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art + design

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Recent Posts

  • thankful
  • the best of quanantine times
  • four point one million
  • january: florence, then regional politics
  • "friend to all, enemy to none"
  • another day in paradise
  • around the world in piano lessons
  • once oman a time
  • moscow: reluctant vistor's guide
  • three months in

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  • November 2020
  • May 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017

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my ancient picture-a-day mini blogs

thankful

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I'm so thankful for all of it. 

For the words "President Biden."

Peter working in Islamabad and buying us rugs and getting settled in, and only until summer.

And then London. 

Intermittent fasting. I've gained 10 pounds since I've been in the U.S. but at least I know how to get rid of it. Also, wow does it improve the way I feel, and I hate to think of how much I would have gained if I'd been eating all day, instead of only eight hours a day.  

My kids, Camille with her crazy new job and finding her way, and Stefan being such an easy and fun person to live with. I cherish these two funny people and that we've had 10 months of living closer to each other. 

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My mom and her strength at age 97. 

Social media. Zoom wears me out, but I am so inspired by bloggers and instagrammers and people in my Facebook groups putting pom-poms on chandeliers, reminding me to get out and look at trees, painting, cooking, and just looking at the world in a way that reminds me of to look for the beauty. 

A huge TV and all the amazing and beautiful entertainment right from my rented sofa, my favorites: Occupied, The Good Lord Bird, The Queen's Gambit, Schitt's Creek, Person of Interest. 

This apartment and somehow finding my landlady/friend/lighting designer/concrete expert/fellow airbnb-er/skincare expert/mover-shaker Ahnalisa who has been such a godsend and inspiration. 

Our little Mini Coopers, so fun to drive around. 

Art supplies, what a treat it has been to be 15 minutes from Michaels in case I need glitter and two-days from two-day shipping for Dawler-Rawley inks and my favorite German-made Schminike oil paints and small-batch lavender medium, and acrylics by Golden and Sennelier. 

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Pretty dresses. I bought 50 clothes hangers and said I can't possibly need to hang more than that while I'm in the U.S. I was wrong. I love clothes, and I love nothing more than going through the dress rack at Goodwill, even though day after day I end up wearing jeans and a sweater. From The Vintner's Daughter to the Vampire's Wife, the U.S. has the best shopping.

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I'm especially appreciative of this little village of Pacific Grove. What a sweet, sweet place. A mile to Aslimomar beach or four blocks to Lover's Point, Pavel's Bakery, Acme coffee beans from Grove Market, second-hand stores, theaters selling tables on wheels to hold art supplies, the little antique store with vintage Stieff animals and old postcards, it's all so sweet. 

Starting with the Sultan dying, and then our Omani colleague getting marched out of the office for posting on social media about Soulimani's killing, to reading the increasing Coronavirus cases in the car to Peter every morning, to deciding to leave on a whim with Beth and Matt--and if I hadn't gone, I would have been trapped in Oman this whole time--to finding the house on Walcott, to Peter's sisters in Monterey, to my job that I could easily do remotely, to the fireplace I turn on by pushing a button, to hiking along Big Sur with Gina (even though I fell in barbed wire that one time), to hearing the seals bark at night, to the pink sunsets, the kind guy who runs the dry cleaners across the street who accepts my packages from UPS, to the candle section at Homegoods, and seagulls perched on metal buildings, and being reminded that October and November are the best time of year along the coast. For all. of. it. I'm grateful. 

Thanksgiving PG walk

November 28, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (2)

the best of quanantine times

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My question for everyone is, "What are you doing?" Because I so want this answered by all my friends, I will answer it myself. 

In a way, I'm wondering if I've already died of corona virus and gone to heaven. I am well, my family is healthy, I'm working remotely with my awesome colleagues in Muscat from the coast of California. 

But please do let me complain about my life during Authorized Departure as I go hiking in Big Sur. 

But while I am really enjoying this Viking stove, and the luxury of having a puppy, and walking two blocks to Ludmilla's house, I feel nothing but anxiety about the future. How can my kids go back to student housing/dorms? California state universities are going to be online fall semester. Camille doesn't even want to go back. But there are no jobs! This is the perfect time to go to school, except what's the point of doing school online? Why am I living so far from my family?

I miss Peter. How can I even begin? I love our life together in Muscat. Driving to work, seeing him in his "coffee lab," deciding if we are making dinner or getting gas station shwarma, taking care of Bea together. No one is more fun to live life with than Peter. 

But, should I move back to the U.S. and live somewhere where kids can sit out the virus and finish school? Will future us say, gee that was a dumb time to go to school, or gee, that was brilliant, going to school then. Being a half a world away from college-age kids, is hard enough. Having the world be turned upside-down makes it even harder. 

My thought for today is to try not not treat this time--waffles with blueberries and huckleberry syrup, goldfinches in the water fountain in the garden, the crows patrolling the street, the walk to Asimolar Beach in perfect weather with one of my best friends--as a burden. Or to be afraid. Win in your dreams, says Atsya. 

 

May 17, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)

four point one million

How are you faring?

