texas, life, blablabla

 used to go to tx for family, travel, music, men. now i travel w/my man for family & music. here are some recent pix from tx. we love the lone star state, tho so much of it blares brashly, arrogantly red. i can be deep blue & yet love aspects of redness that aren't really redness: good manners, kindness, work ethic, responsibility, family... those are traits that don't belong to them. i know that so they don't bother me unless they stick their dogma in my face. that didn't happen too much while we were there, & when it did, i shut it down. let's just agree to disagree. it worked.

one torpid afternoon, i jogged along my cousin's beautiful canopied road with lovely wildflowers and trees all about, & some of the wide-stretching ranch homes bore mean red signs for the defeated orange stain... whatever: he lost! he's gone! they might think not... the truth's the truth, & i still can enjoy myself.

i like cities less & less all the time. aspects? yes. music, restaurants, architecture, services free to all such as public spaces, walking/biking/running trails, hiking areas, dog parks, beautiful sites... but cities are compacted & heart-breakingly stratified. i know our country is a big beautiful mess, but i don't want to see the mess part. others in my family are braver: mama, for example, is a true-blue activist, turning 77 this year. angie & doug (sister & bro-in-law) minister to & feed people weekly. but willful ignorance is the only way to be for me. here & there, yeah, i do good works, too, but i don't seek them out. have to stay alive, & too much reality... can't cut it.

anyways, i'm "flat-butting" at the computer, as dad calls it, & later we head to bakingfield for a few days. i don't know if the lil loafer trailer will sell. had mucho response but no one really committing. hope it does so we can get a larger trailer w/bathroom & kitchen. that way mom & dad (and maybe more visitors) can stay here comfortably.

well, that's it for now, i think. except we are playing on july 16. i think there will be a flyer, but maybe not.

karma karma karma karma karma reptilian

 i don't know why i wrote that at top. james was talking with me about ufos the other day. maybe that's it.  today, in response to a quick cartoon i drew & posted to half-a**edly help promote an upcoming duo show, someone posted a pic he'd drawn of james that was very unflattering,... so i went digging through boxes under my bed for a similar one i'd done of james yrs back, just to show him, bc the one the dude had done of james was not a good likeness at all, & in fact, was rather hideous... but out of those boxes came explosions of memory: people who died died, loved ones no longer here, mistakes i've made, nasty folks i've known, balls i've dropped & ppl i've let down and pet children no longer mine & a long, lonely, ruined relationship that still haunts me at times, not that i want it back bc my life now is better than it's ever been, but that i shouldn't've gotten into it to begin with. but i was immature. i was the best i could do.... which wasn't much! i hurt people & didn't realize it. i did not want to hurt my 1st husband. and he wasn't the only one: i was an  a**hole, thoughtlessly cruel. and what for? so many loved ones gone... so i blubbered & blubbered & thought, sh*t! this is what you get! karma did this to you since your motive was selfish --  to find your drawing and show someone. that was an a**hole move, a real regression. it's happened a lot, but the difference now is, every time i'm not nice, the universe (or human meaning-making) throws it right back in my face. 

anyways, i've cried my face off so much this eve looking through those dang boxes (never found the drawing, of course) that the human suit is now deflated. so i moved on to vacation photos. yep, i got most of our pix from texas up; one folder would not save, so i will try again tomorrow. we had a nice time in tx, so maybe i''ll write more later, but meantime, know that candler wilkinson iv, the yodeling jazzman who looks like a honky-tonk punk, put on a heck of a show due to his gorgeous vocals & intensely personal setlist & the dude is DEFINITELY worth seeking out, especially if backed by drummer adrian voorhies.

right now i'm comforted by what james said earlier: you are a good person. you don't do those things anymore. and it's true -- i go to texas, or LA, wherever, and unlike before, now i get to be a true-blue wife, sister, daughter, cousin, friend, teacher, musician, human, not let ppl down anymore, chase attention, talk sh*t to build myself up, or drop ppl like objects. thank Goodness, james, & mister and missus gia for any change i now live in.

