Travels with The Rayman

Well.  It’s done.  I am happy to report that I have survived my dental appointment in Los Algodones, Mexico.  So, listen up all you gringos.  Here’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!

Los Algondones is across the border from Yuma, AZ but you must re-enter CA to get there.  In CA there is a big parking lot and you get the opportunity to spend $6 dinero to park.  We did that and walked across the border.  Easy peasy.  There are signs giving you all the rules you must follow.  The funniest was the sign that proclaimed, “Guns are illegal in Mexico”.   Funny and yet…not so much.  No NRA in Mexico.  AZ, on the other hand, is way into guns.  We saw a guy in the RV park today walking by with his gun (it was in the gun carrier).

But I digress.

When we crossed the border, we walked about 2 blocks to the dental office.  From there they “shuttled” us to their other office.  The Rubio Dental Group.  We made appointments there based on recommendations from friends of friends.  When we arrived, we checked in and moments later, Mr. J, was escorted into the innersactum.  After he emerged, he was provided with an estimate of work suggested.  No go.  They wanted to cap everything in sight.  Said whitening wouldn’t help.  So that was that.

I, on the other hand, have a mouth full of trouble called teeth.  The teeth gods were not with me in the genetic-material-that-matters department.  So, I had a tooth #25 that needed help.  The “skin” had broken off last summer so I needed a new crown.  But wait.  There’s more.  When the BIG Doc Lopez opened things up, there was decay and the nerve was too close.  He recommended a root canal.  I agreed.  It would be a good test.

The office was immaculate and filled with gringos from Montana, B.C., and points north.  The office had all the modern equipment including digital X-rays.  Everyone wore the latest latex gloves and mouth/nose masks.  Everyone spoke english.  But during the work, espanol was used.  So, I had no idea what they were talking about.   Probably sports.  Oh, and Dr. Rubio got his dental education at UCLA.

After the Big Doc Lopez took off the crown, he sent me across the street to the root canal adjunct.  Dr. Dominguez owned that office.  First I had a young woman dentist that “prepped” me.  Then Dr. Dominguez got involved.  He did the heavy lifting while singing to the voice of Ray Charles (in ingles) which was playing.  There were three dental chairs.  I was in room 3.  Everything was open and I looked out on a garden.  Quite pleasant.  When Doc Dom was done with me I was told to return at 1:30.  About a hour break.  So, we found a restaurant and ordered guac and beer and I had tortilla soup and Rayman had a chicken quesadilla.  Muy bueno.

But wait.  While waiting for Doc Dom, we met a fellow who showed up the same restaurant and I invited him to join us.  What a character.  He had a flu shot a few years back and the shot paralyzed him.  Then he was hit over the head by an intruder in his house and the guy kicked in his teeth.  Hence his visit to Mexico for dental treatment.  Rayman wasn’t particularly interested but I was mystified that one person could be so unfortunate.   He definitely had the stories.

So after we finished our lunch we returned to Doc Dom and I had a fourth dentist work on me.  He was a young guy.  When he stopped doing stuff I was directed back across the street to the Doc Lopez.  Impressions were cast.  That’s the only thing that really hurt because by this time the novocaine had worn off.

What was Rayman been doing all that time?  Being on his iPad so much that he received a message saying that he had accrued more than a $100 in international charges.  Say what?  So while we were waiting I called AT&T and they reduced the charges if I agreed to a $30 international charge for a month.  Perfect.  Sold.

The other thing the Rayman was doing was stewing and worrying.  Not about me.  About Beau.  OMG.  Beau was back in the air conditioned RV alone.  We have never left him for more than 5 hours.  Today we managed to break that record.  And Rayman was feeling guilty and his guilt feelings …well, let’s just say, it caused some friction.  When I return on Monday for the crown, he may want to stay back with Beau.

Although… there is shopping in Mexico.  And good food.  And good margaritas.  And music with lunch.  Mexico is fun with their barkers, “Looking for a good dentist?”  “Need drugs?”    There are beggers but not many for a border town.  The Big Purple Store is a farmacia.  It is huge and painted purple.  We checked out our drugs.  No deals there.  Big pharma has figured it out.   Spain is the place for drugs.

