End of Summer Recap

It's been too long blog friends. No good excuses besides the peculiarities of life consuming way too much free time. As the summer draws to an end and I begin to think of starting a new school year, I feel it my duty to bring my gentle readers up to speed on all of our happenings.

Let's pick up where we last left our protagonist, (cest moi). May was fairly uneventful, excepting a fantastic birthday party for Heidi...The party was hosted by Heidi's sister, Tonya, and included two of my favorite people, Jeff and Patrick. Lots of potent wine was consumed. One of Heidi's friends played an African Drum melody midway through dinner, quite the wonderfully quirky amuse bouche to our meal!

Patrick created an amazing birthday dessert, one couldn't easily turn a second piece away.
The Mortinson girls were in fine form. Gotta love the sheer powerful beauty of those German/Hawaiian girls!
Of course no birthday is complete without the fabulous birthday shoes!

And now to the reason we have been fairly incommunicado as of late. (There's really no place like "Gnome"). 

We've been spending the last few months finding our own hovel.   My primary activity from the beginning of June has been home ownership. Yes, readers, we've decided after three years to buy a place once again. 

We officially moved in to our five acres with a mule on June 13th (more like 1/10th of an acre and a looming mortgage, but there you have it). I guess after two years of hemming and hawing here in Northern California we are committed to life on the fault zone.

The house? A beautifully restored 1922 bungalow with a decent sized back yard. The place is in Oakland in a community oriented neighborhood. We've met tons of neighbors, including the 92 year old woman to the right of us, and the lesbian couple to the left . Yeah, access to old Christmas hard candies and power tools! This neighborhood has a walking score of 95. If you're wondering what the hell a walking score is...join the club! I do know that the "hood" has a cute little shopping area with a true value hardware, some restaurants, a cafe, and a few shops. Highway 13, my route to work, is close, and casual carpool, Rusty's route to the city, is two blocks away. This house was move in ready, a new concept to us as even considering our brand new home in Fuquay Varina. We are currently making plans to extend the deck and get some stairs to the backyard. Rusty is never truly happy unless there is some project consuming our free time.

I'm completely terrified of the mortgage but hundreds of thousands of Californians over extend themselves every day...what makes us so special we think we can escape the shackles of home ownership? It has been a good two mortgageless years of enjoying expensive restaurants and trips to foreign destinations (I'm talking about Oz of course). Time to get back to real life and drop the wine club, the often ignored gym membership, and Farmstead cheese shop in favor of the $100 store (I'm referring to Home Depot of course, I don't know about you but every trip always ends in a minimum of a Benjamin). We'll keep a few luxuries such as Peet's coffee, Grey Goose Vodka, and itunes downloads but everything else is up for grabs.

I, for one, have taken this as an opportunity to get back to basics...clean out mind, home and closet. Rusty is intent on continuing along the Great Depression hoarding philosophy, but this is another chance to better understand each other...wow, I almost said that with a straight face, knowing I'll continue to sneak things into the Goodwill pile.

It looks as if we have both survived another move, excellent considering the fifty/fifty odds.  

In June, we took a break from moving and enjoyed a day with our friends Janine and Jeff at Gay Pride. A mellow low key day of fun and frivality.

Every parade needs parade queens.  One truly never knows if the queens bring their own sashes or are presented with these honors.  
Janine and Jeff reserved grandstand seats in the shade, and we enjoyed the parade with the rest of the hoy paloy.  Where do we meet the power lesbians with connections to get us good seats?   
Red faced but loving a day of dykes on bikes, marching with drag queens, and lunch at Chow!   And so ends June.     

July 4th, all was well. Paul, Liz, their kids John, William, Emma and Rusty and myself enjoyed a picnic in the park...with watermelon, German potato salad, cherry soup, and fried chicken.  We reminisced in the Berkley rose garden, the place where Liz and Paul were married.  

Right about this time, I was reading a book titled, "Breakfast with Buddha".  Another road trip story about a dissatisfied family man traveling with a buddhist monk.    For some reason I enjoy these "enlightenment" stories, especially during the summer...and who doesn't crave roadtrip shenanigans a la Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.   I read this passage the night before the Fourth of July,

"I have a tremendous fascination with the United States of America, the grand, swirling variousness of it, the way it siphons off the ambitious, the poor, and the abused from so many other nations, the ability we seem to have to be noble and heroic at the same time as we are being arrogant and stupid.  I love my country, but I love it the way you love a wife of many years: not because you have some sentimental notion of her perfection, but because you know her thoroughly, from the courage of the maternity room bed to the pettiness of her morning moods; from seeing her sit for weeks by her dying mother's bedside, to watching her worry about which shoes to wear to a cocktail party given by a person she does not like...And then, always, there was the part of her you don't know.  It was like that with America and me."(Roland Merullo, Breakfast with Buddha) 

Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that I love America, especially when the recession has hit so many of my family members and loved ones, and when she dangles promises in front of me,only to yank them away (yes, I'm still pissed abut prop. 8).  But I also know that if any nation can create roses from manure, it is certainly the US.  I'm still excited to continuously discover different parts of our clever country...

