I discovered the little Lindt Truffles close to a year ago now. I enjoyed them for a few months before they started being shelved at every Safeway in San Francisco in a melted form that just didn’t taste that good.
Now that winter is nearly here, the truffles aren’t melted, and they’re tasting good again.
Yesterday was Boarding with the Guys. The plan was to meet at Eric’s place in Livermore and leave there by 5:30am. We very nearly hit that mark.
Woke up at 4am, after maybe an hour or two of shut eye, and frantically found and packed up the remainder of my boarding gear. Threw it and myself in the car and sped off toward Eric’s.
I was the last one to arrive, by a couple of minutes. We transfered gear and people into Michael’s Volvo, and then Michael, Sean, Tim, Eric, and I got in and started the journey north. It was still dark.
Sunrise as we were driving up through the foothills of the Sierras. Beautiful pinks and grays through the trees. The strobe effect through my closed eyelids made it impossible to sleep. There was conversation for the better part of the ride up, which was good, even if I was too tired to really add much.
We got to Kirkwood at around 8:30 to find the parking lot filling up, and a line from hell to purchase season passes. Someone mentioned that there were all these people here before us, and that we weren’t so hardcore after all. Someone else responded that these people didn’t have to wake up 4 hours ago to get here by 8:30. So we all felt suitably hardcore, which is a nice ego boost.
We looked at the snow, at the lift lines, consulted our bellies, and decided to take a couple of runs before breakfast.
The snow was amazing, squeaking under our boots as we walked to the lift. This kind of snow, in October. A woman came out from the lodge and shouted that the last time they had opened this early was 1989.
The first run was a little shaky (for me at least). Fell and received an elbow (my own) to the ribs hard enough to knock the wind out of me for a bit. Couldn’t keep me from laughing, though. Fell again on the second run, face first into the powder. snow everywhere. snow in places where snow should not go. Still laughing.
After breakfast we came out again to find the lift lines had swelled (and the season pass line had shrunk dramatically).
We took a couple more runs together, including one down Sentinel Bowl for Chuck, and then the group split up, with Sean going back to the Solitude chair and Tim going inside to rest. Michael and Eric and I played around on the rest of the mountain (and found a wonderfully fast groomer off 11).
Michael went to meet up with Sean & Tim, and Eric and I decided on another go at the Sentinel Bowl. We kept chasing powder to our left until we came out at the bottom welllll left of the open areas. For me extricating myself from this involved a 100 foot hike uphill through crusty snow, and for Eric it meant hiking back once he reached the parking lot. We were both exhausted by the end of it, but it was well worth it.
We ate burgers and fries and relaxed and talked about the snow and the girl announcing order pick ups that had perhaps the most amazing voice any of us had ever heard - certainly in that context.
Left the lodge and drove back down out of the mountains where the countryside looked like it was still nestled in autumn, but without a thought of the coming winter. Lots of dust and smoke in the air. Passed wineries and vineyards, which brought to mind Sideways, the excellent movie I’d watched the night before (seriously, go see it). Found myself nodding off often, but couldn’t quite drift off completely. Made it back to Livermore just after the luminous sunset had faded, transfered our gear back to our cars, and we all parted for the night.
I thought I needed freedom. I did need freedom, really. She didn’t want to give it to me, not at level I thought I needed, and there was a lot of anger and pain and frustration in the situation, on both sides.
Now I have it, I really have it. It’s mine. I’m free.
Just in time for it to be exactly not what I want.
Awake. no tossing and turning. just laying there with my eyes closed. the same position I was in the last I remembered before sleep. Haven’t moved. Didn’t dream, don’t feel rested at all.
Open my eyes, still dark. I reach over for my phone and unlock it. It lights up. 6:57.
I close my eyes and turn over. For a little while longer. Sleep, of course, doesn’t come again.
…
A friend called last night at 2:30am. She was driving home from the city. Drunk. Slurring drunk. Apparently one of the boys she was dating had broken things off with her. I tried to remain calm (drunk! driving!) while I kept trying to get her to pull over without pissing her off and causing her to drive more erratically than I was already envisioning her doing.
I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never been so pissed off at anyone in my life. Never have I been witness to such irresponsible behavior, and on top of all of it she kept saying repeatedly that I had to help keep her awake so she could make it home. And all the while I couldn’t bring myself to hang up because I wanted to make sure she got home safely, so I kept talking, tried to keep her awake.
She eventually made it home without hitting anything or anyone. I can only hope she has one hell of a hangover this morning.
Unbelievable.
I hurriedly downed my burrito (only got through half of it. the other half remains in my fridge. maybe i’ll eat it after i’m good and drunk) and rushed to Bernal to catch the eclipse with a couple of good friends. We huddled around, growing colder as the night cooled and the heat generated from marching up Anderson left our bodies. Watched the moon completely obscured by the Earth’s shadow, and then called it good and walked down the hill.
It’s amazing just how many people in Bernal have kids. and dogs. and took both kids and dogs up to the top of the hill to watch the moon.
…
I drove home (again in somewhat of a hurry) to take pictures from my back deck. Now, the setup I had tonight was so far from ideal it’s not even funny. I didn’t align the scope, and since I didn’t, I didn’t bother to turn on the motors. So I had to move everything by hand (how tedious!) I didn’t bother aligning the finder scope, so I had to remember to aim the crosshairs a little up and to the right. I was setting up on a wooden structure on the third floor. This structure shakes when muni trains roll by, when my neighbors walk around on their deck downstairs, shakes when I shift my weight. I didn’t have any real film (how archaic!) so I had to use this funky 14mm wide angle eyepiece I bought last year that screws onto the lens of my nikon 995. The cable release for the 995 was out of batteries (this cable release is like, on steroids. just a plunger? no way!) so for all the pictures I had to use the button on the camera itself. It’s amazing anything useful came out at all.
The other thing about the 14mm lens is that with that magnification it was impossible to get a full disc shot, so I had to make do with pictures of the bright limb. A couple of darker ones are here and here.
I also stitched a couple of later shots together (click for the larger version):
…
I drove back from a decidedly good show (I must have been the only college radio station dj/employee during the early 1990’s to not hear of Ben Lee…), and a decidedly* bad time (All of my friends warned me not to go). Poured myself a quadruple (or maybe a quintuple) rum — my new experiment — and noticed a white triangle on the floor in an otherwise dark kitchen. I thought there must be a flashlight shining through a window somewhere. I looked up, though, and through our giant skylight, there it was, shining down, out from behind the Earth’s shadow.
*weird, I misspelled** “decidedly” twice as “decidely”. Yay for my spell checking plugin.
** damnit, i misspelled “misspelled” too.
…
On the way down Anderson Street a little girl, held on her mother’s hip, waved and said “goodbye, moon” as she was carried into her house.
goodnight, moon, and goodnight to the rest of you too.
