May 3, 2005
Out on the breezeway in St. Helena, I listen to Marianne Faithful singing about a jumping girl who will not be driving a sports car in Paris, with the warm wind in her hair. We will not be driving Jim's BMW, in any wind, through the streets of St. Helena either. It broke. We are hoping that this little misunderstanding with the car will sort itself in under the four days Pete, the tow-truck guy, mused it might take. We must return to New York on Saturday, we do not have enough days, nor do I want to spend the rest of my California in a motel on Highway 29 in St. Helena. I will indeed offer a bit of woogie boogie in the effort to make this a very short stay. Wednesday night back to San Francisco is reasonable.
We came to California to take part in Heather and Jim's wedding parties. They were quite nice, so many happy people meeting, talking, laughing, lovely. By Sunday night Juliette and Paul, the last in the out-of-town party, headed back home to Minneapolis, leaving Steve and I in the South Beach, San Francisco apartment, pretty darned tired. Jim's Dad gave Steve and me a motel room for a night in St. Helena. We picked up some plein air gear yesterday, lugging it home in big Flax bags on an old Italian train, more fun for the parents of the bride. Today we got up pretty early for such tired folk. Picked up some fold-up chairs for plein air painting and headed north. We stopped for gasoline in San Francisco, the car gave us a message to check the coolant. We did. Read up in the book how to handle the situation. We purchased some coolant, mixed it with some water, not too much. On the way up, the gage seemed satisfied. We drove to St. Helena, temperature good, no notes. Arriving at Lodi Lane where we will be staying, the car seemed a bit warm, but no apparent problems. We ate a nice lunch, purchased some wine for tomorrow's picnic from the tasting room across the parking lot. The fellow told us of a view from hill to hill over the valley with a little turnout that might be swell for painting. A few hundred yards from the motel, the notice came on to check the coolant again. Thinking we would as soon as we stopped, we drove up the hill. The car did shut itself off near the top, a dangerous stop at the beginning of a sharp turn. We drove a couple hundred yards to the turnoff. The car was not happy. Coolant cloud spewed. After the car cooled down we opened the hood and spotted a hole in the hose which was not there earlier. A tow-truck happened by and the fellow set us up with a tow for the car into town, a mile and a quarter down the road, leaving us with our gear at the motel.
This is fairly boring stuff. We planned to go to St. Helena to paint for a day. Quite sweet. Stuck in St. Helena for days in a modest motel without transportation when San Francisco is sitting down the road beckoning, less sweet. We will make the most of it. We've got fun stuff to do. But, let me whine for a moment over my lovely Adams Ridge 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. There is a spring-bursting vineyard across the road. A girl could paint just anything. Perhaps more at the center of my discontent is the possibility of a seriously ruined car, and really, I did not come to California to deal with a damned car. That is a sadness, a time jerker, nasty, distasteful, not the way I want to spend my time. And I only brought one spare underwear and no house clothes. Steve has hurt his feet and has only sandals, not much walking going to happen here. Goodness knows I've been way more stuck.
Driving up highway 101, I remembered how too many times some girlfriend, one that will leave you sitting there with the baby while she goes off with a fella for many hours way up a hill in Corte Madera or Mill Valley or somewhere where you can't get home because you've got no money for a cab, and wouldn't have known how to make a car service happen anyway. Neither had I a car or the money for a bus, or certainly the wherewith-all to do anything but sit tight, waiting, going crazy for lack of water and food and entertainment and escape. Yes, that is what I remembered driving up the highway. Do you know I white-lighted that car several time in hopes of having to go through nothing much with it. Did I miss a turn? I can't believe a little asking for help to keep a car safe wouldn't work. Really, that would be too much to consider. I shan't. So, time will of course tell. In the meantime, surely there are better stories to tell.
So, what of my girl in Tuscany? Does a bride really never call her mom to let her know that they arrived safely that the Tuscan sky is beautiful that she still loves her husband after all the parties are over?
I cannot imagine what Jim must have been thinking. He did look extremely happy. His first marriage and so many people all around who love him so. He smiled a wide and toothsome smile for days. But I couldn't get a reading. That boy, he keeps his cards close to his chest.
May 4, 2005
Carl's body shop - housing and an o ring 200 bucks this afternoon - halleluiah! And I didn't think I'd have anything to say today. What could I have been thinking
I woke up thinking someone was walking on the roof, when in fact Steve was walking on the floor. I woke up from a dream that I was swimming and had gotten remarkably strong. I was part of a gigantic group of people who had all been injured, or in fact dead. Mom was there. She had been having some continued problems with the shingles she had on her neck when she was dying. The wounds had traveled to her face and her whole jaw and cheek was affected. So she had a face that needed rehabilitation. The wounds did not heal completely but they were at least fresh scar tissue instead of the peeling weeping reddened flesh I saw earlier in the dream unwrapping her from a white shroud. Anyway most of us were getting better, but really, why the hell am I telling this story? There were throngs of people. It seemed we were in Holland, maybe the pool was based on the pools in Malmo. I don't know.
Going to look for a painting today, my boyfriend and I with our Julian easels and gouache our little folding chairs. Horizontal seems the proper direction for a landscape but I am so fond of the vertical paintings, more like taking a sacred chunk from the world rather than reflecting as much as the page would hold. Last night's Silverado Brewery window framed the most gorgeous close-up view of the vineyard striking its way up the hill, looking like a mural had been painted in the biggest oil sticks. Now, wouldn't that be the most fun. I shall keep that in mind for the future.
Oh oh, 8:40 am already, time for showers and breakfast. We have been sleeping quite long these days, that would make eight hours, two more than most days in our lives. Oh again, now we are going to watch Steve's movie before we go on to anything more. It's a plein air movie.
Ruth Parson
