What's Up, Doc?

I had a craving for carrots yesterday.

CARROTS?

I don't crave carrots!

I crave donuts, or pancakes, or freshly baked bread, or any sort of pastry, but not -- carrots.

I had a hard time with carrots as a kid.  I couldn't eat them.  I don't mean I didn't like them, I literally could not eat raw carrots. I would chew and chew and chew and get the carrots just like a cud in my mouth, but I simply could not swallow them.

I could eat, and did enjoy, buttered cooked carrots (the operative word being "buttered," of course!) but it was years and years before I was able to swallow raw carrots.

I did, in time, learn to eat raw carrots and especially liked carrot-raisin salad.  Why I suddenly had a craving for it yesterday, I don't have a clue, but I knew we had a big bag of carrots in the refrigerator and so I got them out and made myself a big batch of salad.

I shredded a bunch of carrots, added a handful of golden raisins and then, as a last idea, also shredded up an apple that was starting to look tired.  Then I added a bit of mayonnaise and some orange juice and mixed the whole thing up.

The thing about carrot-raisin salad is that you can't eat it right away.  It has to sit long enough to let the flavors blend.  But within an hour, I had a small bowl and it was just what I had been craving.  I had so much left over that we had it for dinner last night and I finished off the bowl.  Craving satisfied!

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I heard this morning that it was the 35th anniversary of the big earthquake.  I immediately thought it was of the Loma Prieta quake, which hit the Bay Area hard and since I am San Francisco centric, I didn't realize it was the anniversary of the Coalinga quake in Southern California.  The Loma Prieta quake happened in October of 1989, which is not to dismiss Coalinga, but I didn't have that experience and the report of the anniversary set me to remembering that terrible day in October.

I was working for The Typing Company, which was in an upstairs office in Davis and suddenly we felt a little jolt.  I knew that if we were feeling a jolt, it must have been a big one in the San Francisco area.

Walt was working in DC, Ned was living with Marta and working at a video store in Oakland, Tom and David were at the World Series game in San Francisco, Jeri was working in South San Francisco and only Paul was here in town.  I immediately called Marta and found out that yes, it was a big one but she and Ned were fine.

I left work right away, worried about what happened to all those people at the ball game but by the time I got to the car they were reporting no serious problems at the game, so I wasn't worried about the kids.

But the earthquake happened at the time Jeri would be driving home from work, from South San Francisco across the bridge to the east bay and there was a report that part of the Bay Bridge had collapsed (but no details about how bad it was...not as bad, as it turned out, as I feared)

What actually happened was that a small section of the bridge collapsed onto the bottom section of the bridge.  One person was killed but that was by stupidity  Nobody was killed by the collapse, but someone decided that their car could jump over the break, tried it, and fell onto the bottom deck and was killed.  

I finally heard from Tom and David, who had gone home with Walt's brother and his wife and would stay in with them that night.

It was 10 p.m. before I heard from Jeri.  The Bay Bridge is built in two sections which meet at a tunnel on Treasure island, which was built for the International Exposition in 1939 (where, coincidentally, my father met my aunt, who introduced him to my mother).  After the exposition, it became a military base and though the base closed in 1991, it was still an active military base in 1989.  

The collapse had taken place on the far side of the island, so you could not get from San Francisco to the east bay.  They had to take all of the cars, lined up bumper to bumper across the bridge, off at Treasure island, where they could turn around and head back to San Francisco.  It took hours.  Jeri called in tears from a pay phone.  She was alone in the city and didn't know where to go.  All the lights in the city were out.  I thought of a friend she could stay with and gave her the phone number.  She was able to find the house and spent the night but it was a bad night for her, and so hard for me to be in Davis with almost my entire family scattered across the country and unable to do much to help any of them.

You realize how helpless you are in moments like that.  I felt like a mother hen whose chicks had all scattered and I couldn't get to them.

