Deeds & Words

I don’t think every town hosts a Zombie Shamble around Halloween, but two towns where I live do; Petaluma and Sebastopol. Both shambles (because if you’re a zombie, after all, you shouldn’t just walk,) are hosted by Copperfield’s Books.

The Sebastopol zombies, I was told, were much more timely than the Petaluma ones. (The Petaluma zombie event was held on Saturday.) Down there, the zombies wandered in ten to fifteen minutes late. Does time matter if you’re a zombie?  I don’t know. Anyway, zombies at my local store were early.

Most zombies came in costume but for those who needed help the store had face paint and fake blood. A lot of fake blood. The staff person who led the charge was still in human form, but she had been bitten from a zombie, so the change was eminent. The goal was to shamble down the center block of Main Street, cross at the light (law-abiding zombies!) lurch menacingly through the farmers’ market, go down one more block, and then stagger back to the bookstore where there would be treats and zombie contests. Yes, zombie contests.

Ground rules for the Zombie Shamble (and these are important):

1) No scaring kids younger than six. The formula for reaching the age of six was quite elaborate. The staffer pointed at the green zombie, who appeared to the be youngest ambulatory zombie (there was a zombie baby in a sling on Mom’s back, but she was asleep). “How old are you?” The kid said, “Six.”  The staffer said, “No scaring children younger than six.”

2) No touching bystanders.

3) No touching cars–no matter how tempting it is to press your zombified face against the side window and moan.

4) Survivors (people not in zombie-drag) at the back.

So many of these people embraced their roles so thoroughly I can’t do them justice. I walked with the Hungry Farmers’ Market zombie (she’s at the far right in the first picture) and her friend; they were wonderful! I do think a few small children in strollers were, well, not scared, but concerned. The non-zombies of us assured them that the zombies wouldn’t hurt them. A little girl with butterfly wings, watching from her tall dad’s shoulders, informed us that the zombies were “silly.” 

It is probably no coincidence that a life-sized cutout of William Shatner just happened to be next to the door today.

You’re wondering what zombie contests are. Well, once we all regrouped there was the lurching contest, and the moaning contest, and then several trivia questions about zombie movies. I had run into two people from work were just at Copperfield’s to shop (and I found out one of them is a visual artist who is working on a series of paintings of their dogs in steampuk regalia–how cool is that?) I was talking to them so I didn’t hear most of the zombie questions. I did know the answer to one, which raised their eyebrows, although I don’t know why.

Halloween Eve (All Hallows Eve Eve?)

The Sebastopol market goes year-round  this year. The long-range plan is for the market to be part of the development plan called The Barlow, which is an abandoned cannery that’s been sitting vacant since the 1980s. If all goes well, the Barlow will be open by spring of 2012 so that probably means fall of 2012. the farmers aren’t waiting, though. This year’s market will carry through the winter, which means squash, lettuces, more crafts and “value added” items like salsa and preserves. Works for me.

Because it’s nearly Halloween several farmers and vendors were in costume. Some weren’t, but brought the Dia de los Muertos tradition with them to the market. The lady at Dominique’s Macaroons (who I assumed was Dominique) had two shrines, one to each set of grandparents. The one with the sunglasses is the grandmother who taugh her to bake.

I lingered at the market and them went over to Copperfield’s Books, just a few minutes before the zombies poured in.

That’s how many potholes the county Public works department filled last fiscal year. That’s a lot of potholes. It costs the county $17 to fill a pothole, which seemed like a reasonable price, but 97,000 times $17 is about $1.6 million, nearly a third of the Public Works Department’s $4+ million annual budget.

The problem isn’t filling potholes. It’s that they fill potholes instead of fixing roads.

Sonoma County is an awesome place to live. We make world class wine, food and pretty darn fine beer. We have internationally acclaimed artists and artisans, including stained-glass makers, woodworkers, potters, jewelers, leatherworkers and costumers. We have writers, poets and musicians, and some of the most diverse and beautiful scenery you can imagine. When you come here, you will instantly feel yourself surrounded by our warm, welcoming glow. You might break an axle on the way, though.