So:  Key Learnings

Go early.  These dentists specialize in getting you in and out as quickly as possible but this a Mexico, land of manana.  Everything is hurry up and wait.

Take cash.  Or checkbook.  Dentists have waits of avoiding taxes, I assume.

Plan to eat there.  Food is wonder.  Inexpensive.  And people watching is great!!

Lots of old geezers from Canada and the U.S.  And the ones we spoke with all have all been going there for years.  It is a heck of a deal.  Old crown, new crown, decay removal, root canal for under $800.  Just sayin…Anyway, this Mexican dental deal is a well known secret…and so far so good.  And there are 400 dentists in this one little town.  I’m told that Tijuana has 2,000 for the same reason.  People come to Mexico for their teeth, their eyeglasses, their meds, their booze, and their varicose veins.  Even botox injections are offered.

Plus there is Yuma.  Boy has it grown.  It has a Marine air base so flying planes make interesting viewing.  Every train on U.S. soil must come through here…constantly, it seems.  The freeway is close to every RV park.  And this is the strange thing.  This RV park does not provide picnic tables at each site.  And everything in Yuma has been cemented or graveled over.

On the plus side, we have a great swimming pool here.  And there are small casitas you can buy at this RV park.  RV parks are starting to provide permanent housing too.  Mixed use, I guess.  Interesting concept.  Will investigate and report back.

Okay.  Got the lowdown.  The people here at The Palms will sell you a piece of land and you can build what you will.  Need an extra garage?  Just build one thru their pre-selected builder.  Install an outdoor kitchen?  No problemo.  Build a 1400 square foot house next to you RV pad if you so desire.  There are lots of permanent structures.  This is something new to me.

Yuma is the least interesting thing about this trip.  We did manage a few rounds of golf (cheap) and fast.  And we appreciated that.  And their Fry’s SuperMarket is very good.  I found sesame paste there!!  That’s for the baba ghanoush I plan to make with my barbecued eggplant from the other night.   The theaters are nice and you don’t freeze when you go to a show, so that’s good.  And there is that In-N-Out.

Back to Mexico on Monday for the crown.  Assuming all things go according to Hoyle, I think we will head home a bit early by heading to the ocean.  Think San Diego.  And once in CA at the ocean, well, we will enjoy the  moisture in the air!!!  And once our bodies and skin are rehydrated, its points north to home!!

Yep.  I thought that would catch your eye.  Gather your attention.  Stir your interest.  Titles matter, apparently.  And are you one of those that have not been reading my life’s work?   But now, here you are.  And it is all because of the title.  Too provocative to ignore?  Too salacious not to ponder?

But I digress. Our bicycle friends continue to make a big impression on me…especially when I stand on the scale to weigh myself.  Pure horror grips my heart.  I’m so out of shape when held up to the likes of them.  They are sticks.  Some are very tall.  Some are very short.  None are fat.  None are even pleasingly plump (isn’t that how we refer to poultry?)  No mind.  You get the drift. So my day started out really swell.  I talked the Rayman into coming with me to observe the bicyclists in their natural habitat.  We met up at the crossroads of Sunrise and Church, I think.  I know the church part is right because there is a cross on top of the high hill behind  the churches.  Not so sure about Sunrise but it sounds good even if it is wrong.  There we assembled and I took a few pictures which I post here.     No, we did not ride.  We followed them on their ride up the hill, part way (in our Honda Fit which is a car).  I don’t think it is an exaggeration to announce that this sent me into total envy.  There were tandems and single bikes on this ride.  As I learned over the beer I was crying into last night, tandem riders generally are slower on uphills.  Faster on downhills.  Those bikes can go fast too.  People were talking about 5% grades and 32 mph.  Myself would not be able to endure that speed.  When I used to ski and started chattering along about that speed, I usually headed uphill to slow down.  And snow is much softer than asphalt.  So.  There you have that.

