On the heels of yesterday's Snow/Journey post comes more pictures from more of my loved ones in various places tenaciously enduring the blizzard of 2010.
This is my cousin Kathy in Virginia:
That shmoo to Kathy's right is actually a Toyota Prius, believe it or not.
My sister Cyndi in Dallas who started yesterday in disbelief that a tiny dusting of white would keep Texans out of their trucks, off the road and away from work watched helplessly out her office window as the city received 9.8 inches of snow before day's end. Here's more on that story. And here's a photo from Cyndi from the front line of the biggest snowfall in Dallas history:
All I can say to you cold souls is you have my respect.
And better you than me.
We'll keep an eye on all of this as long as we can...
...and if you can dig an airplane out and get enough ice off the wings, come out for a visit. I'll get you the friends and family discount at Starwood!
Back when we used to live in Indiana we spent as much time as possible with our friends and family who kept us sane despite all the crazy happenin's back in that state.
In particular, one group of awesome folk we hung out with alot was named Eric, Maya and Rigby.
Here are the only pictures I have of Eric and Maya:
Rigby was Eric and Maya's son. He spent most of his time looking for the ball and asking where the ball was.
Here's the ball:
While Rigby was looking for the ball, Eric and Maya and Audrey and I spent our time looking for ways to move out of Indiana.
We talked a lot about how much we hated snow and how four months of dreariness and grey slush and constantly running the furnace made all the other things we didn't like about Indiana, like the crooked politicians, the coal plants, the arsenic in the air, the polluted water, the industrial pig farms, the KKK, etc, seem so much worse.
Then one day Audrey and I moved to San Francisco. A few months later Eric and Maya moved to Washington D.C. where cool people like Eric and Maya and Rigby are desperately needed.
Then two days ago Eric sent me this picture (below) of Rigby (left):
Eric is an engineer, as you can probably tell.
Then another person who moved away from Indiana, my sister Cyndi who moved to Dallas, sent me this picture of the weather in Dallas this morning:
Cyndi said only six of the 25 people in her office came in to work because of the three tenths of an inch of snow they got.
Cyndi of course went to work because it takes at least fourteen inches of snow to make a Midwesterner consider the possibility of not driving.
Anyway where I'm going with all this is that I've been thinking alot lately about snow and friends and family and how our friends the Daniel family in Chicago have been buried in snow for the past 3 months and how my dad and Audrey's family are still back in Indiana and how they have gotten a bunch of snow this year, I mean a BUNCH of snow, and how it seems to be snowing everywhere the people I know have moved to, and how it never snows in San Francisco, EVER!
Then I started thinking about how i just recently realized the band Journey is from San Francisco, and how I like a lot of Journey songs.
Then I thought I sure would like to rub this all in everybody's face somehow, I mean in a loving way.
So for all of you trapped in the drudgery of winter, wherever you are, here is a message of love to you from Audrey and me and Pico and Eli:
Given three days off in a row, Audrey and I found three different ways this week to enjoy the Golden Gate Bridge, in order to see as much of heaven as we could on earth.
Day One, East of the Bridge: Treasure Island
In the bay between San Francisco and Oakland lies a man-made island, constructed in 1937 by the Army Corps of Engineers.
This is Treasure Island, World War II departure point for American soldiers embarking on their journey to fight the Japanese Empire, and home of the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, ironically titled "Pacific Unity."
Currently covered in dilapidated, toxic, asbestos-filled naval buildings, and gradually sinking into the bay, this oddity of oddities is virtually abandoned today except for the Treasure Island Bar and Grill (home of the best garlic fries in San Francisco), plus a couple of movie companies who lease the abandoned airplane hangars, and a small community of impoverished families housed in makeshift barracks on the north end of the island.
The Island Bay Homes Community Housing Project offers not only a roof over our less fortunate neighbors' heads, but unrestricted views of the San Francisco skyline, including both bridges, the Bay and the Golden Gate, the construction of which the World's Fair was intended to celebrate.
This photo from the 1930s shows treasure Island being constructed (foreground) simultaneously along with the Bay Bridge.
