It Wasn't a Prune

We used a Groupon tonight to go to dinner at Bombay Dreams, an Indian restaurant here in Davis. I had heard very good things about it from people on Facebook and was all set for some of their Tikka Masala.

The ambience was very nice, though there was no room in the main dining room, so we sat in the bar area. It didn't have the plush feel of the main dining room, but it did have a TV set playing Bollywood Wedding Videos...kind of like Indian MTV. I loved that.

The service was a little slow, we thought. Our dinner came with soup and we assumed it would be served first. But when the meal arrived, we could see why it had taken so long. It all came together.

I'm not sure when they filled the soup bowl, but it was not quite cold...only a bit of warmth. The problem with eating foods from other cultures that you aren't really sure how they are supposed to be served. Maybe it was supposed to be luke warm, so I didn't complain.

I had the lamb tikka masala which I thought was a bit over-salted, but still tasty. Walt had lamb curry and had asked for his to be medium heat (I am a wimp; I always ask for mild). When his dinner was finished, he picked up a wrinkled bean-looking thing. He had a flashback to our Indian dinner in London when he took what he thought was a green bean off of Jeri's plate and bit into it heartily...only to discover that it was a very. hot. pepper. Smoke nearly poured out of his ears and he probably has never drunk so much water in his life (yes, I know that water doesn't quench heat-hot, but he had nothing else to use).

Anyway, with a memory like that he wasn't going to bite willy nilly into this something in his hand, but he was curious, so he nibbled. Hmmm...he said. "It tastes like a prune." He asked if I wanted to taste it. Fortunately I was very full. So he nibbled a bit more at it, wondering exactly what it was.

Suddenly his face turned red and smoke poured out his ears (well...not quite). It had gone down smoothly...you know...like a prune. But when it hit some vital part of his anatomy, fumes came back up again. He downed his glass of wine. I finished his glass of beer. He ate rice. When we left, he was panting like a dog from the heat of what had obviously been another very. hot. pepper.

If we learned one thing from dinner it's ... don't ever taste something that looks like a solitary green bean in the middle of some Indian dish!!

Buddy Outside

Buddy Outside from Bev Sykes on Vimeo.

Back to San Rafael

I spent about 2-1/2 hrs with author Tess Gerritsen today. Technically speaking, I guess I spent the time with Susan Erickson, reading Gerritsen's "Girl Missing," the audio book I was playing while driving to my mother's today. Reviews from Audible.com are that people are upset to learn this is an old book, not a new one. I don't care. I'm enjoying it, old or new. I'll have another hour with it tomorrow, driving to and from my lunch in Sacramento.

So. The visit with my mother. Good and not. She's grumpy because her back is really bothering her. It is so frustrating watching her suffer, knowing that the doctor has told her repeatedly that there is nothing that can be done to help her. Essentially her coccyx has outlived its usefulness and is disintegrating. As this is where all of the nerves end, it causes great pain and she is unable to stand on her feet for very long. Now it's starting to wake her up at night. I asked the doctor about acupuncture and she told me that it wouldn't work. And because it's nerve pain, there are no pills that will help.

Sadly, the pain is making her grumpy and she feels "dumb, dumb, dumb" because she can't make it go away. It embarrasses her to have to sit down when she volunteers at the Hospice Thrift Shop and she doesn't want her friends/co-workers to know that there is something physically wrong with her. Sigh. Pride can be such a self-destructive thing.

She asked me to get her a cup of coffee today because her back was hurting her so much that it hurt to walk, and when there were no cups where they were supposed to be and I made the mistake of asking her where the cups had gone. She got up and walked all over the house trying to find her own cup, instead of telling me where she thought she left it. Sigh.

We had a nice visit, sticking to the same topics we always discuss. She seemed to be more "with it" than usual and when she again told me about her mother's problems with speech before her death, I decided to try telling her about the book I'd read about aphasia. But when I finished, she went back and told me the story all over again.

There was some other thing I made the mistake of trying to tell her and after a brief silence, she talked about how disgusted it makes her to look at her "filthy" rug and about all the places where it just turns her stomach to look at it and how she needs to have someone come in and shampoo. But she won't ask someone to come in until she has moved all of her stuff and her back hurts too much to do that. I'm thinking that maybe for Mother's day I can get Ned and Walt to come and help me move stuff for her and pay to have shampooers come in and get the job done.

