AttaCHE Bags, CHanel, et les CHameaux

When I bought my beautiful Cadillac, I felt that it would be discordant to have my black nylon “attaché” bag lying on the iced-coffee-colored leather upholstery in the back seat, so I bought the perfect beige leather bag from the Levenger catalogue (they bill themselves as selling “tools for readers,” but I always think of them as more “tools for writers”), which has been my daily companion ever since. (The look I was striving for was what I think of as "CEO": a gorgeous leather attache case, a pair of gray suede gloves, and a crisp Wall Street Journal carefully folded in thirds.) I used to get tons of compliments over that bag (which that catalogue no longer sells anything comparable to anymore), but now (110,000 miles later on the Cadillac, which is still more or less pristine, thanks to a rebuilt engine and transmission by my expert mechanic and a new gold vinyl roof and new upholstery on the driver’s seat), the bag has become pretty thrashed. It’s stained and loose and floppy instead of tight and some of the trim on the edges has worn off, but it’s certainly still serviceable, perhaps more than ever. I can’t say that I treat it as carefully as I did before (which in a terrible way makes me think of something written by Zora Neal Hurston about the black man Tea Cake beating his woman because she wasn’t as pretty as another one), and in a way I kind of have my eye open for finding a new one.

But I’m anything but fashionable these days like I used to be when I was younger; it’s almost like “what’s the point,” with this body that’s as used and scathed as the bag I was just talking about. And one thing I have basically stopped completely is wearing cologne, when only about as recently as a decade ago I had a virtual wardrobe of cologne. That is to say that there was “daily going to the office cologne” and “weekend lying about cologne” and “going to brunch cologne” and “incredibly elegant going out on special occasions cologne”. There was even “hmmm yummy ‘voulez vous couchez avec moi?’” cologne. But now, it’s whatever soap I had just used in the shower and a rolled-on splash of Aubrey “E Plus High C” deodorant that I buy at Whole Foods. Does that even have a scent? Let me look at the label…gee, I guess it does, the first ingredient is rose water. So that’s what I am doing nowadays, going around smelling like rose water and sea kelp? (Or olive oil.)

But I’m not immune to marketing…in fact, I am extremely susceptible to it, especially when such experts as Chanel and top film directors and fragrance and color and packaging and language experts get together. Such as here: directed by Baz Luhrman. What’s to not like? Paris, Istanbul, ancient European train stations, the Orient Express, a sleeping compartment at night, ferry boats on the Bosphorus (if you had ever seen the movie Steam, you would be in love with Istanbul), two gorgeous people shown to great advantage surrounded by gold and skin tones, French accents, and (I’m guessing here) Billie Holiday. Might as well pierce us through the heart with a steam roller, but I love it.

Who knows why exactly, but, those marketing experts and my susceptibility again, this very much caught me:



I think maybe because I am drawn to woolen navy blue coats (let’s say like a peacoat, although I do not actually have one, because I happen to live in an almost always warm climate), despite the fact that the model is not actually wearing a peacoat, or maybe it’s the French accent again, or a somehow magnetic shade of blue that is almost black, but only a glance at this advertisement made my think I should go back to wearing cologne again, and that this cologne ought to be the one. It’s all about image, of course…I had NO idea what this cologne smelled like, but, peculiarly, that didn’t even seem to matter (although to a rational person, that seems to be the only pertinent thing, and to the rational and practical person, no fragrance whether you liked it or not would be worth $59 a 1.7 ounce bottle…would it?).

As it happens, my Visa bill was coming due and my Visa card is a Macy’s card, and you can pay your bill at the store. Also, I desperately needed a new pair of shoes, so I decided to go to Macy’s to pay my Visa bill and buy the shoes I needed. I was looking for something extremely comfortable that I could wear to work, so they had to be casual but look acceptably dressy. Regular dress shoes were feeling like a torture from the Spanish Inquisition. However, Macy’s had nothing that was close to what I wanted, so I figured I would try a regular shoe store elsewhere in the mall.

In walking through Macy’s to get to the rest of the mall, I happened to walk past the men’s cologne counters, and remembering the Chanel Bleu ad, I thought I would try a tester. I found the tester, sprayed a tiny amount of cologne on one wrist and rubbed both wrists together. To be honest, I did not like the scent at all. It seemed to be kind of similar to several other popular colognes, but lacked a certain “beauty” that I was hoping for. Well, I’m no expert on fragrance, but this one just didn’t seem to be “me”. Oh well, as I said, I wasn’t wearing cologne these days anyway and now I could save myself from spending $59.00.

I found a shoe store, Clark’s, that had the perfect “comfortable, casual, but looks good enough for business wear” shoe and they were even on sale, so I ended up buying two pairs of the shoe I liked, one in black and the other in brown. I had been helped by both a female sales clerk and a male manager, so they both were at the counter ringing up my sale and they both began to gush over my attaché bag (that hadn’t received any complements in quite a while). They were saying things like “that’s a classic,” “gets only better with age,” “very handsome and appealing,” and I was quite pleased to come away both with some wonderful shoes that I could wear and with so much appreciation for my bag.