By 1939, the year the Pacific Unity fair opened, Japan had been at war with china for eight years and out of the League of Nations for six. During the course of the fair, two participating European countries had to close their booths as their real-world borders were being overrun by Nazi forces.
Day Two, West of the Bridge: Baker Beach
Just west of the Golden Gate Bridge lies Baker Beach, famous for its views, both of the bridge and of the clothing optional sunbathers. (Eli and Audrey were a little shy their first time at a nude beach.)
Looming above Baker Beach is the affluent neighborhood of Sea Cliff, where mansions rise above cliffs of Serpentine, California's State Rock, seen here being dominated by Audrey.
Day Three, Over the Bridge: American Normandy
Right across the Golden Gate Bridge lies miles of vineyards and local farms, appropriately dubbed the American Normandy for its landscape, its coastline and of course for its cheese.
It is here among the idyllic pasteurs, happy cows and swaying palm trees that the current world financial crisis has manifested its positive side: The best use for an abandoned bank building ever.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, whose home base is situated in the Ozark hills near Mansfield, Missouri, is the world's largest heirloom seed project. They opened their second location, the Heirloom Seed Bank, two months ago in the town of Petaluma, 20 minutes north of San Francisco.
As you may already know, massive food conglomerates have been endeavoring for years to genetically modify food crops so their seeds will not reproduce, forcing farmers and consumers to buy their homogenized produce.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has stated the goal of turning all of Sonoma County into an heirloom seed zone, where every plant grown in this region is sustainable, unique and most importantly non-GM.
We picked up some American huckleberry seeds, Italian artichoke seeds and Mexican pepper seeds. The world is in our garden again.
While in Petaluma (previously also home to our friend Sarah, owner of AV Framing back in Fountain Square), I also managed to fall down for no reason for the second time since we moved to California. This time I only scraped my hands.
After coffee at a waterfront bistro, we took a short drive from Petaluma to the Cowgirl Creamery, home of some of our favorite local cheeses. We picked up a quarter pound of "San Andreas," an unpasteurized, vegetarian rennet sheep's cheese to enjoy with the bottle of Sorrentino Gragnana Audrey bought from work and made the journey through the coastal farmland of Pt. Reyes to the famous light house, where wild deer keep watch over the Lighthouse Watcher's apartment. Three days, three ways to take advantage of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Please enjoy this happy slideshow of our recent adventures, if you like happiness.
The first time in our love affair Audrey and I were on the same work schedule, I was waiting tables at Mezza Luna in Broad Ripple spending many a gun-shy hour staring longingly across the bushes at Audrey bartending next door at La Jolla.
I thought she was too young for me. Too adventurous for me. Way too pretty for me.
I still think I'm right about the third part.
The second time it happened was in Chicago. I was bartending at the Roxy Cafe in Evanston when Audrey quit her job as a flight attendant and started working as a server at Club Lucky in Bucktown.
Precious daylight hours together were suddenly bestowed upon us in the Windy City to invent a terrific romantic pastime: Donut picnics.
Donut picnics by the lake shore. Donut picnics in the park. Donut picnics at the museum. Donut picnics on the L.
Now that Audrey is back in the restaurant biz once again, we happily share the same schedule a third time, a first since we moved to California.
Donut picnic revival.
We finally have time together to get around to trying those seven thousand breakfast places we've been wanting to try. And to look for that herd of wild billy goats that supposedly lives near Glen Park. And to make that video we've been wanting to make for our friends so they would know what to do if they come and visit us for a week but we end up having to work one of the days...
The world throws itself at our feet in a heap of art and love.
San Francisco is a matchmaker. Connections made so far: Terra Haywood, Brian Ransom and Anya Prinz, two bartenders and a server at Ramblas Tapas where I work, who became my team mates for the 2009 San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project.
In one weekend last month the four of us managed to write, shoot and edit a film together (starring yours truly as the Hit Man).
With narration composed and read by D.D. Porush and music by Yes Alexander with Slow Burning Lights, it is my pleasure to present to you our film, "Claudette's Greatist Hits."