I'm somehow in Pacific Grove, California. Totally randomly, the place I rented is a three-minute walk from my sister-in-law Ludmilla's. We lucked into a fire place, windows that look out onto a water fountain that attracts finches, hummingbirds and a stellar jay, and a ten minute walk to Asilomar beach. Today, after a Mother's Day lunch of barbecued hamburgers with homemade buns, the kids have retreated to their bedrooms. The puppy has gone from chewing on a deer antler, to wrestling with a shoe, to sleeping on my lap.

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Peter, as essential personnel at the embassy in Muscat, won't leave unless the Ambassador does. He's one of the few going into the embassy to work, as everyone else is, like me, on mandatory telework. Back in March when Covid19 was first a thing, during our morning commute, I'd report to Peter the day's statistics. When we reached 8000 cases worldwide, Peter said, "It'll be ten thousand by the end of the week," and he was right. Today's number is over four million. I miss Peter and his predictions, and not being with him every day is the one thing I don't love about this situation. I mean that and people's loved-ones dying. 

I feel bad admitting it, but I'm enjoying being forced to stay home. I never liked leaving the house anyway! So, at the risk of sounding grossly over-privileged, I thought everyone would discover the pleasures of staying home, throwing in a load of laundry between phone calls, checking the birds in the water fountain while writing emails. I feel like I've been given permission to live exactly how I like, to sign in to the computer in the morning with a puppy on my lap, go for a lunch-time run, work on a project, check the mailbox in my slippers, then respond to emails. In the evenings watch Schitt's Creek with Camille, or draw the Matillija poppies Ludmilla brought over. I live in my Allbird wool slippers. Stefan, sheepskin-muled feet propped on the coffee table, complains about an art history class on zoom. On the weekends, I put on real shoes and go for hike, to Big Sur, or yesterday to Garland Ranch in Carmel Valley. Life is fine, and I'm not sure I want to go back to the beforetimes. 

But after a couple months of only being able to go to the grocery store or for walks, and then being forced to wear masks, (like that's a hard thing,) Americans are bored and angry and want everything to reopen. If I weren't working, maybe I'd feel differently. 

The first thing I hear in the morning are the pair of crows that live on our street. I'm seeing spring in California for the first time in fourteen years. I'm in the same time zone as my mom, which makes phone calls so much easier. This was the first mother's day with both my kids in at least seven years. I walk around the yard in my slippers, trimming the cala lillies, wrapping the budding rose plant around the trellis, collecting mint for tea. Camille loudly thumps down the stairs like she always did and picks up the puppy and demands for him to tell her why he's so cute. 

When I was five my Aunt Edie got married in Las Vegas. We all stayed in a hotel, and then, after a few days my parents announced that we were going "home." What home? I thought we'd moved to the hotel. "I don't want to leave!" I said, "I like this place with the baby pool and the walk-to breakfast!" Story of my life.

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Coronalife. Bottom photo, my friend Gina doing her thing--getting me out of the house. 

May 13, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)

january: florence, then regional politics

Getting up and getting dressed for work, driving there, having it together, it was so easy in say early December. Now after weeks of the main work being presents and ribbons and plane reservations and figuring out the train from Milan to Florence and which panettone to buy, and orienting ourselves by the Christmas tree in front of the Duomo, figuring out how to work just seems so unreasonable. January after the break is always such a weird time. 

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I thought this was my work. 

Our first Christmas half a world away from Camille is still unimaginable, even though it happened. What made it tolerable is that 1. she didn't have to have a brutally long flight for a short visit, and 2. she was with Peter's sisters and her cousin in Monterey. Stefan left school in mid-December and went to Germany and stayed with a friend for week. Then we met up in Florence for Christmas. I had to work Christmas eve and didn't fly in until Christmas day, but it didn't prevent it from being glorious. Somehow we convinced the Luhmann's to join us for New Years, so having friends help us buy wine at the mercado and eat the extra panettone and play poker one night made the time even more sweet. Our apartment on Via Porcellana, near Santa Maria Novella, and even closer to the Santa Maria Novella Purfumery, had tile floors, heavy old furniture and bell-tower view. After visiting the Uffizi and seeing Botticelli's Primavera again after 20 years, all I wanted to do was stay in the apartment, wear socks and sweaters, and copy the painting in charcoal onto butcher paper. But we also rode the train to San Gimignano, had dinner one night on the campo in Siena, and saw the tilted Christmas tree in Pisa. The flight home was brutal, low-cost airlines are low cost for a reason. 

Went back to work for a week, at a definite January pace. 

On the 7th, the president had an Irani general assassinated, so the Embassy here was pretty spun up. Contingency plans were made, then things calmed down. After this, uh, excitement, we settled back into a routine. 

Then over the weekend, the Sultan of Oman died. I've already written at length about him and his 50-year devotion to this country, but his death is a mournful call to prayer. And because of this, we got an unexpected three days off. I can't remember a five-day weekend ever. With no real plans, and not much open, it's been sweatpants, and movies, and trying not to snack all day. What bliss! It's okay to sometimes not do anything!