well, the rest of the pix won't load so i think that's a sign to get off of here.

the austin hotel (not the one on congress, which has gotten far too chi-chi) (there i go again), the one we stayed at was real nice, right next to travis heights, with wallpaper featuring the visages of texas musicians. breakfast was good, & it wasn't far from the lake and its wonderful jogging trail.

movie night, end of school, gig

 FINALLY last night we saw some good flicks: sword of trust (marc maron) and extra ordinary (maeve higgins). both are truly worthwhile!! difficult being such a movie snob. too many films are derivative, dumb, purely terrible! are they that crappy at conception or does the creative kernel get crushed as they go through production? i tend to think a lot of it is i've seen faar, faaaar, faaaaaar too many movies!! i got hooked on them at around age 11 and by the teens, my best friend marc lazare & i snuck into the movies at least 2x a week, watching everything, the sexist 80s films damaging my conception of being a female to the point that i have had lifelong dysmorphia! (well, i already did... & finally, in the last half of my life, it has abated...) i was an avid collector of grindhouse, avante garde, foreign, & oddball movies by age 17. in those pre-net days, it was big work to find the movie titles (as well as 78s, 45s, & 33 1/3s) i craved... now, all you gotta do is search it up & boom! i recall now when i first got online about 20 yrs ago & realized that the world was FULL of other ppl into american music, rockabilly, boogie-woogie, & incredibly strange films... WOW! getting sober had shown me in one way i wasn't alone; the internet then showed me in another that there were thousands of others out there who were just as weird as i was.

anyways, as usual i digress. the films were such a happy surprise! we treated ourselves w/full pints of ice cream each! (well, james does that every night, but for me, it was unprecedented, a first-and-last ever.) my fruity pebble ice cream was such a delight! though never again will i indulge like that, the tasty treat made the film-watching experience so much better. yes, after a laborious (but fun) few days of intensive work on property clearance, ice cream & good movies w/my honey made for a memorable time.

school is out this week & james took this gig, so we will be there. he made the poster himself! talented in oh so many ways is james...

(play jeopardy theme)

 my sponsor will be on zoom in a few minutes, so i am twiddling my cyber thumbs. these are nice pix from beautiful becky v, james's friend whom i hope might be mine, too. she seems quite gracious, a quality that i find so endearing... penny & i just did 3 miles on my newest hoka one one shoes, but i blew it with these ones, a dang shame bc they're the 1st full-price running shoes i've purchased in about 15 years. to celebrate no heart problems at all, i bought them at sole to soul [sp?] in bakersfield. my feet were quite tired after a long work day & i left w/the chunkiest, most comfy pair, which unfortunately i now find are like running in platforms. oh well. live & learn.

time to go work on step 3 some more...

finally!!!!!!!

 

trips and trees

now that i've gotten my two covid shots, we've ventured out more... well, that's a fib -- bc of our rural life, we have been relatively unimpeded in small travels, lucky bc we don't see many people & therefore haven't had to worry as much about covid contact. at school, my friendboss has been so paranoid about infection that since the kids came back last november we have used triple levels of protection protocols -- i told the kids they've been safer at school than anyplace else bc of all the sanitizing, barriering, social distancing, and etc! we teachers too, then, have been safer, less likely to spread infection.

so the point is, we have gotten to go out here and there.

ok, so these are pix from a recent magical hike up mount pinos and trip to ventura... a moment of silence for all who've lost their lives during this past year-plus, in part bc the orange stain former resident of the u.s. didn't take care of business, to deadly effect.

enough about that creature; here is to the soon-to-occur reopening of our country!

this was about 2 miles up; at the farthest point on the road
is ruby the car, not visible here, of course

 

the road was closed, so the farthest we were able to hike
was to this wild & windswept, gorgeously verdant
campground at chuchupate. the shush of the pines
and smell of the forest was awe-inspiring!

