Travels with The Rayman

The Rayman is in the closet.  Literally.  He is painting and this is evidenced by the fact that Beau doggie has a green side of hair after inspecting the Rayman’s work.  And I have green paint on my levis.

Saturday, we played in a fun golf tournament for which I donned my black golf capris and it was not until I actually arrived at the course that I looked down and noticed a big fat iron print on front of the right leg( the scorched black pants were gray and withered in that particular area of my leg).  And the reason I didn’t notice before that is because there is no full length mirror to gaze in to because the bathroom door is off the hinges (that’s one mirror) and is leaning up against the wall (on which hangs the other mirror).  Ah, life is but a dream.

For hours and hours I googled and searched the internet for the just the right medicine cabinet for our new master bathroom while right outside under a blanket lay my old medicine cabinet which is a relic but I grew to love it.  So functional and convenient and 4 feet wide.  So after much cajoling, I talked the Rayman and Stevie “Wonder” (our contractor) to letting me have my mirror back.  It’s old, slightly used looking but, hey, recycling is so chic.

 

Living without my bedroom, my bedroom closet, and the master bath is not easy as you can well imagine.  The toilet sits outside in the freezing weather along with that previously mentioned medicine cabinet, rolls of insulation, tools of all descriptions.  The only thing in the bathroom right now is the pan for the shower, the new plumbing and the new electrical.  Oh, and the used skylight that Stevie Wonder is selling us.  It’s pretty bare bones.

As I mentioned earlier, the closet is also under renovation as we stole 18 inches from it and added it to the bath.  So, double hanging is now required.  Our clothes are spread all over the house, all over the master bed.  It’s a mess.  So, selecting the wrong pants was made easier by the fact that I cannot find a darn thing anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong though.  When Stevie was slinking around underneath the house to replace old pipes, he discovered that one of the heater vents was laying on the ground.  OMG.  This is why daily dusting has been necessary and why the living room wasn’t warming up quickly and why it cooled down quickly.  Really, people.  You would have thought someone would have noticed this.  We were clueless.  So there is a silver lining to remodeling.

Oh, and did I mention my new car.  The Rayman let me choose the car and so I chose a Prius V.  The V is for versatile.  It’s sort of like a station wagon.  Lots of room but the car is not mounted on a truck frame.  They estimate it will get 42 miles to the gallon which is why I wanted it.  Plus I needed a new car with a USB port.  I mean, people, both our cars were bought in the olden days.  No USB, no built-in bluetooth (a registered trademark as noted in the car manual about ever other sentence).  It came with Sirius for 3 months too.  Boy, I sure am thoroughly modern now.  How did I ever make it before?  Certainly a mystery.  Color me thrilled.  It’s a very cool piece of machinery.  A rolling computer of sorts.  More than 50 computers on board.  Imagine that?

Many funny things have been happening but if I don’t write them down I forget what they were.  So, I’ll close this blog for now.

Oh, wait.  My new car…I named her Priscilla the Prius.  And I’ll call her Miss Priss for short or when I’m mad.  And I just ordered a personalized license plate that says Priscilla the Prius on the top and Traveling Princess on the bottom which fits right in with my blog handle.  So clever.  So fun.  So depressing to write that check.  I had the lady who sold us the car thru the Costco program take a picture of me and the car because the car will never be worth it’s sale price again… ever.

Rayman is still in the closet and it’s after 6 p.m.  After we bought the car, we took our contractor to the tile store and ordered the tile (expensive).  We went to lunch at McPhee’s in Templeton and Rayman and I split the kobe burger gilded with blue cheese and caramelized onions.  And sweet potato fries.  Yummy.

Oh, I just remember what I forgot.   Our house has several different colors of green and wouldn’t you know it but Rayman painted the closet the wrong green color and that necessitated a trip to Home Depot to buy more the right color since, of course, there was hardly any left.  So, theoretically, the closet would have been done two days ago if he wasn’t color blind.  We had the same problem with the guest bedroom (another color of green) when we moved the curtain rods and needed to repair the wall.  Geeze.