Now that I had my shoes, I walked back through Macy’s so that I could pay my bill. Since Clark’s had been on an upper floor in the mall, I was now in an upper floor in Macy’s, a women’s clothing domain I had never entered before. I found a likely sales clerk who cheerfully handled my paying of the Visa bill. She also took the time to gush over my attaché bag, saying pretty much the same things that the clerks at Clark’s had said. Again, I was quite well-pleased by this, but also rather surprised.

Later in my car driving home, I was marveling over this sudden approval over my poor worn out leather bag. At both places where I had a personal interaction, the sales people really loved it. Suddenly as my hands were turning the wheel of my car, I caught a whiff of the Chanel Bleu that was on my wrists, the fragrance now resting on its “final note,” which, by itself, was actually something that I really liked. Then I realized it, that’s what had to be it, it was the cologne that had been causing all this positive reaction to my bag. It must have seemed that I was (suddenly back to being) “fashionable”. That’s what I was thinking then. But then later, I read a review of the cologne by a fragrance expert, who defined the final note of the scent as “suede”…in other words, some kind of “leather”. So now I see that what must have been happening was the final suede note of the Chanel Bleu on my wrists was as if my attaché bag, itself, were sitting there broadcasting its presence and its “leatherness”, very much like if I had obtained from a car manufacturer that “new car smell” (which is NOT the same thing as the kind you can get at the car wash), anyone sitting in my car very well might start gushing over how beautiful my car is, despite the fact that it now has a mileage that has gone beyond 100,000 miles! Fragrance really is a powerful force.

So I guess I am kind of back to keeping one eye open for a new bag, although I haven’t yet seen anything that is anywhere near as nice as the bag I already have. Such as these in the pictures that follow, I don’t like them very well because they have the messy complication of all those buckles and straps. Mine closes perfectly with just one elegant metal oblong device that fits through a slot in the flap and turns from horizontal to vertical to lock it closed. One flip of the fingers does it.

I DO love the marketing idea of these bag ads, though, where they show their bags in use at exotic places around the world. I just happened to think that these camels in these photos are so damned cute, the way they curl up their legs when they are resting. Why aren’t camels appreciated more? I mean, for sure these are as cute as kittens all curled up on a pillow, aren’t they? Yet think how hard they work. They deserve their rest, sweet things. I wish I could pet them; does anybody ever pet the working camels?

Super Model Ash Stymest

I guess I will dare to go out on a limb, here, and say that as a super male model, Ash Stymest must represent something quite different from what we ordinarily expect. I really do like him, but the question is why? I don't think he is particularly good-looking; he is young and all, but compared with some others such as Paddy Mitchell or Luke Worrall, or let's really be unfair and throw in somebody like Francisco Lachowski, guys who are "swoon down on your knees WOW", I don't think Ash Stymest has the same effect. He doesn't have a really great body. Yes, he is at least lean, very lean, but if he has any muscles at all it is because he plays around and is hyper-active, skateboarding, dancing, or just plain won't sit still. But I doubt he has touched a weight or entered a gym, which means there's no conscious effort toward his body, he just sort of has this natural body that is sexy and appealing for no discernable reason other than he just doesn't worry about it, but instead enjoys it without concern.

One of course notices his tattoos (maybe with like, maybe with dislike), but on the whole, those are more of a distortion to the body than an enhancement, I think. I do LOVE the way he says "tattoo," though; I wish I could write it in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but the way he says it is a kind of a lightly skimming over something like "taddauw" but said so appealingly that it almost makes ME want to get one too (and that's saying the nearly impossible). I think tattoos would be truly wonderful if you could walk up to a person with them and ask him about them. I mean, really LOOK at them and get their story, not quickly glance away as if the person were badly crippled or had a horrible disfiguring disease. Maybe Ash Stymest is a person with tattoos that make him look dangerous and tough, and yet you aren't afraid of him.

And honestly, as much as he is photographed, are they ever having him wear any kind of clothes that you would actually wear (although you maybe kind of wish you COULD wear, but only he can and you can't)? This means that you are yearning toward a world he lives in, and you can, when you realize that he seems to making it up himself as he goes along (I think he would be the first one to say this). If he can, you can.

I also imagine that he is kind of unhealthy (although of course I could be wrong, he could be almost Mormon in his pristine personal habits for all I really know), smoking, drinking, taking risks, there are probably drugs in there somewhere, all of which means that he could be eventually wearing out in a painful way, youth doesn't remain immune forever. But then, if so, he's also living in a world you are curious about but don't want to subject yourself to the danger of. So you watch him, instead, and enjoy its reflection.

