Hello, Papa

A Papa Doble (according to AE Hotchner) consists of:

two jiggers of white rum

juice of two small limes

juice of half a grapefruit

six drops of maraschino

put it in a blender one quarter full of shaved ice and blend on high until the contents are cloudy and whipped to foam.

Party faces

The old greek guy at the thrift store said to make sure you enjoy your lifetime. He also said that he was America's number 1 gold miner. I don't know what to believe, but I think I can get behind the first statement.

157,000 people can't be wrong?

Gay LeBaron on Santa Rosa (I can't find a link, but it was in the Press Democrat last year):

"There is a disconnect between the average Santa Rosan's perception of the town and reality. ... What we have are a lot of people, some old-timers, some fairly new residents, who never, ever intended to live in the fifth-largest city in any area. And, frightened by new crimes, stalled in old traffic, watching tall buildings rise, they're mad as hell! When you stop to think about it, this revelation explains a lot. We have spent decades wondering why we couldn't save the Carrillo Adobe or the Hoag House, why we can't have a plaza like Healdsburg's or Sonoma's, why we've never achieved a proper historical museum like all the other towns around, why it takes so long (20 years for ANYthing) to reach the simplest civic goal, why we have to hire an image consultant to tell us what we represent. It's because we have outgrown the hometown, small-town advantage. We've become a real city while we were busy complaining about our farm town."

I can't be from somewhere else

Eucalyptus & the oak live here too, although the former was brought to California one hundred fifty years ago, by the Aussies with fever in their eyes. The native, the predecessor, gnarled and stooping like an old man, waited all these years for the new stewards of the land to strike back against the tall, stern invader.

I come home to an uneasy household. Oak is the older inhabitant of these hills, but Eucalyptus was brought here by the will of others. Brought by the will of others, unless you consider the will to be the blind drive to grow and propagate wherever given ground to do so. Countervailing claims of adaptive superiority and precedence. I blame neither party for the conflict, and I don't envision any reconciliation. Sometimes the fight is what holds the fighters up.

Women prefer driving on LSD

Ironically, the many signs and signals that are meant to guide her to safety dodge and weave, like threatening street toughs at the mouth of an alleyway in a foreign bazaar, flashing knife blades and hungry grins at fat sheep tourists. She sweats while negotiating a lane change, and panics at the sight of glaring red brake lights. But at the airport he smiles assuringly, unaware of her trials, so trusting in the hearty industry of Goodyear and frank words of other big men like Leitz and close-cropped Bates. He slides into the driver's seat where he belongs. Look. See how grateful she is? She asks how Denver was. There's a casserole waiting in the oven. Let's please go home. And watch out for that stop sign, I think it wants to rob us.

diving rock rock

the Sandy River in August and the place where you can swim to the blackberry bushes and there's a diving rock.