It’s  time to drink and drown my sorrows over Downton Abbey.  What a season.  Anyone else watching it but me?  I had my theories but every single one of them was wrong.  And that poor middle sister.  My god.  I predict that she will become a successful entrepeneur (how to spell that word?)  And the chaffeur (can’t spell that one either) will be wildly successful.  All this will happen if none of the actors want to be written out of the script.  The driver, now upperclass by marriage, will fall for Daisy who will move out and turn the farm of her late husband’s father into a conglomerate the size of Archer Daniel Midlands.  She will become unbearable because of her success.  The dowinger (what? another word that escapes me) will be killed by the young niece (actually trampled to death by the young filly fleeing for a date with another married man) and Mary’s mother will persuade her mother, Shirley MacLaine, to move to England to spice things up a bit since Maggie and all her witticisms will be gone.  Actually Maggie Smith gets all the best lines, doesn’t she?  And she brilliantly delivers them too.  Shirley is up to the task because she once ate in the same room that I did in Santa Fe.  My aura fell ‘ore her.

Well.  I digress beyond all hope with that one.  Good night every body.

 

My I please preface my remarks by saying that I love my uncle.  And this is what happened just now.

Ring  ring.  The Rayman answers as he is very close to the phone.  “Hello.”  “Oh, hello.”

“ I’m not sure.  Let me ask Dianna.”

“Dianna.  Do you know the number for the groomer in Los Osos?

“Yes.”, I reply.

Rayman proceeds, “Uncle needs the number.”

I respond by saying that I will call him back.  (an aside:  at this point in the interaction, I have just taken the monkey off my Uncle’s back and safely put it on to my own back)

Click goes the phone.

So, I rummage around to find the number.  IT IS NOT IN MY IPHONE.  Drats.  So, I google the number and dial up Uncle to give him the info.  Incidentally, it’s dinner time.  Okay.  So it’s continues thus.

Uncle says, “Hello.”

I reply, “Hi, the number is xxx-xxxx.”  In unison he repeats  “xxxx.”

I say, “Oh, you have the number.”

He replies, “Of course I have the number.  Where is she?”

I answer, “In Los Osos.”

“OF COURSE SHE’S IN LOS OSOS.  WHAT’S HER ADDRESS?”

I stammer, “50”, and then I stop and say, “You are really funny.”

“JUST GIVE ME THE ADDRESS.”, he shouts with a tone implying that I knew what he wanted all along. (Of course, I didn’t which made it funnier and continued the laugh.)

“WHAT’S THE ADDRESS?”, he shouted.

“5000 Main Street.”, I inform.

“Well, okay, that’s all I wanted to know”, in a tone announcing that his exasperation is waning.

Click.

 

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday.  We played golf in the a.m. with friends and then we gathered for the game.  Much wine and whining ensued.  Rayman had the Niners written off before the half and then after the Raven’s ran back the kickoff for a TD, I was convinced.

But I digress.

We returned home with too much wine in our tanks.  Rayman said he would load my clubs into the other car.  He did.  Then he summoned me.  I immediately knew something was wrong.  It was “that” tone of voice.  Well…I forgot to zip up my bag and golf balls fell from my bag and started down the drive way into the street.  It was after 8:30 p.m.  The night was the dark and the moon was yellow…isn’t that a song?  I threw on my jacket and hat and trudged outside.  Couldn’t see s#%t.  Jumped in the car.

Monday is garbage day here in the hood.  As luck would have it, four of the balls came to rest pinched between the wheel of the neighbor’s garbage can and the curb…four of them.  Too funny.  One was still unaccounted for yet if you had heard Rayman’s pronouncement (YOU DIDN’T ZIP UP YOUR BAG AND NOW ALL YOUR BALLS ARE PROBABLY IN THE OCEAN NOW) you would think like I did that 20 balls were on the loose.  Well, there were only 5 and now I had 4 of them.  I drove down to the bay.  No ball.  On the way back, I noticed a golf ball sitting in the front yard of the neighbor two houses down and across the street.  Holy mackerel.