In 2008, a state report listed our roads as the worst in California. We’ve improved since then. We’re now only the 3^rd worst, out of 58 counties.

So what’s the problem?  It would be easy to say the problem is money, and of course it is. The roads didn’t magically turn bad in 2008 as part of the recession, though. They had been going bad for decades. And don’t get me started on the relative safety of our 300 bridges.

That’s part of the problem right there. We have over 300 bridges, over 1300 miles of road, a patchwork, like everywhere else, of interstate, state and local roads. It’s easy to argue that the Feds stopped picking up their share of highway maintenance years ago, and it’s true. Of the property taxes collected, only about one cent of every dollar goes to roads. There is a tax for gas, that goes toward maintaining state highways mostly. The recession, rising gasoline prices, and more fuel efficient engines have reduced that revenue somewhat also.

1300 miles of road, though, is a lot, and our roads get used. Central Valley counties might have roads with one or two ranch houses at the end of them. They get used by the families and that’s about it. Our tiny two-lane roads lead to picturesque tasting rooms, traveled by eager wine-tasting tourists every weekend.

Members of the public who spoke at the Board, after they accepted the two-and-a-half hour report on the state of the roads, tended to blame big vehicles for the rutting, the potholes, and the disintegration. Propane trucks, garbage trucks, like that. Well, do you want your garbage picked up? It’s winter, do you want your propane tank topped off? Those are choices. Currently, “haulers” already pay an additional fee for road use, and that could be increased. That was one suggestion.

Another suggestion is an increase to the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) or so-called “bed tax” on hotel rooms. This allows the eager tourists to pay their share of road maintenance. The Board also plans to lean heavily on the State Department of Transportation for their share on the state highways and related roads.

Back to the root of the problem, however. The roads didn’t get this way overnight. In the decades I’ve worked for the county, the county has always had surpluses, even during bad years. Those surpluses got us through the bad years, for the most part. We have always paid for community services.  Apparently, though, we didn’t fix roads. With a $4 million budget, is doesn’t look to me like we didn’t fund this function. It looks a lot more like we didn’t plan for it, at all, for years, or more accurately, for decades.

The good news now is that we have a plan or the beginning of one, with a list or priority roads. We have some new blood on the Board now, and a couple of them make me crazy at times; but all of them seem to have an interest in infrastructure. Because they are looking, it is quite shocking how much is coming out about what wasn’t getting done. It’s scary and tedious at the same time (you try sitting through a two –hour powerpoint presentation on road-filling techniques), but it’s good. Let’s get it all on the surface, so we can figure out what we need to do.

And speaking of surfaces, they think they will fill about 80,000 potholes this year.

Saturday I stopped at Copperfield’s Used Books in Sebastopol on my way home from running errands. I was searching for a specific mystery to give a friend for All Hallows’ Read. I didn’t find that book, but stumbled across hidden treasure—a Carol O’Connell Mallory mystery I hadn’t read and hadn’t even known about.

Dead Famous was published in 2003, but from O’Connell’s acknowledgements, it was undoubtedly written during mid-to-late 2001, when devastating events changed life for the people of New York City. O’Connell thanks those who “came from far away to help.” She also says that there will be not one word about the attack on the World Trade Towers in the book, and there is not. She says, finally, that the people of New York are unbreakable.

*

Mallory police thrillers are about a half-step away from being urban fantasy in a lot of ways. Mallory is a cop, a detective. It’s hard to imagine how she worked her way up from uniform to a gold shield. It’s harder to imagine that anyone would hire her as a detective directly, even though her father was a respected (beloved) detective and she had rabbis all over the place in her home precinct. Assuming that through a wild series of flukes and favors, this gorgeous young sociopath could  make it to detective, it’s highly unlikely she would have lasted this long in the highly politicized, liability-averse police department of New York City. Mallory has a neon sign saying “Come Sue Us” floating over her head.

