What we toasted

on ski weekend with no husbands and no kids:

Some great snow.

No snoring.

A delicious meal.

A beautiful cabin and a gracious host.

A little girl we all miss terribly who will never grow up to be a woman sitting around a table with other women laughing, taking inventory, telling stories.

It was a grounding weekend, although the fact that I have not spent a weekend at home in three weeks is taking its toll. I am behind in almost everything: work, home life, blog reading (anyone have any babies??), blog writing. But in one area I feel I've moved forward: This weekend I actually had more fun skiing the crud and off piste than I did the groomers. Me / bored / groomers—three concepts that have never before been linked. It only took me—what?—ten years and several pairs of successively better skis. A trip to Alta helped too.

So I raise a cup of tea to myself for chipping away at my comfort zone and to the women this weekend who knew that there was business to take care of on that mountain.

Tomorrow let's make some romesco sauce, ok?

Back from paradise

Our drive down the Cayucos, a beach town on the central coast, had me wondering as we drove for hours Friday afternoon "Why on earth am I driving this far if I can't ski when I get there?" A real puzzler, no?

But the answer is obvious:

These folks.

These five families constitute a gang called The Usual Suspects. We were friends before we had kids and before some of us were married. We've been cooking, camping, skiing, and hanging together for over a decade. We've now launched The Usual Suspects Next Generation. Our kids have known each other since the cradle, and even though they all go to different schools and have new friends there, they have an ease and camaraderie that matches ours.

And the beach was nice too. The fog didn't lift the entire time we were there, but we weren't stopped from our usual fun. Husband and his old pal went mountain biking and found some sun while the rest of us had picnicked on the beach and explored tidepools at low tide with the kids.

On the way home, we stopped for some wine tasting in the Paso Robles area—fun because they have such a different climate and therefore different wines than we have in our area. I tasted everything with turkey in mind. My mind is cranking away on Thanksgiving plans (I'm hoping we can skirt a family obligation and have dinner at our house with friends), and we bought a couple bottles that should go well with this meal. That's if we aren't eating squirrel. More on that later.

The Figs are blowing town

After a hectic week that has left me frazzled and feeling like I'm behind on every aspect of my life, we're headed out this afternoon for a small much-needed vacation.

We'll be joining four other families (together we're known as The Usual Suspects) for a beach vacation in the central coast town of Cayucos. The drive will be long and the stay short, but the idea of just driving away with my family sounds irresistible.

And hanging out with this group always leaves me feeling recharged and incredibly fortunate.

We'll be staying in a large house right on the beach.

It's two units, and our family will be staying with one other in the upstairs units. Downstairs is where the real action will be though.

The living room is the most hilariously tacky 1960s-style party room. Doesn't just looking at it make you want a drink?

Have a good weekend! Back on Monday.

A weekend wedding

There's nothing I like more than a wedding: the bringing together of family and friends, the celebration of love.

We attended our first Buddhist ceremony this weekend for our girlfriends. I'm honestly not much of the Buddhist persuasion. I'm a lousy meditator, being completely unable to turn it off and be in the moment. I can't stop planning menus, organizing, scheduling . . . But I was completely moved by this ceremony, with its emphasis more than any other I have attended on the gifts a couple offers each other and the gratitude with which the gifts are accepted.

The main room of the Berkeley Zen Center is warm and intimate space that seemed a million miles from anywhere we occupy in our daily lives. 

What I also admired and was moved to tears by (unfortunately through the entire ceremony) was the emphasis on family and community: the gifts, the gratitude.

We were all so happy and so honored to be part of this day. 

I love these words that we read together in the ceremony:

I will not die an unlived life.

I choose to inhabit my days fully to allow my

living to open me, to make me less afraid,

more accessible, and to loosen my heart so I

may feel all joy and all pain from within and

without. I choose to live in humility,

gratitude, and vulnerability so all that comes

to me as a seed goes to the next as a blossom,

and all that comes to me as a blossom 

goes to the next as a fruit.

And the cake? It was a hit, but with all my frosting, fretting, and fussing over it, I neglected to take a picture of the finished product! I've got a call out to help on this, so pictures will be up soon. 

A Mendocino weekend:Kids, dogs, food, and wine

Every August friends of ours have a house party at their country house in Mendocino County. (They're retired, and their life is good like this.)


Friends they have collected from many parts of their lives over many years come together to camp in their meadow, catch up on what's gone on in people's lives since last year's gathering, marvel at how much all the kids have grown, pat dogs, and share some good food and wine.  Attendance varies, but everyone agreed that this year was a particularly good one for kids and dogs. There were lots of both, and they all got along well: no barking, no crying.