This morning I had a starting time.  I arrived at the course (Dairy Creek) about 15 minutes before tee off time.  I opened the trunk of the car.  The cart was there, the clubs were there.  Where were my shoes?  No shoes.  OMG.  I ran to the clubhouse.  They had about 5 pairs of shoes, none my size.  Judy, one of our members, asked what size I wore.  9s.  She wore 8 1/2.  I borrowed her sandal golf shoes.  Then I went to get my tees and markers out.  I keep them in a pink mesh zippered “purse”.  NO TEES.  NO MARKERS.  OMG.  The pink “purse” was not in my bag.

Couldn’t go home.  Had a match scheduled.  So, I borrowed some tees and markers and headed up to the 18th hole as it was a shotgun start (that where all players start on various holes at the same time).  I stretched once or twice and teed off.  I almost got a hole in one.  However, I didn’t.  And I didn’t make the ridiculously easy putt either.  And that’s how I missed my birdie.

I am constantly amazing myself.

It started off as such a beautiful day.  The sun was shining.  We walked the dog and saw the seals frolicking in the bay.  Oh, how lucky we were.  And I had a good feeling about the flan that I was assigned to make for a dinner party tonight.

Admittedly, in the past I’ve had nothing but problems with flans.  This time it was going to be different.  Really.  Flan.  Why does this dessert allude me?  It’s the caramel.  And specifically it is the transfer of the caramel into the pan.  It is easy to screw up.  First, the writer of recipes really can’t be there to say, “Now.  Take that sugar water than is about 1400 degrees hot off the burner and pour it into said pan and then roll the pan around so the caramel coats the pan everywhere, even up the sides of the pan.”  No.  The writer of the recipe cannot be with you to tell you exactly when.  And that seems to be the crux of the problem for me.

Now, knowing this in advance should aid me in the search of the proper flan.  So, what did I do?  Well, I picked out a recipe that really couldn’t be much more difficult.  In fact, it maybe the most difficult flan recipe ever.  In my own defense, it just looked so interesting.

But I digress.

So, I made the custard.  No big deal although the non-cook may not appreciate the finer points of custard making.  The most important thing to know is that you cannot add eggs into hot milk.  The heat will cook the eggs and you’ll end up with clumps of eggs.  Ugh.  You must whisk the eggs to “heat-proof” them.  I did this and thus avoided the only mistake one can make with custard.  Oh, except that I didn’t have any vanilla beans and the recipe called for vanilla bean.  So I substituted vanilla paste.  It was then time to make the caramel.

The recipe I chose included annatto seeds.   OH, and the recipe also called for 12 ramekins as each was to hold 4 oz. of custard.  So this meant I had to not only know when the caramel was ready, but I had to pour the caramel into 12 separate dishes.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?

What happened was that the annatto seeds turned the sugar water reddish thereby making the decision of when to remove the caramel from the heat all the more difficult.  Then, the annatto seeds needed to be removed which meant straining the caramel through a strainer into each cup.  OMG.  I ended up with spots of varying shapes on the bottom of each cup.  They resembled Rorschach tests.   Elephant?  Rabbit?  Richard Parker?  And there were drips of caramel all over the stove, in the pan for the bain marie.  The kitchen looked like a cyclone came through.  Oh, the bain marie.  That’s a fancy french term for water bath.  You put the filled cups in a pan and then fill the pan with water about half way up the side of the cups.  And if that’s not difficult enough, you cover the whole affair with tin foil and bake.

But let me digress.

I could not leave each cup with it splotches of caramel so I put each cup over a flame on the stove until the heat caused the caramel to move.  And then I picked off the caramel that stuck to the inside of each cup.  It was at this point that I just knew my friend, Pat, really didn’t like me.  Why?  Because she is the one that asked me to make it!!