The other thing is injury.  These people have injuries.  We were visiting with our friends Ron and Elizabeth and Ron, just in passing, mentioned, “Well, when I broke my neck…”   WHAT?  Yes.  He broke his neck in CA and drove clear back to Oregon thinking not much was wrong.  And when he had a CT or MRI, I can never remember which is which, the radiologist told him not to move because his fractures were “unstable”.   Once the docs conferred, it was decided that he drove all that way, waited to see the doc, had the tests.  Unstable, he was not.  So, off he went to get one of those collars.  Poor dear.  He is one of the very best riders.  Across the U.S. on a bike.  Up the Pacific Coast trail (up is harder).  Check.  Wife Elizabeth was with him on these adventures.  She told us a story of how they trained and trained for a double century ride.  Ron fell and was injured to the point he couldn’t do the ride.  Elizabeth did it by herself.  Picture this.  She was at the meet up place in Portland at 3:30 in the morning.  In the dark.  13 hours later she arrived in Seattle.  I mean, really people, she is a wonder woman.  I’m in awe.

Their friends, Nancy and Jonathan, are parked next to us in the RV park.  We joined them in the desert for coffee the other day.  And that’s where the sex comes in.  It seems that on the ride to Agua Caliente, I think, they were riding their tandem bike when all of a sudden Nancy spots rattlesnakes.  They were doing it in the road.  The snakes, that is.  Nancy is a nurse practitioner and she found this fascinating.  So they stopped to engage in a bit of reptile voyeurism.  For five minutes.  As she describes it, the snakes started from a base of intertwined coils and “stood up” straight with their legless bodies (which always freaks me out about snakes.  No legs).  And then they wound around each other in such a manner that they appeared to be one two-headed snake.  At first Nancy thought it was a stick.  Anyway, they (the snakes) fell over a few times only to resume this copulation activity in front of company.  The snakes never did acknowledge the presence of the peering pair.  They were busy making lots of baby snakes.   Nancy took a picture.  Too bad she didn’t video record it.  She is sure and  I agree that it would have been a YouTube sensation.  Here’s the pic she shot…too much romance and movement to get it clearly…Oh, well.  Don’t want to stand to close either.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lrmsVd4s5c is actual footage of the event taken by someone else.  Just cut and paste into your browser to view!!

Besides snake sex in the spring here in the desert, the plants are blooming.  Gorgeous wildflowers.  Flowering palo verde trees in bright yellow.  The citrus trees are flowering and the scent is intoxicating.  The ocotillos are stunning with their red flames shooting out the top of the spiky branches that reach toward the sky.  Prickly pears have bright pink flowers that are blooming now.  Spring is a great time to visit Borrego.  The bees are as big as your thumb and they chase birds away.  Hummingbirds are flitting to and fro.  Roadrunners are plentiful, beep, beep.  Quite a fetching environment.  And the nighttime sky.  OMG.  It is very dark here because there are no street lights.  And the population is small.  And it has been designated as one of those special places to stargaze by people that have the authority to make such designations.  As long as they are make designations, I think they should designate Borrego Springs as one of the quietest communities in CA.  The sidewalks roll up early and it gets really, really quiet when the air is still.  Occasionally, a jet or small plane can be heard.  And coyotes rejoicing in the middle of the night.  But overall, it is quiet, peaceful.

Sunrise.

An Ocotillo in bloom.

Okay.  What’s wrong with this place?  I’ll tell you what.  My skin looks like a lizard.  My Meyer lemons have sagging skin where once they were plump and pretty.  But back to my skin.  OMG.  This place sucks all the moisture out of your skin.  My chicken neck is even wrinklier.  My lips are dry and cracked.  Sunscreen is needed all the time and everywhere skin peeks through.   And it is hot.  Just like a desert. We leave tomorrow for Yuma and from I have figured out Yuma has 2 things going for itself.  It has an In-N-Out and it has a movie multiplex.  We plan to catch up on movies during the hot afternoons in order to stay cool.  We will still need to keep the coach air conditioned because of Beau, but seeing a few good movies in a cool theater is just too appealing to forgo.  We also have two swimming pools at the Palms RV Resort which I plan to spend time in even though my skin will shrivel.  It will feel fabulous after a hot day on the links.  That’s where you’ll find us…in the pool for a dip.  A dip for the dips!!