The rug is, of course, cleaner than any rug I have ever had and I can't even see the spots that disgust her, but all she sees is filth.

But all things considered, things pretty much went well and we had a nice lunch and a nice visit. I also helped her clear away some books. She is so eager to get rid of "all this junk" around her house and I realized that I could take a big bag of books home to give to Dr. Herbert Bauer on his 102nd birthday. He is a voracious reader, who reads a book a day and will read anything. There is a project going in Davis to collect 102 books to give to Herbert on his 102nd birthday, so I cleared away the equivalent of one whole shelf of books, which made my mother very relieved!

I was feeling very "antsy" on the ride home and had to make a stop just to shake the kinks out of my legs, so I decided to wander through Michael's craft store. Always a bad mistake. But I did get some cute things I'll be using soon, including a book of Peter Pan which I can easily take apart and send to one of my Compassion children in chapter form (since what you send can't be thicker than 1/4")

Then I stopped at the book store to pick up the camera I'd accidentally left there yesterday so I could finally post this photo:

(Self portrait!)

The plan had been to go to an Indian restaurant that I had bought a Groupon for, but when I went to print it, it was not in my Groupon account, so I had to send a note to customer support to see how I get it back, and then find something to cook for dinner here!

A Potentially Expensive Venture

I didn't realize that it was going to cost me money to volunteer at the book store. (I had a couple of photos for this entry, but left my camera there, so...owell!)

Today was the big day, my first day at work, and I was nervous, realizing I had already forgotten everything I thought I had absorbed so well at orientation. Not that there is much to learn, but it did involve a (very simple) cash register and a credit card machine. As I was mentally reviewing things, nothing came back.

I wasn't really worried. As I said, this is a very small store, extremely low key, and Susan had assured me several times there was nothing I could do wrong. Well, probably almost nothing.

I had a plan in place for how to spend my day. This is not like a Borders, with lots of clients milling about. It's very small and I expected that there would be lots of down time. I had seen a copy of "Greyfriars Bobby" on the shelves in the older book section during my orientation. I remember the story of the little Scotty dog from our days in Edinburgh and I figured this would be a good book to read during the down times.

I packed two bottles of water in my new insulated lunch bag (purchased at a fund raiser for Brianna's school), since I had noted no water cooler or little fridge in the back room, and off I went. Walt had to drive me because there is nowhere to park downtown for longer than 2 hours (I hate downtown parking rules!). He said he didn't mind. There may come days when he is not available to drive me and I may have to, after nearly 40 years in this town, learn the bus system.

Susan was not there when I arrived, but her husband Peter was behind the desk and greeted me warmly. He got up and let me sit behind the desk, and reviewed a few things with me. We even did a sham charge on the credit card machine (if you charge one cent, it doesn't go through). There was a customer already there and Peter let me handle the sale...turns out the guy is someone I've known forever, but I don't think he recognized me and I was only 99% sure I recognized him, so we did not exchange familiarities.

The first sale went all right and I was feeling confident so Peter went into the back room to do some book sorting and left me to my own devices. It was time to go and get "Greyfriars Bobby." Argh! It had been sold!

Obviously I was going to have to find something else to read. I drifted over to the cookbook section ('cause I always check out cookbooks, even though I rarely use them any more) and my eyes lit up when I saw the John Steinbeck House cookbook. Steinbeck's birthplace and boyhood home was turned into a restaurant in 1974, the 72nd anniversary of the author's birth. I probably learned about it sometime in the 80s, since that was when I fell in love with Steinbeck's writings. I have been saying, off and on, since then that I wanted to visit the place some day. (There is now even a Steinbeck Center that I also want to visit, which I think about every time we zip through Salinas on our way to the Burger Queen).

But here was the Steinbeck House cookbook, with wonderful photos and great recipes. It was only $3.50 and I decided I would charge it, so I could get practice charging a real purchase. It was then that I realized that working in a book store might be like putting a not-quite-in-recovery alcoholic in charge of the bar at the nearby Irish pub!

