I Love Albany

Free-wheeling public art sitting on a dump. Plus Rancid, the Solano Stroll—former grand marshalls have included the postman and the chiropracter's demonstration skeleton—Albany Bowl, Golden Gate Fields, Al's Big Burger, cop cards, and Albany Village, all neatly packaged into one square mile.

Four thousand words

Happy, happy Thursday!


My stepson, mi nuera, and my grandson recently moved from one of San Francisco's fog belts to El Cerrito. They can't get over taking Elliott out to play in the afternoons in only a t-shirt.


We're all having a good morning; Gina Felina got the fleece...


...Vivani Catpants got the box...


...Elwood got a four-foot trophy for being the world's ugliest dog this year.

Happy, happy Thursday!

Biscuits

"...you don't even want to see how I make gravy!"

I came rolling up while the grocery clerk and Mr. Semifreddi chatted about camping, which turned into campground cooking and then to biscuits and gravy.

"Please don't tell me it involves tearing open a packet or punching a can."

"Oh, you know it does." We jockeyed for space in the narrow aisle, his stack and my stack, blessedly customer-free at this hour. "I just don't have the knack."

Why go to the bother of making a fresh batch of biscuits only to dump canned gravy on them? Good god! Dude, it's so easy. "You eat bacon? Save the fat or pour off the extra, add your flour and salt and pepper—"

The clerk piped up. "Whisk it!"

"—or just use a spoon and get the flour smooth, then add the milk. I like a low, medium-low heat so it doesn't scorch or get too thick. But you gotta watch it."

"Whisk it smooth!"

I guess. Maybe that clerk also uses a biscuit-cutter instead of a glass to cut the biscuits out of the dough.

"Do you use buttermilk?" I look him up and down, but it's a fair question. Some white chick with tattoos sounding like she just exited I-5 North after a seven-hour drive, what would I know about buttermilk? I could be making whole-wheat and soy-milk biscuits for all he knows.

"Always."

He looks at me now. "But you don't use a whisk."

"Naw, just a spoon."

"How much do you use?" I have his full attention now. This is serious stuff.

"Dude, I never measure. Just eyeball it. If it's watery cook it a little longer, but watch it because once it gets too thick that's it. Just practice; you'll get the hang of it. And you know how to cook; it'll be easy."

"Awright." We chat a bit more about the savoriness of biscuits and gravy. "But if it doesn't turn out right I'm gonna hunt you down." We laugh, then he and I get our signatures and roll our separate ways.

I made me some biscuits this morning, hot and golden brown, slightly smoky from the bacon fat I used instead of shortening, and covered with peppery cream gravy. If we hadn't finished the beer last night I would have had one with breakfast, it was that decadent.

Soboba

"Oh, no, I like it here." His kind eyes were wide. "There's very little real furniture, but I was never much of a couch potato." Laughter. "Heh, okay, maybe I am," he smiled, "but, you know, even without a sofa it's got places where I can stay on the edge of things, watch what's going on. I like that, too." He eased back in his chair, marginally.

"And these?" He flexed his hands. "I thought everybody did this. I was well into adulthood before I realized most didn't. Did it hurt? Oh, my, yes: like a hot sidewalk on an August afternoon. Imagine walking on hot, hot cement for a week; it was like that...I didn't mind because I didn't know any better, and after the bandages came off and I went back to my regular routine..." He laughed again. "Oh, I was a terror, like most little ones, but I wasn't getting swatted or yelled at any more, and I got all the lap time I wanted, no problem, so I guess it was worth it. I mean, I really, really like—need—my lap time. It just makes me feel good, the motion, the softness." He flexed his soft, soft hands again. "You just get over it, I suppose."

"Was my nest soft? I honestly don't remember. What fabric is that you're wearing?"

"That first voyage? To Mother Adler's? Of course it was; everybody's is. No one I've ever asked says it isn't. You know, one minute you're surrounded by family in the only home you've known, the next you're enveloped by strange smells, maybe riding in a car, in a new place with nothing familiar. It can only be a shock. But you get over it."

"I was four when Mother Adler passed." He was poised on the edge of the chair, eyes wide. "I don't want to talk about what happened next. Can we please move on? I want to move on."

"Okay, I've mentioned I don't like talking about that." He stood up and quickly, smoothly, to stand behind the counter.

"I like it here. It can get noisy, especially when people come in who are very scared, which happens a lot. But then I just come back here," he waved a hand toward the darkened room behind the receptionist's desk, "and I sit for awhile until I calm down. I don't have to come out here unless I want to. Dr. Bennett put an old coat in there for me; it has that fuzzy wool lining. Mmm, yes." He muscles unclenched a bit, though he made no move to come back out into reception.

