Halloween, the Bacchanale

Last night Geoff and I dressed up as the Bearded Lady and the Picture of Dorian Gray to go to a neighborhood party themed "Carnival of Terror." We were really excited about this party, because we've been watching over the past few weeks as our neighbor Kelly transformed her craftsman-style home into a ghoulish haunted house complete with graveyard, killer clown, sarcophagus, and a cage filled with dismembered baby dolls. In fact, we met Kelly when we slowed down one day to compliment her on her decor. In about 10 minutes she told us her life story and invited us to this party, giving us a glossy flyer with a terrifying clown on it.

Cool.

We asked Jess to join us, and she planned to dress up as a fairy. I suggested she make it more evil by going as the Twisted Tooth Fairy with blood coming out of her mouth and a bloody tooth in her hand, but she wasn't interested. As we were getting ready at my house, I looked over and realized that her outfit was actually a piece of lingerie, so I teased her that maybe she was going as Tinkerslut, and we had a good belly laugh over it as she thanked me sarcastically for being such a sweet friend. She had a point, though - it wasn't actually that revealing.

So after waiting a long time for Geoff to put the finishing touches on his make-up (to look like the flesh was melting off of his face), we walked over to the party. Kelly (who was dressed as a freakish circus ringleader) had every decoration imaginable, there were awesome appetizers, a full bar, and ghoulish music. Kelly cornered us in the game room and, with pressured speech, proceeded to tell us in far greater detail than was befitting the length of our aquaintance the story of her son's circumcision, her father's Parkinson's disease, about four or five present and former jobs she held, her father's freak accident with the paint thinner and the spray gun and the details of how she got that giant wax alien from the set of the movie in her game room.

There weren't that many people there yet, so we wandered around and took pictures and chatted with the other freaks. Soon it became apparent that there were no eligible bachelors at this freak show, so Jess urged us to ditch that party prematurely for another party with more single guys. We made our excuses and felt bad for leaving a party that was clearly not up and going to the level that the hostess had hoped.

All three of us headed downtown to a multi-level party with a bouncer, themed "Coyboys and Indians." As soon as we stepped into the party and saw the throngs of scantily-clad singles on the prowl, Geoff and I realized our costumes - and our very concept of Halloween - was entirely misplaced. Somehow Halloween, with its celebration of the dead, the undead, the freakish, the scary, and the alter-ego, has morphed to become a parade of fantasies and an excuse for a bacchanalia. At that moment, I understood why every costume shop in San Diego is filled with skimpy nurse's outfits, little bunny suits, or tiny underwear with no other identifiable purpose than to be really tiny. Jess' costume, which I inaccurately had dubbed Tinkerslut, was practically nunnish in this crowd, though she fit in much better than we did. Geoff and I couldn't have been more out of place in our Victorian-inspired costumes, which were intended to be scary or freakish and not at all for the purpose of mating.

Oddly enough, however, a more authentic spirit of Halloween (at least how we see it) did emerge from this clash of two worlds. Our appearance at that party created something of a mutual freak show - they staring at us wondering in horror what we thought we were (zombie? they asked Geoff, princess? they asked me stupidly), we gawking at the devil woman in hot pants whose pointed tail was coiling its way dangerously back towards her rectum.

We were like a pair of macabre turkeys who stumbled into a flock of hot and bothered peacocks. Ridiculous. We tried our best to mingle, but the silliness overwhelmed us, so we left the party and Jess stayed behind. Hopefully the evening was fruitful for her.

Spectacle

While searching the internet for bearded ladies, I came across a site featuring human marvels, which sent me off in an exploration of other peculiar people once billed as circus freaks.

We now recognize many of these sideshow attractions to be people afflicted with medical disorders like proteus syndrome (elephant man), microcephaly (pinhead), hypertrichosis (lion man), phocomelia (the human caterpillar), Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (rubber man), and acromegaly (giant). Scattered among these genetic anomalies were commonly a few people who brought spectacle upon themselves through piercings and tattoos.