I did things like researched natural bristle hairbrushes, and stalked the internet for a tea pot I'd seen in Florence and I regretted I didn't buy, in spite of having bought two other teapots at my favorite silly store in Florence (and Riga), Tiger. I made us chili, drank a lot lattes, finished one book and started another, decided on my next two reads, cleaned out the bookshelves, and unpacked our week-old luggage. Peter fought with the internet about an online course he has to take, and watched football. I like the sound of football in the background, it's very cozy. I found three bottles of wine in Stefan's suitcase that I'd forgotten we'd brought home!

Now I have to get use to working again for two days, then we have a three day weekend!

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One of my many coffees, and candle from Santa Maria Novella.

When does life feel normal, ever, I wonder? Maybe in February. 

January 14, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)

"friend to all, enemy to none"

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Yesterday we woke up to our phones pinging that the Sultan of Oman had died. Since his cancer scare ten years ago, this is the day everyone had been anticipating and dreading. And the sky  poured rain, which felt appropriate. All the roads in Muscat were closed--my colleague couldn't get into Embassy row even with a diplomatic ID and plates--as a slow procession drove the longest-ruling leader in the Middle East's body to be buried.
 
He came home from Oxford in 1970 and took over the family monarchy business. Since then, the Sultan's life's work was to establish oil production, and later the tourism sector, to move Oman from an economy based on subsistence farming and fishing, with nine miles of paved road and 900 students, to a prosperous, polished, and peaceful country. He united a diverse society that included descendants from India, Pakistan and East Africa. With an incredible eye for diplomacy, he helped broker the 2015 Iran deal, provided for the safe exchange of hostages, and supported struggling Yemenis while maintaining a good relationships with Iranians, the Saudis and the U.S. He created the Switzerland of the Middle East. 
 
His photo hangs in the dentist's office, his portrait is painted on the sides of buildings, when you go to a performance at the royal opera house, his photo is on the inside cover of the program. He is the father of Oman. The freeway: Sultan Qaboos Highway.The ring road? Sultan Qaboos Expressway. He controlled the media, and insisted that all professors at the not-surprisingly-named Sultan Qaboos University have PhDs. He dictated the consistent "dreamy Arabia" architecture style that makes Muscat such a beautiful city. For 50 years he led with wisdom, teaching tolerance always, with an eye for beauty and an enormous vision.
 
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The Royal Opera House, one of the Sultan's many projects. I'm sure he okay'd those light fixtures.

It's like that assignment from 5th grade: create a country. I think mine had free ice-cream?
 
Early on, the Sultan gave a speech promising schools, hospitals, transportation systems, and communications. He did it all, while traveling the country and meeting people face to face. Every Omani has either met him, or knows someone who has. One of my Omani colleagues has a photo on her desk: he is handing her her university diploma. The literacy rate is now 96%. No one pays more than $1000 a year for all medical needs. You can choose to go to university in Oman or overseas. The Ministry of Education will chose your school and your major, but university costs, including a stipend to live on, is free. There are no homeless people. The beautifully-lit roads are in perfect shape. Rude gestures are illegal. Driving through a red light will land you in jail. The air is clean; the water is clean. (I'm getting this info from Omani sources, but it doesn't feel too far off.) There aren't enough freeway exits, and I kind of wish he'd gone to school in the Netherlands, then maybe he would have set up more of a walking/biking city, but wow, is the airport ever a shiny and calm oasis of efficiency. 
 
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Ever so elegant. Top photo Al Jazeera, this one, State Department.
 
"What will happen when the Sultan dies?" has been a question on everyone's mind. He had been married for only a short time back in the '70s, and left no heirs.
 
After his passing, his family council was to select a replacement, and if, after three days, they couldn't agree, they would open an envelope holding the name of the Sultan's preferred successor. Would there be days of indecision, anarchy, and destabilizing in-fighting?
 
Yesterday, after the Sultan's passing, demonstrating incredible loyalty and grace, the council chose to forego discussion and go directly with the Sultan's choice. The entire country watched on TV and their phones as a council-member sliced open the wax-sealed envelope. He withdrew a paper on which was written one name. The Sultan's cousin, the former Minister of Arts and Culture, is now His Majesty, the Sultan of Oman. 
 
Today someone referred to the Sultan's wife and I did a "What? Huh?" Sultan Qaboos was so famously single that just the phrase "Sultan's wife" sounds strange. I guess there is a Sultan's wife now, and children, too! It's a new era. Like his cousin, this new Sultan Haitham will have challenges. Young people, especially women, are frustrated by the lack of jobs, the oil economy won't last forever, and the Chinese are trying to buy all the ports. But today, after that moody storm, the sun is shining, and the air is so mild. We wish Sultan Haitham the same peace and success as this unprecedented and calm transition of power.

January 12, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (1)

another day in paradise

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Photo by Abe Nesbitt, Peter's nephew, as he walked his son to school in Chico, looking towards Paradise.

It's been a year since my 95-year-old mom drove through fire.

