everyone_is_here__ crOwl everyone_is_here everyone_is_here_ _everyone_is_here and i was there. i had seen my best friend from ventura, rod, that morning at zoe's, a tiny coffee shoppe on main st. that's somewhat hidden at the end of a narrow spanish-tiled courtyard. up the steps and grab your own coffee cup, pay when your're done. they have a balcony that looks down on pretty people and bougenvilla and made me imagine what it must be like to do the similar in italy. rod and i always manage to hook up when i'm in town. he in a perpetual state of waking up, me aiming to please. we met in 1989 when i was 19 and a surfer working at a health bar with six girls. i wore a wooden cross around my neck and he spotted it. he invited me to a church of the dumpster couch and i met god in the parking lot. the rest of our friendship is a bizarre story that i could entertain you with for months. he called me when i was at marie's and i licked barbeque sauce off my fingers and chewed into the fone. he invited me to a place that evening, aptly named for me, the bridge. it was one of those casual christain centers that rents a space and turns it into their own for the time being. the worship was stunningly gorgeous. a small band, led by a twenty-something girl on a roland that could have been in a small indie club in any major american city singing,not about hedonistic aspiration, but about the love of god. i closed my eyes and remembered the days when i drank the sincere milk of the word, a baby at the breast of the eternal mother. there were easels set up so if one was led they could spontaneously rise and put on paper what they had swirling in their soul. i liked that, but i don't know if i could be limited to producing something spiritual. afterwards, it got a little weird. small group discussions about nothing meaningful with people grabbing mics and blabbing on with burritto breath and starbucks stained teeth. the pastor had tattoos and wore chucky tees and had a cool haircut and square glasses. he knew he was cool though which kind of ruined it. i think i went to church too long when i was young. i love god, but i hate when we try to create him and put him on display like a mannequin. 050514 ... crOwl after a rough night of sleeping on kerby's thin mattress, turn and feel the springs poking your ribs, we began the new day at zoe's, greta and i writing in our journals on the balcony, so kathy could answer emails and send in orders for her miracle soap. then it was up the coast, in our rented toyota camry, along highway 1o1, past the tragic mudslide at la conchita, the little hippy community. we saw only roofs of houses visible, to my favorite city of all time, the sparkling jewel of southern california, the cannes of america, santa barbara! i took the canon rebel with me wherever we went. by trip's end i had amassed a staggering total of 7oo fotos and a significant chunk of them were shot on this gorgeous day. greta said i was taking them left and right. state street is a mecca for the eclectic shopper. scores of reputable name and indie businesses await which we picked and chose because it would take days to visit them all. i bought a shark puppet in anthropologie, but most of the time i would sequester myself on a bench and get sneaky pictures of fascinating people, like the old german man with the perfect skin, or the dude with the dreads sleeping next to me while his vespa sat parked next to him. greta got some diesel clothes and yelled at me for telling our train stories to yet another person, this time a chill hemp clothes store owner. we stopped at borders to go to the bathroom and once we left and were a few blocks down the spanish tile lined sidewalk, past the paseo, kathy realized she left her ray bans on the sink while she was washing her hands. i thought poof, they're gone, i know if i found them they'd be in my pocket, but it seems there are still honest, caring people in this world like the woman who found them and turned them into lost and found. the thing is, believe it or not, a couple days later she was in a starbucks bathroom and the same glasses fell off her head while she leaned over to flush the toilet and they got sucked down. perhaps there's a cool shark somewhere wearing them. dudes, he says, look what i found! for lunch, we rode into the deeply hispanic section off milpas to la suparica, a famous authentic mexican cafe, where the tortillas are made right in front of you as you order. the clientele were a mishmash of types. sitting next to us were two santa ynez horse ladies, wearing cowboy hats, across from them four ucsb students, behind us a group of montecito snobs, and then us. i liked how they had salsa fresca available, as if it was ketchup or mustard, just grab as much as you wanted. the food was unbelievably yummy. this city hold tons of memories when we were just starting out in our marriage. when our daughters were little we used to come up in the 1973 vw van and eat chips and salsa at follow your heart, an organic grocery store as our big night out. we'd go to the lobero theatre to see cool indie bands, the arlington to watch a film, brophy brothers at the marina for fried calamari. mother's day brunch at the biltmore when my parents would visit, il maldinari chalk-art festival at the mission where the girls would play in the rose garden. oh life, you are running over with living. back to ventura, past rincon, one of the world's best surfing locales, the sun sizzling into the pacific. thoughts of our next adventure, a trip to san diego beginning that very night after dinner at in and out burger. 