The recipe writer reported that this recipe would make 12 as noted earlier.  Fat chance.  It made 7.  So much for saving the extra custard for ice cream which the recipe writer suggested in the event of too much custard.

And I think I will send the recipe writer a bill for the tea kettle.  I emptied my tea kettle of water into the pan for the bain marie and then place it back on the stove.  It was daytime.  I could not see the flame and these new fangled appliances do not indicate if a gas burner is on or not.  So, it is not entirely my fault that when I noticed the tee kettle was hot to the touch…it was on the verge of incineration.   OMG.  What else could possible go wrong?

Well, the custard did not firm up like the recipe suggested.  They have been in the oven for about 45 minutes and counting.  And just as I typed the last sentence, water in the tee kettle boiled over onto the  burner which made that sound of water steaming as the water hit the  flame.  So I just returned from adding more hot, boiling water to the bain marie.  And when I put pushed the oven grate back in to the oven, the water in the bain marie spilled onto the oven floor and made that noise of…well you get the picture.  I just covered the pan up with tin foil, set the timer for another 5 minutes and resumed my thesis on why I am unable to make a good flan.

And when they are done, I then have to make more caramel because the recipe calls for caramel dipped bay leaves and star anise for the top of each custard, of which I have 7 which means that if these ever get done, the Rayman and I will need to split one because there will be 8 of us at dinner tonight.

OMG.  Pat really doesn’t like me.

 

 

 

 

 

Every year we host our Winers and Diners gourmet dinner group over to settle on the next year’s schedule.  Let me back up.  I used to pound my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do the impossible by which I mean devise a dinner rotation while keeping everyone happy with the end product.  This was pure folly.  There are 12 women in our group and the task was impossible.  OH, I kid my women friends…but let’s be frank, 12 women gathered together to agree on anything is surely an impossibility.  !2 men would be, like, whatever.  They don’t give a whit about the whose house they are being dragged to for dinner.  All they require is that we inform them and remind who will be there by listing their names so they won’t forget their names when, alas, they meet again.

Women want to go each other’s homes at least once a year.  And they don’t want to host more than once a year which, given a schedule that included three hostesses every two months made that quite impossible.  And they didn’t mind mentioning it.

Oh, I kid the ladies.  They actually came up with a great idea.  Why not have one dinner party a quarter.  There are four quarter in a year.  Four times three hostesses equals twelve.  Bingo.  Everyone hosts just once.  One problem solved.  The other problem was delegated to chance.  When everyone showed up this year, I asked which quarter they wanted.  Three volunteers for first quarter were secured.  Etc. for the other quarters.  Then we drew names for the participants for each hostess.  Who could possibly object?  Problem solved.

But I digress.

When we get together each year as a full group, everyone brings an appetizer and a bottle of wine.  Instant party.  And then everyone digs in and helps themselves to whatever wine and food they wish.  Oh, so egalitarian.  And so it went this year.  Some of us stand, some of us sit.  We sit on chairs, ottomans, the couch and of course, and at the dining table.  To make room for all the food on the kitchen island, Wanda, our pet beta fish, we moved to the center of the dining room table and it was there that someone noticed she wasn’t moving.  And she had changed color.  And, OMG.  She was dead.

Yes, our fish called Wanda, succumbed at our annual party.  So, the Rayman gathered up her bowl, “fished” her our of the water and threw her down the garbage disposal.  What ever happened to the toilet?  No.  Wanda got the garbage disposal.  I don’t know.  It didn’t seem right.  But looking at it logically, all types of dead things meet their fate in the garbage disposal.  So, I guess Wanda really wasn’t any different from a purely logical point of view.  But wrap a few emotions around it, “My fish, Wanda, is dead?  She was the perfect pet.  And we had her for three years.”, and the garbage disposal solution seems, well, a bit heartless.