I think what it is, is that he is a nuclear ball of energy. You never know what he is going to do, and probably neither does he, but he'll do it anyway and that lack of inhibition is powerfully magnetic. I don't think we could possibly stand him for long as lover or even a friend (we're not up to it), he would wear us out or send us screaming to the quiet comfort of a padded cell, but we would like to PLUG INTO him for a moment, but the most we could stand is what we get from a photograph or a video, a three-minute experience, or a two-dimensional one. The full-on experience of Ash Stymest in person would probably burn us out as if we touched a live power line. Does anybody know, does he have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or are all his human contacts like balls rolling around in a pinball machine, good for a quick bump, but then they've got to skitter away (or he does)? If he has some loved one, I'd love to see what they look like. I imagine hair as frizzy as a Troll doll and if you touched THEM, you'd jump back from the electric spark as if you had spent the last half hour shuffling along a thick carpet (whereas they're the one who has all the residual energy).

In short, what Ash Stymest shows is that you don't have to be beautiful in any tradition that anybody knows, you don't need to work out, groom yourself, count your calories, live in crippling moderation, worry about a future you have no control over, or follow anybody's irrelevant rules. You only need to be yourself without inhibition, regret, fear, social approval, or higher authority. How wonderful it is that a person who seems totally free can be a super model (that is, a representative for others), and that may be Ash Stymest's greatest power, that he is dissident and dissidence is exactly what we need, all of us, even those in power.

Thoughts On The BP Oil Crisis

First of all, I am sick of it being called an "oil spill". It is not a "spill", it is a "leak" or a "spew" or a "gusher" or an "out of control uncapped oil well"; to constantly call it a "spill" is to harken back to the Exxon Valdez and other accidents wherein certain legal precedents were set, but this is a different situation entirely and needs to be looked at with fresh, unbiased eyes. (And using the right words instead of common "sound bites" is always being on the side of truth instead of manipulation.)

Second, I am sick of everybody saying "BP did this," and "BP did that". BP is a huge corporation (a legal creation on paper, actually), comprised of hundreds of employees, including board members, officers, managers, clerks, and every other type of occupation. What caused the explosion was a combination of decisions made by INDIVIDUAL workers on the job. It was a DRILLING SUPERVISOR who decided that chunks of rubber coming up out of the riser (which ended up being pieces of a damaged rubber ring that is one of three stopper methods used to temporarily cap off the well) weren't a problem enough to delay the operation, an operation that already had cost BP close to 30 million dollars, I think it was, in losses due to problems and delays in the drilling of the well (leasing the Deepwater Horizon costs a million dollars a day). Secondly, it was a BP MANAGER (again, an individual person) who overrode the Deepwater Horizon's method of filling the well with "mud" (a thick, heavy liquid substance which has weight that applies downward pressure to counteract the upward pressure of any gas or oil that seeks to escape from a well), which was the second of three capping-off methods, in the interest of making it more convenient and quick for the extraction platform that was going to come in afterwards (Deepwater Horizon is a drilling platform; after they drill, they cap off the well and move on to drill elsewhere while another platform comes to connect with the well and pump out the oil). So now we have two individuals making time and cost-saving decisions that compromised the safety of the operation and effectively eliminated two out of the three methods used to safely close off a well. The third method is the concrete cores that Halliburton installed. I do not have much information on that piece, except that I did hear that some manager at BP counteracted Haliburton's procedure in some way which compromised that, as well (used fewer cores, maybe, to plug up the well?). To hear how this whole thing is being treated, it was as if the Board of Directors themselves issued a policy of "safety features be damned, full speed ahead," you know, due to "greed" and all that, when really, again, it was individual workers on the scene making risky (and wrong) decisions, which can, and does, happen any and everywhere (such as the railroad engineer in Southern California who was text messaging just before having a head-on collision with another train). Perhaps BP "policy" can be blamed for putting on that pressure to hurry? But who has a job where THAT doesn't exist? (Why have I been putting in 12-hour work days for the past four months? Fortunately, I just work at a school instead of drilling the deepest underwater oil well in human history.)

This is NO DIFFERENT from the Challenger space shuttle explosion, where engineers warned that due to unseasonably cold temperatures in Florida that the rubber in the O-rings might have been compromised, but management at NASA refused to delay the launch due to fear of bad public relations and damage to their carefully drawn-out schedule (a delay in launch probably also costs money). This was a decision to "chance it", since they really didn't KNOW what the o-rings would, or would not do. The drilling supervisor on the Deepwater Horizon didn't actually KNOW that the annular ring was totally damaged, nor did the BP Manager KNOW that the pressure from the well would be too great to contain the methane gas without the weight of the "mud"; these men only knew that many millions of dollars had been "wasted" already and they wanted to hurry up and get this well capped off so that the pumping rig could then move in (maybe in a few hours?) and start extracting this oil.

