It's Just So Hot!

It's so hot that it's like being snowed in (even though, no, actually, it doesn't snow here in Vacaville) because you can't even go outside!  I run out first thing in the morning to do errands, rush home, close the curtains, and hunker down and let the air conditioning wash over me.  So the kids will be back to school in a few days, and maybe you'll have some unstructured time on your hands, and  you're stuck inside.  How about a little something to read?

This summer I read a whole bunch of books (ahh, yes, that's the me I'm used to, the staying-home-reading one, not the hiking, out-and-abouting one), but I didn't love all of them.  Joan Rivers' latest, I Hate Everyone...Starting with Me, just wasn't that funny.   The Red House by Mark Haddon was kind of depressing, and I didn't really even like the characters (but I have to come clean and tell you I didn't finish it).  Peter Cameron's Coral Glynn was okay, but it seemed sort of self conscious--This is a Book That Takes Place in England in the 1950s.  These are all new books, all very popular, and I wanted to love them, but I didn't.

Here, however, are the ones I did love.  First of all, Hard Country, by Michael McGarrity. It's a Western, which isn't usually my bag.  Although, I did love Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, that  wildly popular Western novel from the 1980s.  Hard Country did sort of remind me of that book.  It takes place in New Mexico territory, and tells the saga of one John Kerney, and the trials of his life.  Very long, very good.  I cried in the end.

Next, I so enjoyed The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. Apparently Ms. Moriarty happened to read a snippet about one summer in the life of silent film star Louise Brooks, and it sparked this novel.  When Louise Brooks was 15 years old, she was sent from Kansas to New York for a few weeks of dancing lessons, and she was sent with a chaperone.  This tells the imagined story of Cora, the chaperone, and her experiences with the scarily worldly, headstrong Brooks.  I loved it.

The Lifeboat  by Charlotte Rogan is a Titanic-era story.  It is, not surprisingly, the story of a ship that sinks and some of the passengers' (particularly one young woman who is a newlywed) ensuing time on a lifeboat.  It's almost a bit suspenseful.  I thought the ending was a little weak, but I still enjoyed it and think it's worth reading.

The Bolter is the true story of Idina Sackville, and it's told by her great-granddaughter, Frances Osborne.  Idina Sackville was part of the Happy Valley Set, wealthy British adventurers who settled in Kenya and were the subject of many stories, including James Fox's White Mischief (which was very interesting, I might add)  They were self-indulgent, lawless, careless, and selfish people.  Idina was no different, but Osborne is able to bring out another dimension to her, and we see her as a lonely, restless soul who, really, was just looking for someone to love her.  She abandons her marriages regularly, and was the inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character The Bolter in The Pursuit of Love (another of my favorites). I found it compelling reading.

Finally, Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym's first novel, tells the story of two sisters, Harriet and Belinda, and their lives in a small English village, replete with vicars and curates and minor royalty and tweeds and tea and gardens. In parts I laughed out loud, even though the humor is subtle and gentle.  I just love Barbara Pym.  If you haven't read anything she's written, this is as good a place as any to start.

I'm still reading, so I'll have more ideas soon.  I'm just starting Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, and it looks interesting. I've got Frances Osborne's newest book Park Lane waiting for me at the library.  If you're feeling flush, grab a few of these books off Amazon.  If you're feeling po, well, reserve them on the library website.  Of course you know which way I'll be doing it.

Desolation Field Trip

You have to believe me, I'm really not an active person.  However, I just went on another field trip. This time we went on a hike, up in Desolation Wilderness, at Echo Lakes.  You know, I always think that "hike" sounds a bit over the top.  Usually a "hike" is just a walk on unpaved surfaces, which is pretty much what happened.  That is, until we got to The Bad Part.  Then it really was a hike.  Not a "hike."

