Category: Bay Area

My diphenhydramine reality

Whoa, man.

I mean, really.

Whoa.

So I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Don’t know why. I got stuff on my mind, but no more than the usual suspects.

It’s not waking up and worrying or thinking or whatever.

It’s just waking up. And then not going back to sleep.

Exhausted, looking for some help, I decided I’d try some of that over the counter Tylenol PM.

Well, The Good Man astutely pointed out that Tylenol PM is just a mix of Tylenol and diphenhydramine, you know…Benedryl?

I already have Tylenol, so I bought a generic bottle of Benedryl.

Hoping for some quality rest, I followed the exact same doses from the Tylenol PM bottle, mixed up the recipe, swallowed it, then lay down in my bed.

It didn’t take long before my head felt kind of thick and my eyes got heavy.

Awesome! Sleep is on the way!

Did I sleep? Yes, actually pretty well.

But the dreams. Oh the dreams!

Wild, vivid, lucid, long involved dreams.

In one dream, a carload of my friends and I drove over the Golden Gate Bride, but on the OUTSIDE of the asphalt roadway. We sort of floated alongside the bridge, over the water, as we cruised. I was in the passenger seat and I could see the bridge up close. It was the most amazing way to see the entire bridge.

In another I shook hands with Jesse Jackson because he saw me across the room and rushed over to meet me. Said he was a big fan. (not sure what corner of my psyche that came from. I’m not much of a Jesse Jackson person, but ok.)

In several I could run really fast and it felt so good.

In the best dream, turns out The Good Man could fly. If I held tight to his hand, I could fly too. He flew *fast*, we zipped all over, and the wind tugged at my shoes! It was awesome!

Wowowowowow maaaaaaahn. That is some freaky sh–! I had good sleep! Fabulous dreams! And clear sinuses!

Diphenhydramine! You can’t beat this stuff!

So you know what I did, right?

I took it again the next night.

More wild, fabulous and fun dreams. Vivid, happy, trippy stuff.

Once again, I woke up feeling great. No residual antihistamine hangover, just calm and happy and best of all, rested.

So then, of course, owing to my Catholic upbringing or something, I realized that anything that feels that good can’t possibly be good for me, right?

So I put the happy dreams away and tried to sleep on my own last night.

It worked. I actually slept pretty well.

You know, I had a few dreams. Nothing special. Very dull. No flying or anything.

*sigh*

Did you get healed?

Recently, driving around in the Jeep looking for something good to listen to on the radio, I began to think about a CD I own.

By thinking, I mean, wondering where it is. When The Good Man and I moved in together several years ago, I boxed up a lot of stuff and stored it away.

Over the years, occasionally I’ll remember something that I want or need and it’s a hell of a rodeo to find it.

So I put the thought out of mind. Whatever. It’s just a CD. I can probably find it on iTunes or at the library or something.

I tried to dismiss it.

But this thought came with a long strip of Velcro, and wouldn’t let go.

A voice in my mind kept asking, “Where is that CD? You need to listen to it.”

When you get a voice that adamant, it’s kind of hard to ignore.

But I tried.

And tried.

And failed.

Resigned to satisfying that damn voice so it would shut up, I suited up. Our storage is under the place we rent, and that happened to be a very cold and very rainy day.

Determined, under the house I went, poking around in boxes and bags, knocking stuff over and getting lost on that long winding lane called Memory.

Finally, I did find a very heavy box that had a bunch of CD’s, and also most of my VHS movies, that I’d packed away.

I heaved, grunted and lurched the box upstairs and started picking through it.

A lot of heavy memory stuff burbled to the top, clamoring for my attention, which I gave.

But nothing quieted the voice. I kept digging and finally, yes, I found the CD I was looking for.

Best of the Blues, Vol. 1

Yeah. A “best of” compilation. Forgive me ye Gods of the Blues.

I bought this CD back in 1997. I’d just moved to the Bay Area and some good friends (also New Mexico transplants) had introduced me to the thriving blues scene in San Francisco.

I only tangentially knew the music. I’d listened to some B.B. King, some Muddy Waters and some John Lee Hooker in my time. The popular stuff. The stuff everyone knows.