As much as I marvel at the photographs of the circus performers displaying diseases I have heard of but never seen, not one shocked me as deeply as the photograph of this tattooed man. I have seen many tattoos and am a big fan of Miami Ink and its spin-off LA Ink (I am positively obsessed with Kat Von D), but this dude has literally the hardest-core tattoo that I have ever seen. Here is what someone wrote about this guy on the web site:

I have quite a bit of ink in my skin, pushing 300 hours at this point, but the fellow above is truly a hardcore body modification enthusiast. Facial tattoos in North America radically transform public perception and interaction. A facial tattoo that also happens to be a skull, a symbol of death, likely increases that backlash one thousand fold. Still, it is a gorgeously detailed piece of work and I hope this brave fellow still loves the tattoo long after he stops playing bass in that metal band of his.

Seriously. Can you imagine?

Rebuilding

The mantra after every natural disaster is "We will rebuild right away."

It makes you wonder where we (humans) fit into the natural order. As horrified as I am to watch this beautiful place go up in flames, to watch the people whose homes were lost, hear of lives lost, watch landscapes dessimated, I can't forget that this is part of the life cycle of this climate.

I heard a geologist talking about the chaparral and how some plants depend on fire and smoke for germination, how they are uniquely adapted to this inevitability, and how civilization has stamped out the small fires that would cleanse the countryside, allowing, instead, for old brush to accumulate and become fuel for the perfect firestorm.

Just as inevitable as the fact that wildfires will char the landscape again is the fact that we will rebuild again. Rarely learning from these hard lessons, we will replace those buildings that were in the path of a larger force.

So, the next time the Santa Ana winds from the desert blow across our dessicated landscape and ignite a flame, even those who know better will watch with shock and horror as nature puts us in our place.

Thanks to all of you for your calls and emails asking if we're OK. Fortunately, we're located in a little fire-free zone (our house is at about the 805 sign on the map). We're lucky to have bought a house where we did, because we looked at places in the areas that have been evacuated and threatened by the fire. There is a lot of ash and smoke in the air, which is worse today, and we're both finding ourselves wheezing a lot more. Curtis, the foreman of the construction company who did our renovation, just brought over an industrial air purifier with HEPA filter that they use when they are doing mold clean-up jobs to help clean the air inside our house. We needed this anyway, since we've been battling the dry wall dust.

Mishka and I are holed up in the house, cleaning up and painting and making cookies while Geoff is struggling to keep the clinic going with half of the staff missing due to evacuations. The scale of this disaster is truly staggering, but the emergency response efforts have been really great.

Blaze

All of San Diego is covered in an eerie haze, ash raining down like snow while the air is strangely warm even after the sun goes down. It smells like a camp fire, as if all San Diegans had stopped their mad dash to go camping...together. With the flames shooting up to 100 and 200 miles in the air and 60-mile Santa Ana winds pushing them across the dessicated brush and through the valleys, engulfing homes and forcing evacuations, today has a distinct apocalyptic feel to it.

It makes you think about what you would do if you had to evacuate your home this morning.

Valley Dog

Another minor miracle in this desert: it rained this morning. As a result, there were accidents stalling traffic along every major highway, and I crawled my way to work at an average of 15 mph.

The long commute gave me a chance to catch up on the news. Ordinarily, I listen to NPR, but today was the last day of the fundraiser, and I couldn't take their placid guilt trip anymore. So I skipped through the stations to find some good local station gabbing about sensational tidbits.

I found it.

Get this - I learned that yesterday, at the Ocean Beach pier, members of the local PETA chapter stripped nude, painted themselves to look like fish, then hung themselves by hooks to dispell the myth that fish don't feel pain. (Check out their press release: http://www.peta.org/MC/NewsItem.asp?id=10346) That's interesting. I know they feel pain, but boy are they tasty. Wonder when they'll stage a protest against the baby seals for eating fish.

Anyway, these PETA maniacs are why each time I need to enter the vivarium at UCSD I have to go through a keyed code and a palm scan twice.

So, with this ludicrous and disturbing image in mind, I ventured to the grocery store after work to stock up on food for us...and for Mishka. You see, Mishka eats raw.

That's right. In addition to body surfing and hanging with the well-dressed bitches at the dog park, Mishka has embraced California culture full on by reverting to the diet of her ancestors.

Californians crave fads. They crave pseudo-health movements and social consciousness. (Just today my friend Anni mentioned "I would prefer to eat happy meat," by which she meant the meat of animals that had a good life before they were whacked.) They believe that natural is always better (nevermind that snake venom or sulfuric acid are natural). And, as a testament to the persuasive power of the Californians, Mishka has brushed her kibble aside (food tainted with molds and fillers and substances unfit for any living, darling creature), and has converted to a true canine diet of raw meats (supplemented, of course, with Brewer's yeast, omega oils, pureed veggies and multivitamins that the primitive dogs probably didn't consume). The true difference? Mishka actually eats her dinner.

