and back into cool of the day.
Outside, I read the sign pointing me to the museum, so I stroll across the patio in that direction.
Sharp Teeth
With crested Mohawk haircuts, the robed monks march with horns ablast and cymbals struck. In J.'s dream, these monks will herald in the necessary forces to push this virus through and out of my system. But the evil virus cells will have none of these toots and clanks. Their teeth are sharp and they have sunk those fangs into my immune system.
"Since December, there have been numerous variations of horrendous flu sweeping through Santa Rosa," M .comforts me. J. coughs a low, dry cough.
"I've had my cough for a couple of months," he tells me.
"Fairness has nothing to do with anything," I whisper to myself while sitting in front of the porcelain bowl. Sweat beads up on my forehead that feels as if it will explode through the thin epidermal membrane over my eyebrows. I've woken up now each morning drenched with the hope that this is the day I will have finally broken through this come-again and again fever. Nothing stays in—no solid and no liquid and my legs are shaky from increasing levels of dehydration. And then there is my version of an unproductive cough. I sip on ice to ingest any fluid at all into my system, but the evil is too great.
I imagine the monks again...marching.....blaring.....clanging......robes swishing...back and forth through my body now laying as still as possible on the air bed. If I hardly breathe, I won't cough. I won't vomit. Just maybe I can sleep. On the nearby bench between me and the bathroom, like neon signs flashing, three tall glasses of water beacon their added electrolytes in my direction. One glass at a time, I sip slowly to try to outwit the evil fanged into my body. J. refills my glasses each morning and night in a heartfelt attempt to keep me hydrated.
By day six, I can barely stand and my dear friends look worried. It's time. Even my strong constitution is giving up now. M. takes one arm, and J. the other to pull me gently across the living room and out the door. The car is waiting and so is the Emergency Room of the hospital.
The nurse preps my arm for the IV drip of fluids for hydration, Tylenol for the fever, and an anti-nausea so I might be able to keep something, anything, down. My friends share one cushioned chair at the side of the hospital room, and pick up the IV and walk with me into the bathroom so I can pee once enough of the IV liquid has permeated my thirst. Three hours later, I sit tentatively into a wheelchair for my trek back to the car.
I have won a small battle, but not the war. I drink lots, then sleep with the victory hope that the next morning will have had some overnight, dark, dream-laden miracle happen. But no.....
I bring in the bigger guns now by contacting my Homeopath friend back in Vermont.
"Help me," I e-mail. I list the symptoms and where I am in the moment of agony on the battlefield. She calls back to finish the assessment. She offers the needed remedy and although I don't have the ideal dosage, I do have a lesser version in my small homeopathic first aid kit. We start with what I have, and I follow her instructions for the next hour, then call with an update. I sleep the night before taking another dose the next day. I call again with an update, and I slowly climb out of the festering pit of delirious fever, offer my gut tiny amounts of rice, soup, toast and banana. I suck the juice out of tangerines. I saturate myself with ginger ale and electrolytes.
"We're having dinner with Gail," J. delights in my presence at the dinner table. My tiny plate holds a small blob of white rice and a single, thin strip of chicken breast. I couldn't be happier. I imagine the evil cells shriveling from a homeopathic parasitic wasp just like I've seen in my past organic gardens—the tomato hornworm dessimating my tomatoes now wasting away from the wasp egg larva sticking into the worm. Go wasp!
The monks are tooting a victory tune, clanging up a rhythm to finish the evil cells off. I eat slowly, increasing the blob size of what settles onto my plate. I get up to sit on the living room couch rather than sit or lay on the bed. I move to the patio where the sun warms my face, then call Vermont with my homeopathic update: the cough still lingers, but each day lessens in severity. I'm eating well and keeping everything down. It's just a matter of time now, and I start to clean up the battlefield debris. Not a pretty sight!
This may well be the best veggie burger I've had in a long time!
L. and I sip a variety of reds and whites hand picked by Coppola himself, or his daughter Sofia, who has her own line of fruity alcohol.
Our wine hostess tells us that "the Director's Cut wines feature a specific ecological region in the Valley in order to showcase the intricacies. Other wines combine grapes from all the different vineyard locations."
Along the Bohemian Highway, in the town of Freestone, just off the Bodega Highway near the small artisan business district downhill from the Potter School, is the Wildflour Bakery. J. and M. and I had stopped here on our way over to Bodega Bay early on in my pre-flu visit. As I take the Bohemian Highway up to the town of Occidental and beyond, heading north out of the Santa Rosa greater environs, I chance once again by the bakery. In my continued culinary firework display, I pull over to the side of the road since the parking lot is full, and get myself standing on line to order. Once up to the counter, I order up the Pear Marzipan Chocolate Chip Scone and also the Strawberry Rhubarb scone for the road. In the middle of the room stands a table filled with artisan breads.....oh......My Word!
hugging the Pacific for now....