But back then, San Francisco was steeped in the old ways.

During the course of the next decade, I received what can only be called a Blues Education.

I watched some of the not only best blues musicians, but best musicians period, play in craptastic bars like the old Grant & Green (the remodel took the soul out of it) and of course The Saloon, the oldest continually operating bar in the beautiful City of San Francisco. It dates back to the 1861, which means it survived both the ‘quake of 1906 and Prohibition.

There were nights it was too cramped and too hot (and back then, too smoky) in The Saloon for my tastes, so I would step outside the front door. I was dating a musician at the time, so the dyspeptic doorman had to be nice to me. He would let me sit on his stool by the front door where he collected the cover charge.

I’d take his chivalrous gesture and lean back against the battered wood door. I could feel the driving beat in my spine, and I’d watch the fog roll over the tops of the buildings in North Beach.

I learned about the three Kings (B.B., Freddy and Albert).

I learned about Chicago blues, Delta blues and the just plain blues blues.

I heard a thousand different versions of “Matchbox” and “Shotgun” and I watched guys try to be both Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King. I began to understand why some songs grab you by the gut and sometimes a song that should grab your gut doesn’t (hint: it has a lot to do with the drummer).

Today, I’m a suburban girl with a quiet, happy life. No regrets here. But sometimes I miss the family I made back then who took me in, protected me and helped me learn the old ways.

You know, they call it stormy Monday…but Tuesday’s just as bad.

This one musician, a hell of guitar player, used to tear it up for four hours, and at the end of the night, he’d ask the frenzied crowd, “Did you get healed?”

And he’d get crazy, drunken, full-throated hollers in return. The music mattered. It got us on a cellular level. We got healed.

I may need to see about a Saturday in North Beach soon, because something feels amiss. It may be time to go back and find if it’s possible to get healed.

Until then, I’ll take the ministrations from that ol’ CD found at the bottom of a moving box.

Image of Ron Hacker, arguably the best slide guitar man in SF and maybe even the world, onstage at The Saloon. (No, he’s not the guy I dated, I’m just a massive fan.)

Photo by Scott Palmer

Literal girl takes things literally

Ok, so there we were on a day of running errands, The Good Man and me.

We pull into a crowded parking lot behind the store where we’ve taken our bicycles to get tuned up.

Fabulous. All good.

TGM parks the car and heads inside while I get out change to go see about the meter.

Muliti-tasking couple, that’s us. Efficiency!

Ok, so we parked in one of those lots where you have to “note your space number and pay at the machine.”

Sure. Ok. I’m in!

So I note “space number 6” and then I swivel my head around to find the pay’er machine.

I see a sign that says, “pay here” and I go toward it like a moth after a 60-watt bulb on a hot summer’s night.

I literally walk right to the “pay here” sign. Seeing ONLY the “pay here sign.”

I arrive at the “pay here” sign to find that there is ONLY a “pay here” sign and no sort of payin’ machine.

What. The. Heck?

Ok. A photo will probably explain this better.

It actually took me several moments to turn around and actually figure out how to get my parking fare paid.

The sign says, “pay here.” It DOES NOT say, “pay over there, like eight feet away.”

Pay here with an arrow means pay there! At the end of the arrow.

Very, very literal girl was really perturbed by this whole setup.

So perturbed I took a dang photo of it!

I totally need to take up yoga.

Or meditation.

Or something with plinky-plunky music that will help lower my blood pressure.

Literal girl is *tense* sometimes…..

Ya Just Can’t Take a Bad Picture

There are certain places in the world where, seriously, other than utter camera failure (or utter user-of-the-camera failure) you just can’t take a bad photo.

Yosemite seems to be one of those places. I’ve not been myself, but I’ve seen plenty of friend’s shots and damn, each was gorgeous!

The Grand Canyon is the same. Here’s a link to shot that blogger friend NewMexiKen took on Friday with his iPhone. And it’s beautiful!!

I know that there are plenty of similar examples.