A year ago, on November 8, I was repeatedly calling the landline my mom had had since 1973, and found it strange that at 8 am no one was answering. Neither were my mom, or her husband of five years, Mark, picking up their cell phones. 

I currently live and work on the other side of the world in Muscat, Oman, in the Middle East, but early last November I had come back to northern California for a short trip. After a long illness, my sister had died, and I was home to attend her memorial. My sister-in-law Ludmilla is a famously early riser, and I was dealing with 12-hour-time-difference jet-lag, watching the sun come up from our house at Lake Tahoe. In the early morning, Ludmilla and I had been chatting about the mid-term elections that had occurred the day before and my sister's upcoming memorial. After our chat ended, she wrote me again, alerting me to the fire in Paradise.

Initially, I wasn't super concerned about the fire, because Paradise, situated on a ridge in the foothills of the Sierra, although made of ponderosa pines, had been threatened by fire numerous times before. The previous summer, my mom and Mark had kept their vintage motorhome packed and ready to roll just in case they needed to evacuate. Overkill, I thought. 

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Before the fire, my mom and sister, in front of my mom's house in Paradise.

As the sun got higher in the sky, 9, 10, 11 am, not being able to reach my mom was strange. I started reading updates the Paradise evacuation. I was pretty sure Mom and Mark would drive out in the motor home. As the light in the house, where I was now glued to my phone and fire updates online, changed to the strong sunshine of early afternoon, I still hadn't heard from Mom and Mark. I started calling shelters. The Red Cross referred me to a church that was taking in evacuees. The church couldn't give out information regarding who they were sheltering. I called every friend and relative in the area who Mom might call. 

Should I drive to shelters and start looking for them? As the random red-neck town where I grew up was being wiped off the map, while simultaneously being put on the map by the “most disastrous wildfire in California history," I called area hospitals and left my name and number in case anyone saw Joanne Bernardin, age 95, or Mark Forsythe, age 85. (My mom refers to herself as a cougar.) In the afternoon, a bit of good news came, sort of. My aunt in Grants Pass, Oregon, had gotten a call from Mark, but the connection was so bad, she couldn't understand what he was saying, except that they had to leave the motorhome behind. 

That morning at 6:30 am, when a power line had sparked some dry grass on Camp Creek Road in rural Butte County, Mark had left the house to walk Fritz, the miniature schnauzer. By the time he got home at 7 am, the phone was ringing, with an alarming message to EVACUATE! EVACUATE! My mom can't hear without her hearing aids, she would not have heard the phone or gotten the evacuation message if Mark hadn't told her. Mark was incredulous, he'd just been walking the dog and there hadn't even been any smoke. The fire had progressed so much in half an hour, the now-famous burn rate of a football-field a second. By 7:45, "Oh honey," my mom said later, "the sky was red with smoke! I could smell it and see trees burning from my bedroom window!"

My mom grabbed the suitcase of clothes she had already packed for the trip to my sister's memorial. My mom drove the Honda Civic with Fritz in the front seat. Mark was behind the wheel of the motorhome, towing his van. They drove out their little road, saying good-bye to fleeing neighbors, onto one of the only three roads that led out of the town of thirty thousand people. 

They turned on to Pentz Road where houses burned, cars exploded, and towering pines lit up like torches against a black sky. Burning embers swarmed in the air and rolled down the street pushed by the wind. My mom says God saved her because she prayed as she drove through the fire. Did the squirrel she see running frantically through a yard say the same prayer? To the same God who burned the all hummingbird feeders? People abandoned their vehicles, running down the street, stomping out embers stuck to their shoes. In my mom's car, Fritz panted from the heat. Mark rolled down the window of the motorhome to touch the side of his vehicle, and burned his hand. 

Maybe God did save my mom. Or maybe a fire-fighter, the recipient of tax-dollar-funded training, knew what he was doing when, after my mom had sat on the road blocked with abandoned cars for an hour and had gone less than a mile, told her to turn around and drive to Feather River Hospital. 

At Feather River Hospital, with doctors and nurses who’d called husbands, wives, and children to say final good-byes, my mom waited on the helipad for a transport vehicle to arrive. While she waited, a lady who lived across the street from the hospital said, "My house is next." The two of them watched the embers blow, the lady's house catch fire, and burn to a shell. Mom saw a truck stop, saw the driver jump out, and watched the truck burn to a twisted piece of metal. The hospital loaded up every vehicle they could find, and my mom, in her first ever ride in a sheriff’s paddy wagon, rode to safety. Mark, who had taken some time to turn motorhome and van around, and then to unhitch the van, followed the sheriff's caravan to a hospital in Oroville. 

The old sign that welcomed drivers into town, heavy with Rotary, Elk Club and E Clampus Vitus badges, and read “Paradise, May You Find it to be All the Name Implies,” went up in a hellfire. The streets my aunts and uncles built houses on, played cards in, had heart attacks in, and called ambulances to, are gone. My high school was left untouched. The McDonalds burned, but the sign remains. The hospice where my dad died is, like him, ashes.