Echo Lakes is a popular place to backpack.  The trailhead consists of a small store, some rawther dicey bathrooms, a boat launch, and some docks.  You have to get a trail pass (so they know who is on the mountain, I guess), but it's free.  The parking is minimal at the trailhead, but there is plenty on the road. It was very busy when we got there, really not desolate at all! (You know I'm going to work the desolation angle in every chance I get, right?)

Desolation Wilderness is an area of the Eldorado National Forest.  The desolation part actually refers to the lack of trees due to the high altitude, not the desolation I experienced in said wilderness.

Really, it is beautiful up there.  The trail is easily traversed, although quite rocky.  One must keep one's wits about oneself or else one will face plant on said trail. So I watched carefully as I walked.  The scenery is gorgeous.  This is the vista you see right as you begin the hike, not even breathing heavily yet.

When I hike, it turns out I have a tendency to bustle along.  I feel like I am trying to accomplish something, and when you accomplish things, you do them quickly and efficiently.  This is not, apparently, the correct way to approach hiking, and may well have contributed to experiences in The Bad Part.  Slow and steady is a far more appropriate tack, which I will certainly remember next time. I mean, the trail starts at about 8,000 feet, so I was already out of my depth with regard to the altitude, since  I struggle once I'm above about 5,000 feet.  (I know that sounds like I am constantly tromping through forests at high elevation, but really, nothing could be further from the truth.  I think this was the first time I'd actually hiked since 5th grade camp.)

Everything was going really well.  We were on a trail, moving through the forest, feeling the breeze off Echo Lake cool us.  I did find that I was getting a bit winded, but it's not surprising, since we were at about 8,000 feet.  We'd stop, have some water and a snack, and keep pushing on.  It wasn't super easy (remember, I'm not exactly Grizzly Adams), but it was very enjoyable.  Just enough of a challenge.

We saw many lovely cabins around the lake, and look--here's the one I will buy as a vacation home when I am wondering what to spend that extra million on. It was perfect--unobstructed lake view, big deck, tons of firewood piled outside (I could have a fire in the fireplace probably almost year 'round!), and boat-only access, which I think would certainly keep the riffraff out.  Except, of course, for riffraff like me who stand outside and take pictures.

Okay, about The Bad Part.  Now, I don't want you to think something horrible happened.  It didn't!  It's just that I am something of a tenderfoot, and I pushed too hard.  So we got to a place where two trails diverge, and we took the trail that led to Echo Peak, which is at about 8,900 feet. I was tired and I was huffing and puffing, since it was not only over 8,000 feet at that point, but it was also a very warm day.  The trail had been gradually becoming more and more rocky as we'd progressed, but at this point, all bets were off.  I swear, it looked like the Khumbu Icefall.  You know, on Everest?  Okay, that may be a teensy bit of an exaggeration.  But it was very steep, with big, loose, shardy cobbles that shifted and slid with every step.  I was struggling so much I forgot to take a picture! So we went about two hundred feet, and I had to stop.  Another hundred feet, stop.  And so it went, for about 300 yards, but I never really fully rested--I wanted to get The Bad Part over with!  Needless to say, I was not having fun.  We finally got to the end of the Khumbu Icefall, and I was kind of in a bad way.  I couldn't catch my breath, which was scary.  And then I got a little weepy (dare I say desolate?),  which made it even harder to breathe and...and....  Yes, I am a big baby.  I know.  But we asked someone coming down from the peak how much longer, and she said about 45 minutes, and that this trail was a butt kicker.  So that made me feel almost cheerful, that it wasn't me being completely a wimp. Maybe just partially a wimp.

We kept going for about another 15 minutes, and then we got scared about what would happen if I had a heart attack.  I mean, how embarrassing would it be to have a helicopter airlift me out!  No thank you. So, discretion being the better part of valor, we turned around and began our descent back through The Bad Part, down to lake level.