050529 ... crOwl avoiding traffic is always a concern while driving in southern california so that's why we left at 11pm, taking 1o1 south all the way to ensenitis where we spent the night in a best western with an ocean view, except that the fog never lifted, so we just kind of knew it was there. hotels i like for one reason: excellent water pressure. at the robin hill farmhouse we have a well and the pressure is so bad that it takes two hours to fill the tub. don't even think about taking a shower unless you prefer cold water. in the morning, there was a tasteless, serve yourself breakfast buffet. we made our own automatic waffles and i put ketchup on mine, just to make them even more inedible. greta thought it was nasty. it was. we stopped in this particular coastal town because one of kathy's original customers lived there. we visited her before we left for san diego in her tiny house with the bright orange tree in the backyard that will sell some day for at last half a million. her name was urla and she was originally from norway. she had these very interesting black and white fotos on the wall of her scandanavian girlhood. she showed us books of her native country that a friend of hers had fotos in.she came to america in her twenties and worked for united airlines in los angeles making food for the flight service. she was old and somewhat skinny and feeble from cancer, yet you could tell kathy's visit meant a lot to her, especially considering she passed away about a month ago. we both wept when we heard the news. it's like when you have the opportunity to reach out to someone, just do it. it's always the right time. back on the road, i noticed several mexican men hanging out along the freeway entrance, lunchbox at their feet. i guess they just wait for someone to hire them for the day. our day plan was to go to pacific beach, a small community near la jolla. i was there not long ago when hilary went out to visit her friend roy and i spent a few days in the sun at a boardwalk coffeehouse and wrote much of neues_leben while they hung out together. we arrived around lunchtime and had arranged to meet roy at the green flash cafe, so called for the brief appearance of color that occurs at the moment the sun sinks into the sea. i'll never forget how people would gather to watch its majestic exit and even applaud as it said its silent goodbye until tomorrow. roy arrived in between school and work at a la jolla country club. it was so good to see him again and catch up on what's going on in his life. he's also a marine and so far, thank god has managed to avoid going to iraq, even though he's done some serious and extensive training. we talked about his college plans for the future and his recent affection for the pleasures of tea and the stimulating conversation it encourages. he's been to robin hill a few times, once with his whole family at one of our famous 4th of july parties. they had to go to the airport that morning after and they might have grabbed an hour sleep. i know i only snoozed a drunken 45 minutes on the hammock. so, we all downed some red bull. kathy's aunt and uncle live in oceanside so we stopped off to see them before heading back home to ventura. they had recently been to switzerland and had tons of fotos to show us and stories to tell. they have three daughters who are near kathy's age and have families of their own, but when we were younger and living in california and visited them, i was always impressed with her uncle frank's close relationship he had with his girls. the way he openly showed affection and seemed to have such intimate awareness of what was going on with them. it was an inspiration to me, especially when we followed with three girls of our own. 050609 ... crOwl greta is a snowboard instructor at seven springs (7springs.com) our local resort and it has always been a desire of hers to ride out west. since we haven't made it to colorado yet, we thought while we were in california we would visit mountain high, the closest available place, a 9o minute drive to the san bernadino mountains. we asked ron and teri's(everyone_is_here_) daughter emily, who is a week younger than greta to come along, which was not as easy as it seemed. her brother won a scholarship to the university of wisconsin for cross country, so she's basically following in his footsteps and is on a rigorous training program. snowboarding is something her coach frowns upon, therefore for her to join us would be breaking some kind of sacred trust. it must have been the fact that we were visiting and it was a once in a lifetime kind of event because after a long deliberation, she decided to go and her parents even bought the tickets, which we later compensated because it was our invitation in the first place. emily had some snow-clothes for greta to borrow and we loaded the car. it was weird because the day in ventura was sunny, warm, and of course, snowless. yet, as we headed east along the pear blossom highway made famous by a david hockney painting, we could see the white stuff in the distant mountains. we stopped at a coffee shoppe to break up the trip and emily asked the lady if she could use the bathroom. "not unless you buy something," she told her. geez, lady, give me a damn sticky bun, then. i even tipped her good so she would feel bad. mountain high is probably on the extreme low end of quality resorts, but for us, who are stuck with 3ooo foot elevation in pennsylvania, this would be much better. it was a hole in the wall, cheaply done, but better than nothing. i was amazed at the snowboarder to skier ratio. in the lift line, sometimes i would be the only one with skis, and probably one of the oldest dudes. i had fun listening to the california youth speak and social interaction. i rented 167 cm parabolics which i had always wanted to ski on, since i have 195s and i had the time of my life. with all the rain southern california had received, it was all snow in the mountains, so even though it was hot, the snow was packed powder. the slopes were short but steep. greta and i were in t-shirts, but strangely emily wore a jacket. something about not wanting to get burned. her coach wouldn't like it? can't upset god, i guess. we stayed all day, even though emily wanted to go after about an hour. she wanted to get her run in. too bad, we thought. we're here. we're staying. you can run in the dark. greta taught her some pointers and i left them alone so they could hang out on the chairlift rides themselves and talk. the last time they saw each other was way back in 1989 and they were both a year old. so they had a lot of life to catch up on. we really burned our faces in the bright mountain sun and were exhausted by the time we left. however i made a wrong freeway exit which turned into a traffic nightmare and instead of taking 9o mnutes to get home, it turned into 3 hours. i had us completely lost and heading into the darkness of oblivion. at one point i pulled over at a washed out road and asked a highway patrolman for help. whoa was i far from where i needed to be? um, gulp, yeah. i could tell greta was deeply embarrassed but emily was in the back seat reading a book by cellfone light. she's just like her monm, la la la, life is good all the