I went looking for a small book I could read while I worked -- I figured that if I were going to sit in a book store, I probaby shouldn't be reading on a Kindle. I wandered over to the biography section and saw a thin volume of excerpts from the diary of Samuel Pepys. I first encountered Pepys in the Museum of the City of London was was naturally drawn to anybody who was a journalist. I'd always wanted to read some of it. I sat down to check the book out.

The first chapter dealt with lots of money stuff I couldn't really follow and I was about to put it back when I encountered "Deb." Deb was Pepys' wife's maid, a comely lass who apparently caught the author's eye. He writes about her in French. Like "she come into the coach and je* did baiser her" and "I did speak to her and she to me, and did get her pour dire me ou she demeurs now, and did charge her para say nothing of me that I had vu elle, which she did promise."

Anyway, it goes on about his infatuation, the brief encounters, his wife's discovery of the infatuation and how she reacts, to insisting he dismiss the maid and then making sure that he never goes anywhere unaccompanied.

What was strange about this was that at the time I was reading about Pepys and his extramarital liaison and his difficult relationship with his wife, two men were in the store comparing notes, first about their children's schooling and then about their relationships with their wives (one had divorced, apparently NOT amicably; the other seemed to be in the negotiation phase with his wife and things did not appear to be going well). I smiled as I realized that really nothing has changed much in male-female relationships since 1660!

Throughout the day I saw more people I knew -- a woman from the SPCA and an older married couple from our days with Acme Theater company. There was enough business to keep me from being bored, not enough to make me feel overwhelmed.

Susan came in to be with me in case I needed her help, but kept herself working on the books that had been donated, pricing them, and putting them on shelves. We had several lively discussions, one of which has ruined Char's reputation with her extended family (as I shared some of the crazy escapades Char and I had engaged in in our youth), and another comparing reasons why both of us have left the Catholic church.

Many of the customers were interesting, including a professor, originally from Ireland, but who teaches German at the university . He made the largest purchase of the day ($36). This guy and Susan had lively discussions about books I had never read and I realized how being well read could make all the difference in this kind of work!

A woman demanded to talk with Susan personally because she had found two books on the $1 sale table outside and she felt that they were important enough books that they deserved a place indoors in the Literature section, for sale at a higher price. Susan placated her, telling her it had nothing to do with the "worthiness" of the writing, but on the condition of the paperbacks. The woman left mollified, I guess.

The time really flew by. Around 5, I let my eyes wander through the cookbook section again and found two more books I liked. I was going to buy them, then put them back, then took them out again and ultimately bought them. By the end of the day, my volunteer job had cost me about $10 and I had seen lots and lots of other books that I could easily be talked into buying.

Obviously I am going to have to exercise restraint in this store, but I'll only be there 4 hours a week, which should be a help.

All things considered things went well. I just wonder what is going to happen if Susan and/or Peter check the cash register tape and discover the $1,600 sale I mistakenly entered when my elbow hit the wrong keys on the machine! (Fortunately they don't use the tape for anything important!)

A Pain in the Neck

We saw two stage shows this weekend, a fabulous Chicago by the Davis Musical Theater Company (it got a rave review...not yet published), and Cyrano de Bergerac by the wonderful Acme Theater Company, which is made up primarily of young people, with an adult director.

Cyrano was at the Veterans Memorial Theater and we settled into my favorite seats, at the back of the theater. Midway through the show, I was massaging my neck, trying to work out the kinks.

It had nothing to do with the theatre or the seats, but with the stiff neck and shoulders that I have been suffering for several weeks. On a scale of 1-10, it's probably only about a 2-3, but when it gets to the point where I get up from my desk to go sit in the recliner for a bit because it hurts to keep my head erect, it's bothersome.

As I sat there massaging my neck in the dark of the theater, a lightbulb went on over my head: I have a daughter-in-law who is a massage therapist. Doh!!!

So I sent off a message to Marta requesting an appointment for a neck massage, and today, I went to her house. She suggested a 30 minute massage since if I had been having the problem that long, it might take a while to get the muscles to relax.

Now, I have to admit that I am not of the massage mentality. Before today, I'd had exactly two massages in my life. One was when Marta was teaching a class and needed "victims" for her students to work on. It was not long after I had dislocated my shoulder and they decided that Marta's teacher should work on me, rather than one of the students. That was one of the best experiences ever. For the first time since my accident, my arm felt really good.