Update from Yuma.  OMG.  Not much here.  In a fancy RV park and they gave us an undesirable spot…but oh, well.  I’m not buying.   We managed to only get lost once coming here.  Ended up on a dirt road with farm equipment.  Don’t ask.  We also visited Costco in El Centro where the greeter speaks to you on espanol.  Good merchandise and plenty of tequila for sale!!  We bought more Advil, gin, dates, and lamb loin chops.  Priorities.  The pain meds are listed first!! Tomorrow it’s golf and Tuesday is the Mexican Dental Diaries!!  Stay tuned!!

Most of you, my dear readers, will be opening this missile to look for the silly things that happen to us or that we do…or both.  Well, sorry to disappoint you this time.

I’m here to report that not much is happening in the desert.  We haven’t been lost.  We haven’t burned down The Dog House.  No one has passed out.  It’s downright boring.

Life really is a series of events and some are more fun than others.  Some events strike terror in our hearts and we usually try to minimize them.  Did any of you watch the HBO series on Durst? My oh my.  He did not let terror stop him.   I was reading about him in the paper this a.m. and there were a few photos of him.  He always looked like, not quite there.  A cold and distant stare is how I would describe his look in those pictures.  Sure am glad I didn’t get stuck in his head.  Hard to imagine so I don’t even try.

But I digress.

We have no TV here.  Well, that is to say, our satellite such as it is only picks up 6 stations and they are all in espanol.  This would be useful if I was studying the language.  But I’m focusing on french at the moment and there is not one french speaking channel to be seen.   So, it’s Scrabble at night.  I beat the Rayman and he beats me.  At Scrabble that is.  And we are always just a few points away from each other.  It’s great fun except the waiting part…that sometimes gets a bit tedious but who wants to pass and throw in all those tiles for others?  I did that once and got back the Q and Z before the game was over.  I lost that one.

Reading is another activity here.  Just finished I Hate My Neck or whatever the name of the book was by Nora Ephram, or whatever her name was.  Quite funny and entertaining.  Then I switched to Lawrence In Arabia, a book I’ve been reading for about the past year.  It is dry.  It is a bit boring.  But it is extremely timely since it involves how the Middle East was carved up after the war.  At this point, I feel it my duty to complete it so I can be more or less learned about the affairs of the world.  But I’m reading it so slowing, I’ve already forgotten how tall Sir Lawrence was.  A rather short man.  And skinny.  His idea of a diet must have been to grab and camel and head for the desert.  Wearing long white robes.  Which shows how confused those Arabs are.  When we were in Turkey, we hate at a restaurant in Cappadocia and started up a conversation with our waiter.  He maintained that all those orthodox women that paraded around in black from head to tow to cover themselves and their clothes underneath, were cool.  “It keeps them cooler”, he exclaimed.  Well, this cleared things up for me.   Now I understand why they believe 72 virgins will be waiting for them if they say, blow themselves up.  They will believe anything they want whether it is true/factual or not.  Easy, peasy.

My question is, why don’t they wear gloves?

We are surrounded by health nuts here.  They come in the form of bicyclists.  Svelte takes on a new meaning with them around.  Almost daily or at the very least, every other day they take a ride.  Now my idea of a bike ride is what I did the other day.  We mounted our bikes and rode down to the Art Fair at Christmas Circle.  Let me explain.  There is a round-about downtown Borrego Springs.  It is a very large, generous affair that sports a grassy, treed area in the middle of it.  And roads jut off into the desert like spokes in a wheel.  It is a very cool round-about and so we rode to it.  About 9:30 before the heat of day enveloped us in, well, heat.  We looked around the Art Fair and decided there were things we could and should buy.  At that point, we jumped on our bikes and pedaled back up the hill (hardly a hill), retrieved our car and drove back to the Art in the Park and bought our little table and a picture for Claudia.  I like to bring Claudia things when we’re out on the road.  After that, I might have a taken a long nap to recoup.

Here are the lady bikers in Ashland, OR last summer. No pictures yet this trip!!

But I got lost on my own round-about.  My mind.  It is swirling and flipping off on side roads.  That is a condition called digression.

