ATPo Gathering 2006 -- South Lake Tahoe
I think this was the first ATPo Gathering at which people called each other by their given names more often than by their posting names. One could argue that this signifies greater bonds of intimacy growing across what had been a rather anonymous medium, or one could mention that going from the Board to LJ means that we have trouble dealing with the plethora of polynyms -- I, for one, can never keep that c_mantix/Aquitaine/Lorraine stuff straight (especially since the dead useful "El" has been recently repossessed by its original referent). I certainly believe that there was this year an even greater closeness among us, and not just the eight of us sharing that one shower. (Not at the same time.) I surprised myself a few times opening up to people; I'd like to thank atpotch and ann1962 in particular for their patience and empathy, though I have to acknowledge that where it counted most I fell back into my own deathly taciturnity. I also surprised myself by stepping past my usual reservations and self-consciousness and singing lustily along to "Once More With Feeling," though it did not help my confidence at all when masqthephlsphr, sitting directly to my front, started complaining about her headache and muttering to cactuswatcher darkly something about flatness. Considering that I was pleased when I managed to end a line in the same key in which it began, I'm afraid flatness too optimistically suggests that my voice and the music were even in the same three-dimensional space. Now that I've ruined what pleasant memories people have of the musical, next year I'm sure there will be raised a hue and a cry for the audience-participation airing of "Hush," just to guarantee I keep my mouth shut for forty-two minutes.
But I get ahead of myself. I left Cleveland last Wednesday evening on a delayed night flight to San Francisco; by the time I'd rented the car and driven to the hotel it was 2:15 California time, or about six hours past my bedtime. I did take a perfunctory earful at the door TCH, Rob (buffyannotater) and scrollgirl were staying behind, trying to pick up any spawnful burbles, but luckily reached it during a rare lull and resignedly retreated to retire. Thursday morning, I reach the breakfast room in time to meet atpolittlebit, ladystarlightsj and Aqui, who has brazenly taken someone else's hash browns. We talk of much, and confirm that my Zachary's fetish will hold sway for our lunch plans. We then go wake the kids. I had worried about making the long drive to Tahoe without company, but TCH agreed to do his spawnial duty and ride with me. And once all got a gander of the red Dodge Charger muscle car I was driving, there was much envy and jealousy, which kept being expressed through the stuffing of spare luggage into what became known as its three-body trunk. Rob slid into the back and we roared north on 101 towards the Oakland Bay Bridge. I regale them with stories of the 1989 earthquake collapsing portions of the upper deck onto the traffic below. It's still one of my favorite bridges though, slicing placidly through the bay.
I have decided, that as we are seven, we will venture to the spacier but less bookstore-surrounded College Avenue Zachary's, where by sheer force of raw sensuality I convinced all the women to share with me a large deep-dish with pepperoni and garlic, though I gracefully accede to someone else's suggestion of mushrooms. I had earlier invested a great deal of self-worth in the opinions of the crowd as to what I think is the best pizza in the world; however, cutting through the thick tomato goop into the cheese and fillings below, all I could think of was how happy I was to enjoy this again, and screw what everyone else might think. Luckily, though, everyone agreed that it was indeed great pizza, and making a quick stop for batteries and fruit, keeping my mp3 player and me going, we struck out up I-80. We learned all about Rob's ability to acquire top-of-the-line electronic goods from his friend Justin, who is certainly not hitting on him at all. TCH was enlightened by the racial politics of Swamp Dogg. Rob's constant repetition of the phrase "13,000 tracks on my 60 GB iPod" so flustered my poor Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 that it randomly played, over a five-song stretch, four tracks from London Calling. Sick of seeing Bit's minivan in my rear-view mirror, her geekmobile like a nerdy younger sister tagging along after her glamourous older sibling, I was finally able to shake her with the inventive tactic of slowing down.