time, except if i can't get my run in. i guess she had acepted the fact she would be doing it late. she would look up from time to time and act like nothing was wrong. when we finally got on the right road towrds home and dropped her off, ron and teri's eyebrows rose at our sunburned faces, greta and i headed back to kerby's and i asked her if she wanted to go get something to eat but she didn't respond. she ignored me because she was still trying to recover from the fact i nearly drove us off a cliff. that killed me, though. but remember this when you become a father and your daughter is 17...you lay down your life for your kids. it's not about you. it's all for them. wait! after all i had been through? whaa! shut up, big baby. i'm such a big baby. i took it personal and when i started verbally abusing her, she started crying and told me she was terrified when we were lost and i was driving like a maniac. it was an ugly moment for us that i want to for-for-fucking-forget. kind of made a wound on the otherwise fantastic day and now there's a nasty scar. in the morning we shared apologies. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 050611 ... crOwl kerby was off work so we planned the day for a trip to santa ynez wine country, actually, (a_film_you_should_see) the sideways tour. a lot of the movie was filmed in solvang, a small dutch-like town, so that's where we headed to first. we saw the hitching post, the hotel, and the ostrich farm and then continued on to the first winery, sanford, a cozy cabin-like building in the middle of velvety, verdant hills and sprawling oaks. during the film it's the place where the hippy cowboy is pouring them tastes and they're chatting about the many ways to describe the wine's attributes when miles realizes jack is chewing gum. the hippy cowboy was actually there. they just decided to give him a small role doing what he does best. since we were the only ones there, we asked him questions about the film-making and hanging out with the cast. he was eager to disclose the fun details, like how ellen degeneres wanted him on her show but gave him only one day's notice but he had to get his dog to the vet so couldn't make it. right before we came, a japanese version of 6o minutes did an interview with him. of all the cast, he liked virginia madsen the best. he even got an invite to the ifc awards where it swept all the top prizes. i took a foto with him and kerby together, both of them smiling, freeze framing our unique, starstuck happiness. we winded in and out of the country lanes surrounding los olivios, the other tiny wine town where the film was located. we snaked onwards to foxen winery where miles, in the film, pours himself more wine when the taster isn't looking. i was fascinated by these little places, out in the middle of nowhere, where some of the best wines in the world are made. returning to town, we had lunch at the los olivios cafe where miles gets wasted and ends up calling his ex-wife and making an ass of himself. i guess neverland ranch was a few miles away in the surrounding hills, but this was pre-trial so not much was going on. wine is very cool. there's so much that goes into it and its creation. it's a living thing that you bring to your lips and in the taste is a wealth more than just flavor. 050618 ... crOwl after a relaxing morning at zoey's, greta writing, kathy doing wireless business, and me reading max tivoli, we joined kerby again, this time on a trip south to venice beach. several artists set up their unique and original works along the promenade across from tourist traps and greasy cafes. mainly it was a people fest, a conglomorate of every imaginable style and look, shape and size, race and color. sometimes we just stood there and gazed slack-jawed, commenting on this one, then that one, and hey look at her, or whoa, look at him. those guys are riding segways! or cool bikes! but, the majority of the time we spoke to the artists about their craft, questioning them about the details behind the creations. kathy is a collector of artisinal originality, especially after she feels she has reached a firm footing with who she's talking with. that's one of many things i love about her. a jewish photographer from poughkeepsie, new york had an amazing foto of train tracks that we just had to have. he was wearing tie dye and was there with his dog and his wooden necklace of buddhist prayer beads. i thought he was jewish? another man with dirty fingernails burned images into pieces of plywood. we ended up giving one of his pieces to bethany. she also bought an asian girl's water color and some earrings from an african man. i took this amazing foto of her standing next to a street performer, one of those guys who paints himself and his props gold to look like a statue. when kathy offered him some money, he suddenly came to life and it was that moment of kathy reacting to his sudden animation that i was able to capture. for lunch we drove into neighbouring santa monica and went to two hot tamales' border grill for some excellent mexican food. afterwards we joined the throng at 3rd st. promenade. i felt like pinocchhio in pleasure island, indulging inside an all puma store, trying on ten pairs and finally settling on one. along this extensive outdoor mall, street performers try to get the crowd to dig deep. there was a chinese man playing a kid's drum kit, a white man struggling to get out of a straight jacket, a muscle man doing endless push-ups, musicians sounding so good you knew you would hear them on the radio soon, and though this wasn't a performer, the favorite thing i saw was a paris hilton look-a-like walking a chihuahua. when they encountered a bigger dog she just lifted him by the harness, all four feet off the ground and whisked him to safety. that was right outside the von dutch shoppe. no coincedence. on the way home, we fell victim to the after effects of a mudslide on pacific coast highway outside of malibu and sat in snarled up traffic for an hour. we were to meet old friends from ventura for dinner at duke's, a surferburger joint, but by the time we reached them, the cafe was shutting down so we just talked a bit about old days and new times. kathy has changed the most of all of us. more beautiful. more engaging. more confident. like a flower in al its glory. pretty, fragrant, drawing everyone to see her wonder. 050619 what's it to you? who go blather from