Just to say thank you Inbox Phillip Barcio to tim Apr 14 (20 hours ago) From: Phillip Barcio Mailed-By: gmail.com Date: Apr 14, 2009 2:48 PM Subject: Just to say thank you
Mr. Sandlin,
When I first met my second wife she amazed me, initially by agreeing to be seen with me in public and secondly by encouraging me to keep writing. During one particularly melodramatic episode up in Chicago when the rejection letters were first starting to pile up from agents and publishers, Audrey wrote to you, her favorite author, and asked for some encouraging words she could share with me.
I admit I cannot remember exactly what you said, only that it translated into, "Tell him not to give up."
That letter is in a pile of other treasures stacked in boxes back in Indianapolis in my dad's storage barn. If we ever get settled out here in San Francisco maybe we'll send for it.
Anyway, I just got my first article published. It only took eight years.
The publisher asked me for the names of ten people I would like a copy sent to, you know, in lieu of monetary consideration, you know, because of the economy.
Yours was the second name that occurred to me, after my father's.
The magazine is called Tikkun. It's a spiritual/political magazine, but I don't mean to insinuate anything. I hope they don't try to get you to buy anything or subscribe or anything like that, or to change your religion. Let me know if they do and I'll go put a turd in their mailbox. Turds are plentiful and should be used for something.
The article is about an artist, and about what it might mean to be a saint nowadays, a subject I intend to drink more on and maybe write some more about later, and one I thought you might think was interesting.
Thank you for the encouragement. I wanted to share my success with you because your words, whatever they were, meant a lot to me. It mattered mostly that you took the time to respond. You are a good man.
Sincerely, Phillip Barcio
Reply Tim Sandlin to me More options 10:38 am (9 minutes ago)
Hey Phillip, When I read your first sentence I thought you were some guy stuck in Chad with fifty million dollars he needed help getting out of the country. I'm glad I kept reading. Thanks for the kind words. I'm happy for you and I hope this is the first of many. If those guys want to send me a copy, my address is Box xxxx, Jackson, WY 83001. Tell your wife she chose well. Tim Sandlin 307-xxx-xxxx
The streets sing to me. Pigeons sirens horns little children freestyle but its the cable car that somehow steals the show. The same predictable riff. Ding ding ding. Man, but it gives me chills. Makes me realize exactly where I am.
I go underground and the underground whines, "What are you doing here?
Don't you belong in the sun or under the stars or whatever?
Well as long as you're here, I might as well play you a song."
My relationships embrace me before the world has a chance.
I awake to Pico showering me in precious expectation. She allows me to participate again in saving her, with insulin, with kitty treats and gentle adoration. She saves me in return by giving me a purpose.
I take Eli on a walk. He takes me down streets I never would have noticed. Fertilizing the cactuses in front of the windmill house, he gives me a reason to stand on the sidewalk staring at the architecture. By each other's sides we are brothers. Together we attract the smiles of strangers.
We return home to 66 Balmy and Audrey joins us in consciousness. Monday officially begins. Time to get moving toward dominion over our dreams.
San Francisco is shouting, "I give you mountains! I give you the sea! I give you organic, free trade coffee and free wireless internet!"
Art spills out of the cracks of San Francisco and splatters on the walls.
Inspired by new surroundings, Elijah has started research on his first original literary work: "High Altitude Pooping: A Dog's Guide to San Francisco."
As for our first night in the city, in hindsight, perhaps we should have taken time out and relaxed, been wise, drank some water, like Pico, and tested out the pillows.
But what's the point of retrospect? Instead, education met us in our exhuberance and in our mistakes. No longer are we tourists, but locals, initiated for better or worse, starting with old friends and young wine...
...and ending with stop number two on our Emergency Rooms of America Tour.
San Francisco General. Where the wild things are.
Blood spills out of the crack in my head and splatters onto the sidewalk.
As the latest person to randomly fall unconscious in the street in front of City Lights Bookstore, my only regret is that wildness was not the cause, but sudden blackout from dehydration and fatigue.
Pride of the Beatniks I am not.
At least now I know what it feels like to get surgical staples in the head.