So, PETA, eat your heart out. Mishka is a HAPPY DOG.

Step 3

I knew it was going to be a long day when I was ready to be done after only the first hour-long session. I had six more to go, each consisting of 48 multiple-choice questions...and this was only day 1. I have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

Going to the Prometric Testing Center is kind of like my idea of visiting Prison: ID and documentation required, they take your photo when you walk in, you're assigned a long number, no jackets, no writing implements, nothing in your pockets, no cell phones, no drinks, no gum. Kleenexes? Strictly prohibited. You don't ask why.

Between every session, I took advantage of tiny bits of the meager 45-minute total break time to walk outside into the lush courtyard and breathe in the air. It actually rained today in this desert, though, so the air was too thick to be refreshing.

Around noon I actually contemplated sneaking in some wine in a thermos tomorrow. (Too risky.)

Finally, after thinking I was done one section before I was actually finished and then having to return, deflated, to the computer to trudge through another hour, I made it to the end.

When I got home, Mishka acted like she hadn't seen me in months. We headed for the dog park, where she pranced around like the belle of the ball. Tomorrow is all about getting through it.

Trying not to fail

OK, guys. I'm sorry.

I've been out of touch because it finally occurred to me that I might have a better chance of passing the Boards if I actually studied a bit. I promise to return next week with Part II of the Pink Martini story, pictures of our mostly finished renovation (gotta clean up first!), and more. But here are a few to pique your interest...

Red Bull Air Races:

A rear shot of Jess investigating the air leak in the dinghy (sorry, but there aren't many more pix of that adventure after this, because we decided it was a bad idea to bring our cameras onto a sinking vessel):

Mishka and her new buddy Gustav on our hiking rendezvous last weekend to Lake Laguna with my Swedish friend from the lab, Anni:

Mishka, wistful in the wilderness at Lake Laguna:

Mishka's new buddy at the dog beach (who, despite his charm and good looks, doesn't hold a candle to her main squeeze back in Winston-Salem - Baby Oscar):

More to come next week!! Hope you are doing well, and hope you'll come visit us!

Pink Martini, Part I

With our house in ruins and no end in sight, I decided it was a fine time for an adventure.

It all began with a simple plan: Jess and I would go see Pink Martini, the band/small orchestra whose musical style belongs on a menu: lounge marinated in world, infused with jazz, garnished with classical, then served with a dollop of theater. Without being intrusive or overly stimulating, Pink Martini wets your appetite, sends you to an exotic yet familiar place, and invites you to sink down and sip on something both potent and entirely silly...like a pink martini, for example.

Giddy with the idea that our town, the beautiful San Diego, is the kind of place that attracts acts like Pink Martini on so frivolous a night as a Tuesday, we decided we wanted to go...

...but not for the $45 ticket price.

(You see, though there is truth to the words of my crazy neighbor Tony - "Beans and rice are good for you" - I didn't think I ought to condemn us to those two culinary choices by further squandering our money on random entertainment during this massive renovation.)

All was not lost, however. Jess, who is never short on fabulous ideas, decided that we would simply get a BOAT! (she declared triumphantly) and pull up close to Humphrey's, which is on the water, and enjoy the music for free from our own little vessel.

Perfect.

(As you may recall, Jess is my friend with the sail boat, the one who took us for a sunset cruise weeks ago. This sailboat is located in Mission Bay ("1" at the top of the map) whereas Humphrey's is in San Diego Bay (red star at the bottom of the map.) To take her boat, we would have had to have sailed it a considerable distance and in the open ocean. Since this concert was after work, we opted for finding a new boat. Again, Jess was full of ideas.)

"A dinghy!" she cried.

"Great!" I replied.

(And so it was decided.)

Jess called upon one of her 5 million friends for a loaner dinghy. After work, we met the dinghy owner Gary, a guy she races sailboats with (yes, Jess is a badass, if you haven't gleaned that yet), at the "Dinghy Doctor," where his vessel had been "patched up." We waited a long time for the Dinghy MDs to return from their dinner break and discharge our inflatable boat. I used that opportunity to head to a little Mexican place down the road to pick up our dinner - it was there that I finally learned that "menudo," which appears on every Mexican menu, is actually tripe stew (note to self: no menudo for me). Finally, we got the dinghy and loaded it up in Jess' Audi wagon, and I followed her in my car as we searched for a suitable spot to launch.