So.  This is not what the bicyclists do here.  They meet at 8:30 and roar up all the mountain roads around here.  They stop and have lunch and then race down the mountain they just climbed.  Average length of a ride is probably 40 miles.  They are animals.  And I’m a slug.  But everytime I get around these guys, I want to be one of those riders.  I live vicariously through them.  I know how to ride a bike, sort of.  It’s just fear that has me in it’s grip.  Fear of flying.  Through the air.  Perhaps over handlebars.  Like Rayman did once in the privacy of his own driveway.  He didn’t make it out of said driveway before flying over his handlebars and I can tell you that it wasn’t pretty.  So there is that.  And then there is this.  How the hell could I get myself up one of those mountains?  I can’t imagine it.  I’d be running off the road looking into the little “rear view mirror” they wear on the road side of their helmets.  So, here again, I am scared.  A scaredy cat.  And the heat.  How do they do it in the heat?  I walk to the dumpster to throw away my garbage and it’s almost too much.  How to ascend a 5% grade in the heat?  My vision of me is going slower, slower until I just plop over…possibly for good.  And then there are the clothes.  OMG.  My midriff would not grace the skin tight clothes these guys pour themselves into.  Actually, I would like to see one of them get dressed.  My imagination takes me to a place where they apply Vaseline before dressing.  Perhaps it takes more pushing and pulling than riding the bike itself.  Don’t know.  Just sayin.  I mentioned the Vaseline to one of them and she admitted to using Vaseline.  Another described herself as a “baby powder girl”.  The guys.  Now that is another story.  Rayman and I learned that the guys use a product called “Bag Balm”.  It is a salve that is made for cow utters.  I’ll leave it to your imagination where this might be used.  I don’t know.  I’m just guessing.

And they eat like birds.  If I rode 40 miles, my rig would not be big enough to hold all the food I would eat upon returning to The Dog House.  One of the riders said to me, “Oh, those medjjool dates!  One of those on a ride would fuel me for 20 miles.”  Hell, it took me three this a.m. to get up the energy to walk to the dumpster and stop by to collect our clothes that were hanging on the clothes line.  Really, people.  This is how they eat.  Or, just perhaps, that should tell me something.  About the way I eat.

Okay.  Change of subject.

We’re going to Julian today to get out of the heat and we are not going to bicycle our way up that mountain.  No sir.  High of 75 today up there.  Perfect.  I’ll be taking my coat.  My blood is undoubtedly thinner now after a week and a day in this heat.  I’ll probably get cold.  I just hope I don’t buy too much.  We need a few groceries.  Of course, you can’t tell with me.  The other day in Borrego, I went on a hunt for a salad spinner (forgot mine), and I ended up with a great pair of Jag capris.  Who knew?

That’s about it and up to the minute  More later.  Something is bound to happen!!

We hadn’t been gone from house for 20 minutes when I stepped on the break of The Dog House (RV), and a large crash ensued.  ”What the hell was that?”, the Rayman bellowed.  In my shy and meek voice I answered, “I don’t know.”  As this was being discussed, we both looked toward the noise.  It was our pantry.  The door flew open, all my spices on the sliding shelf hit the deck.  Recognizing the chaos, Rayman leaped from his seat and sprinted toward the back of the coach.  For the uninitiated, the word coach is a euphemism for RV.  Coach is a good word.  It evokes “home away from home”.  RV on the other hand sounds cold and unappealing.

But I digress.

As the Rayman is huffing and puffing as he pulls up items off the floor, I turn right because I asked him if he wanted me to stop and he didn’t answer me and since there was nowhere to park, I turned right.   Right into a neighborhood that had more twists and turns in the street than a murder mystery.  “Why did you turn?  What are you doing?  We’re towing the car?  How are we going to get out of here?”.  OMG.  It was in a word, a disaster.  So as I’m driving what seemed like the entirety of the Amalfi coast to get back to the main road, the Rayman discovered that the flying spices damaged the floor.  OMG.  This part of the diary is expletive deleted.  In the meantime, I weaving back on to the main road heading toward the freeway.  At this point I managed to say something like, “Well, we forgot to secure the door to the pantry.  I was going to do it and forgot.”  He said, “expletive deleted”.  That’s when I suggested a check list like airline pilots have before they take off.  “Oh, great.  Another list”, he snarled.

Oh, well.  Sometimes the beginning of the trip is the worst of it.  When you drive a coach, contents move about like in an overhead compartment of an airplane.  Quite possibly the only thing more crowded than a passenger in Economy, is said passenger’s carry-on that is crammed in that overhead.  Really, people.  Flying is disgusting and to think we have to give the airlines our hard earned cash for the privilege of eating our own knees.  This is what it has come to, isn’t it?