Mallory’s hard-drinking slob of a partner, her father’s best friend, is equally unlikely really. It’s pretty clear that he was partnered with Mallory because he is the only one who can—well, not control, because nobody controls Mallory—but mitigate her affect somewhat. Riker is a real detective, with a sharp mind, decades of knowledge about human nature, and a strange compassion. He fears Mallory, and loves her. That’s the pair of feelings everyone who knows her has about her.

Kathy Mallory’s mother, a doctor, was murdered when Mallory was small.  Mallory ended up of the streets of New York (I can’t remember exactly how) and lived on the streets for several years. Her last name is not Mallory. She chose that name when she was six. It is a corruption of the name of the man who murdered her mother. She kept it so she would remember who he was when she went back for him (and she did go back for him, in Stone Angel). A child on the streets of New York, Mallory made friends with the street hookers, who would read her stories between tricks, and she learned how to whistle the exact notes of a telephone digital dialer, and would call all over the country from pay phones, trying the seven-digit number her mother gave her with every single area code, trying to find the one relative who might help her. Instead, she ended up with Lieutenant Markowitz, his wife Helen and his poker club. She graduated from street thief to full-blown beautiful sociopath; a consummate computer hacker, B&E artist complete with her own sets of lockpicks, total scammer when she needs to be, and an intimidator of the first water. And she solves cases.

Dead Famous follows a serial killer who is targeting the members of a jury who acquitted a man in a controversial case, against public opinion. A radio shock-jock is now playing a “game,” encouraging listeners to call in with clues as to where the surviving jurors are hiding. Once they’re found, the murderer inevitably kills them. At the same time, Riker is recovering from a near fatal shooting, on disability, and running his brother’s crime-scene clean-up business. He is close to falling in love with Jo, a deformed but lovely and very smart woman who works for him. There is more to Jo than what’s on the surface. Riker knows that and wants to honor her privacy, but Mallory does not. The murders get closer to home when Riker discovers that Jo was the foreperson of the targeted jury.

Riker is suffering panic attacks after a demented teenaged boy stalked and shot him four times. Everyone he trusts has told him the attacker is dead, but Riker can’t quite believe it. He is being followed, and at least one of those followers is the correct build and height of his shooter.

Practically every Mallory book has a damaged character who is nearly as smart and clever as Mallory. In this book, that is Jo.Practically every book has a strutting, arrogant character, usually male, who makes me grind my teeth and pray for comeuppance. In this book, that’s a guy named Ian Zachary.

O’Connell has the gift of being able to create ideas, schemes and concepts that would never work, requiring too many coincidences in timing and so on, but that are absolutely convincing extensions of what we know about human nature. O’Connell’s prose, with its poetry and its acid-etched wit, do the rest. The Mallory books require a willing suspension of disbelief. I surrender my disbelief as soon as my fingers touch the book, because I know how good—and strange–the story inside is going to be.

The delineation of Mallory’s character, and the reactions of those around her, especially Riker and her one other friend, Charles, who in a different way is as much a freak as Mallory, make these books exciting, intriguing reads no matter how outlandish the main story is. In this book, Jo, a psychiatrist by training, thinks to herself that she does a disservice to Mallory by labeling her a sociopath. Mallory is in her own category—there is no one quite like her.

I’ll admit it; I’ve been watching Ringer on the CW.

I know, I know, there’s no real excuse. It’s on the CW! I am not their target demographic. In fact, I could be the grandmother of their target demographic. They tend to be low-budget and things like plot and character development are less important than good hair and—when they can afford it—skin-showing wardrobes.

The lead in Ringer, though, played an iconic character in the 1990s, one I will always have a soft spot for—Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. My affection for Buffy has transferred to Sarah Michelle Geller, who played her, and now plays the twins Bridget and Siobhan in Ringer.

Yes, yes, the premise is silly. Twins impersonating one another is so cliché it’s almost a classic. There’s a boatload of fantasy-wish-fulfillment here along with thriller-ish suspense. But the suspension of disbelief doesn’t stop with the twin thing. They want us to believe a lot of impossible things before breakfast.