For reasons unclear to me even now (but that I suspect had something to do with the fact that we were trespassing), Jess decided the best spot would be to launch - not off of the pier - but off of the dirt and rocks to the left of the pier at the yacht club.

Our first task: inflating the dinghy.

This task was accomplished manually (or pedally) by pumping an accordion-like air pump with the foot. Perhaps because Fate considered this to be too straightforward for the kind of evening we were about to have, it turned out that the air valve on her pump was broken, so it had to be covered while pumping out then uncovered to allow air to refill the chamber. The bottom line is this: while one person (me) stomped on the pump a la hee-haw, the other person (Jess) had to coordinate perfectly with the covering and uncovering of the hole. It was vaguely like CPR at the Opry.

Several people passed us during this ridiculous endeavor and asked us what we were up to. We jokingly replied "We're fleeing the country to Cuba." They smiled politely if skeptically. It wasn't long before our little boat was seaworthy (or so we thought).

Getting it to the water wasn't so easy - Jess had chosen a spot where the earth fell off steeply and rocks jutted out here and there. We lifted the dinghy overhead. I went first, half sliding down the slope. We decided to let the dinghy sort of shimmy down the embankment. She followed, and we eased it into the water. Jess hopped in. Since night had fallen and no one was around, and we had several hours of beer drinking on the boat ahead of us, I decided to slink off very unceremoniously to pee on a rock. (This pretty much galvanized our friendship.) When I returned, I could tell something was wrong, though. "Isabel, I'm pretty concerned. There's a leak." "Oh?" I asked. "Yeah, an air leak. Not a little one. A massive one. Like a whooooooooosh." "That so?" "Uh huh. And a water leak. Water rushing in." "I see." I couldn't really add anything more. "But here's the deal," continued Jess, who gives the reassuring impression that she's MacGyver's female counterpart, "I really want to go to the concert, and what's the worse that could happen? I mean, we'll have to bail water and pump up the boat every so often." She paused, and we were silent. Suddenly, she declared "I say, let's do it!!" Without a second thought, I agreed and hopped into the vessel, only to hear the sound of air escaping rapidly through a large gash.

Green Flash

Not only is the west coast different than the east coast in a general sense, but the coast on the west is literally different than the coast on the east.

This may seem perfectly evident to all of you, but what I am about to share are concepts I hadn't really contemplated before moving out here. Brace yourselves. Here are two of my more unilluminating revelations:

1. The ocean is on the OTHER side.
(This I "discovered" while walking Mishka along the shore at the Coronado Dog Beach.) When you're walking along the beach and the ocean is to your right, chances are you're heading south if you're in San Diego but you're likely to be strolling north if you're in Wrightsville. Amazing!

2. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
This truth (which I have known for some time) has some unforeseen implications - consider this: if you want to catch an amazing sunset on the beach, head to the left coast, but if you're looking for an awe-inspiring ocean sunrise, go right. Truly incredible.

For some bizarre reason, these notions hadn't really crossed my mind before we became Californians, and they don't cease to delight me when I think of them now.

I was reminded of Revelation #2 on Sunday as I watched the sunset in PB with Jess, who was rescuing me from our renovation. Jess, as you can probably tell from my prior entries, is the kind of person who grabs life by the horns and lives it fully. She sees lots of sunsets but never loses her sense of wonder. Geoff and I have seen only a handful since we moved out here. We've been so busy.

Jess and I walked out to the end of the long pier and watched the big yellow sun turn red as it sunk towards the water. I snapped a bunch of photos on her camera because the golden light was making a really spectacular pattern on the deep teal of the ocean waves. Then we watched it melt into the horizon, half expecting to see a massive steam cloud rise up from where the ocean had swallowed up the sun. Instead, we saw something far more miraculous.

It was unmistakable.

There it was in the split moment after the sun had dipped below the horizon. Had you blinked, you would have missed the bright pulse of lime green light above the water. But no one blinked. Every person on that pier saw it and instantly burst into applause. And we weren't just politely showing our approval and admiration. No, this applause percolated up and out of us, an unconscious and exuberant expression of our collective gratitude toward Nature herself. With that bright pulse, we were glad to be alive. How could we not? We had witnessed the green flash!