I don't remember there being cries that NASA ought to be drawn and quartered because of this managerial decision to launch the space shuttle against engineering recommendations to not launch. Why? Because NASA is the GOVERNMENT whereas BP is a corporation; to liberals, GOVERNMENT is supposed to be the solution to these problems, yet always, it is individual working people who make the decisions whether they are working for the government or for a corporation. So, the very force that liberals want to use to regulate errors such as made by individuals working for a corporation (BP), were the actual forces that caused the Space Shuttle explosion (workers for NASA). So, increased government control is not the answer. Deepwater Horizon had the best safety record of any drilling facility out there (seven years without an injury or accident), yet the risk-taking decisions of a small handful of workers in a moment counteracted that great safety record and caused the greatest ecological disaster in history. But this is not "BP". It is a laborer for Deepwater Horizon and a mid-level manager for BP. It could be someone like us in some other setting.

"Corny" as it may seem, I feel like saying to all those screaming congressmen and liberals and environmentalists, "Let he who has never been involved in an accident or made a bad decision throw the first stone." Everybody else is just working to satisfy their agenda, which is to "destroy the petroleum industry" and "increase government control over all aspects of life." Sounds good to some level of idealist, but I see they're all still driving cars....

I will probably be vilified for my comments here, but I care about the environment just as much as anybody else does and I detest what happened and mourn the loss of life in whatever form it comes in, and I can't stand the thought of beautiful white Gulf beaches turned gray. But my grief over this situation does not make me succumb to regular "ten-minute sessions of hate" as if I lived in Oceania in 1984. My whole orientation is more "what exactly happened, what can we do to make sure it never happens again, and what can we do now that it HAS happened?" (This, of course, will never happen with a government commission, such as the one that Obama has already assembled of environmentalists and others who have already said that their agenda is to socialize the energy industry.) Looking to find who to blame and brand them as "evil" (members of the Board of Directors?) and spend all our time screaming at them and thinking of ways to punish them is simply medieval and really, not of much practical use to anybody.

They Don't Matter

I'm turning over a new leaf concerning my involvement on the Internet (although sometimes I feel that I am turning over so many new leaves that it is eternally autumn) and although it is a simple and almost childish thing, I am putting it down here in writing for my own benefit in hopes that I continue to follow it.

Virtually all correspondence on the Internet is anonymous and the truth is that we may be temporarily contacting a type of person that we would never willingly stand within 100 feet of in real life. I think of being on the Internet as somewhat similar to riding a Los Angeles Metro Bus, which I sometimes did, for example, when my car was in the shop. But riding a Metro bus is to be packed jostling body-to-body for a horrendous, extremely uncomfortable hour, hour and a half commute with people you just might not want to ever associate with for even a moment, let alone having your entire body pressed tightly against them for an eternity. So now whenever my car is in the shop, I rent a car.

I want to apply an "escape" similar to that regarding my use of the Internet, and this particularly pertains to forums, discussions, comments, and book and movie reviews within which I might participate. It is nearly impossible to read a list of comments on any subject without coming away from the experience being thoroughly revolted by some of the participants--"Who are these people?" and "Keep them away from me, please!"

In the several years that I have been extensively participating on the Internet, I have NEVER EVER seen a person change his point of view during a discussion. There is absolutely no learning, no compromises, no coming together of minds, no progress at all, just an ever-increasing spiral of filth and spittle. It's all about you extending an opinion to an anonymous stranger and then him spitting in your face something vile in response, not only disagreeing with your opinion, but also casting aspersions against your character. What's the point of it, really? If what I was interested in was cock fights, then where you would find me would be in some seedy part of town putting my money on some poor razor-blade-legged rooster. Since that's about as far from my personality as anything I can imagine, what am I doing wasting my time discussing things on the Internet with people who are, in my opinion (as far as the type of people I would willingly associate with), just as objectionable?

So I'm simply not going to do it anymore. Oh yes, I will still leave comments, reviews, my opinion, and I will also carry on a discussion with somebody worth discussing things with, but regarding this other type of person, I will simply ignore them. This is a hard thing for me to do, and in the past, I have been far too easily drawn into further escalating discussions until I can't stand the involvement any more. This has been very stupid of me, but I have learned from the experience and it is now at an end.

One of my favorite people of all time was American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In his day, he was a controversial figure (and actually still is) as many highly creative and innovative people are and he was forced to receive a lifetime of bile from other architects, critics, and various other people who just didn't understand. He was interviewed by Mike Wallace in a series of television programs and one of the questions Wallace asked him was what did he think about or do about this kind of person. And I loved his answer so much that I would like to see it carved into stone: "They don't matter. I realize that I am not for them, and they are not for me." And that ended the matter. Why should this man be interrupted in his progress by stepping into a pile of dog do? He'd just wipe his feet and move on. I absolutely love that attitude.