At the far end of the two Echo Lakes, there is a place to catch a water taxi that takes you back to the trailhead. It didn't take us too long to get back to the water taxi, and by then I was much calmer and enjoying my hike again. Here is the view of the lake from the taxi stand.  It was shady and cool, and there was a bench.  Phew!  Taking the water taxi was fun.  Speeding along the upper lake was just the right way to cool down, and we got a good view of all the cabins.  The upper and lower lakes are connected by a narrow strait, so the boat slows way down to maneuver through, and then we were back up to speed. The trip took about 10 minutes, and we disembarked at the trailhead.

So tired!  I dragged my sorry behind to the little store, and lo and behold they sold individual beers!  So we sat on the seawall (lakewall?), enjoyed this view, and we each drank a Heineken.  It was delightful, and a perfect way to end the day.

I thought I was getting in a little bit better shape, due to my exercising, but we completely overestimated my fitness.  Or underestimated my lack of fitness.  So next time, I want to go in the fall, when it's cooler, first of all.  Secondly, I will have been exercising a bit longer so I may be more able to climb to Echo Peak. But I'd like to take the water taxi to the far end of the lake, so that the peak is climbed while my legs and lungs are still fresh. Alternatively, we forget about Echo Peak and just hike around the entire upper and lower lakes. Although, if we did that, we'd miss out on the water taxi ride, which was awfully pleasant. Not sure how to play it next time, but there will definitely be a next time. I'm looking forward to it.

Dog Days of Summer

[caption id="attachment_2199" align="alignright" width="158"] Stinkin' hot (technical term)[/caption]

The dog days of summer last from July 3 through August 11, which coincides with the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star (I didn't just happen to know that--I read it on The Old Farmer's Almanac).  The dog days also tend to be very, very hot.  As I write this, it is about 104 degrees out on my porch here in Vacaville.  The air conditioning kicked on at 7:00 this morning, which is never a good sign.  When it's this hot in Vacaville, I always think it's kind of the equivalent of getting snowed in, since you pretty much have to stay indoors.  For me, personally, having to stay inside is not a terrible hardship. Staying in the air conditioning, reading, sounds like a pretty good day to me.  The rest of my family, however, begs to differ.  So we went on a field trip.

First order of business was finding somewhere cool to go.  Thus, off to the beach.  Almost two hours from Vacaville, you will find Bodega Bay.  And if you stay on Highway 1 just past Bodega Bay, you come to Sonoma Coast State Park.  The park  consists of a series of beaches.   The

[caption id="attachment_2204" align="alignleft" width="300"] This would be the wine country...[/caption]

drive is a nice one, not too windy (car sickness always an issue), through California wine country and California milk country. Rolling hills and eucalyptus groves, abandoned barns, tiny towns, and swanky wineries all nestle together in this part of California.

[caption id="attachment_2205" align="alignleft" width="300"] ...and this would be the milk country[/caption]

Before we went, we checked the Weather Channel, and they claimed it would be 80 degrees. We were suspicious, but since it was so hot here, okay, it sounded plausible that it could be that warm over there.  Usually when we go to the beach I pack just short of what I'd need for an arctic expedition, but this time I didn't.  Well, long story short, I should have.  It was freezing!  And me only in a light little cardi!  But really, we didn't mind.  It felt good to be cold!  We had long pants on, and when we were sitting we draped ourselves with the towels I'd brought to dry off after wading in the water.

[caption id="attachment_2216" align="alignright" width="180"] Pebbly beach (different from Pebble Beach)[/caption]

The beach we go to, and that my family has been going to for more than 40 years, is Wright's Beach.  It's got some sand, but most of the beach is pebbly, which I like. It's got picnic tables out on the beach, as well as up by the parking lot (where it only costs $8 to park all day), and it even has bathrooms that, while not glamorous, are certainly better than, uh,  finding a big rock. You can camp there, too, but we've never done that.  Part of the charm of the Sonoma Coast is that it is easy to get to for a day trip, which certainly keeps the cost down.  And I think we all know how much I need to sleep in my own bed.  And not in a sleeping bag.  Ever.