Bridget is the poor twin; an “exotic dancer” (nudge, wink) who witnessed a murder in someplace like Wyoming or Montana. Siobhan is the rich twin, married to an uber-wealthy investments guy in New York with a Fifth Avenue apartment, a weekend place in the Hamptons and a loft that’s being renovated. Before the story took place, Siobhan and Bridget had a falling-out. The show cleverly set us up to believe that Bridget was the “bad” twin, and did something wrong. Now there have been tantalizing clues that aside from her addiction problems and her career choices, Bridget may not be so bad. Siobhan is another story.

Bridget flees witness protection and runs to Siobhan for help. Siobhan takes this opportunity (well set up by her) to fake her own death. I don’t know what she thought Bridget would do, but Bridget does what any fictional identical twin would do in this situation; she assumes her sister’s identity.

Back in Wyoming, Bridget’s Narcotics Anonymous sponsor (who she calls about once an hour on her cell phone, being all undercover and stealth and all) is being tortured by the evil guy who is the murderer. They may have even just killed him! I don’t think so though, for plot reasons, but they did have a plastic bag over his head last I saw.

In New York, Bridget discovers that her sister was having an affair with her best friend’s husband. Gemma, the best friend, is a glorious train wreck of a character. Bridget ends the affair and tries to mend fences with her hawt English husband played by Ioan Gryfudd, and reach out to her step-daughter, who is supposed to be a teen-ager but looks about 24, and who has a drug problem. Bridget, in her Siobahn guise, is also being harried by the FBI agent who was supposedly watching over her (Bridget) in Wyoming. Got all that? The agent thinks that Siobhan is merely hiding Bridget, not that she is Bridget.

Meanwhile, Siobhan, not dead, is in Paris setting up some elaborate scheme to steal her husband’s money. There was also a hit-man who came after Bridget/Siobhan. Bridget thinks Andrew (hawt husband) set it up—it’s more likely Siobhan did since apparently her plan revolves around everyone thinking she’s dead, which no one does right now because Bridget . . . well, you get it.

The first two episodes were suspenseful if implausible. Then the story veered into relationship-land; Gemma’s handsome but annoying novelist/philanderer husband keeps trying to get Siobhan (They call her “Shiv,” probably in response to scores of e-mails asking how you pronounce Siobhan.  Shiv, worst nickname ever–) back; Bridget saves an investment party her husband is throwing when the venue cancels at the last minute. This was actually pretty funny because there’s this dead body—the hit man—in one of the designer steamer trunks and his cell phone keeps ringing. . . anyway, it was fun. When Bridget is being kind of scrappy and street-smart, and shooting would-be murderers, the show is good. Then it right-turned into emotional suspense during a weekend in the Hamptons when Gemma finds out about the affair, confronts (she thinks) /Siobhan, and Bridget reveals herself. This doesn’t make things better.

(An aside; Gemma and her faithless husband Henry have twins too! And they are special twins; they’re invisible! In five episodes, we haven’t seen them once.)

So, pretty much, I was done. Except, then, it looks like they might have killed off Gemma! I hate that in one way, because the actress, Tara Summers, did an awesome job and the flailing, over-drinking, out-of-control character radiated off the screen; but in another way—wow! And what if Gemma isn’t dead?  What if she faked her own death?  And she’s sitting with Siobhan at a corner café in Paris right now, sipping a café crème and laughing at how gullible Bridget is?

But the questions!  How is Bridget going to get out of the fake pregnancy (possibly Siobahn’s real pregnancy?) Who is Siobahn’s secret partner in her money-bilking scheme? I vote for it being Andrew’s sketchy female partner just because that’s so unlikely. What happened to Gemma?

Anyway, they have sucked me back. I’ll give them another two weeks before I make a final decision; commit, or pack it in. Stay tuned. Is the suspense getting to you? It’s killing me.

Neil Gaiman recommends that we offer trick-or-treaters books as well as candy this year. He also recommends we use Halloween as an opportunity to offer people books.

(Well, to be specific, he recommends scary books. I have broadened that to just “books.”)

I got some used children’s books at Treehorn’s and at Copperfields. I’m looking for a few more and I may throw in a comic book or two. (Of course I’ll do candy too.) I have also ordered a couple of books for particular people.