We usually pitch a tent in the meadow, but this year our old van made a triumphant return to this event. This vehicle spent the better part of this year dead in the driveway, but after months of unsuccessful shopping for a replacement, we gave up and repaired this one by having a Subaru engine put in it. The conversion product is called a Vanaroo. As in "Whoohoo! We've got us a Vanaroo!" We're planning on getting some body work done and a paint job, but for now it cracks us up to have the fastest piece of junk anyone's ever seen coming down the road. The rear seat folds down for a futon that we outfit with all our down quilts and flannel bedding from home. I kept waking up in the night thinking how damn comfortable I was. 

I was relieved that Husband was not able to take off work early enough on Friday for us to be present for the butchering of the goat. When we arrived, it had just been taken off the spit

and was being carved. Carving, I can handle; butchering, not really. I know it's good to have a connection to one's food and all, but . . .


This was my taste of goat. Not bad at all! I expected it to taste more like lamb than it did. The texture is similar to lamb, but it is not nearly as gamey as lamb can be. I had heard goat can be stringy and chewy, but this was neither. The goat was only a couple of months old and had been feed alfalfa, so that was probably the difference. I don't know that I'm going to order up a goat from my butcher for Sunday dinner, but I did enjoy this.

After everyone has eaten themselves silly and the sun has gone down, the musicians come out

and the marshmallow orgy around the campfire begins.

It's funny the reversal in party behavior the years have brought. Our age group, mostly parents of young kids, sip wine around the campfire, while the seniors play music on the porch and pass a joint.

Breakfast the next morning is always fresh berry crepes. 

Tradition crepes (made in David's perfectly seasoned crepe pans) wrapped around fresh berries, peaches, and whatever else is on hand and a sauce of sour cream, yogurt, sugar, and a little rose water. 


Before we left there was time for a kids-and-dogs swim in the pond, complete this year with a mud slide,
and a hike to the top of the ridge to pick huckleberries.

Sophie made this piece of art from a wasps' nest we found in pieces on the trail.

I don't know if I'll ever have a country house (it's looking pretty doubtful), but if I do, I'll have a party every summer, and you're all invited. Bring a dish to share.

Some of the very best news

We got it last night at my book group meeting: Two girlfriends of mine got married. They did a simple ceremony with close family at their house the other weekend, and a larger proper wedding and reception will take place in October. They wanted to be sure they got the legal part taken care of in case the good people of California do something really stupid in November; Jerry Brown, the state attorney general, has said that even if the amendment restricting marriage passes, he will not consider the marriages entered into before November invalidated.

This couple started dating before Husband and I, but I remember a party long ago where we were both the new couples, and one of my girlfriends and I were being introduced to a large, crazy group of long-established friends we now think of as family. It's always seemed wrong to me though that we're married and they're not. Not that over the years I've ever thought of them as less a couple than any of us who have been able to marry legally. In fact, they have always had what looked to me like one of the most supportive loving relationships among any of us.

But now, how awesome it is to see them with rings on their fingers. Glowing with happiness. Planning a celebration.

Sophie was so happy when I told her this morning. Her eyes flew open, and she dove beneath her covers to wiggle with delight. Whenever she sees something on the news about gay marriage, she asks "Does this mean that [our friends] will get married?" I've told her that it probably does and tried to explain that although this is the way it always should have been, it is not something that we can take for granted. Many people have worked tirelessly for this, and there is still a fight ahead in terms of legal challenges but also in terms of opening the minds and hearts that those who feel threatened. Threatened by love—go figure.

But they say that children see things most clearly, right? And I think Sophie does. In spite of what I've tried to teach her about how this applies to civil rights and larger issues, to her it's just a wedding, like any other. A wonderful, joyful celebration. An occasion to wear a pretty dress. But most importantly, just two people in love, forever. She's right.

Husband catalog shops—NOT

Would your husband wear this?

I'm just wondering. Because Husband received this catalog in the mail the other day. And he wants to know why anyone would send such a catalog to him. Since he is the manly guy he is, you know.

He is disturbed, but I am intrigued. On their website, one of the categories is titled "Night Out." Could you possibly pass up a night out with someone wearing this?

Not in a hot minute. And how cute is this??

Oh, but wait. That's a different kind of night out. And even though I wouldn't trade my Carhardtt-clad husband (he won't even wear argyle—he calls it "that Charlie Brown pattern"), I sometimes miss my single days with a particular friend who took me dancing at gay bars (no line for restroom!) and to a floor show at a drag bar (where on the way to the restroom I accidentally wandered into a labyrinth of those little . . . you know, rooms), was the best gossip ever, and would have looked great in all of these shirts. We lost touch after I moved to the other side of the country. He made it through big days of the AIDS epidemic (we used to page through the massive obit. section in the Washington Blade stunned at how many so young and so pretty were gone), and I wonder every once in a while if he ever met the husband dreamed of. He would have really loved one in Carhardtt.