The places where I was fired for the first time, had my first unwanted sexual encounter, and failed the drivers test twice are no more. The ditch into which I drove my pee-poop-colored 1972 Chevelle, a car purchased for me when what I really wanted for the same price was a purple MG, is likely though, still there.

The purposely misspelled signs, the fence my boyfriend jumped over when my dad unexpectedly came home for lunch, and the long letter my sister wrote my mother berating her for remarrying after my dad died, are no more. The tree my cousin lit on fire, playing our "camping" game, burned once again. The three-story wooden covered bridge built in 1880 that spanned the clear, cold swimming spot on Butte Creek where my teenage friends and I laid on the smooth rocks and complained about our hair, our boyfriends, our perfect bodies, is gone.

If it had been only my mother’s garage that had burned down, with its boxes of photos my great-grandfather took, and Mark's tools, and Mom's three-wheeled bikes--just the garage burning down would have been a tragedy we’d talk about for years. For years my husband’s telling of his parents’ house burning down when he was 19 has been a steady source of stories and entertainment. But not only did my mother’s house go up in flames, but her street, her grocery store, her church that held "dinner dances" on Fridays where Mark played harmonica in the band, the mom and pop grocery store my mom and pop had owned, the office where they went on to operate an accounting business for 40 years, the entire town are gone. Forty-five years of memories are only memories; no war, and yet a war zone.

And it's not the loss of the house that upset my mom the most, it’s the ceramic angel on the dining room table, and her mother's driving-competition awards and the newspaper articles documenting them. Not the total loss of property, but the meat in the freezer, the bag of walnuts by the back door, the cook book my sister had written. “I lost my trailer and my weed-wacker!” my mom’s husband wailed, a man who after the fire owned one pair of pants. 

As the day wore on and I didn't hear from them, I packed my car with water, a blanket, and change of clothes, knowing looking though shelters would be a long waste of time, but lacked other options. Finally, around the time of the early November sunset,I got a phone call from an unknown number. A social worker in a hospital in Oroville was taking care of my mom and Mark and had seen my message. I looked at google maps, "I'll be there in two and half hours," I said. I drove through the forest of Tahoe to Butte county, where from you could see the fires from the dark hospital parking lot. My mom and Mark were sitting in the waiting room of the Oroville hospital. They had the dog on a string--they'd run out of the house without a leash. 

Rune Lazuli says,"Inside the chaos, build a temple of love."  We spent the first week after the fire building the temple with the most basic tools: eating, sleeping, short walks with the dog. Everyone, including Fritz, needed a bath to get rid of the smoke smell. We started dealing with insurance. We took trips to the pharmacy. Bought them some new clothes. My mom started wearing a familiar down vest of my husband's she found in the closet. A year later, the van still smells like smoke. 

We swore off quick decisions, but once we knew insurance would pay out for the house, spent hours looking at houses on Zillow. An 85-year-old and 95-year-old have no interest in waiting to rebuild. Because of high California housing prices, we sadly crossed dream places off the list: Huntington Beach, Monterey. Since I am now my mom's only child, and I live overseas most of the time, I encouraged them to look in towns where we have family. They decided to relocate to Grants Pass, Oregon where my aunt and cousins live, and prices were affordable.  After my sister's memorial, where my mom had everyone write down their contact information in a new address book, we drove up to Grants Pass and started house shopping, furniture shopping, salt-and-pepper shaker shopping. "This is the easiest move I've ever made!" my mom quipped as she rolled her one suitcase into their temporary-housing hotel. 

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I kept wanting to call my sister and get her take on this whole thing. This is the house, after. (Newer stucco houses, in the background.)

Mom and Mark stayed in the hotel for a month, waiting for the new house to close and were moved in by Christmas. They were a couple of the lucky ones. Well, was it luck, or Mark making sure the Paradise house was sufficiently insured? For me, it wasn’t so much luck or God as it was well-funded public services that saved my mom's life. In the last 13 years, I've lived in five different countries, and I know one of the good things about the U.S. --our well-developed disaster plans. In another country, she could have been running down the street, looking for a place to hide, like the squirrel she saw.

A childhood friend's mom, a devout Catholic who I'm sure was praying, was one of the 89 who died that day.

Somewhere in the smoke and ashes are my mom's diamond earrings, the picture of my dad in military uniform in front of the Taj Mahal, and the sign I painted for my mom that read, "Another Day in Paradise." The rocks that tumble against each other in Butte Creek, in the shadow of the covered bridge for 150 years, now are suddenly in full bright sun.

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They survived Paradise. Mom,  Mark and Fritz in front of their new place. 

November 11, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (1)

around the world in piano lessons

Stefan murielle

Last night was the last night of twelve years of piano lessons in five countries.

Stefan's first piano teacher, Mireille, was a Julliard-student-child-protege. After living in the U.S. her entire life, she had been deported, forced to move back to her birth country of Niger, because her Christian-missionary parents had never legally adopted her. We  borrowed a keyboard from the neighbors, and the first piece Stefan learned was "Fur Elise." He played frequently, many times throughout the day, not so much practicing as figuring things out, which maybe is the same thing.