We brought a picnic, which consisted of Ginger-Soy Marinated Spicy Steak Sandwiches, Confetti Orzo Salad, potato chips (you just have to have potato chips on a picnic, in my book), grapes (same), and molasses cookies for dessert.  It was all quite tasty.  After lunch there were strolls on the beach and a rousing game of paddle tennis. And then, just when the fog

[caption id="attachment_2215" align="alignright" width="300"] Shortly after I took this photo, this rock completely disappeared in the fog![/caption]

usually starts to lift, around 3:00, it started to roll in!  About half an hour later, though, it rolled back out, and we could even feel a little warmth from the sun peeking though here and there. It's a beautiful part of the

[caption id="attachment_2219" align="alignleft" width="321"] Look! Wildlife! A pelican![/caption]

state, and certainly

[caption id="attachment_2223" align="alignleft" width="321"] More wildlife! Seals![/caption]

worth the outing.  Driving back along the coast, the fog had completely lifted, and you could see the beautiful scenery.  And once we got back home, the heat didn't feel quite so horrible.  I mean, you know what they say, "For sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted."  I guess that goes for weather, too.  Even the dog days.

Heaven?

[caption id="attachment_2150" align="alignleft" width="275"] Maybe someday this will be heaven.[/caption]

Now brace yourselves: I've been doing a little exercise.  I go out early in the morning, when it's a bit cool still.  There is a faint breeze.  I feel the warm sunshine on my face, and I listen to the beautiful songs of the birds.  And it is, honestly, sheer h...HELL.  No, it's not heaven!  It hurts! I gasp for air like some kind of dehydrated fish, and I feel like I am staggering along, raising up clouds of dust, barely able to put one foot in front of the other.  But today, instead of my exercise mantra being "thissucksthissucksthissucksthissucks" I started thinking about other things. I started pondering all the things that make me happy.

No one else can make you happy.  It's a job for you and you alone.  When I thought about pleasant things this morning, the exercise period went by much faster, and I didn't notice the pain so much.  And so it is with life--make choices to notice the pleasant things, rather than all the things that suck, and your time here on earth will be so much more enjoyable.

Look, I have almost no disposable income. Any entertainment I have is on a rather frayed shoestring.  Are my relationships blissful and trouble-free?  Not exactly.  But I can make the choice to find enjoyment in certain things.

[caption id="attachment_2129" align="alignright" width="300"] Heaven is a baseball field in a converted cornfield in Iowa? I don't think so. This, my friends, is heaven.
A little gin, a little tonic...ahhh.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2136" align="alignleft" width="300"] Or maybe this is heaven, just back from the library.[/caption]

My friends, my books,

[caption id="attachment_2170" align="alignleft" width="225"] Ohhh, the smell, the taste of fresh pizelle cookies...heaven, of course.[/caption]

my cooking, my adult beverages, my cozy

[caption id="attachment_2141" align="alignright" width="225"] No, wait. THIS is heaven. For sure.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2167" align="alignright" width="300"] Heavenly sunset? A cliche, but true nonetheless.[/caption]

home--they all make me happy.

[caption id="attachment_2182" align="alignleft" width="225"] Heavenly--a stack of magazines, all waiting for me to read (I may have a bit of an addiction, but it's just that it's so cheap to subscribe through Amazon...).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2140" align="alignleft" width="250"] And this is heaven if you are a dog who isn't allowed up on the couch.[/caption]

So here's a little gallery of some things that make it a heaven on earth for me. Now you find some things that make YOU happy.  You'll feel so much better.

Fig Fest!