1,000 Red Roses

Twenty years ago, the Davis Art Center wanted to raise money to pay for sign language interpreters so that children with hearing disabilities could take classes at the center.  They turned to Lawsuit and asked if they would do a fund-raising concert.  They did and the funds were raised.  They called it the "1,000 Red Roses concert", after the lyric in one of Lawsuit's songs, "Picturebook Pretty" (I think the original lyric was "a dozen (or maybe 100) red roses would not be quite enough...")

That concert was amazing because it was signed by a team of signers.  I had, of course, seen signers at lots of theatrical events, but never at a concert.  It was quite a sight to behold.  After the show, a mother came to me, tears in her eyes, and told me this was the first time her deaf teen age daughter had ever danced and that thanks to the signers and whatever vibration she could get from the beat through the ground or the speakers, she was able to "get it" and was able to understand the music.

In 1996, there was another 1000 Red Roses concert.   This one right after David died and it was a very emotional concert.  It was the only concert--ever--where Paul was rendered speechless.  His father walked out on stage to sing a small solo and then, with pre-arrangement with Tom and nobody else, he took a stage dive into the audience and was carried through the crowd by Tom and his friends.  It was an unforgettable moment.

Lawsuit is gone and Paul is gone, but the music lives on.   Lawsuit morphed into Preoccupied Pipers, which includes many of the Lawsuit musicians, some of the Lawsuit songs and lots of new music.  They usually play one concert a year, when Jeri is in town, and it's more for fun than anything else.

This year, the Art Center contacted Ned again and asked about doing a concert to pay for sign language interpreters again. That concert was last night, on the E Street Plaza, which we have always called "Paul Plaza" because the performing area is covered with lots of bricks, many of which have memorial comments for Paul and David, a project spearheaded by the Davis Downtown Business Association.   The brick Walt and I bought says "The name of this band was Lawsuit."

It was a great turn out on the plaza.  A lot of the old Lawsuit parents came out, greyer, more stooped, more wrinkled, at least one with artificial knees, one looking like she had a stroke.

Kevin Desmond, representing all of the Pinata group came in from his home on the far side of Sacramento.  Shown here with Ned and Sara "Sarge" Clanton, the owner of Stone Soup Catering.  Norm and Olivia came up from Petaluma and brought Alice Nan with them.

The five of us went to the concert together and were able to get parking steps from the stage (thank you, Gilbert).  

We visited with the guys while they were setting up and then went to the Mexican restaurant whose wall is the back of the stage.  We could sit there enjoying our margaritas and keep track of what was happening on the plaza.

While we were sitting there, Jeri's high school band teacher came in.  He and his wife were there for the concert too.

A woman sitting next to me saw my 1994 Red Roses shirt and asked me if I had any connection to Lawsuit, or was just a fan.  I felt very old!

The Lawsuit kids (children of Lawsuit musicians) were now old enough to be in charge of the table where people could buy T-shirts and CDs.  They are like our Pinata group kids!

There were three sets.  The first was by the Corner Laughters, with whom KC (from Lawsuit) plays.  I had not heard them before and really liked their music.

The third set was Adrian West, who was never part of Lawsuit, except for a few guest appearances, but has had his own group in the Bay Area for years.   His wife, Jennifer, is the former mayor of Emeryville and also an occasional singer with one of the bands.  In fact, she and Adrian did their first duet together tonight.

But everyone was there to see Preoccupied Pipers, which also promised old Lawsuit music.  I forget how good these guys are.  I got all verklempt when Paul's best friend Kag sang a song that Paul used to sing and was accompanied not only by the Lawsuit guys, but also his son, Milo, on the trombone.  Milo was born a couple of years after Paul died, and is the first of the Lawsuit babies.  His middle name is "Travis" because Kag wanted to name him after Paul, but Kag's real first name is Paul so insted he chose to name him after Travis Bickle, from Taxi Driver, Paul's favorite movie and favorite character.

"Anything" is an emotional song anyway, Paul's diatribe about all the things wrong in his life, particularly his love life.  I never really liked it when he sang it.  He always screamed it in anger.  When Kag sang it, the screams were just as bone chilling, but perhaps more anguish than anger, and I was sobbing by the time he finished it.

