Stories

California has always seemed idyllic, cutting edge, a source of endless natural resources and opportunities.  But our Golden State has been so mismanaged that it’s, now, threatening to crash under its own weight.  As the deadline to plug the 24 billion (yes, that’s right 24 billion) dollar deficit in California passes and our renegade Governor Schwarzenegger proposes deeper and deeper cuts, education including school closures and shorter semesters, health cuts to MediCal and the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program, an increased gas tax (that should encourage tourism), four day work weeks (too bad if you needed the money), increased taxes, and a proposal to SHUT one of our greatest treasures, 224 of California’s most beautiful and historic State Parks, including that one where the giant redwoods grow.

As a native and a conservationist, the idea that our California State Parks may not remain open past summer, has sent me off on a wild fury of exploration (not to mention a tirade at our Governor who we’re sincerely glad will NOT BE BACK). 

I am a real estate agent who caters to clients, as they say, “in entertainment.” This means that I move fussy, busy people from Hollywood to New York, and that my clients expect, even demand, me to be a cross between Ari Gold and Betty Crocker. It also means that I’m providing ancillary services on a ludicrously high level: I have FedExed leases to the set of an Oliver Stone movie, hung drapes for a client who was on the other coast doing Leno, and made homemade chicken soup for a panicked Broadway star with the sniffles.

I found the soup particularly challenging. Chocolate chip cookies are one of my standards, quick and easy enough to make while conducting a bidding war via bluetooth. Soup, on the other hand, takes hours, and is practically guaranteed to taste like dishwater if you don’t layer the flavors in. Adding some canned chicken broth speeds the process, but go too far, and you’re apt to erase the “homemade” essence that you’ve spent hours crafting.

I stumbled into my kitchen, poured the beans in the grinder and pushed, fumbled to separate the filters, filled the pot with water and leaned against my wall oven to wait for the delicious healing brown liquid to brew.

That’s when it hit me.

Milk.  Fuck.

I scrambled to the fridge to find my worst fear fully realized.  There was not one drippy drop’s worth of cow juice in there and I’m just not a black coffee girl.  I grabbed my sunglasses and my keys and drove down the hill to my local Chevron station- which was open early and relatively non judgemental for the morning breath/ morning hair/ jammies wearing mess that I was that morning.  I grabbed a half gallon of milk and plopped it on the checkout counter.

“$4.00 please.” said the uniformed Chevron employee. “Ok.”  I muttered and reached into my pocket to get the cash.

Suddenly it hit me like my alarm clock had just rung. “Wait a minute, $4.00?  How can it be $4.00?? It’s a half a gallon of milk!!!” The checkout guy beamed with pride.  He looked me straight in the eye and declared “I was ripping you off!” He grinned ear to ear.

I just stood there.  I could find no witty retort.  No smart comeback.  I was stupefied.

I’m writing this ode to summertime while being serenaded by lovely summer music – an orchestral enchantment of a summer thunderstorm. We’ve been dry down here in Dixie and every little drop is a blessing. Fill our cups please!

Peas, purple hulls to be exact, sunflowers, peaches, butter and snap beans – all coming in with gusto from our farms and gardens. Mimi’s favorite thing is to shell peas, and after a myriad of places, we finally tracked down unshelled peas for her pleasure and leisure.

“So many places sell them shelled... I just want to sit and shell peas all day.” Mimi.

The nerve of us buying shelled peas – that would be robbing our grandmother of a blessing! Shell away Mimi…shell away! My grandmother’s delight I count a richest gain, for all I have to do is eat the peas. For there again is a favorite pastime of our matriarch – cooking peas. Alas, I shall resign my attempts and glory in the pot liquor of Mimi’s peas.

“I eat my peas with honey; I’ve done so all my life… I eat my peas with honey, so that they stay on my knife!” another Mimi-ism.