On Saturday, I visited one of those “can’t take a bad photograph” places. The Good Man and I needed to get out and enjoy the sun, so we took one of my favorite walks along the Marina Green, through Crissy Field and ending up at Fort Point, the Civil War era Army fort located right smack under the Golden Gate Bridge.

No matter how many years I live here, I still think the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most awe inspiring man made items ever constructed. It’s truly breathtaking.

And so yes, I brought my new-to-me camera along for the walk so I could learn how it works, and I snapped away.

Here’s the thing…there have been millions upon millions of photographs taken of the bridge, professional and amateur alike. We’ve all seen it from all of its angles. It’s all been done, and so it’s damn near impossible to get a new and different shot.

But it doesn’t matter. The bridge is stunning, and the photos taken, regardless of photographer, are always worth seeing.

So here we go, this was taken from the pier outside of the Warming Hut at Crissy Field:

It’s not an especially different or unique view of the bridge…but it’s still cool!

So then I try to add some artistic and photographic flair!

Ooooh! The big boat tie-off thingy in the foreground! And a fishing rod! I’m so artistic!

But what does your eye naturally want to see? The glimmering bridge in the background. With the sailboats underneath, it really makes the shot.

And then there’s this one:

We’ve all seen that view. Doesn’t matter. It’s still stunning! And that clear blue sky! Whoa!

By the by, it turns out the bridge isn’t only pretty up on top with the art deco towers and the graceful support cables.

The bridge is even beautiful underneath:

A man made work of art!

And even this…a terribly composed photograph, but it’s still fascinating.

This is the tower on the San Francisco side. It seems to be showing some breakdown and rust. This worries me! I understand that the bridge is constantly being painted to keep it sealed and also looking good. So I’m hoping that cutbacks haven’t caused a lack of care of our beautiful landmark.

Anyhow, I adore our orange bridge. Completed in 1937 it still stands proud and useful. I wish those yahoolios who are over budget and failing miserably on the rebuild of the Bay Bridge would take some lessons!

All our modern knowledge and technology still can’t beat what they made 73 years ago!

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Evaporation!

Everywhere you turn….

Ok, I suppose some things are hard coded into my system. Cellular level and all.

Today promises to be a very warm day where I live. I woke up this morning and it was already getting hot, and so my mind thought, “hmm, wonder if it is too early to think about getting the swamp cooler set up.”

And then I remembered…I don’t live in the desert anymore.

Oh and by the way, evaporative cooling doesn’t work worth a damn where it’s humid.

Oh yeah. Whoops.

This all reminded me of when I looked for my first apartment in Northern California.

In Albuquerque I’d lived in a very large one-bedroom apartment up on the east end of Menaul. I was on the fourth floor and had a rocking view of the Sandias. Many of my utilities were taken care of, and I paid $550.

I was now looking at spending $1200 a month on a teeny tiny dark apartment in a crap neighborhood. And pay for it out of a salary that was only $5k more than I was making in Albuquerque.

Yeah. That was bad. But what I remember most was touring a pretty nice place that was in my price range (less than $1000 a month). It was clean, smallish, but suitable. It was a warm day down in the South Bay, and I inquired, “where is the air conditioner?”

The landlord responded that there wasn’t one.

NO AIR CONDITIONER!?!?! WHAT!?!?!?

I mean, to a girl from New Mexico, this is certain death! You don’t NOT have an air conditioner!!!

The landlord further explained that really, it’s not necessary. The really hot days are few and the wind off the Bay and the ocean keeps it cool.

I was skeptical.

Thirteen years later, I’ve still never lived in a place that had an air conditioner. Admittedly, there have been some still, hot days where I yearned for the simple beauty of a swamp cooler. On those days, I stay longer at work to soak up their climate control.

So while my home is a/c free, my car does have cooling. I won’t own a car that doesn’t, though I have friends who saved a few bucks by leaving that off. No way.

I have a vague feeling this is going to be a long, hot summer in the Bay Area where the tunnel of fans The Good Man sets up won’t quite be enough.

But then, when it gets that hot, the next day the fog rolls in over the hills and dampens the whole day and you freeze your tukhus off.

Ah…summer in the Bay Area. Swamp Coolers not required.