I went to Marta a week or so later for a follow-up, but never went back.

I've bought massages with Marta for friends, but just never could justify the cost of a massage for myself.

I watch Kelly Ripa each morning going into ecstacy as she awards a spa vacation to yet another viewer with the right answer to the daily question. I see videos of massages and it just never had an appeal for me. Couldn't see paying big bucks to have someone put hot rocks on my back. Though my friend Lynn told me about a massage she had one time that was...um...interesting.

But this was different. I was hoping that a massage might bring some relief.

So I arrived at her house and she had her massage chair set up. We talked for a bit about how long I'd been having the pains. Then we got the chair fitted to me and she went to work. The butt sniffing by the dog, Bouncer, came at no extra cost.

I certainly have a greater respect for masssage therapists. She worked on me for half an hour and her hands must be amazingly strong. She poked and proded and pinched and poked and pounded and massaged.

She massaged my scalp, which was the best part of the procedure. I told her that I always hate to have my head shampooed at the beauty shop because they always apologize for being too rough as they barely touch my scalp with some mealy-fingered hands. Marta got in there massaged hard and it felt so good.

At one point she had to stop and have me sit up straighter because I had relaxed so much that she couldn't get to my neck any more. I wasn't even aware of having relaxed that much.

Those of you who get regular massages will find nothing extraordinary in this report, but I left there realizing that my shoulders, which had been aching on the ride over, weren't hurting any more.

Did it work? Well, I've been sitting here at the computer all evening and have had no problem holding my head upright on my neck. I still can feel the sore spots, but I have to think about it. It's not forced on me any more.

I think that I will return to Marta again...don't know when...but it felt so good, I'd like to have her poke, prod, pinch, pound and massage some more.

Thanks, Marta!!!

Sunday Stealing

Never-ending meme, Part 1

1. Song that always makes you sad?
Sarah McLaughlin's "In the Arms of the Angel," which Marta and Audra sang at Paul's memorial (and which is now used to shed light on the plight of hundreds of homeless, and abused animals).

2. Last thing you bought?
A surprise that will be delivered to one of my daughters-in-law any day now.

3. Last person you argued with?
I'm not an "argue-r." I can't remember the last argument I had. (Maybe I'm just repressing it!)

4. Do you put butter before putting the peanut butter on?
I use either butter or peanut butter. Rarely the two of them together

5. One of your stuffed animals’ names as a kid?
I'm sure I had stuffed animals, but I can't remember any, much less remember their names. I was more a baby doll kinda kid.

6. Did you ever at one time own a Barenaked Ladies CD?
No, but I remember the time when my then 82 year old mother-in-law, after getting Web TV expressed her disappointment because when she decided to check out "this pornography stuff on the internet" apparently googled something that brought her to Barenaked Ladies and she was unhappy that it was "just a band." One of my favorite stories about her, which I know I've told here more than once, but you never know who may be reading for the first time.

7. Favorite day of the week?
When you are retired, every day is pretty much the same, so my "favorite" at this time in my life is determined by what is on TV on any given night. I think new episodes of NCIS are on Tuesday, so that would be a favorite day now.

8. Favorite sundae topping?
Hot fudge, lots of whipped cream and toasted almonds (hold the cherry)

9. Did you take piano lessons?
Oh yes, For 4 years. Sister Mary Victor and the ruler she used to hit my hands with if I didn't hold them properly. I quit after 4 years (it might even have been only 2) and my father never let me forget all the money he "wasted" on my piano lessons.

10. Most frequent song played?
I haven't played a lot of recorded music in a long time (except for Christmas carols), but I think that the cast recording of Wicked still tops my list, particularly the songs "Defying Gravity" and "For Good."

11. T.V. show you secretly enjoy?
Project Runway and any of the Top Chef challenges. Also Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.

12. Would you rather play basketball or hockey?
Bwahahaha. I'd rather play spectator. But if I had to make a choice, it would be basketball.

13. Date someone older or younger?
It's a little too late in the game for me to think about that.

14. One place you could travel right now?
Ireland, back to the cottage we rented on our first trip.

15. Do you use umbrellas?
Almost never. I love the feel of rain on my face and in my hair. I am blessed with hair that pretty much looks the same after drying out from rain as it did before I went into the rain.

