So, when last I left you, dear Reading Public, I had just subbed a class at my gym. What I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning was that occurred the week after Spouse and I a) had our 2nd anniversary, and b) were at an attorney’s conference up in northern Indiana. I love going to these conferences because all I have to do is be Mrs. Attorney. Being Mrs. Attorney is not terribly demanding, and mostly involves showing up to meals dressed appropriately and socializing, with occasional hotel check-in and check-out responsibilities. This year, the conference happened to be close enough to Sharktank’s home that she was also able to attend, so we had extra bonus visit time with her, as well as several of the people we met last year. I’m helping with the party planning for our friend’s son’s bar mitzvah, so he and I spent some time driving out to check out possible venues, talking party planning, and he also managed to talk me out of the hot tub and into the pool for a rousing game of catch.
I don’t expose a fresh manicure/pedicure to chlorine for just anyone, y’know.
We also celebrated Spouse’s *cough*fortieth*cough* birthday, in a very low-key way while at the conference. In fact, it was about as high-key as I could get away with, and involved chocolate cake and less than six people.
After that, we were home for a week, which mostly involved getting caught up from being gone and getting ready to head out again. Part of that involved a follow-up visit with my doc, at which I discovered that I’m even more overweight than I thought I was. Unfortunately, a lingering bronchitic cough is not conducive to exercise (hence the doctor visit), but the “eating less cake” part of my plan has been going well.
Anyway, we packed ourselves up and headed off to Palo Alto and watched Spouse’s brother get his Ph. D. in Materials Science Engineering from Stanford. The main commencement was in the stadium in morning, with the various graduate (and, presumably undergraduate) name-reading-biography-reciting-handing-out-of-diplomas done separately by department in the afternoon. Snacks and more water are available en route between the two (and the campus is huge–lovely, but huge—so comfortable shoes are also eminently desirable) and the graduate department had a nice light lunch/heavy hors d’oeuvre spread after their ceremony. I highly recommend going to a Stanford graduation if you have the opportunity. The undergrads’ Wacky Walk is quite entertaining, and they seem to have a good track record on their speakers. They even hand you bottled water with your program, and trust me, you’ll want it. Also, sunscreen and a parasol.
From Palo Alto, we trekked up to Sonoma County, where we’d rented a house right on the Russian River with Spouses parents, Spouse’s brother and his wife, and Spouse’s brother’s wife’s parents. We visited a couple of wineries, one small, and one large. In between, we had one of those meals I’ve read about and seen on TV, but never actually hoped to eat myself. (And we got terribly lucky, because we’d randomly put into the GPS a search for the nearest open restaurant. ) If you ever find yourself in Forestville, California, I highly recommend the place. Sit outside. Drink some Sonoma County wine. Try the brie and mushroom appetizer, if you like that kind of thing, and the Meyer lemon tart. It actually tastes like lemons, not lemonade concentrate. I’m sure there had to be at least a little bit of sugar in it, but you wouldn’t know it.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Russian River was the river itself. I tend to be like my mom, who’s a fan of the Great Indoors. Nature is so often full of bugs with an inexplicable attraction to my hair and skin, mud, funny smells, animals with nefarious agendas, and unpleasant weather. From the deck of the house—or even the dock—the river was an opaque green that did not invite swimming, but once Spouse got me into a two-person kayak (we found out later that the river guides call those “divorce kayaks”) I could see that the water was actually quite clear and only ankle deep in many places. I enjoyed kayaking enough that I’m going to look around for places to do it closer to home, although it won’t be the same without the herons, hummingbird, and harbour seal.
Yes, I said “harbour seal”. Apparently, when the water warms up, seals will swim up the river and fish along the shady banks. One morning, around 7:00 AM, I was sitting out on the dock, reading. I heard some splashing and saw a head pop up out of the water. I assumed it was an otter, but after a few minutes, I got a good look at the tail end, and realized it was no otter. I knew there are freshwater seals in Lake Baikal, so I assumed that this was a variation on that theme. About twenty minutes after the first appearance, the seal poked its head out of the water right in front of me, just the other side of the divorce kayak., no more than four feet away.
The next day, I was hoping to see the seal again, so I went back down to the dock early in the morning. Apparently, the seal had important pinniped business elsewhere, so I got absorbed in my book…until I heard a low humming noise beside my left ear. I thought “That’s the biggest freaking bee I’ve ever heard!!!” and veeeeeerrrry sloooooooowly turned my head. There was a hummingbird feeding off the flowers on the tree hanging over my head. You really can’t see the wings on them at all when they’re flying; it had this slightly disturbing look of a wingless bird body floating in the air. (Seeing Hitchcock’s The Birds in film school is yet one more reason I’m not much of a nature girl. Or a bird-watcher.)
From Monte Rio, we drove down to Oakland (which gave Spouse a graphic demonstration of exactly why Eddie Izzard jokes that nobody would pay a million-dollar ransom for any place in the East Bay) and caught a flight up to Portland, Oregon, where my brother lives. The Oakland airport doesn’t look like much, but we did get through check-in and security with absolutely minimal fuss and plenty of time to spare, which is certainly more than I can say for the Indianapolis airport.
I love going to Portland, and every time I go, it’s a little bit harder to come back to Indiana. Spouse and my brother were kind enough to keep me company while I did my bit towards stimulating northwest Portland’s economy. We visited the Lan Su Chinese garden, had lunch at the Cheese Bar (mmmmmmmmm, cheese!), climbed to the top of the only volcano within city limits in the U. S. (it’s very dormant and doesn’t really look at all volcano-y; no obvious crater or anything, just a statue of Oregonian editor Harvey W. Scott), braved the den of the hipsters for supper, and most importantly, got to see my brother and one of the groups he performs in do their thing with the Wanderlust Circus.
Then, we came home and started removing windows and tearing siding off the house. That’s another story, but if you find yourself in Indianapolis with some free time the next few weekends, and a desire for destruction and mayhem, please let me know. We could use some help.