Let me continue.  I got a bit sidetracked.

So.  By the time we arrived in Los Alamos at the Well Bread bakery to buy our chocolat des cruissants, the calamity had cleared.  Temporary explosions are forgotten as there are new and exciting things ahead.  And the food was fabulous as we sat in the coach and ate our breakfasts.

The plan was that we would ride as far as Oxnard, disengage the toad (car we tow), and I would proceed onto the Camarillo where I was going to a baby shower for my cousin’s daughter.  And this is what happened.  Rayman took TDH (the dog house) which is the name of our coach which is our RV… to a campground near Santa Paula.  I went to the baby shower and this is where I was reminded how difficult it is to shop.  The pregnant mom has a boy in her womb.  And that little boy is going to have about 70 pair of socks, 30 swaddling blankets, 40 receiving blankets, and a herd of stuff elephants.  The clothes he received  referenced the navy, sports, animals, and farming.  No miniature kitchens.  No dolls.  No frilly dresses that are so much fun to buy .  It was a fabulous party.  I also learned that things have changed in the baby department.  No more strollers.  Transportations systems now.  Trees for hanging bottles on top of fake green grass.  Not sure about that but the crowd seemed to approve.  Clearly I don’t get out enough.  This may be the first shower I’ve been to since 1974.   Who’s shower?  Who knows?  I forget.  Not even sure the year is right.

Anyway.

I left the shower by following my cousin’s wife to their house so I could say hello to my cousin.  My cousin Chris is a hoot.  Great sense of humor.  He and I are polar opposites in some ways and absolutely on the same wave length.  So after a wonderful visit, armed with my iPhone, I left the hills of Camarillo and headed down the backside of their hill toward Santa Paula.  Only I got a bit lost and my phone informed me that it was low on juice so I called the Rayman, told him the cross streets and implored him to help me get to where he was.  “Call me back.”  Click.  So, I just kept driving and heading north east.  Well.  He calls back.  “What city are you in?”  I said, “If I knew that I’d know where I am.  Now I’m at Rose and Los Angeles.  Call me back.”  By the time he called me back I was almost where I was suppose to be thanks to blind luck. Finding the Dog House and my little family was fabulous.  I was tired.  I had been lost and yet found again.  And Rayman had set the whole coach up by himself.  What a guy.  Then he told me this story about seeing a gas station and thinking he should fill up and as he was pulling in people started yelling “STOP!”.  He was about to tear the roof off The Dog House.  The ceiling of the gas station pumping stations was about 11 feet tall.  The coach is over 12 feet tall.   Disaster avoided.  Wine was consumed.  Everything mellowed out.

It could have been so much worse.  So after a day of craziness, we have a couple of scratches in the floor which is fake wood anyway.  Think we can find a paint or stain pen to cover up the owwie.  At least me have our roof.  The baby is set.  And Rayman is relaxed and resting comfortably.

Key learnings.  1.  devise a list of procedures to check before putting the coach in drive.  2.  Start every trip with a charged phone battery.  3.  Relax and enjoy.

More later.  After all.  This was the first day of a month on the lam.  More to come!!