Old But Not Freakin'

Is it just me, or...

I mean, I know I am "old" and "out of touch" and all, but don't you think that if you were young:


and considered good-looking enough to be a model (though in this picture I'm not too keen on the farmer tan):


that you would do whatever you could to preserve your looks, and not have a freakin' FACE tattooed on your chest?



After all these years, I still just don't get it. But it really doesn't matter, does it, this guy is STILL a model anyway. Like those models who look like heroin addicts. I am beginning to think that on some level (have I ever said this before?), this kind of advertising is similar to those liquor ads that had carefully airbrushed into the ice cubes monsters that severe alcoholics sometimes see when they have delirium tremens, selling a product by appealing to Freud's id, the lowest level of each individual's psyche (unconscious, instinctive, and relentless in pursuit of its basest desires). It's frightening how so many things are actually an addiction. But as for me, I'll draw the line at addiction to needles, which in my view, is what we are really seeing in the picture above. Watch how on him, now that he is started, those tattoos will spread like a fungus.

Martha Betty Crocker Stewart

My all-time favorite way to entertain is to have one special someone or a special couple over for a semi-formal, sit-down, candelabra-lit dining-room dinner for which I have cooked and prepared everything from cocktails and hors d'oeurves all the way through every course (including carefully selected wine served in cut crystal goblets) up to and including dessert and after-dinner drinks, preferably following a particular theme. (It's especially nice if that special someone stays over and then I cook them breakfast in the morning; such a breakfast can be just about anything, but in my view, has to at least include waffles).

But I haven't been able to do that for oh-so-long, especially being in this apartment in which there isn't room for even me to eat. I have to eat at my desk, which I think is disgusting.

But nobody I know seems to entertain that way any more, anyway. Instead, it's all pot-luck parties. I used to despise pot-luck, which you will understand is the opposite polarity from the kind of entertaining I just described that I like doing, everything being organized and integrated, instead it is a hodge-podge of whatever it is that people decide to make (if anything), which almost always has to be something that can be made ahead and then travels well which isn't really the best of dining. I think my mother used to dislike potlucks, as well, because she saw them as a cop-out for the hostess (since my mother was the most awesome dinner-party-giver ever), but she didn't dislike them as much as she disliked cocktail parties, which she saw as something people gave as en masse paybacks for all the wonderful real dinner parties they had been invited to. I don't think my parents ever in their life gave a cocktail party; instead, they had friends over, two or three couples at a time (not the hundreds who come to drop in at cocktail parties), for some real food and awesome conversation and deep, mature companionship. As a child, I loved experiencing from afar this very adult entertainment; the delicious aromas of the food, the tinkling of the bar ware, the joyful laughter of the ladies, and the earnest discussions of the men. They made me eager to grow up into the mysterious and serious world of the adult.

But potlucks are the only kind of parties anymore, so I do go to them and I always bring a main dish that I made (and something different each time I go, since I like to explore, although there was a group of vegans I partied with when I lived elsewhere who would always beg me to bring my textured vegetable protein tamales, so for them I always made those...and tamales you can make ahead and they travel well, in fact, they are a perfect picnic food. I'll never forget the tamales I bought on the Copper Canyon Railroad that runs from Los Mochis to Chihuahua in Mexico. Women would board the train carrying buckets filled with tamales covered with a hot dish cloth and walk up and down the aisles of the train selling them until the next station, when they would get off and another bunch would get on in their place and in this way hop-scotching station by station all the way up the line. Unbelievably delicious and quite safe to eat.). I don't really understand these people who happily get away with bringing "nothing", and by that I mean a bag of chips and maybe some dip, or a six-pack of beer, or napkins and paper cups. Gee whiz, how hard is it to cook something? Even the most pathetic of bachelors ought to learn how to cook at least his special spaghetti or an omelette or maybe a chocolate pie.

Speaking of chocolate pie, when I was so sick with the stomach flu or maybe it was something else a couple of weeks ago, I reverted back to feeling like I was a five-year-old (I wanted my Mommy!) and I began to crave certain foods that I remembered enjoying way back then that I don't think I have had since I was five. For example, I was craving Jello and also Jello Instant Pudding. As I started to eat again after three days of expelling toxins from both ends, the first thing I made was (lime) Jello, because I just happened to have some in the house that somebody gave me a couple of years ago. And then when I was strong enough to go to the store, I bought some chocolate and some vanilla Jello Instant Pudding. I also bought other things I was craving, such as peanut butter and grape jelly for PBJ sandwiches, and tiny bags of plain potato chips (not Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos, or any other "os" that I normally might select now). I got Root Beer and Seven-Up (which is hard to find...it's always Sprite everywhere) and apple sauce. Then, being a little more adult but still self-indulgent, I also bought Carrs Table Wafer crackers and Alouette artichoke and asparagus cheese spread.