When we moved to Moscow, I gained 500 pounds: we had our Petrov piano sent to us from storage. Kyril was Stefan's second piano teacher, an award-winning Beethoven concert specialist from the Tchaikovsky conservatory who wore a long black coat, carried a man bag, and taught Stefan to transpose every piece he learned. Stefan learned many pieces, and started composing, which Kyril discouraged because this guy didn't fool around with composing until you can play the Beethoven's entire oeuvre in every key. 

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In Bucharest, we found a gypsy-orphan piano teacher named Triain. In spite of growing up in a Romanian orphanage, Triain went to college and got a degree in music. He was so playful, so musical, and his approach with wild metaphors ("pretend you are giving a girl a flower") pure fun. Stefan learned what seems like hundreds of pieces from Shostakovitch to the Japanese composer Yarumi's A River Flows in You, (which I requested so often he pretty much now refuses to play it.) Triaian said Stefan was "made for music" and at times, whether because of Stefan's genius, or Triain needing the money, Stefan had lessons twice a week. 

If we had eaten dinner before piano lessons, Triain would always comment on the food, and we frequently had him join us for a meal, or offered him a plate of what we had had for dinner. He would eat every last bite we served, including once using a spoon to finish off half a jar of mustard. He loved the blanket we gave him for Christmas, and once showed up crying because his car had been damaged in a parking lot. 

Triain was such a good piano teacher that we encouraged him to apply for a music teacher job that opened up at the American school. Once employed there, he acted like a crazy person, criticizing the other tenured music teacher in front of students and not showing up for work. He was let go before his 30-day probationary period was up. All the Americans who used him as a piano teacher and had recommended him, including my boss, were mortified. My boss continued to have him teach his children piano, until Triain ended the relationship, and his run with American-community goldmine, by exposing himself to my boss's child.

Sad story of a really good teacher who was raised in an orphanage but was never really socialized or learned boundaries.  

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When we arrived in Kyiv, Stefan was 12 and campaigned to not have piano lessons anymore. Why? So he could watch more Minecraft videos on Youtube?

My philosophy has always been that I didn't care if the weekly piano lesson was the one hour a week he played, I wanted him to have that one hour. And that one hour usually sparked hours of playing. I also had Stefan give input on the teacher we hired, and tried to have two teachers come out and give a sample lesson so Stefan could see who was the best fit for him. In Bucharest, the other potential teacher was more old school, and was a great teacher for the family across the street, but not for us. We needed a talented orphan misfit who would eventually totally sabotage himself. 

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In Kyiv, Roman knocked quietly on our door once a week, and wore the same sweater for three years. He was the son of the pianist for the national orchestra. He barely spoke any English, but he did say "mmm" and "very good" with a lot of soul. We helped him buy a car, (Peter got tired of push-starting the old one) and a computer, and gave him money when he had his third baby. I once mentioned to Stefan that Roman hadn't really done much as a teacher, and Stefan sat down at the piano and said, "What about this (plays Dubussy) and this (plays Wonderful World) and this (plays Rachmaninov)?!" Roman was so low-key I hardly noticed how far Stefan had progressed. 

When we got to Muscat, at age 16, Stefan thought I was going to give up looking for a teacher. Are you kidding? This was going to be my last chance to force Stefan to have lessons from someone who barely speaks English, is psychologically damaged, and maybe whose car doesn't run. We got a recommendation from the ambassador's wife, and have had the pleasure of getting to know the organist and keyboard coordinator from the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra, who disappoints only with his lack of problems. Stefan lately has been bringing the house alive with a beautiful Schubert piece he and the teacher have worked their way through. 

He's written an opus piece for the dog, "There Goes Bea," created a song for a four piece band to play for 8th grade graduation, was invited to join the honors choir because the teacher heard him playing in a practice room, and composed a variation of the Russian national anthem because Triain refused to teach him the original. The piano at Spaso house, the American Ambassador's house in Moscow, has been played by Vladmir Horowitz, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck and Stefan Chordas. He's written and forgotten more pieces that most people will ever play. 

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We said good bye to the piano teacher last night, but agreed that when Stefan is back for winter break, maybe he'll do some refresher classes. Before he leaves in a couple days, I'll have to have Stefan play one more time, at night, when he thinks the piano sounds better, before he leaves for college and the piano becomes very quiet. But at least for a while I won't have to pay for lessons, and by pay for lessons, I don't just mean the teacher. This year, I've had to pay Stefan (into his flying lesson account) as much as I pay the piano teacher.

Totally worth it.  

June 03, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)

once oman a time

Someone asked the other day what there is to do in Muscat and I said, "Nothing, and that's why I like it." Here are some of those dolce far nientes:

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Shangri La

The resort that lives up to its name. Even though the hotel is only 20 minutes from town, many people go stay the night or go for the weekend. Between Christmas and New Years, we spent one night, which is nice because in the the evenings you can listen to live music, drink wine on the beach, and stare at the stars from the jacuzzi. But the rooms are $250 minimum for two, and over $500 for a triple, so now I think a day pass is a better deal. The limited passes do sell out, so a couple weeks a go when we had visitors, I went up early to secure our spots and enjoyed a couple hours by myself on a thickly padded lounge chair. We all enjoyed lounging under umbrellas on the private beach, swimming in the incredible swimming pools and a gorgeous buffet lunch. Other friends like to do the same thing at the Al Bustan, but I am creature of Shangri La habit.