When you reach a certain age, birthdays take on new meaning.  I think I speak for all of us when I say that as you get older, the birthdays come more frequently, so to speak.  “Seems like I just turned ( you fill in the number), yesterday”, she exclaimed.  The passage of time speeds up the clock.  There is no denying it.  It is a truism.  So, using this logic, we will be dead before you know it.  Therefore, get out and have some fun if you’re able.  Because just as birthdays become “more frequent”, so it is that aches and pains will increase.  As my dear Uncle Ralph proclaimed last night over dinner, “Let me tell you.  It doesn’t get prettier”.  And he is 87. I have launched into this this subject with the memory of yesterday lingering on In my mind.  It was Rayman’s birthday.   The other thing about birthdays is that we all or most of us feel this obligation to give a gift and since winding back the clock is not possible there is nothing at this point that is really needed.  There may be things that aren’t even wanted.  “I’ll just go out and buy whatever I want/need.”   This type of person is one of my favorites.  Actually, I trend that way for my own self.  But how do you, dear reader, handle that?  Are you the type of person that buys your birthday person a funny gift (Preparation H), or the type that buys a gift that you too can benefit from (two nights at Post Ranch).  Or do you go for the practical?  Say, a new shirt?   On any given year, it may be different, I’d guess. But I’m starting to digress. The birthday gift question for this year was answered thus.  I cooked.  First, I began by asking the Rayman what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner.  He was pretty clear that he favored lamb so that I would cook his favorite potatoes.  Roasted red potatoes.  This is one of his all time favorites.  Red potatoes cut to a uniform size, tossed with salt and pepper (freshly ground), fresh rosemary from the bush in the front yard, garlic cloves unpeeled but flattened and added mid way thru the cooking so that they weren’t reduced to hard, charred pieces of bitter garlic), and all tossed with olive oil (not EVOO) and some butter (not margarine or other horrible substitute), and thrown in the oven (400 degrees).   Who wouldn’t love that?  It is the best, most simple potato recipe I possess.

Below is a pic of Ryan!!

  And what else you might be wondering?  Well, asparagus.  Asparagus and lamb go together like  sheets and pillowcases.  The only other veggie under consideration was eggplant but I had just purchased a lifetime supply of asparagus from Costco when I bought the two racks of lamb there so, of course, it would be asparagus.  And a salad.  Rayman and I have disagreements about what greenery should be used as the base for a salad.   I love arugula.  He likes everything but arugula.  So, I settled on spinach.  Into it I threw some toasted walnuts, shallot, a sliced pear, feta cheese and dressed it with a dressing of avocado oil, fig and vanilla vinegar, a pear sauce.  Yummy. But the crowning glory was the dessert.  If that is even possible after such a great dinner.  Oh, who am I kidding?  Of course, it was possible.  It was Rayman’s birthday.  And Ryan, number one son, was here for the occasion.  He flew down from Portland so that we could celebrate his birthday too.  He was born 2/5/80.  It must be duly noted that his days aren’t moving as fast.  To him.  To us, that’s a discussion for another day. Oh, my, I started to digress again.  Sort of. The dessert was not for the average cook.  It was almost like I looked and looked and looked for the most difficult dessert for the occasion.  Having found it, I decided it would be perfect.  It involved what I mistakenly thought was puff pastry.  A new requirement may be needed.  Read the recipe five times before beginning.  This I did not do and therefore when I did the marketing, I bought puff pastry.  And this mistake went unrealized until I took it out of the freezer and the box announced, “two sheets enclosed”.  WHAT?  2 sheets?  Referring back to the recipe, I was horrified to learn that it required 11 to 13 sheets of phyllo.  Phyllo is not puff pastry.  2 is not 11.  OMG.  Good grief.  When I recognized the error of my ways, it was 2:30 p.m.  And dinner was scheduled for 6:30.  But wait, there’s more!! Here is a picture of the apples.  I can’t find the prune pictures.  The prunes could be a subject unto themselves.  On the way to pick up Ryan at the Santa Barbara airport (don’t ask), we stopped at Costco to buy a year’s worth of prunes because the recipe called for 25 of them.  Oh, I know what you’re thinking and just stop it.  Although, it is a funny thought at our age!!  Maybe any age.  Anyway, the prunes required a tea bath for 2 hours and an overnight soak in the most expensive french brandy known to BevMo.  And it was 20% off to boot.  So, the prunes had been prepared.  The apples had been peeled, cored, thinly sliced and cooked on the stovetop for 25 minutes (with the addition of a vanilla bean and some orange peel).  And they had been cooled as per the directions.  It was now time to heat the oven and commence with the phyllo activity. The oven was “punched” on (these digital contraptions).  That’s when smoke started enveloping the kitchen.  OMG.  There was something on the bottom of the oven.  Well, off went the oven.  I then asked birthday boy if he would set up my portable oven outside in the garage (another long story for another time).  He obliged.  As he was doing that I discovered my shopping error and was thus thrown into a wild panic.  I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.  Phyllo must be found.  I drove to the Cookie Crock (a local grocery concern) and there it was in the freezer case.  This was beyond a miracle as the Cookie Crock is known for carrying less expensive food by not paying good wages.  But, they had it.  Yippee. So, the good news was, I found the phyllo.  The bad news was it required 2 hours to defrost.  It was about 3 p.m.  I set the timer for 1 1/2 hours and postponed my activities concerning the dessert.