So, all my dear friends as well as those readers I don’t know, here’s to Wanda.  Put on your favorite dirge and drink a toast to Wanda.

 

 

 

 

It just hit me.  The train is analog, through and through.  And that is not a bad thing.  In fact, I love analog.  It is the world of knobs and I love knobs.  So, I’m happy as a clam right now sitting onboard the Amtrak train at Union Station in Los Angeles.

The old station looks good.  People of all nationalities inhabit with cameras that flash as they click away at the beautiful building.  One can make a case for losing the wrecking ball when you view the train station.  Not Penn Station, but still, it is a wonderful old station with plenty to offer the weary traveler.  Starbucks is here.  The ubiquitous Starbucks.  A small convenience store.  You can buy newspapers there which I did because I discovered that there is no wi-fi service on the Coastal Starlight train that connects San Diego with Seattle.  At first I was disappointed that I could not surf the web.  On further reflection, however, much better to watch the surfers as we head north to San Luis Obispo.  And for that, I requested and received a window seat.  And the windows appear to be clean (in the shade, where we are parked).  Yippee.

The bathroom is analog too.  Come to think of it, most bathrooms are analog, aren’t they?  Little opportunity to digitize that most private place…except for the new Toto toilet seat that we have purchased for our new home.  It has a handheld gizmo (a technical term) that you use to select various features of the seat which is heated and plumbed.  Jet spray anyone?  Perhaps a light mist?

But I digress.

When I checked in for seat assignment, the train employee had a piece of paper and she wrote the acronym SLO on seat 37 on her paper schematic.  OMG.  No staring at the screen, no clicking away on a keypad (like I’m doing right now).  Just a simple notation.  Pure, unadulterated analog.  Loved it.

The train just started rolling.  Nothing like air traffic.  No seat belts.  No jet engines roaring.  No beverage carts to get in your way to the bathroom.  No leaving terra firma.  Quite pleasant, really.

What it does have is LEGROOM.    Lots and lots of legroom.  And comfortable seats that recline.  And great big windows (that are clean in the sunlight).  And the ability to walk around as much as you like.  And quiet.  The train is incredibly well insulated.  And sitting here in the comfort of the train I am struck why the politicians rail (pardon the pun) against Amtrak.  Rail against the trains.   it is a most civilized way to travel.  And if we had high-speed trains, the trip would beat the planes hands down.  So, we know who the the lobbyists represent that oppose Amtrak and the trains.  The air travel industry.   Air carriers, automobile companies of all stripes , hotels.  But the citizenry needs to speak out and demand trains.  The best trains I have ever traveled on reside in Europe.  They are sleek, modern, and FAST.  200 MPH.  They have their own tracks so they don’t interfere with freight trains.  The U.S. should be embarrassed.  The rest of the industrialized world has left us in the dust on this one.

To those that do’t want our tax money spent on this, I say phooey.  Our tax dollars build airports which include terminals, runways, air traffic control towers and all other infrastructure needed for those airlines.  Take some of that money and redirect it to trains.  And while you are at it, sell all old airports and landing strips that the rich use to help pay for the train expansion.  If the rich want to land their Gulf Streams, let them pay for the numerous landing strips that dot the landscape.  And don’t get me wrong.  I’m not anti-rich.  What I am is pro-middle class.  We, the people, that cannot afford private jet travel (99.9%) need trains.  The economy needs trains (think infrastructure building).  The train would compete with the airlines and isn’t that what capitalism is all about?  Competition?  I think it would be grand.

And may I congratulate the Los Angelinos?  They have build the Metro train line into quite an impressive system.

But I digress.