james and the giant rock

in ventura the old main street has been closed off
to traffic, so we were able to walk  alot, discovering
that ventura is re-opening: people strolled the picturesque
street & dined al fresco. at the busy bee cafe, we shared
a banana split with an extra scoop of spumoni.

this is the ancient moreton bay fig tree in downtown

ventura. it is a mighty, majestic beauty, a stunner, a

real reminder of our human tininess both physical

and temporal.

happy at the tree -- not to mention that figs are god's
most wonderful fruit

 

obsessing over go-karts, james's improv over ammons' boogie-woogie

this is the only way i could figure out how to get this video from facebook onto this blog; i wrote about it below, then forgot about it til this eve... anyways, here it is. (wow! i just listened & recording the video FROM a video created the coolest reverb!) 

well, it's almost mimis time around here. i intended to research & practice ghosh yoga this eve, but instead sat on my brain here obsessing over california-legal utvs. i think i want to order a 4 seater; then the family can ride along when we go up in the mountains. i don't want anything fast bc in our family a young cowboy cousin-of-a-cousin lost his life going fast on a quad. that still haunts me, & dad even mentioned it when i told him i was looking for a utv for us -- off-road go-kart, side by side, don't matter.

a few months back i was jogging penny home & near our house is a very steep dirt trail that parallels & abuts the highway. two fellows in a side by side went tearing a*s past us along the road, beverages in hand, whooping it up, leaving us in a cloud of dirt as they cut across the highway at top speed & plowed straight up that narrow, steep trail, still at top speed, got to the top, &... stalled out. then for some insane reason, they rocked the vehicle TOWARD the cliff that fell off onto the highway & as i watched, in slo-mo, they teetered, then tumbled, then crashed end-over-end, boom! boom! boom!... SMASH!!!, landing sideways on the asphalt of the highway. i ran with penny, imagining blood & exploded skulls, but as i approached, i just heard a loud f-bomb exclamation & then knew they were ok. "do you need help?!?!" i exclaimed, & angrily, probably embarrased, they both yelled "NO!!!", stuck there in the tiny vehicle, lives saved by its small roll bar, jammed in like sardines, but they did not want MY help, some middle-aged woman with a dog... i walked off, my help rebuked, as a luxury sedan AND a dirt bike screeched to halts, the men in each jumping out to go give rescue. so i just took my penny dog & went home. let the men help the men, i guess.

so when we get our utv or off-road go-kart (with FREE SHIPPING! maybe from TEXAS!), we will need to avoid that kind of danger....

but i know i'd never be stupid enough to speed up something that narrow, steep... and right next to a highway!!

well, i think it's time for bed now. hope you enjoyed the video.

 

blablablablablablablablablablablabla

  been in a sick haze for a while since finding out about gene t's death, me & thousands of other music lovers around the world, i think. there is such a ginormous hole now where the bada*s boogie-woogie pianist was...  i felt better recently learning that he had told friends he was ok & didn't want to be picked up, that he had a roommate & they'd decided to stay in their rooms to keep warm, that he wasn't alone, that ppl were in touch w/him, so sounds like he went to sleep & passed. so if he had lots & lots of blankets to wrap up in, maybe that wasn't such a terrible way to go. it's still a horrible loss for the music world & everyone who loved him, but since we all gotta go..

two wks ago i thought i was gonna go bc of my heart, which is what took gene. i actually had to go to the e.r., realizing in all my yrs on this planet, that was the 1st time i'd been in a hospital bed. it felt to be covered with memory foam, surprisingly comfy. after the initial shock of being told i'd had a "past heart attack," i decided to be observant & calm. the ppl at mercy southwest in bakersfield were very nice & the experience ended after only 7 or 8 hrs. they found nothing wrong w/my ticker after thorough testing, so i went home & james cared for me scrupulously for several days. and yesterday was my first followup & in upcoming wks will be tests, but overall it's a good thing bc i would rather do all that than find out too late something's wrong.