Who is this older woman in my kitchen? Good grief.

When the beeper went off, I opened the package and went to work.  Ryan was the official photographer.  Long story short, I used too much phyllo (18 sheets) because I didn’t read the directions correctly.  I piled on the prunes and apples, doused it with more brandy and butter, closed it up and sprinkled more sugar on it and popped it into the oven.  Again, I misread the recipe and did not place the pan on a preheated pan (presumably so the bottom would cook thru) but it was too late.  In it went.  And out it came looking a bit like an ugly duckling compared to the picture in the L.A. Times food section that accompanied the recipe.     So…here’s the dinner plate.  And the dessert…before and after.     As we were devouring the dessert, I exclaimed, “I forgot the set the prunes on fire!!”.  I thought I remembered that requirement somewhere in the recipe.  Whether or not the recipe called for a flame throwing exercise mattered not.  It was fabulous.  Flakey.  Fabulous.  Boozey.  Fabulous.  Although, I am sure it was a good omission since my house still stands.  Intact. As a final thought.  It is funny, isn’t it.  I managed with my kitchen know-how to create a good dinner that the Rayman and Ryan loved (Uncle Ralph liked it too!!), provide some cheap entertain along the way, defy the odds in the phyllo department in more ways than one.  So, it was practical, funny, and at the same time needed (we do have to eat to live).  So, it may have been the perfect gift. Oh, and did I mention that when I turned off the oven, Rayman cleaned it with Easy-Off (didn’t have time to run the self-cleaning cycle) and I used my indoor oven to cook the dessert and the rack of lamb?   Yes, indeed!! So, happy birthday Rayman and Ryan.  It was my pleasure.

Well, I’ve done it again.  Another mistake.  Will they not stop coming…the mistakes?  Or should I term it “an error in judgment”?  Or “a screw up”?  Probably it fits into the category of “what the hell was I thinking”?  At any rate, it all started innocently enough.

You see, I deviated from our norm of not buying each other xmas presents when I ordered ear buds for the Rayman so that he could listen to his music at the gym.  This set up a situation where he thought it appropriate to get me something…only he had no idea what.  So, he told me he wanted to get me a new wind chime.  Our old one had fallen in disrepair from the elements.  “Fabulous”, I concurred.  But he needed my help because he didn’t want to get the wrong one.  No sirree.  He let me choose it.

So…at 3:30 a.m. this morning we were awakened by our lovely new wind chime.  It was loud.  And it loud constantly.  We pretended for a bit that it was fine.  Only it wasn’t.  It was really loud.  The wind was blowing pretty forcefully.  And the chime was placed where the old one had been, at the corner of the roof by our bedroom.  Never a problem before.  We continued to pretend some more as we lay there awake… as in totally awake.  OMG.  The neighbors.  Us.  The entirety of Morro Bay perhaps.  This wind chime is a really effective wind chime.

It was decided that action was required.   Rayman decided to close the bedroom slider, did so, and slipped back into bed.  The noise was only slightly less annoying.  It was at this juncture that I started laughing.  What a hoot.  4 a.m. and we were wide awake because of that darn wind chime.  Rayman even laughed.

And that is why you would have seen us outside had you decided to come for a visit at 4 a.m. this morning.  Rayman on the ladder that he fetched from the garage.  Me holding onto the clanger of the chime trying to quiet the damn thing.  I was in my robe.  Rayman had slipped into sweats.  I was barefooted.  He was smart enough to put some Vans on.   The bedroom porch light was shining.  He took the darn thing down.

The wind chime is now laying on top of the hot tub.  I am feeling stupid for wanting this noisy menace to society.  We agree that thing is too big.  It needs to hang from an oak tree out in the middle of a field about 100 yards from any house where sleeping may occur.  But here it sits in silence.  Lovely silence.

So, maybe I’ll list it on Craigslist.  For sale.  Wind chime, new since xmas, almost perfect condition.  Perfect for a farm, ranchette, or Hearst Castle.  $50.