[caption id="attachment_2072" align="alignleft" width="140"] This is not really Cleopatra. This is Vivian Leigh. If you've seen busts and coins that show what Cleopatra really looked like...well, she must've had a really good personality.[/caption]

Cleopatra says, "Oh, excellent!  I love long life better than I love figs!" in Antony and Cleopatra (do you see me here, quoting Shakespeare??).  Her enthusiasm (I mean, who doesn't love long life?) for figs speaks to their appeal.  Although, in this day and non-Mediterranean age and locale, there seem to be either fig lovers or fig...well,

[caption id="attachment_2088" align="alignright" width="144"] Figs in about March[/caption]

haters seems a bit strong, so fig dislikers. Most people enjoy a Newton, but the fig relationship is snuffed out with the emptying of the package.  We've always been big Fig Newton fans (big fans, not big Newtons, although big Newtons would be fine, too),

[caption id="attachment_2089" align="alignright" width="180"] Figs in June[/caption]

and we are blessed with a prolific fig tree in our yard, which was, back some many moons, a volunteer.  A stray, if you will.  The figs we grow are entirely organic (not exactly due to our commitment to the earth's well-being, rather that the tree thrives on neglect), and quite large.  Some of them verge on being the size of a pear!

Every year the tree is very generous, giving enough not only for us, but also for the birds, the deer, and the rabbits, too.  I like to use as many as possible fresh, but then I am

[caption id="attachment_2104" align="alignright" width="150"] The harvest[/caption]

still left with a lot of unused figs.  I bought a dehydrator, which is like a triple-decker cooling rack, except that it is enclosed and has a fan that blows warm air on the fruit.  I have tried this many times and, sadly, have been left with tough little carcasses of figs, rather than the sticky lusciousness you get with a store-bought dried fig.  So why keep trying it? Hope springs eternal, I guess (and yes, I do know the definition of stupidity).  But this year I looked into it online, and on eHow I found a way to oven-dry the figs.  It worked very well.

The first thing you do is to make sure all your figs are ripe, clean, and free of bird, uh, detritus. Then preheat the oven to 250 degrees.  Cut off the stems, then slice all the figs lengthwise.  Place the

[caption id="attachment_2094" align="alignleft" width="180"] Ready for the oven[/caption]

figs, cut side down, in a shallow dish with sides.  I used Pyrex 9x13s, and they worked well, but use a dish to fit the amount of figs you have, as the figs need to fit snugly in the dish.  You need a pan with sides because the figs give off a lot of juice, and you want to contain it.    Place the dish with the figs in the oven, and set the timer for one hour.  After an hour, turn the figs over, cut side up.  The juice should be starting to flow now, so kind of mop it up with the figs as you turn them over. Set the timer for another hour and repeat, this time turning the figs cut side down, mopping up the juice again. Set timer for an hour again, and turn figs

[caption id="attachment_2095" align="alignright" width="180"] After an hour[/caption]

cut side up.  If you have a lot of juice, tilt the pan and use a spoon to drizzle that juice over the figs. At the end of three hours, the figs will be dark, wrinkly, sticky, and fragrant. Reduce the heat to 200 degrees, and return the figs, still cut side up, to the oven for about 30 to 45 more minutes. That will allow the excess liquid to evaporate, the figs to dry somewhat, and the texture to become more like that of "real" dried figs.  The whole process will have taken about three-and-a-half hours. Turn the oven off and allow the figs to cool down in the oven (I left them in the oven overnight and it was fine).

[caption id="attachment_2096" align="alignleft" width="135"] Finished product[/caption]

These figs stay quite moist, so I would store them in the fridge for short-term use, or freeze them for longer storage.

This isn't exactly a cost saving recipe--the oven is on for a very long time.  But what you do get is some tasty, nutritious dried fruit that is prepared with absolutely no chemicals or preservatives.  I made fig bread, which was delicious toasted with either brie or blue cheese on it, and will be making fig bars soon.

Apparently figs were one of the first foods cultivated for agriculture, 11,000 years ago in the Middle East, according to Wikipedia.  I don't understand why they are not used today to help solve hunger problems.  While they do need some winter rain, they don't need any water for about 9 months out of the year, and they seem to self-sow.  In addition, they produce two crops every year, one in June and the other in about August--there are huge amounts of fruit! I would think some poverty-stricken areas in the world could use a few fig trees to help alleviate some of their problems.  Figs are very high in sugar, which would surely be a boon to starvation-prone areas.  They even have a little protein in them!