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Mutrah Souk

Good place to buy jewelry if you like old weird stuff, scented oils, frankincense and incense burners. I've also picked up lovely scarves here, and a friend bought the most incredible piece of labradite. Camille's boyfriend came here to buy a dishdash and the hat all the men wear and then everyone spoke to him in Arabic. So it depends on what you are into, but just the scene is worth a wander. If you want to hang with the locals though, go to the mall.

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Fanageen

Right on the beach, Fanageen serves a great local-style breakfast. I feel badly that I haven't learned the actual names of the spicy beans and lentil dish served alongside the rose-flavored vermicelli. Fava-bean hummus, hloami cheese, cucumber, scrambled eggs and the traditional, delicious local flat bread keep us coming back.

Kargeen

Kargeen

Enter through a cloud of frankincense, and sit under a huge banyan tree on local-style furniture under glowing lanterns. It's like Disneyland's Tiki Room for real. And the food keeps up with the atmosphere: shua, omani-style lamb cooked in a banana leaf until it falls apart, Yemeni vegetables, green salad with avocado and pomegranate seeds are some of our favorites. The flat breads arrive at the table fresh off the round grill.

Wadi shab water

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Wadi Shab

A two hour drive from Muscat gets you to Bimah, a lagoon that looks unreal. After a swim, continue on to Wadi Shab for a 45-minute walk through a canyon, under palm trees, through boulders and along clear water pools. The trail ends at a series of pools. A five or ten minute swim brings you to an enclosed cave. Swim through a slit in the canyon, with just enough room for your head, and you enter a deep pool cave where a waterfall crashes from a hole in the rocks above illuminating the cave. Incredible.

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Nizwa Souk and Bahla Fort

Two world heritage sites, both the souk and fort are camera-ready. 

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Anantara

These hotels are known to be the ultimate and the Jebel Akbar canyon setting does not disappoint, but at $550 for a double, $1200 for a triple, crazy, crazy expensive. It's worth the drive though just to go just for lunch. 

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Mutrah Trail

My least favorite hike on a steep and rocky 5000-year-old trail.  But the views are great, and it's right in town. 

Daymaniyat islands

Daymaniyat islands

Snorkling at the Diaymaniyat Islands

The kind skipper Farad takes you straight out to sea to the Daymaniyat Islands nature preserve where you commune with turtles and, as he says, swim with the beautiful "fishies," while you loll about in turquoise water. He has nicknames for the various coral gardens like they are his own back yard, and knows how to find the best spots to find turtles or the clearest water given the weather conditions. From May to October, the islands are off limits, so you enjoy the area by swimming in the coves. The rest of the year, you can explore the islands on foot to find your own private white sand beach, maybe with its own osprey nest. After a simple lunch of sandwiches, fruit and cookies that Farad provides, you skim over the waves and arrive back to the dock by 2 PM. In spite of one time hitting water so rough I shared my morning tea with the fish, ("Puke and rally," said Camille) snorkeling at the Daymaniyat Island is my favorite thing to do here.

April 04, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)

moscow: reluctant vistor's guide


Moscow st basils illoAlthough the U.S. Soccer team pre-planned a patriotic boycott by not qualifying for the international games, some futbal friends of mine who see themselves as children of the world, or at least the World Cup, will head to Moscow this June. They could search dependable travel sites, but instead they asked me for tips. It's been eight years since I called Moscow home, but while there I didn't see much change, for example the country has had the same president for eighteen years. This 250-year-old city's riches run as wide as the river on which it sits, here are few of my favorite things about the city.

Moscow’s drama will unfold as soon as you step off the plane, which means unless you arrive at 4 am, will be in a super slow mo two-hour, mind-numbing drive in airport-to-city traffic. Try to take the metro, which costs a dollar to go everywhere really fast. Marvel that when you look at the metro map, you are seeing maybe half of what was built, the rest is secret. I've gotten lost on the metro (and lots of other places in Moscow) because when we were there, there was a tax on English signage. Hopefully they've improved this for the games and made it less user-abusive.

When you visit Red Square, lean forward and have the person taking your photo squat down so they block out all the other people on the square for the photo.

After the photo in front of St. Basil's visit GUM, the only department store they had in Soviet times, which at the time took anything but rubles. The ground-level grocery store is filled with beautifully designed little packaged things that will be fun to sample later or give as gifts. Eat on the 4th floor at Stolovaya 57, a Soviet-style cafeteria.

This is a country with 99.9% literacy and a deeply rich literary heritage. Russian soccer fans will be able to discuss Tolstoy and Tergenev. Bring a paperback of Chekhov's short stories to carry around with you. Read one while sitting outside his darling apartment near Patriarch Ponds. Also read A Gentleman in Moscow and then have a drink at the Hotel Metropol. N’astrovia!