"I don't think about my nest-box, or Mother Adler or her grandson or any of the others; what's the point? I live in the here and now: I stay behind the counter or in my room and listen and watch what's going on, I sit on my coat and smell the smells lingering deep inside it. The night tech usually wears polyester, but sometimes I come out and she lets me sit in her lap and make the motion." As he spoke he slowly, smoothly, glided back into the dark of the storage room until all that was visible were his wide, wide eyes. "I don't like the feel of that fabric, but I like the lap time, so I get over it." He turned his head and was gone.

Angry I.

That's my girl! She had the best eyebrows ever—straight across those angry eyes.

This is probably right before she bit the hell out of me.

The Anti-Cat

Someone asked me yesterday, "How do you train your cats not to scratch your furniture?"

Well, I don't.

They know the rules of the house as well as I do. What can I do?

They wait til the lights are out. They wait til we are gone. I watch G-man furiously sweeping up the dirt I've tracked in; what can I say? I have no moral weight. We can only purr and smile.

But we will never, ever, choke to death on car seats because we don't have enough work to keep us busy.

Easy Come, Easy Go

It wasn't a particuarly grueling day at work, didn't have to clock in super early, the drivers personality quirks neatly stowed away. Didn't have a lot of stops or particularly far to drive. So there's no explaining why I left my clothes on top of my bike rack instead of strapped to the rack with a bungee cord. Just wasn't paying attention: I folded 'em up to take home and when I got home they weren't there.

As tragedies go it's pretty minor. I lost a 15? 17?-year-old REI fleece vest and a grey cotton hoodie I pulled out of a Berkeley free box. Oh, and the Starbucks card I found at the natural gas filling station. I think it had two or three dollars on it. It was in the pocket. And a card for a complimentary small Peets coffee my boss gave me. The drawstring on the hoodie was always getting caught in my metal route book, or floating in my tea, and it had a rip on one sleeve I inexpertly sewed up. The fleece was tissue-paper thin and was fitted at the waist with a couple of rusty safety pins.

But I really liked that hoodie. It was a good color on me. And I felt so snuggly in the mornings, fleece collar poking up through the hoodie's neckhole, hood bunched up around the back of my neck and ears, wet string dangling.

We drove Little Jumbo to the bakery, following my bike route where we could, looking for it. Gone.

A Cushy Ride to Somewhere, Pt. III

[Oh, start from the beginning: read Part One, then Part Two. Rock on completely.]

Dice. Dee-twenties, dee-twelves, dee-eights, dee-sixes. Dice. Dee-twenties, dee-twelves, dee-eights, dee-sixes. Dice... A handful of random sofas blinked past Jeremy's eyes before his vision stopped spinning and he was able to concentrate on a destination. ...dee-eights, dee-sixes. Dice...

Evening again. Clean-looking house. He stood up and walked into the other room, where five guys sat around a table messy with hex maps and painted figures. "Hey, whatcha playing?"

Someone answered "Call of Cthulhu"; a couple of the guys gave him a glance. The one who answered asked him "You vant to play, yes? Do you bring a character?"

Jeremy sat in one of the two empty chairs. "I've never played Call of Cthulhu. I didn't bring anything with me." The guys were all looking at him now. "You speak English?"

"Yah, we can to play in English if you do not speak German. This is Andre, Jorg, that is Fabian and Pittel, and I am Sven. Choose one of these guys to play." Sven handed Jeremy a stack of character sheets.

Jeremy flipped through the pages, checking out the stats and items written down. He turned to Jorg, sitting on his right, and asked, "Where's the experience level?" Andre, sitting on the other side of Jorg, leaned in and answered for Jorg. "No experience."

"But how do you—"

"Just choose one you like the looks of. The figures are there." Jeremy didn't see any fighters or wizards among the figures. Flapper? No. Accountant? No. Chubby guy in a turban? No. Is that a...chauffeur? No way. Soldier! Yes. The soldier character sheet at least had guns and grenades and, ooh, dynamite written down. That would do.

They played for several hours, and despite not knowing the game or the gamers or German—which they couldn't quite avoid using—Jeremy was enjoying himself. During a short break they sent him into the kitchen to fetch the soda from the fridge and the beer. "The flapper will wait to open the tome until the Captain is done with his important mission for the GM, hmm? There is beer, too, on the counter."

While Jeremy hunted around the kitchen for the refrigerator—Any appliance at all! Christ, don't they have a microwave? Where is the damn refrigerator?—Fabian came out to the kitchen, open what Jeremy took for a cupboard and pulled out a six-pack of tall cans. "Damn!"

Fabian turned. "What is the trouble? Do you want a coffee instead? There is a coffeepot on the stove." Jeremy didn't see the Mr. Coffee, just a very small kettle sitting on a burner. "No, I...have you used the sofa before?"

"Me? No." Fabian leaned against the counter. "I prefer to play with gamers I know. You have used it many times? Or...?"

"No, man, I never even knew about them my friends dragged one home. A friend of ours sat on it and disappeared—"

"Well, that is what they do, these teleportation sofas—"

"I don't think he knew it was that kind of sofa. We think he got lost and I went looking for him—"

"Who? Are you related?" Fabian open a can, passed it to Jeremy, opened another.