What book would you want to get for All Hallows’ Read?  What book would you give?

My comments on this Jules Verne classic are posted at fanlit.

Diego plays guitar and sings in a strong, smooth baritone voice. He sings salsa tunes, Latin standards and original songs. As well as singing and playing an instrument, Diego is a virtuoso whistler.

This market is going year-round this year! With our growing season, a winter market still has a lot to offer. You can get kale, collards, chard, spinach and broccoli throughout the year, some herbs, potatoes and lot of root vegetables. The “protein” vendors (sausage, fish, meat and eggs) should be going strong. Most of the other farmers now offer what the USDA calls “value added” products like salsa, sauce, jams and pickles. The two leanest months of the year tend to be February and March.

I picked up a jar of Nancy’s pear slices in lavender honey sauce as part of a gift basket for a friend. I also got a market basket for that same gift—one of the Ugandan baskets, woven from native grasses. See the woven hat Diego is wearing? The basket is a similar weave in different colors. It has two leather bund handles. I have two like it at home. One holds magazines. The other is a multi-purpose basket that works wonderfully as a laundry basket but also serves to carry a blanket and sandwiches for plays in the park, and important supplies like bottles of wine and hunks of yuppie cheese to social events.

When I was growing up in this county, Hotel la Rose did not enjoy a good reputation. The hotel was derelict and a home to derelicts, and Railroad Square—I don’t think it had that name when I was a teenager—was that part of Santa Rosa west of the freeway where you didn’t go if you were young and female, unless a lot of people were with you. The Spouse informs me that during his summer jobs as ambulance attendant/driver, he made occasional pickups at Hotel la Rose, mostly for men dealing with the consequences of untreated diabetes, or crazy and raving drunk—or sometimes both. Their nickname for the whole area was “Wino Park.”The building, with its thick basalt walls, the faded paint and the dark windows, was forbidding.

In 1990, a local hotelier named Claus Niemann opened Hotel la Rose, and he bought it in 1994. Niemann built and ran Los Robles Lodge during the 1960s, when it was next to Santa Rosa’s only shopping mall. (We called it a “shopping center.” The term “mall” wasn’t in widespread use yet.)

Anyway, Niemann brought Hotel la Rose back into prominence, and sold it in 2003 to the hotel group that I think has it now. It looks like they specialize in period hotels. The place had a restaurant called Josef’s up until about a year ago, but the executive chef—that would be Josef—retired and is now the executive chef for Meals on Wheels. That’s how things go in this county. A new place called Ironstone opened last week.

In the 90s and the oughts I visited la Rose twice. Once, I met a consultant there for a breakfast planning meeting. She said she always stayed there. She stayed in the Carriage House, which is directly across the street from the original building. “So peaceful and quiet,” she said, with its roses and the koi pond. Yes, and so expensive. I had coffee and sat in a wing-back chair that tried to absorb me. The dining room was pretty but I felt out of place. Several years later I went to the same room in the evening for a retirement reception. I stood near the door clutching a glass of club soda, snagged a couple of Chef Josef’s gourmet nibbles, and felt out of place.

Times change, and we get older. And some of us make more money. And some of us like the handcar regatta and have developed a strange taste for Victorian hotels. And I seem to be one of us. Since I decided to wear my Victorian costume to the regatta, I thought that I would stay overnight at the hotel to save my feet, and also to have a place to change out of the costume if it got too hot.

I stayed for two nights. This, by the way, was extravagant. How extravagant? Very. I’m not sorry I did it, though.

 The lobby does a great job of looking period-like without overdoing it.  Erica, who was working the desk, was helpful and friendly. I said I was mainly there because of the regatta. She said they had two other people staying because of the regatta (last year?  None). While she was printing out my paperwork, Valentin joined us. He wore a black suit and a dark brown hat, maybe a fedora. Valentin looked middle-European or a bit gypsy-like to me, and I hope that doesn’t offend him. It’s a good look. He and Erica were funny and helpful.

 They asked if I had pets.  I said no, but I did have a stuffed animal.  “Is he a smoker?” Erica said.  When I said no she said, “That’s all right then.”