The Rayman and I drove to Los Angeles yesterday so that we could see Book of Mormon, the award-winning play that was being staged at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.  We had booked a hotel at the Burbank airport because our original plan was to leave today and drive to Ojai to play golf on our way home.  That plan was scuttled when Rayman’s ex-wife’s mom died and the service was scheduled for tomorrow near Temecula.  And that how I ended up on the train.  He is going to the service and family reunion, such as it is on the occasion of a funeral.  I’m returning home to take care of some business.  So,we stayed at the Burbank airport (now known at the Bob Hope Airport) and drove to Hollywood to take in the play.  It took one hour for a 10 minute trip sans traffic.  Parking was expensive.  When we arrived we stumbled on the Metro subway entrance.  Lightbulbs lit up.  There was a Metro station at the Bob Hope Airport.  OMG.  Next time, we will ditch the car and take the train.

The picture at the beginning of this blog was taken in the theatre.  Absolutely fabulous architecture.  But the play.  OMG.  The play.  Run, don’t walk, to see this show.  It is leaving L.A. but going to S.F. the end of this month.  It was hysterical.  And right up my alley.  I’ve been fascinated by the Mormon religion because of my dear cousin, Marilyn, who married a Mormon.  And because of the Mittster who just lost the election.

But I digress.

The train is moving again.  We just left, you guessed it, the Bob Hope Airport Amtrak station.  OMG.  The Rayman and I braved the freeway into downtown L.A. so that I could catch the train.  For heavens sakes, I was three minutes away of train station.    You can’t make this stuff up.  Who knew?  But now that we know, we won’t make that mistake mistake again.  Think of it.  Leave Paso or SLO on the train.  Get off at Bob Hope.  Catch the Metro to Hollywood and see a play.  Take the Metro back to Bob Hope, spend the night at a hotel nearby, board the train home the next day.  NO CAR.  Love it.  And the train trip one way today today cost me $27.

The train is really barreling along now.  The view is ugly.  Lots of tagging.  Lots of apartments with carports.  Lot of industrial buildings.  But it will soon improve as we head for the ocean.

 

Last night as we were making our way to the Pantages, the phone rang.  Claudia the Uncle Ralph are keeping Beau.  It was Claudia.  The conversation went something like this.  “Hi.  Who’s your vet?”

Rayman:  “Our vet?  What’s wrong?”

Claudia:  “I think Beau ate Ralph’s hearing aid.”

Rayman:  “Coast Vet.  But, really, I don’t think Beau would eat the hearing aid.  He might chew it to bits, but swallow?  I don’t think so.”

Claudia:  “Well, it was sitting on the table and now’s it gone.”

Rayman:  “Well, it’s pretty small.  Maybe he’ll be okay if he did eat it.  Keep us posted.”

You can’t make this stuff either.  At 7:00 a.m. the next day Claudia called to report that the missing hearing aid had been located.  Beau had been falsely accused.  No vet was involved.  All is well.

Returning from this recent digression, I must stay that the scenery is getting better.  Oops.  In a tunnel now.  Dark and mysterious are those tunnels.  And fun except for the smell of diesel now detected in the air.   Leaving the tunnel the views just get better and better.

 

 

 

So, it’s been over a week since I got off the train.  The ride was spectacular, though overcast.  The stretch of track between Santa Barbara and Casmalia is not to be missed.  You cannot view this scenery without the train as it traverses Vandenberg AFB where they shoot off satellites and rockets.  But you can see it on the train.  Book your trip now.  You won’t regret it.

Just to finish up the trip, I was joined in Santa Barbara by a recent college graduate from UC Santa Cruz.  What a delight to talk with her.  She gives me hope about the future.  Of course it helped that we saw eye to eye on everything.  She was smart and well spoken and unemployed.  A degree in Environmental Studies and no job in sight.  It is so sad.  She moved back with her parents and babysits for a few days a week.  Being a person that doesn’t mind dispensing advice, I suggested New Zealand.  And Canada.  Two economies that aren’t as “under the weather” as ours.  But her big, tall redheaded boyfriend that greeted her with a long, lingering kiss on the platform when we disembarked the train may have a different idea.  And dare I say, more sway in the matter.