I was invited to a party a few days later (pot luck) and WAS going to make some kind of a main dish, but happened to treat myself to some Alouette and crackers and inside the Alouette wrapper was a recipe for cheese-stuffed mushroom caps that looked delicious. So on a whim I made those, instead, and nothing could be easier. You wash the mushrooms, gently pull the stem stubs out of the caps, fill the caps with 1T of Alouette spreadable cheese each, put them on a cookie sheet cap-side down, sprinkle on each 1t of seasoned bread crumbs and cook in the oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. The whole thing was so easy that I made them at work and cooked them in the oven in the employee kitchen right before the party, which was right after work. And people loved them. One woman who is a phenomenal cook asked me for the recipe and she made them herself for a party she went to two days later.

Tonight I made myself chocolate-flavor Jello Instant Pudding...I kid you not, this takes FIVE MINUTES and I can't imagine who would complain about the flavor. Call it "Silken Chocolate Mousse" if you want. They had a recipe for what would have to be a killer pot luck dessert: Chocolate Jello Instant Pudding stirred with Cool Whip and poured into a pre-made Oreo pie crust. WHO CAN'T DO THIS? Now, if you want to be really fancy, you can grind up some peppermint candy and mix it into the chocolate pudding--great for Christmas.

While I love making dishes that take quite a lot of time (and maybe skill), I absolutely do not complain about using plain old American foods that I loved when I was five years old that can be put together to make something that will bring tears to the eyes of any adult. We all need comfort, don't we? And the other guests will be thrilled and impressed, whereas you bringing the six-pack or the bag of chips, not so much.

Expectations: Reliving Some, Fulfilling Others

Bobo's The Steak, Lombard Street, San Francisco

It ended up that yesterday, Thursday, was just about all about eating. Now, given the fact that yesterday was Thanksgiving, anyone reading this might nod his or her head knowingly, thinking, "Well of course, it was Thanksgiving." But no, yesterday wasn't my Thanksgiving; that will be tomorrow, Saturday, which ends up fitting everybody's schedule better. Is it incorrect to celebrate Thanksgiving on a day other than Thanksgiving Thursday? I am sure that when we do celebrate it, I will be thinking that it is about getting together with family and friends and being thankful for our many blessings...and THEN eating.

I started the day yesterday with breakfast at Cafe Lombard, after making sure that they were open (which they weren't the night before). This is the delicious little Italian restaurant that is owned by a Chinese woman who does all the great cooking; she serves regular American breakfasts and lunches. When she saw me, she said, "Welcome home!" after recognizing me from when I was here at this time last year. I loved that "home" (as opposed to, say, "nice to see you back again"). I asked her what she was going to be doing for Thanksgiving, open for Thanksgiving, or cooking at home for family and friends, but she said she was invited to a friend's house so she was able to escape the kitchen. I said, "Ah ha, this time it is for somebody to be treating YOU."

For some reason, this year I am being thankful of all the time off that I get to have in my job and am more keenly aware than ever of all those who are working to make the holidays work for those who are off. I've been leaving larger tips on such occasions, and also making mention of my noticing that they ARE working whenever that seems appropriate. I think it must be hard to be working when everybody else is playing, but a little extra recognition might make it better.

I got to sit in "my" seat in the restaurant's window (which will now be the fourth time I have sat in that one and only spot there). Kind of behind me were the only other diners in the restaurant, a man and a woman, whom I never really got a good look at because to do so would involve a very obvious and pointed turn-around-and-look. Whenever I am dining out alone (which is about 99% of the time), I am keenly aware of how easily I can hear every single thing that is said by others nearby, which I assume is a general principle with all lone diners unless they are utterly insensitive to whatever surrounds them. But I make a big point of acting like I am paying absolutely no attention whatsoever (and sometimes whatever they are talking about is of no possible interest to me), but my ears are not turned off so people's conversation are similar to a radio that is on in the car. I just want people to understand that if you are talking in a restaurant and there is a lone diner nearby, every thing you are saying is being heard by that diner. Does this now make you paranoid? Well, it shouldn't...but I thought you would like to know.

What makes it hard is if one of the speakers is outrageously funny, or perhaps extremely fascinating; I want so much to laugh, or to join in, but either response would spoil the carefully created illusion that people have some measure of privacy when out in public.

Based on their conversational style, I happened to like both of these diners sitting behind me at Cafe Lombard, even though the man had a very whiny voice. I wondered deeply about that whine; it wasn't that he was complaining about anything or was even demonstrating very much of a negative nature, but it seemed that this voice might be a carry-over from a childhood raised in a household where the culture was one of extreme disappointment and while he had absorbed that affect, he counteracted it by having an attitude of "the silver lining." Another description of this might a Pollyanna-ish "glad game," which is a perception of always turning around the bad things that happen to see what good is really inside there. I find that unfortunately people are more commonly the opposite of that, keenly aware of or carefully seeking out the negative that is lying in wait inside of the good things that happen. So, in some peculiar way, I realized that despite what might ultimately become screamingly tiresome to others, this voice could be described as the "sincere voice of Thanksgiving," saying in its tone, "I may have been hurt all my life, but there is always something good to be thankful for." So his was the perfect soundtrack for Thanksgiving morning.

