No, pas possible! Today is March 2nd and I am only now adding a post about our trip to America. For shame!

We arrived in Gig Harbor, Washington on Christmas Eve and we flew back to France from San Francisco on Inauguration Day – Gobama! And now, about a mere forty days later, I’m finally sitting down to write a post about the trip. (Keeping up with one’s blog isn’t as easy as I thought!) Before any more time passes, I want to thank all our friends and family who took such good care of us.

We were very fortunate indeed to spend Christmas with Mom and Dadums at their home in Gig Harbor. My son Jake flew up from San Francisco to join us and my sister, Susan, and husband Tom and nephews Danny and Billy (who live nearby) were there as well. We were also there to celebrate Billy’s 18th birthday on December 28th. He invited about 40 of his closest friends over, dug a pit in the backyard, and BBQed a whole lamb Argentinian-style on a home-made vertical metal structure. And it worked – deliciously!

On December 30th, we reluctantly said good-bye and flew to San Francisco. We rented a really ugly big American car, and drove to Carmel Valley to stay with dear friend, Lynne. The next day, Kevin and I experienced our best New Year’s Eve ever. What a party! We caught up with old friends Doris and Hu, Donna and Scot, Mary and Gregg, Mark and Elaine, Marv and Wanda, and made new friends as well – Robin and John. It was a perfect gathering of people, with yet another great meal, and hours and hours of crippling dancing. And an after-party the next day. Perfect …

Then, it was payback time a couple days later with Nancy (aka Maddog), husband Jim, and Kate in Monterey. I had bet them that McCain would “win” the election  – hey, I thought the Republicans would cheat their way into the White House for a third time in a row but happily I was wrong (although I’m still sure they cheated!) – and so it was dinner on us. Thank Gawd I had to treat!

Then, slowly winding our way back to San Francisco, we stopped off in Santa Cruz to visit Pete who runs the superb music venue, the Cayuga Vault. We met his adorable girlfriend, Amanda, a wonderful musician in her own right, and passed a leisurely afternoon together – eating, of course.

Then, up to stay with another of my favorite girlfriends, Karin, and her husband Ron and exceptionally exceptional little daughter, Alina, born the day Kevin and I got married in London. They had just returned from Karin’s native Sweden the day before but nevertheless graciously put us up for the weekend. Karin also arranged to have our long-time friends, Steve and Lynn, over for dinner.

Then, up to San Francisco, to set up our base camp at Kate and Big Laa’s. What can I say about these two? They are The Best! The Salt and Pepper of the Earth. They let us camp out with them for the rest of our trip and shared everything with us – food, friends, hikes, Golden Gate Park, the Muni (!). We saw Mo and Cathy there, and they also welcomed my son Jake and beloved yogini Sammie into their home. Speaking of Sammie, she gave me an hour and a half yoga lesson – just like the old days: torturous but great – then the longest, best, and most loving massage I’ve ever had in my life. Plus, she took us out to dinner. Thank you, dear Sammie.

And speaking of Jake – I don’t get to see my sweetheart of a son nearly as often as I would like but I’ll grab whatever time I can with him. He and I flew down to Hermosa Beach the following weekend to see step-son Trent, wife Jill, and 4 and 6 year old Luke and Hope. The weather was so warm that we went to the beach where we saw surfers, dolphins, and girls in bikinis playing volleyball in the sand. In fact, the entire time we were in California, the weather was spectacular.

Back up in San Francisco, the sun was still bright as JaneO drove us over the Golden Gate Bridge and took us on a spectacular hike on Tiburon. The views of San Francisco from there are stunning. Then we made a delicious pressure-cooker meal at her enchanting home in San Rafael. What an artist JaneO is. After being surprised and wowed by everything I cast my eye upon in her home, I promised to get to work fine-tuning our home in Provence.

I saw Terry, too, and we passed a couple hours together at a tea shop in Oakland catching up on each other’s busy lives. Good luck with your speech therapy studies, Terry, which I hope lead you to a career you love.

Oh, I almost forgot – girl’s night out with Kate and David at his apartment in the Castro! Unfortunately, he and Kevin missed the chance to get together because David left for Rio shortly after. I’m hoping for some Carnival pictures of him with his Samba School. I would have been extremely disappointed if I had missed David.

Kevin had the good luck to visit with some of his former work-mates at Quokka Sports, a dot.com that went bust in 2001 after going through $350 million in 2 and a half years, but not before Kevin had a great time working there and traveling around the world for them, pioneering broadcasting sports events over the internet. He went to dinner with Michael, Jeff, and Joe from there, talked to Bob on the phone, had lunch with Angie and her partner and kids, and attended a Laundry Party with Sadie. (That’s a party where people talk about or perform whatever project they’re working on – usually artistic.) Sadie’s a superb musician and her group The Invisible Cities has a CD coming out soon. And thanks, Sadie, for taking Kevin and me to one of our favorite spots, the Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco where we loaded up on food stuffs unattainable in France.

And Jeff and Elsie. Now there’s an exceptional couple. We had so much fun with them for four days in Bodega Bay – hiking, eating crab, watching movies on their wall-sized screen, going to an excellent new restaurant there a couple times, and just generally hanging out together. We did a major hike on the Estero Trail in Pt. Reyes. Thank you so much for taking us there you two because Pt. Reyes is one of my absolute favorite places to hike. And we also accompanied them to David and Lisa’s for dinner too.

When we moved to France, we didn’t realize the impact that leaving our family and friends behind would have on us. Keeping in touch through phone calls and emails is great, but nothing can replace being in each other’s presence and just spending time together. We miss you all so much.

Hmmm … we have to think what we can do to remedy this situation … Longer – much longer – visits in the near future? We’re working on it …

Ruth

Categories: Family, Memories, The World Community
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