"No, Tony's in my D&D group. I went looking for him but I haven't found him, and I've been on a lot of sofas, man. A lot. Of. Sofas." He took a sip. Hm, not bad.

Andre came out and joined Jeremy and Fabian in the kitchen. Fabian said, "He is trying to find someone from his gaming group, but he cannot so far." Andre asked Fabian a question in German, took a fresh beer that Fabian passed to Jeremy and Jeremy passed to Andre, and asked Jeremy, "You know how to use the sofa, yes? To have it send you where you wish to be?"

"At first, no. But then someone"—he blushed—"told me to think about what I wanted in order to direct the sofa, and that seems to work. I've been popping into game groups pretty frequently now, but, well, I think there are a lot of these sofas out there. I haven't found Tony yet, or anyone who's seen him." He looked forlornly at his Converse.

"Mm, well, he is in your gaming group, yes?" Jeremy nodded. "Where are the rest of you?"

"I'm the only one who went." Andre and Fabian exchanged looks. "They play D&D." "Ah."

"What?"

"We are players of Call of Cthulhu. We know that you never split up the party. Never! Bad things will happen. Oh, yes, bad things may happen even if you stay together, but at least you have company when you are devoured alive by a Great Old One, and that's a little good." Andre's chuckles dried up as he popped open another can. "D&D, you leave people behind all the time. No good."

"Sven! Jorg! Pittel! We have a mission!"

Soon Jeremy was sitting back on the blue plush sofa with a duffel bag on his lap. Fabian leaned down and put a new six-pack on top. "For the road." And he blinked out.

...

A basement rec room, the low ceiling and dusty mini-pool table dead givaways. Jeremy stood up, opened the duffel and pulled out a cell phone. He got Tony's voicemail, hung up and sat back down. He blinked out.

...

Another rec room, and a surge of nostalgia washed over Jeremy as he stood up and looked around. It was chilly in the early-morning air, and he pulled a sweater out of the duffel. Yeah, some things never change! Jeremy walked over to one end of the room with its long plastic tables and stacked folding chairs to stand under the Crucifix on the wall. He let his gaze drop to the half-height shelves under the cross. Family games, mostly, Toys R Us boardgames and umpteen Trivial Pursuit editions and checkers and chess...and on one shelf a small stack of books, game books. Just like back home. He picked up a pair of books, looked at the cell phone. Missed call! He dialed.

"Dude! Where the eff are you?"

"What?"

"I said, where are you? What's that noise?"

"I can't hear you, J-dawg! This party's rockin'! Call me back in a few."

Jeremy stomped to the sofa and sat down. Blinked out.

...

"I'm at...I think it's somewhere in England. Yeah, the change has the queen on it."

"Can you describe the room you're in?"

"It really smells like cigarette smoke! And there's a tv, and..." This might take awhile. Jeremy pulled out a sandwich and one of the beers and waited for Tony to get it together.

...

He blinked in. Yeah, smelly room, alright. Yup, tv. It looked like Tony described it, except it was Tony-free. He dialed again.

"Tony. Look at the coins again. Are you sure it's the Queen of England?"

"Tsk, how many times have I played Britannica? Yes, it's QEII."

"Okay-y-y...what's on the back?"

"Uh, a moose? No! A reindeer."

You twat. "Hold on, ignoramus."

...

Finally, a crit! There he was, slouched over the table with two other guys and a large fold-out board covered in what looked like a million fiddly-bits.

"J-dawg! And you brought beer! Dude. We're almost at the point of no return; sit down! You can play Harold's hand if you want; he blinked out a couple of turns ago, but his set-up's still good." Jeremy passed out the last of the German beers and picked up Harold's cards.

...

"...and then these naked Swedes asked me if I party!"

Lee and Jen laughed. "In your dreams, monkey-boy. You probably just bopped around from one dank spare bedroom to another, smelling nothing but guy-farts and stale pizza crusts all week."

"Were they tall?" Remi leaned back in the chair. "Blonde and busty?"

"Well, I did see some fine-looking tracts of land. And yeah!" Jeremy laughed, "They were all blonde." He passed out blank character sheets. "But I don't know if they were tall or not. I never got off the sofa."

Richard turned the sheet over, looked on both sides. "Where do you write in what level they are?"

"You don't." Jeremy set out a shoebox lid of figures. "Remember, this is the 1921, so keep that in mind when you decide what you want your guy's profession to be."

"Or girl." Tracy leaned against Rob, sat back up. "I can choose anything, right?"

"Yeah, sure. You can be the Pope if you want."

Rob laughed. Tracy asked, "Can I be a jazz singer?"

Richard twisted up his mouth and said, "What kind of character is that, a quote jazz singer?"

Jeremy said, "No, no, anything's fine. You just have to choose something that fits within the group, something the other characters can work with. Because in this game, you don't want to wander off by yourself. The party stays together."

Tony high-fived Jeremy, their hands partially overlapping. "Amen to that."