Russians are crunchy on the the outside, creamy Alioshka milk-chocolate inside. However, the nesting doll aspects of their personalities translates to a long, somewhat complicated journey to the soft center. While figuring this out, have fun buying a selection of wrapped Russian candy, the iconic designs on the wrappers are tiny cultural lessons on architecture, folk tales and fine art. 

Guys, if you are a six at home, you are a ten in Moscow. (It's not so much the candy as the vodka and cigarettes.) Women under 25, if you are a ten at home, in Moscow, unless you've been walking in six inch heels on ice since you were fifteen, have three cosmetologists in your coterie of "most recents" and have Slavic genes, you are a five. 

The sign looks like it says Crapdog, but it actually says Stardog. Eat a hotdog on the street and splurge later on Cafe Pushkin.

Cafe Pushkin serves the best, most velvety borsht ever, and the rest of the food is almost as dreamy. Unless your favorite team wins, this might be the best part of your trip. Guys, wear a jacket. Moscow box illo

Visit Izmailova, the huge outdoor market. Stroll along the wooden Christmas-market-style kiosks to buy nesting dolls, painted boxes, fur hats, amber jewelry and a million other things you never knew you needed. I still regret not buying more Gzhel pottery and a taxidermied hedgehog. Follow the smoke and scent of bbq'd meat to the open-air shishleek stands. The kabobs, both pork and chicken, served sizzling with an onion salad and fresh bread taste amazing. You are supposed to eat this with the cheapest plastic fork you've ever used, and it will break. They also serve beer, vodka and tea.

If you open a bottle of vodka, it’s bad luck to not finish it. This is why they come in so many sizes and why the men look the way they do. The brand Russian Standard is recommended, Beluga is even better. Avoid over-doing and order mors, a fresh cranberry-like fruit juice. (Russians never mix alcohol with fruit juice, and you can’t out drink them so just let them win this one.) In spite of how much the Russians drink they frown upon obvious drunkenness. You'll see a drink sold on the street that looks like beer called kvass. This slightly alcoholic fermented drink is made of dark bread. It tastes like it sounds, but maybe you'll like it. 

Besides drinking on the streets, what Russia does best: music, theater, wars. If World War II (in Russia The Great Patriotic War pretty much currently defines the country) interests you, historical museums on this topic will fill up your extra time between games--the outdoor Borodino is a good place to start. The Bolshoi doesn’t normally perform during the summer. It’s not, as Anna Karinina would have called it, “the season” but I’m sure they will have lots of performances of every kind everywhere anyway. Even the street musicians in the metros and on the Old Arbat can be heart-breakingly good.

Do take a stroll down the pedestrian-only Old Arbat, one of Moscow's oldest streets. Like 1400's old. Souvenir shops and artists selling mostly questionable artwork line Pushkin's cobblestone street. Still, you'll find something you have to buy. Maybe you'll see Steven Tyler join a busker covering "Don't Want to Miss a Thing." It really happened.

Moscow doll illoStroll around Patriarch Ponds (there is only one, but the name is plural) and you'll see Margarita Bistro, named after Bulgokov's banned Master and Margarita. Try to read it, I couldn't. The cafe serves classic Russian fare in a charming setting with live folk music by darling musicians every night. 

Wander around, drink tea, enjoy the perfect blue skies, which I'm sure they will have since they control the weather there. This whole World Cup things strikes me as another opportunity for national funding to be put into private hands, but enjoying the games and the city at its best may be the best revenge. 

April 27, 2018 in moscow life, visitor's guide | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tags: Moscow, Moscow June 2018, Moscow tourist, Moscow travel, moscow visitor, things to do in moscow, World Cup, World Cup June 2018

three months in

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Camille came for Christmas and we got to do some of the things we'd already found that we loved in Oman: Kargeens restaurant (the lamb!), our favorite beach, the schwarma from Hawas down the street, black cardamom tea, taking a boat out to the Dimaniyat islands nature preserve and the Anantara. And we got to do many firsts together: a visit to the town of Nizwa, first time to visit the Grand Mosque, and the first time to the fish market. I probably laughed the hardest when Camille's boyfriend bought a dishdashah and local-style hat at the souk and then everyone started speaking Arabic to him! "I'm from California!" he would say, and then everyone would laugh, and they would continue speaking Arabic to him. California has the largest Arab population of any state in the U.S. so I guess being from California doesn't preclude speaking Arabic. We took the drive up to the Anantara Hotel (this time just for lunch and a swim) but Peter and I had considerable PTSD after our car had broken down the last time we went. We kept reliving the trauma: "this is where all the dashboard lit up," "there is where we parked when the engine started smoking" "this is where all those guys came out to help"--hopefully this second trip (that occurred without incident--yay!) helped us recover. Otherwise it's been sun-filled, swim-filled, somewhat shisha-filled days as we get use to Oman and 2018. 

January 14, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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