16. Do you know all the words to the Canadian national anthem?
Oh Canada, something something something. Or something like that.

17. Favorite cheese?
Swiss. I'm not a big fan of strong-flavored cheeses and some of the fruit/cheese blends we had in England were amazing.

18. The Smiths or The Cure?
huh?

19. Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?
Doesn't seem to matter. It's the whole package that makes a person appealing, not just the hair color.

20. Best job you ever had?
The Physics Department at UC Berkeley. I was a private secretary, set my own schedule, loved working with my boss, I had my own private office. I hated leaving that job. Second best would be transcriptionist for Women's Health Associates in Davis. When Sutter bought out the office and we became a part of the grand Sutter Complex, I continued to work there for several years, but the good feeling was gone.

Doin' a Girly Thing

I don't often do "girly" things. I have nothing against formal girly things, like teas and coffee klatches and Red Hat Lady events, but I rarely have the opportunity and I've lost the ability to wear gloves and balance a tea cup on my knee.

However, I got invited to a meeting of the Woodland Shakespeare Club by my friend Sue Abdi Lincoln. Sue actually invited me to a meeting nearly a year ago but I was unable to attend at that time.

This was a club which was founded in 1886 and is now, Sue tells me, the oldest literary club on the West Coast. She has been a member for about 10 years. Her mother for 30. It's limited to 50 active members. (She had to wait 5 years until someone died to get in). Sue assures me that they don't just discuss Shakespeare. When she first invited me, they were reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and at the moment they are reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society," which I read when Jeri and I were in France and Italy...so at least I figured I would be able to follow any discussion.

The group meets Oct-Apr on the first Saturday of the month. Members can bring guests to the January meeting or the April meeting. I didn't make it to that meeting last April, but I was able to get to this one.

As I pulled up to the Lions Club building in Woodland, I watched all these women walking in, some dressed up, some not so dressed up. One woman had a very large hat with purple swirls of fabric, lots of netting and some feathers or something. I only really saw her from the back. Many were women "of size" like me. One reminded me so much of my friend Diane Clark, who died a few years ago, that it brought tears to my eyes.

It was like the first Neil Diamond concert I attended in Sacramento, when Ned's friend Greg was working on the light crew. I remember parking the car and walking to the auditorium with Walt and saying that the depressing thing was knowing that we looked like all these old people who were filing into the place.

Yes, I fit in, and that's always a shock to see my "peers" en masse.

However, they seemed to be a congenial group. Sue had also invited another friend, Jan, who, as it turns out, is my neighbor. In fact, she and I were discussing her daughter's love of puppies and I told her about Buddy...and Buddy has a play date at their house tomorrow morning.

I'm not really too clear on the rules of the Woodland Shakespeare Club and what happens at meetings, but today it started out with a group of women reading selections from the book. Then a woman gave a fascinating account of the history of the Channel Islands during World War II. (I didn't realize that Britain had decided that they were of no use to the country, and so left them undefended, which allowed the Germans to move their troops in and occupy the islands for several years).

There was what was described in the printed program as "loose comparison of Woodland Shakespeare Club to Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society."

Then we broke for "tea and social," with lots of delicious finger foods, even more delicious desserts, and either coffee or tea or punch.

This was followed by all returning to their tables where each table was given a discussion topic to talk about amongst ourselves for 5-10 minutes. Our table's topic was "how has technology affected letter writing." NowTHERE's a topic that is right up my alley! It was easy to overcome my usual reticence to speak in front of strangers and to participate in the discussion.

There was no real "end" to the meeting. Each group had a representative who gave an overview of her table's discussion and the meeting was officially ended.

I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I talked with very few women and still don't know how it operates when there are no guests, but Sue asked if I would like to come to the next guest meeting in April and I said that I would.

I may actually send a request to join the group. Your request needs to be accompanied by written recommendations from two people in the group...but I actually know three people, so that should be simple.

Then all I need to do is wait for someone to die so I can take her place, though given the age of most of the women, that might not be such a long wait. (Bad Bev)

It would be kind of fun and different to add a little something girly in my life once a month for 7 months. I could adjust to that.