my friend tjarko had gone through it too, recently, but his good friends, late of the late great ronny dawson's band & much more, picked him up when he was freezing to death in his austin apt, after a major surgery, moreover. saved his life, maybe. in pain, freezing, he thanked them  & i do, too.  i am lucky to be healthy & so happy tjarko's friends helped him in his time of need.

i can't think of austin the same way anymore. the past 10 yrs have seen it turn into a pretty d**chey place compared to the funky little town of 30 yrs ago (when i first went there). but the recent storm, gene's death most likely due to it... i don't think i wanna go there for some time, music or no music. too many west LA folks there now, or those w/the west LA vibe.

anyways, i had such a long day today with my students being just wonderful all day, but i gotta get ahead with grading & planning so i can go to the heart doc tomorrow, so i worked late, got home, we had dinner, then james & i played some music. i've been playing every day because gene did. i need to play every day. i have the ability to play, so i need to maximize it. here is what my wonderful husband came up with, impromptu, as i play an albert ammon knock off. 

(I WILL POST THE VIDEO LATER! BYE FOR NOW!)

wtf

 the greatest boogie-woogie piano player, a very talented writer, james's old partying and music friend, one of the most gifted humans on this planet, a funny witty ribald man, has died.

i thought i would write and reminisce about him, my experiences with him (mostly writing), but i'm just too, too sad. will play piano each and every day now... because gene sure did that.

so much more to tell about recent close calls, friends' recent close calls, weather here & in texas, selfish texas politics that led to this & other deaths... too blue. goodbye, eugene. i pray it was painless at the end, that you were shrouded in warm blankets, that you just slipped away, as sister angie suggested.

horrible, heartbreaking, inconceivable. wtf. :(

dog cat arthritis online school snow snow snow snow snow zoom oh how i hate zoom wind storm wind storm oh how i hate the violent winds snow snow sleep music tv eat exercise when weather allows cook clean hike cuddle snow snow snow grade papers plan lessons tutor on zoom call loved ones drive  snow snow snow snow snow repeat

covid winter life

but we have our health, so we must be grateful

in case any of us forget!!

 thrill to one of the greatest rocknroll performances every recorded!!!

FATS DOMINO AT AUSTIN CITY LIMITS - Bootleg and Original

today is Dr King´s birthday. in honor of him i will think of him more than usual today. also others who lost their lives fighting to make this country truly equal, as well as those who lost their lives because depraved institutions & individuals can be so very cruelly, horrifically, inhumanely unequal. i read about a run phenomenon to remember just one young person who was gunned down last year by racist pigs. what you do is jog 2.23... may you join the many many who want this country to be better in whatever way you can! #irunwithmaud 

nowś my chance!

 james is out visiting (socially distanced, i imagine), so nowś my chance to declutter this place! i was gonna sell a kids'speed bag set locally but ended up giving it away. the woman who pulled up to buy it has 4 kids covid-stuck at home. it felt stingy to take money for it, esp since we got it free. now if i can shed this broken amp... certainly someone will want to work on it to get it running... probably will end up giving that away, too, since we dragged it home free from the swap meet at the coast.

it feels better & better all the time to give stuff to folks. we have so much. we are both visual, & our place is a bit of a junk-art palace, or thatś how we love it, so much to look at, an assemblage feast for the peepers. so we have plenty, plenty, plenty. and itś fun to look at a thing & think, now who´d like that? who could really use that? who would LOVE that?

iḿ outside right now assembling a pergola. got it on the marketplace. i´m hoping it will be a nice patio since it will provide full sun coverge & has mosquito netting. had a covid test last wk after woke up out of breath & hurting bad head to toe with headache, but don´t think i have it. have been lying low, despite, with james bringing me water, oatmeal, ice cream, telling me not to go outside... now with james away, i can go outside & work a bit, take dog girl for a jaunt (walking, not jogging, don´t want to chance my health). weŕe gonna walk/hike some protein powder to corey later this afternoon...