The woman, on the other hand, was quite free-spirited, taking whatever in life came her way, and often made a clever joke of her companion's "glad game". For example, the man was quite complementary about various things about the restaurant...he loved the light classical music that was playing in the background, he loved the crispness of the home fried potatoes, his eggs, though a little runny for his taste, were nevertheless quite delicious in a way that he wouldn't have expected. He said to her, "So I had thought you might like to eat here instead of the coffee shop in our hotel, even though it was an eight block walk, I hope that was okay." She said, "It was fortunate that I had put on my walking shoes."

When the owner came to bring the man some more coffee, he said, "Oh yes, PLEASE, this coffee is just SO good!" Then he leaned over to his companion and said, "But you are drinking tea." And she said, "They have the best hot water here." I nearly burst out laughing when she made that comment, but he took her humor in stride and said, "You know, you are in so much trouble!" which, when spoken in his Eeyore-like voice, also nearly made me burst out laughing.

After breakfast, my mission was to cross over the bay via the Golden Gate Bridge and drive around in Tiburon and Belvedere, two of the more famously appealing across-the-bay waterside communities that I used to love when I lived in the area. Both of them, along with the better-known Sausalito, and well, anything water-side in the bay area, is utterly out my reach, I who couldn't even afford a falling-down tract house in a gang-infested area of L.A. But for some reason that I cannot quite yet explain, it was important for me to reconnect with this kind of thing, as if they represented some life-line that I could grab onto to pull me up out of the mire that I felt stuck in.

After marveling at those fairy-tale communities (and SOME people actually commute via ferry-boat from those lovely Marin County docks to San Francisco's downtown financial center skyscrapers,
so I could just as easily refer to them as "ferry-tale" communities), I crossed back over the bridge and headed south into San Mateo County to go look at the restored Carolands Chateau in Hillsborough:

Carolands, the 65,000 square foot home of Harriet Pullman Caroland, heiress of the Pullman railroad car fortune, once sat at the top of a major peninsular estate in what is now the Town of Hillsborough, which I loved to go look at from time to when when I lived in the area, but as people died and various heirs took over and money became tight, the place fell into disrepair. It used to be you could actually drive right up to the house and, if you were brave, walk around on the property, but now I see that it is fully landscaped again, gated and closed, and all but-invisible from the road.

Hillsborough, and another similar town in the Peninsula, Atherton (where my parents lived from when I was in sixth grade all the way through to when I was in my mid-thirties), are as equally out of reach for me and 99.9% of all the other Californians as are the fabled bayside cities, but I have fond memories of these communities having lived there during my "prime" years, so they are in my blood. This makes me kind of the opposite of the whiny-voiced man having breakfast at Cafe Lombard. I did not grow up in an atmosphere of disappointment, but in one filled with nearly impossible expectation.

I hadn't slept well the night before and felt exhausted with doing even more driving the day after having made the long drive up here, so I decided to drive back to San Francisco to take a nap and then relax until time for my dinner reservation at Bobo's, which really ends up being the day's main event.

I found Bobo's (Boboquivari's) to be everything it was touted to be. The restaurant, itself, was a melange of different rooms on different levels all in a fun, dark, romantic atmosphere. I was seated at a table in a room that was partitioned into intimate areas by heavy velvet curtains. There was an array of various-sized heavily-framed artwork on the walls, all in a hodgepodge of DISarray, as if the joyful energy of the various diners over the years had knocked them hopelessly off-kilter. I thought that was decorating genius. The colors and patterns of the Harlequin, the Italian comedic/operatic clown (such the rows of diamonds, or black and white stripes), was also a decorative theme of the restaurant, and a little research on the subject revealed that harlequins, while gluttonous, were also acrobatic, given to flips and cartwheels. Well, I will surely agree with the GLUTTONOUS part, but if after eating there I even attempted a cartwheel, that would have been the last act of my sixty-one years of life.

The waitress wished me a happy Thanksgiving and I said, "So, what about YOU?" and she told me that the restaurant had provided a Thanksgiving party for all of them earlier that day, which I thought was a wonderful touch. "But how are you going to be working stuffed and sleepy?" I asked her, and she laughed, saying that she had had time for a nap and now was subsisting on gallons of espresso. But we both agreed that sometimes your co-workers are more of a family than your own family, so a Thanksgiving with them can make sense.