I'd forgotten how much Lawsuit brought people to the dance floor.   People who had been sitting there listening to the concert and shouting their approval at all the music leaped to their feet when a Lawsuit song started and the dancing area was full of bouncing bodies, and they all bounced up and down just like they used to do, at the end of "I am a couch" (a popular song that I'm sure I inspired, as its first lines are:  "I am a couch, and I live in a messy house...")

The finale of the Preoccupied Pipers set was Jon Lee, who has been on the tech crew forever, singing "Picturebook Pretty."  I will eventually have a link to the video I took.  But I got this great shot of Jon controlling the lights with his iPad.  How things have changed in 20 years!

(and by the way, Walt and Ned put up all those lights on the trees two nights ago)

When the concert was over, I brought out a tres leches cake to celebrate Ned's birthday (which is Monday) and then we came home.  I was too tired to start this journal then, but woke up at 2 or 3  and started writing it then, but took a break to try and take a "nap."  But then the house started shaking and the dogs started barking.  There was a 6.1 earthquake near here.  It didn't hit us very hard, but apparently my cousin in the Napa Area had glassware knocked off of shelves.

Facebook lit up with comments from people from the far reaches, from Sacramento to Santa Cruz, everyone comparing notes on how they felt it or the damage it did.  The Davis Enterprise weighed in with information it had with the comment "since you're all already awake..."

It's now 4:30 a.m. and I'm going to try to sleep again.  The news seems to have died down and the videos I took haven't uploaded yet, so I can take advantage of this lull in activity to try to sleep a little.

Rocking My World

I woke up this morning to the announcement that there was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in central Philippines this morning. Little Fred, my favorite of my Compassion children, lives in the Philippines.

"At least 13 people were killed and 40 are believed missing, most of them along the shore near the epicenter of the 6.8-magnitude quake that struck in a narrow strait just off Negros Island."

Eight year old Fred lives near La Carlota City, with his parents and sister.

To put it in geographical perspective here is a map of the Philippines, with the earthquake area circled.

Compassion is pretty good about letting sponsors know about things that affect their children, but this quake is brand new and, as with the Haiti quake, it will take a long time before they know how bad it is.

Fred's family has already had such tragedy, with the death of his younger sister a year ago. My heart aches for them and what they must be going through right now.

Compassion supposedly improved connection between sponsors and kids last year. They devised this new great way to correspond with your child--all done on line, where you write a letter and include photos, and it's all printed at the compassion office, translated, and sent to your child.

I love it and write more frequently (though don't send as many letter with gifts attached, since I'm doing so much on line....you can still send things via snail mail, but this way is so easy).

The apparent downside of this new thing that we are all so excited about is that more people are writing and so it takes longer to get letters. Before the new system started, I was receiving at least one letter a week from one of my 11 Compassion kids. Now I have received none for over a month and the Compassion rep, who used to sound so encouraging and comforting, now sounds testy and wondering why I am so impatient. They can't seem to understand that I'm worried about the fact that NOBODY has written, where before almost all of them did frequently.

I'm just glad we can get letters from the children, but this new apparent slow-down means that it will be literally months before I know whether Fred and his family have been affected by this earthquake, when it appears that he is very close to the epicenter.

You know...those Compassion folks are really sneaky. They actually have me praying for the first time in years, that this little boy I have grown to love and all of his family are safe.

Whip Up Something New

I think it was Brianna's birthday a year ago (can you believe she's about to be 3?) when Tom served pull pork sandwiches (among other things). I had never had pulled pork and absolutely loved what he had fixed.

When I talked with him about it later, he couldn't remember what he had done, but said he thought he had just cooked the pork and then used some sort of bottled sauce.

Naturally, since then I've been on a quest to recreate Tom's pulled pork--or to find a recipe that I like.

I tried one a month or so ago, which I didn't like much and I haven't thought about it since, but the other day I read a blog entry for A Year of Slow Cooking. Someone had sent her a pulled pork recipe that she raved about. It was strange enough (calling for 2 cups of root beer) that I decided to try it--especially when Stephanie O'Dea (who writes the blog) said that she had just tossed a frozen pork roast in the crock pot and it cooked fine.