i´ve been saving penny´s broken dog biscuits so last night when he took off i made them into new biscuits w/oats, honey, water, fresh rosemary from the yard, two eggs including shells... they actually smelled delicious when cooking, which led me to research pemmican online. today i made not pemmican, which is dried meat with fat & fruit, but a fiber-calorie dense thing that came out good. here is the recipe for this fiber-heavy rib-sticker:

finely diced apples, pears (about 3 cups)

2 cups dried oats

3 finely chopped dates

1/2 cup nuts (i used walnuts & diced almonds)

1 cup plain yogurt (greek or other)

2 eggs

chia, flax, hemp seeds, 1/4 cup (i used all of them)

cinnamon to taste

mix wet ingredients, then add dry. bake at 375 for 30 mins. leave in oven overnight to harden.

ok, back to work now!

let it snow, let it snow, let it stop!

weather said it would be snowing, but i didn´t believe it. then overnight it dumped!

it´s so beautiful at first... then... CABIN FEVER!!! i went to town to mail gifts i forgot to get in people´s hands. the post office was overrun with happy snow bunnies, cheering, whooping, laughing, slipping, throwing snowballs, sledding. it´s a nice phenomenon tho makes it hell using our local highway as the population of southern california converges here for a bit of snow play!

as you can see, i took penny out for a snow hike. i love the hush of snow, the crisp of boots crunching through it, the freezing nose. i took off my fogged-up glasses & my eyes burned with bright! then the lyrics of hoyt axton´s snowblind friend. then a gasp of tears. ¨he said he wanted heaven, but praying was too slow.¨ damn! hoy axton was a genius! he encapsulated the tragedy in 13 syllables! thoughts of those people who´ve died due to drugs flooded me; it was time to change thought stream or go down, down, down in misery.

that quickly, it was back to the moment, the beautiful moment! then home, now here, the next morn, dad at the surgeon, mom at home, james in the bed, pets sleeping, my old friend dan on the phone, talking sobriety, buddhism, life life life...

this is it.

christmas 2020 with whiteboy & jenny

click the link to listen: 

christmas 2020 with whiteboy & jenny

whoosh! swoosh! smooch!

 the wind is gusting and whooshing outside & james & his friend jeff are bellowing & laughing away in the basement below my feet! itś a happy day so far. we just returned from trip to central coast w/mom, dad, angie, doug, & maddy niece. i just ate the remains of sourdough with clam chowder scraped out from days ago restaurant, which i don´t know was the best idea bc food poisoning would sure end the happy day!

he just came in announcing he & jeff will go to the post office. we should have a buttload of gifts coming that i need to wrap. i hope everything´s there!

today we´re supposed to play & record some holiday music to put online, but the way the day´s looking, i don´t know if it will happen, but that´s ok...

so the wind is whooshing & gusting & itś a good day & on vacation preacher doug, my dear bro-in-law who could be called ahmed the arab trader, got us a house with panoramic ocean view in trade for work he´d done. iḿ constantly impressed by his ability to swing a deal. and he does it in pursuit of good deeds, which is what makes it awesome. we mostly sat around & talked & cooked & ate, colored on a xmas table cloth angie bought, they did a puzzle, we watched movies, read some, i went for jogs up & down the steep, steep hill, swoosh!, including straight up this hill i´d spied earlier & said i wouldn´t jog on, but there i went! sister & i took one little jaunt to the top of the hill together, which was very nice. & we all went to thrift shops where i got quirky gifts, & mama told stories remembering visiting pismo with family in little bungalows that used to line the beach, $59 for the week, grandpa & mr goodman surfing, aunt rita & mrs goodman digging clams & eating them raw, mama & uncle ralphy exploring the caves, so it was a nice time. here's a pic i love. james said, ¨i look so happy!¨ i love that man so much. dad told james, ¨i´ve never seen my daughter so happy.¨ life is good, in spite of its troubles.