My exposition here wouldn't be complete without a summary of the other diners who were in this room whose conversations, of course, I was privy to. Next to me were two men, a young college-age man with a phenomenally deep and sexy voice, and an older man. Naturally I wondered about why those two would happen to be together on Thanksgiving night, but I ended up figuring out that they were father and son, and surmised that the father had divorced his son's mother long ago and really doesn't know his son all that well. One was visiting the other, but I couldn't quite figure out which one lived there and which one didn't, but if I had to guess, I would have said that it was the father who was from out of town. The son seemed more secure whereas the father was unsure of himself. They discussed the ISSUE of religion, God, and what happens after you die (but not any of the specifics), which I guess came up because the father is an atheist whereas the boy was raised by his mother to be a church-goer. However, once the boy reached college-age, he determined that Christian behavior was hypocritical and therefore he lost faith in the faith. It was kind of a peculiar conversation, actually, in that the father never had had a thing to provide on this subject and now that his son was questioning, the father couldn't add anything to it, since to him there is nothing there to even ask about. For his part, the son wondered how a person actually went about answering these questions, realizing that most people never really do seek, but simply accept whatever they were taught.

At the other table in the room were three drunk middle-aged men and one fat middle-aged woman. They were simply having a good time eating and spent their whole meal discussing the relative merits of various steakhouses and how steaks are best cooked. It was their conclusion that Bobos' was consistently the best steakhouse they knew, and that Ruth Chris's was often a disappointment and ALWAYS snobby (and horribly expensive). After their dinner, they were going to further add to their fun by bar-hopping for the rest of the evening.

As for me, I really treated myself to the full nine yards--mixed drink, the bread that they automatically brought, salad, steak, side, dessert, and coffee. In retrospect, I would have been perfectly happy with just a steak and maybe a simple dinner salad.

Regarding drinks, the menu offered a variety of clever creations, most of which seemed to involve margarita-like salt around the rim (which, if I get a margarita, I always ask the bartender to skip) except here there were various combinations of salt and pepper, or various other spices, or even ground chocolate. I ordered a blueberry margarita that various restaurant reviewers recommended except that the only blueberry I managed to taste wee the actual blueberries that they had placed IN the drink. This margarita had nothing around the rim. Well, it was unusual and refreshing, but I didn't need to have it.

The bread they brought was practically a whole LOAF of olive bread that was heavily infused with olive oil so that one did not need to, say, put on butter (besides, there was going to be BUTTER to come elsewhere in the meal....). The bread was the only thing I was unable to finish, so I "brought the rest of it home" to the hotel and actually, I have yet to finish it. It's very good and also very filling, but somehow I sense that it is very healthy. It has pieces of both green and black olives in it.

The salad was a wedge of baby romaine lettuce with sliced apples, seasoned walnuts, and raspberry dressing. I told the waitress that I could get addicted to those seasoned walnuts. She told me that they also serve them as snacks at the bar and she, herself, always finds herself reaching for them.

Then came the steak, a bone-in filet mignon cooked medium rare, sitting in the middle of a large square plate, and the "side," which was sauteed portofino mushrooms. Here was where the butter came in, since both the steak and the mushrooms had been cooked in butter.

I could very well say that this was the most delicious steak I had ever had. I, for sure, could say that it was the most TENDER steak I had ever had. In fact, upon alternating between a bite of steak and a bite of some portofino mushrooms, they both were as equally tender. Since for me steak is often a chew-chew-chew ordeal, I just can't imagine how they managed to cook it so deliciously and so tenderly. For sure it has to do with the cut of meat, but it is more than just that. Anyway, that was utterly wonderful and would bring anyone to his knees, I am sure.

For dessert I had blood orange sorbet in a waffle basket and this was actually a dessert that did not taste sweet; the blood orange is almost bitter like a grapefruit. I kind of enjoyed having a dessert that did not make me feel like I had to immediately brush my teeth after. And, in all honesty, I am getting so that I hate chocolate, so it was nice to have a dessert choice that didn't have anything to do with chocolate.

The coffee was, of course, also delicious, but what I liked about it was the sculpture of the coffee cup in which the porcelain rectangle that was brought around to make the round sides of the cup had one end of it that was also extended out to form a handle. And they didn't just bring you a cup of coffee, but it came in a stainless steel carafe for the table that held three or four cups.

So, after this meal (which, before the tip cost $108), I had no further ambition than going back across the street to the hotel and lying down for the rest of the evening, which is exactly what I did.

But finally I could fully understand the suggested diet of one of my doctors. His trick, as he so proudly reveals, is "soup for lunch, salad for dinner, and steak once a week". That "steak once a week" makes him wink at you, as if THIS is the key to dieting success. But that secret hadn't communicated to me until my dinner yesterday at Bobo's. NOW I understand the reward that is implied by the "you can suffer anything all week just so long as you get a steak" steak.

And a diet is for sure something I need to go on again.