Well, I'm off to dry another batch, and then I will wait for the second crop to ripen.  And so it goes.

[caption id="attachment_2097" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Almost ripe fig with second crop on deck[/caption]

Relief for Your Tootsies

[caption id="attachment_2034" align="alignright" width="150"] I kid you not. They looked just like this![/caption]

First, some theme music (take note of the shoes the girl in the video is wearing!). Put it on, and then come back. When I was in college, I wore high-heeled shoes that were chic (at the time) but oh so painful.  I prided myself on not limping, even when my feet were actually bleeding.  I would walk all over campus in ridiculously uncomfortable shoes, due mainly to the fact that I looked, well, fabulous (humor me--it was the '80s).  Ahh youth.  Ahh vanity--all, sadly, missing from my life these days.  Fabulous?  Umm...no.  Youth?  Nuh-uh.  Vanity?  Struggling to keep her head above water, but rapidly losing out to comfort.

Every now and then, however, events come to pass where I have to wear shoes that are less than comfy.  Or even just on a day-to-day basis, I have a couple of pairs of flats that, while not terribly uncomfortable on the whole, rub my feet a bit, making me very glad to take them off ASAP.  So anyway, a recent outing led me

[caption id="attachment_2035" align="alignleft" width="158"] Similar to this, but mine are black.[/caption]

to wear a pair of rather high, platform wedge espadrilles.  I knew I'd be on my feet for a long time, so I thought I'd look into some pain prevention.  Band-aids are no good here--maybe it's just me, but they slip off very quickly when I try to use them inside shoes.  Instead of Band-aids I use waterproof first-aid tape (the white stuff), which works pretty well.  But these platforms were peep-toe, and slingback as well.  So no, white tape would not work.

Then one day I was in Target and thought I'd take a gander at the shoe accoutrements, to see if there was anything that would be helpful.  Lo and behold, there was!  Well, at the time I didn't know it was helpful, but I soon found out.  It's this stuff called Fab Feet Blisstick.  It is invisible blister protection.  It's just beeswax and hydrogenated vegetable oil (wait--isn't that Crisco??) and a little fragrance.  The container is like a tiny stick of deodorant.  All you do is apply it to your foot anywhere you think there may be rubbing that would end in a blister.  Before my event, I tried it with flats.  It was fantastic!  I wore them all day, for the first time ever, with no pain! So when I had to wear my platforms, I whipped the Blisstick out again, and truly, it was amazing! I wore those darn shoes for about nine hours, with no blisters.  The Blisstick makes a slippery (but not messy) coating on your skin that prevents rubbing.  And I was worried about it staining the leather, but it didn't.  So what a find, just in time for sandal season!  Highly recommended!

Grown-up Fun

Well, I just don't know what to tell you.  I thought I had an addiction that was mine alone.  But have you been in the Vacaville Costco on a Thursday or a Friday lately?  Everybody (no, really--everybody) has a bottle (or two or three) of Kirkland Premium Golden Margarita in their cart.  It's ready-to-drink, and it is sooo good.  Addictive, in fact.  It's tart, not too sweet (I don't care for sweet cocktails), and very, very tasty.  I would not advise stepping on the bathroom scale after a day spent by the pool, quaffing this little number.  Heaven only knows what the calorie count is. Far better, frankly, not to know.  My vices are so few, and I don't want to ruin it.  Apologies for the photo of the partially used bottle, but we seem unable to keep a new bottle unused for very long at all.  It's about the same alcohol level as wine (12.7%), but somehow it's just so much more festive!  Truly, it can't be beat as a by- or in-the-pool drink.  (Of course you know that a blow-up pool is just as good as an in-ground pool for our purposes here--the cool, blue water is the object.)  $9.99 for that great big bottle?  Not much money, and certainly well spent.  My advice:  have plenty of ice on hand, and get dinner ready BEFORE you head out to the pool with your little cocktail(s).