 Erica gave me my key and directed me upstairs to the second floor, Room 24. I didn’t know then that there is supposedly a haunted room, room 42, or I might have asked to stay there. Or, maybe not.  There is supposed to be a ghost of a little boy who rides the elevator. His name is Daniel. I didn’t encounter him, but I never took the elevator.

My room—rooms, rather—seemed quite unhaunted, unless you wanted to count the noise from the eager volunteers directly below my window  in Depot Park, setting up for the regatta. This, by the way, was not a nuisance. It was a bonus! I watched them assemble the stage I called the Ouija Stage, the main stage for musical performances. While I leaned on my windowsill, peering past the geraniums, a woman, walking down the sidewalk from Fifth street, started yelling at the workmen.  “You guys!  You guys!  I told you!” she yelled.  I thought she knew them. “I told you!” They both looked up, then went back to work.  I was thinking, oh, dear, they promised her a ride and they forgot, or something.

She came down the sidewalk and stood across from them, ordinary looking, wearing a small backpack, curly dusty-brownish hair. “I told you!  It is not Halloween. It is not Halloween!  It is Cinco de Mayo!” She jumped up and down in place. “Cinco de Mayo! It’s Cinco de Mayo!”

The two workmen continued to drill and pound nails, and a few minutes later she went away. Railroad Square is still a regular meeting place for many homeless people, and an encounter with someone who is. . . unsettled?. .  is practically de rigueur.

Back for a moment to my rooms. What I had was basically a suite, which I really appreciated. I wasn’t aware of doing anything special in order to get that when I made my reservations on the website. There was a small sitting room with an armoire and a settee. The bed and the television, were in the middle room with a bathroom on the other side. This meant the bed-wall was never connected to another room with people in it. Very well thought out!

Some Victorian wallpaper can be overwhelming, but most hotel decorators have figured out to go with the smaller prints, like rows of flowers. The bed was high, very comfortable, and the temperature was good. The room was perfect, and a front row seat on the next days’ festivities.

This Saturday was a bright blue-and-gold autumn morning, the kind of fall day that reminds me why I love to live here. I got to the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market late because the cyclists were out in force on the narrow country streets I prefer to drive. Sonoma County has hundreds of miles of back roads that the cyclists love, and this time of year, on the weekend, I can expect to encounter forty of fifty of them. Saturday, I was lucky and only saw about twenty five. These cyclists are knowledgable, experienced, and follow the road rules, but understandably they still slow things down.

It was a warm day without being too hot. The parking lot that holds the market is surrounded by trees that still have their leaves. I left my coat in the car, and a breeze ruffled my hair as I walked across the street to the market. Soda Creek Farms had brought a whole truckful of their tomatoes. Nancy Skall had fresh basil, small Bartlett pears, eggplants, and garlic. I got basil and pears. I figured I’d wait until Sunday to get my weekly supply of onions.

Mary Kelley is the Healdsburg Market Manager, and this market is open twice a week; Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. This time of year squash, gourds and pumpkins are coming in strong. There are lots of fresh herbs. The standouts right now are parsley, cilantro and basil.  Apples, pears pumpkins and squash are everywhere. We still have tomatoes, and strawberries.

Mary had some French butter pears for sale. I bought two for a dollar, just out of curiosity. I started to walk away from the stand and took a bite of the pear. It was so rich I had to stop, overwhelmed by the texture and flavor. Most pears are a bit granular, even when ripe; this one was silky. The juice was thick, nectar-like, honey-sweet, with the essence of pear.

On my way out I got bratwurst from Gleason Farms.  For dinner, I split the casings and mixed the sausage with squash, sun-dried tomato, garlic, onion, parsley, fresh basil and goat cheese. I put this stuffing mixture into round green squash. We had a salad and broccoli with it. Tasty!

The musicians were great. They played some kind of 1940s swing-era song; sweet three-part harmony. The fiddler was excellent. As I was walking to my car they added a flautist, but I didn’t get any pictures.

The market will have a Pumpkin Festival on October 22. I have the writers’ group that Saturday, or I’d be there!