We were headed off to San Francisco for the day, so I decided this would be my "whip up something new" recipe to try.

Ingredients:

2 pounds boneless pork shoulder roast (I used pork tenderloin)
1 large yellow onion, sliced in rings (I made the slices large, so it was easier for Walt--who hates onions--to pull out)
1-2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce (I probably should have used 2, but I was afraid it would be too spicy)
1 cup chili sauce
2 cups root beer
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 hamburger buns or soft rolls

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. A 6-quart is fine, but your meat will cook faster.
Put the meat into your pot, and add sliced onion. Mix Tabasco sauce, chili sauce, root beer, and vanilla and pour over meat. Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours, or until pork shreds easily with a fork. (Since my tenderloin was frozen, I set the timer for 9-1/2 hours)

Serve over rice, or on toasted buns.

My rating: Well, it didn't live up to whatever it was that Tom made, but it was tasty and served us for two meals. My search for the perfect pulled pork continues--but this was definitely a good one.

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Needless to say, I have been concerned about our two Japanese "daughters." Chieko was one of our first exchange students and she was here for Christmas that first year, and then returned for the next three Christmases. She became like a sister to Ndangi from Zaire. One year I taught her how to make tempura because I had decided that everyone living with us that year should make something for Christmas dinner from their own country--and she didn't know how to cook.

Her friend Hitomi came the next year and stayed 3 weeks. I've kept in closer contact with Hitomi than Chieko because Chieko is now married and has children. Hitomi, when I last heard from her was still single.

I found the last addresses I had for both of them. Hitomi was living in Osaka and Chieko in Yokahama, neither city in danger, though there were some photos I found of some tiles that had fallen and a street that had cracked in Osaka. But no massive damage. I hope both were in their homes when the quake hit.

The Third Death

They say deaths come in 3s, don't they? First there was Alice's death and her beautiful memorial Mass. Then there was Brendan's death and the memorial party which will be held later this month. Today I got the word that another beloved member of our family appears to be terminal and the end will come very soon.

Our insurance agent has determined that our car is probably not fixable and we are going to have to go car shopping. My beloved Honda is dying before my very eyes and I am powerless (save paying more money than I want to pay) to repair it.

Some people would be thrilled at the idea of going car shopping with insurance blessing (though obviously what they will give us for the car will not nearly cover the cost of a new/used car). I am not a person who makes change easily. It takes me time to bond with new things...I wear shoes for years before they feel like...well...an old shoe. I only buy new shoes when the old ones have nearly fallen apart. I don't jump for joy at the excuse to go out and buy shoes.

And it's like that with cars. The Honda fits me. It's comfortable. I know its quirks. I have spent many, many hours in that car and traveled up and down the state many, many times. I was unhappy when we had to go shopping for a new car, but our Toyota Camry had been stolen and the insurance adjuster advised, when it was finally recovered, that we should take the money and get a new car because who knew what the joy-riding teens who stole the Camry had done to it.

So we went out looking for a new Camry and by accident happened to find the Honda. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I don't know how long it took for me to begin to love it, but it took awhile.

Now it appears to be dying. Pieces of its body are being stripped off the car even as I sit here writing this.

Walt unloaded everything from the trunk, glove compartment and car and came home with a new Nissan hatchback as our rental car. We are resigned to having to get a new car and Walt is now starting to think about what kind we want (he likes the idea of the hatchback for ease of carting large boxes around.

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I was interrupted in writing this entry by the news of the Japan earthquake. The largest earthquake I have felt was 5.6. I can't even imagine an 8.9. I sat here watching the tsunami in the north-east part of Japan, trying to remember where exactly our two Japanese "daughters" live. I have lost contact with them.

As of what we were reading at midnight there have been 17 aftershocks, ranging in size from 5.6 to 7.9 over the last two and a half hours.