Mom came for a visit just after the Fourth of July.  Wouldn't you know it, I also had jury duty.  I'm all for my civic duty but this was a civil case (meaning based on a dispute over damages for an accident).  I felt a bit dirty afterward because I didn't sympathize with either party, but there you have it, a jury of twelve people not smart enough to get out of jury duty...

We took mom to see Beach Blanket Babylon, something I recommend people do when they come to visit.  After so many times of seeing this show, I'm considering just dropping people off from now on and having a cuppacino and tierra misu in North Beach.  The show is really fun but as hosts we are now starting to recite the words with the actors.  We also did a bit of touring and had a good time catching up.  Mom is doing really well, and I look forward to seeing her soon in NC, if I can.    

During mom's visit we enjoyed our first dinner party in the new house.  Several friends from school came over to warm our house.   Mom spent some time with Issy, and then had to fly back to NC.  

Soon after we hosted our second dinner party.  Monique, Lance, and Heidi came over for some home made sushi.  I've branched out beyond California rolls and now try new things like sashimi (with sushi grade tuna and salmon) and exotic rolls.  We had a mango and kimchi roll as well as a cajun roll (cream cheese, tuna, string beans and cajun spice- Rusty will attest it is much better than it sounds).  

And for dessert, strawberry shortcake!  Mmmmm, delicious and highly photogenic.  

Rusty and I spent the subsequent Saturday evening at the Fire Festival.  This fund raising event was sponsored by the Crucible, an Oakland artists collective specializing in fire arts (i.e. foundries, metal work, glass blowing, fire sculptures, fire dancing, hula hooping, poi, etc.).  The collective also demonstrated their different arts.  We saw a glass blower, a welder, a blacksmith and many others.  

We watched some performances and viewed the phenomenal sculptures.  

This is a picture of a pendulum powered by jets of fire.  The force of the propellent was amazing.  As far away as we were, one felt the heat from all of the sculptures.  

This statue stood twenty feet and was engulfed in flames every few minutes. 

The roar from this flame was almost deafening.

The amazing part to me was how much I actually knew abut these things based on my friendship with Caroline.  I've always known Caroline is very talented, but when watching others perform, it is clear Caroline is truly gifted with her grace and her showmanship.  We were a little disappointed in the performances but it is because we are truly spoiled by Caroline...what snobs we have become. 

Have you ever laughed so hard that your stomach ached?  Well, try a week of this type of laughter.  Julie, Donna, and Robin came for a visit and despite having only one bathroom in the house, we managed to have a fantastic time.  

The weekend was spent in wine country.  We ate lunch at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa.  Wow, a  beautiful setting and a fabulous meal. We then went to Castello de Amaroso.  We toured the castle and then partook of some very generous pours by the tour guide.  She fancied herself a bit of a redneck but I don't think she knew what she was in for from the North Durham girls and our resident Raleigh chicken rancher.    The votes are in and the group preferred to refer to Julie as the Cock Wrangler instead...dirty birds!

A lovely day in front of the castle...

Julie and Walt looking like a JC Penney's ad, circa 1982...

Oh Amore, Amore, at our favorite winery, Viansa. 

 

Cheers!

From classy wineries to trashy leather street festival, only in SF.  We arrived at the Dore Alley fair as strangers and left as friends, or at least Julie and Robin did, creating quite a stir in their regalia, al la marquise de sade.  

A hot day and leather, boy the chafing must have been fierce.  

Talk about your southern goth drag queens, and that's just Julie and Robin...

A handsome, kilt clad, street trick...

Someone got a beedazzler!  

Talk about your happy pig...just a little picture on which to end because I know Med collects pigs and this will totally freak him out.

Well gentle reader, there you have it.  School starts very soon and my adventures will be much less exciting. I do have plans to try and visit NC this coming up year, enjoy some time with Di coming in from Oz, and to try and get to Idaho and Southern Cal. to visit loved ones.  I'm feeling the need to reconnect with friends from my formative years!  I'll keep you posted on my adventures as well as misadventures.