blablablablablablablablabla

was sposed to go to bakersfield for momś sister´s 80th bd, but we are having 50mph gusts & i know that means itś likely the grapevine will go down due to chp closure or accident. the grapevine cyn, part of the I-5 artery, creates a massive wind tunnel vulnerable to fire & hazardous driving conditions. if i can´t get back, the animals will be alone since james is heading w/bro doug down to the border for mission tijuana toys. (i was gonna call doug about the wind, but nothing´ll stop him so there´s no point.) every yr doug brings a panel truck of toys to a tijuana church for distribution to local kids. james as co-pilot means they will have a great fun day of eating, bellowing, laughing, crying, caffeine consumption, smoking, & speeding that will lead straight into the late night. they will have a grand time but meantime someone´s gotta make sure penny & peewee pets aren´t left home all alone after hours. so iḿ staying here.

which is fine bc i´ve got plenty to do as well as extra allure of the storm sky show at the picture window here. it really captivates. 

called my aunt to tell her i wouldn´t be there & heard a crazy story. their dad, our grandpa, was a smart, depressed, grouchy, carob-skinned man of south american descent. i mostly remember him sitting glumly in his chair in the living room watching ball games & yelling at us kids as we stole sips from his ice tea glass. i always figured he was how he was bc he longed to be white, but my aunt said this: grandpa had been in the civilian conservation corp in early fdr days & was trapped in a forest fire in the sequoias. she said ¨they had an indian man who was helping them¨ and he told them all the only way they´d survive would be to strip off all clothes, including underwear & shoes, & run like hell through the flames to escape. only the guide, grandpa, & one other guy did it; the others stayed back & perished. all the hair on grandpa´s body was burned off & he spent weeks in a hospital near san francisco. so there might´ve been another reason our grandpa was so somber: trauma.

addendum: woke with a start in the middle of the night: our dear grandma, who put up with grandpa´s bad behavior for over 60 years, also was blunted by a horrifying tragedy. i think iḿ relating all of this because it helps support the idea that ¨if i knew all, i would forgive all.¨ ... or understand all. life is, after all, a path of uncovering, discovering, discarding, trudging, repeat...

there is little to forgive grandma for; we in the family joke that she was a saint to live with grandpa all those years. her family is native american, californianos due to their juaneno blood. as a young, beautiful girl, she & her sisters were outfitted in roaring 20s finery by a loving father. one day (was this in redondo beach? certainly not delano) she & her best sister margaret were out riding around in a truck with a boy when a jealous, spurned suitor of margaret´s, or maybe just a maniac someone who liked her but she didn´t like,  pulled up to the truck & fired into the window, killing margaret with one blast. our grandma was sitting in the truck right beside her sister when she was murdered.

so both of mama´s parents, i now know, were altered by trauma. that side of the family´s tradition of deep depression, anxiety, addictions, suicides now sadly makes a lot of sense. 

i made nyc take-out breakfast for james & i as the wind roared outside: everything bagel topped with cheddar & eggs. it was ultra-savory, a gut bomb, but that´s good bc won´t have to worry for some time about eating again.

well, i wanted to write to share the following recipe, but as usual a bunch of other stuff came out, so here finally is the recipe:

allergy & arthritis relief cocktail (i don´t really know if it works, but the individual ingredients are reported to, so all together should be even better, right?)

cup of cold tea for base (i used our homemade kombucha)

1/3 T turmeric + dash of pepper, which makes the turmeric bio-available

1/3 T ginger

dash of cayenne

dash of lemon

apple cider vinegar

one shot immediately clears my sinuses. i like to think it helps with reducing inflammation tho my neck still hurts like a mudderhumper.

ok, thatś all for now, be grateful, be well, remember to stretch & smile.