Twitter is all a-twitter with tweets about the earthquake, and also with complaints about the CNN reporter who, apparently, made jokes about the earthquake. I had listened to CNN for a long time and didn't hear anything non-professional, so I'm not sure what they were talking about

My heart went out to those people living in the tsunami area, watching that moving water just ripping up homes and sending them crashing into each other, into bridges, into large warehouses. I watched boats being crushed under bridges and cars floating so fast they might have been motorboats. I shuddered to think of the people who might have been caught unawares. I watched the water rapidly approaching a road that was clogged with cars, apparently trying to get out of the way of the water.

Looking at the tsunami map it appears that most of the world is going to be feeling the effects of the water. The entire west coast of the United States is under tsunami watch (though by the time it gets here, the destructive forces will probably be lessened).

Char's husband Mike used to head the Tsunami Warning Station in Honolulu. He kept us safe from tsunamis all those years and we have now have had two destructive tsunamis since he retired.

Coincidence?

Whole Lotta Shaking Going On

There was an earthquake in Southern California today. You may have heard. It was first reported to be 5.6, and later downgraded to 5.4.

Earthquake reporting is really kind of funny. Especially if you live in earthquake country. 5.4 is no small quake, to be sure, but it's no huge quake either. It's enough to "shake you up," literally and figuratively, but it's not comparable to the 1991 Northridge quake, for example, which was a 6.7.

On the Richter scale a 1 degree separation, like 5.4 and 6.4, for example is a magnitude of 10 times the intensity. A 6.4 quake is ten times stronger than a 5.4 quake. 5.4 is considered "moderate."

There was a 5.3 quake in San Francisco in 1957. I remember clearly that I was in Sister Benedicta's algebra class just before lunch when the quake hit. It was definitely a strong jolt, and it did do some minor damage throughout the city -- some fires and some broken windows, for example.

The nuns dismissed school and told us all to go home. I opted to stay and help out but they eventually insisted that I had to leave the building.

That night, my mother and I were at St. Dominic's church, attending a novena. It's a big gothic church, cavernous and beautiful inside.

We were in the middle of the novena prayers when an aftershock hit. Imagine being inside a gothic cathedral when the ground the earth moves and those tall brick towers began to crackle. We were all frozen in our seats, as the priest reassured us that we were "in the right place" if the building was going to collapse.

Somehow I was not comforted by the thought! I don't know that I've been back to St. Dominic's since!

When a strong jolt hits, the media goes crazy. During the Loma Prieta quake (magnitude 7.0) for instance, where there really was a lot of damage the media people had a field day. "San Francisco in Ruins" some early headlines blared. "Bay Bridge falls down" others said.

Well...no. Not quite. Most of the damage in the quake, at least in San Francisco, was confined to the Marina, which was originally part of San Francisco Bay , but was filled in for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition. At the conclusion of the year-long exposition, the buildings were torn down and housing erected. But because it is fill land, when there is an earthquake, it is not solid and is subject to liquefaction (for a full explanation of liquefaction, check this web site) Basically, the ground turns to jello and that increase the amount of shaking.

The newspapers love to run photos like this

But in reality very few homes were actually destroyed in the earthquake and the reason they were is easily shown here

The building is on the corner of the street and there are garage doors on both sides of the building. Thus, it doesn't have a strong, steady support, so when the earthquake hits, the garage doors buckle and there's nothing strong enough to hold up the building and you get major damage.

It amused me this morning watching reporters struggling to find something catastrophic to show, but despite the "breaking news" and the continuous reporting (which I finally turned off), people in Los Angeles were going about their normal day, a little nervously, perhaps, but we're used to earthquakes out here and realize that (a) they last only a matter of seconds, and (b) with rare exceptions damage is minor. It's rarely as awful as it is portrayed in the media and generally all the photography is taken in one spot, while the rest of the city is just fine and all busy putting their cans back on shelves and getting on with life.

Some papers, after Loma Prieta, reported that the Bay Bridge had "collapsed." As you can see, no it didn't--though it was a terrible inconvenience for some time until it was repaired.