We reached the house we'd rented around four. Considering that I had been expecting a cabin with at least some treelife around it, I was surprised to find that we were staying in what to all appearances was a surburban subdivision. The house was, if not a full-blown McMansion, perhaps a just slightly more down-market Jack-In-The-Mansion. I decided to go straight through the garage and grab a bedroom on the ground floor, not even attempting to fight over the upstairs bedrooms. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Bit herself had told me that bedrooms were first-come-first-served, and what Bit first came to upstairs was a bedroom of the approximate size of the Sistine Chapel -- though the Sistine Chapel has a much less appealing bathroom. The common area of the cabin had comfortable couches, a huge cathedral-dimensioned window, and a rather nice kitchen. After getting the feel of the space, and losing our electricity, we met up with cactuswatcher and midnightsjane, and knullabulla and peggus must have shown up at some point in there too, and we all set out for $8.95 Prime Rib at a Casino restaurant across the Nevada border for which I had seen an ad but ended up back in California at the official California state restaurant: Chevy's. At the last minute before leaving, Bit had cajoled me into driving in place of her, and I was rather irritated that we'd chosen an establisment where the best entree was its margaritas. Instead, I drank water, and finding my fajita a little vitamin-poor, ate most of the greenery out of Jane's Chicken Caesar. That night was bowling night, where LS put on a symposium on proper form and technique.
Friday morning, TCH and I walked down to the end of Venice Boulevard, which was the main artery of the Tahoe Keys subdivision. We returned with a slight glow, and a quick poll showed that everyone had believed the constant LJ reminders that it gets cold up at Lake Tahoe and brought sweaters; it was a brisk and chilly ninety-two degrees. Masq came over and I drove her and four others to lunch (no margarita again). In the afternoon, TCH, Rob and I tested out the rooftop hot tub, and from up there, where all you could see were treetops and mountains in the background, it almost felt as though I wasn't in North Olmstead.
Cactus Watcher and Jane were cooking everyone a pasta dinner, and after our cabin again lost electricity, we walked the mile or so over there. fresne was already there when we arrived, and this was significant. It was very important to me that fresne had arrived because it meant that I no longer had to organize every freaking meal. (That Jane and CW weren't cooking, that is.) I was a bit dehydrated after the twenty-minute walk from our cabin to Jane and CW's, so I tried to reliquify with whatever was at hand, which sometimes was actually water but was more often one of the case of wines fresne had carried with her. Soon, Masq and I set off for Nevada to pick up dlgood, which I'm still convinced was somewhat of a mistake, as I'm often very threatened by Dave, and not just sexually. Indeed, that very night, he would assert that Casablanca was released in 1941; as it is set concurrently with the attack on Pearl Harbor, I found that a bit ludicrous, but I went three years too far in contradiction, and made a bit of an ass of myself claiming that the proper date was 1945 (thus knocking myself off of any future phone-a-friend lists). Did I mention that I had been drinking wine like water? Anyway, we all settled in to watch Serenity, but I'd already seen it for fifty cents and fresne and I were talking Timmverse loudly enough that Masq had shooed us, Dave and the Spawnlings downstairs as Chiwetel Ejiofor unsheathed his katana. Watching the sunset just out the back door, we were subjected to some warning shots, or just poorly-aimed shots, of water balloons from the next house, and we retreated inside to plan our retaliation. Unfortunately, we realized that we were all pretty pacifistic or that there just weren't enough trees to toilet-paper. Then the wine in my blood left my brain and settled in my intestines and I sort of curdled up inside. Eventually, those of us who were walking back walked back; I sat up talking to TCH for a while, and tried to fall asleep but discovered that wine contains a fair amount of sugar, and my body had been about 70% wine that evening. I got up to play word association with TCH, Scroll and Rob until I am told three in the morning. I popped right up at seven the next morning -- this would be almost the most sleep I'd get all trip.
Saturday I took that same three mile walk to the end of Venice and back, returning to find that anomster had arrived, and that people were watching unwatchable B-movies with Buffy alumni in starring or minor roles. After Rob switched our gears to Kenneth Branagh's musical version of Love's Labours Lost (which, a musical and Shakespeare, must be much more appropriate to Joss Whedon's intentions and pretentions than My Stepmother Is An Alien), we started to attempt a consensus activity for the day: a boat ride around the Lake, or a hike down to an imitation Viking Castle. The final tally was six-five for the castle; I had abstained, having given up on my dreams of getting everyone into white-water rafts due to the hour-plus drive to the put-in area. I led westward in the muscle car, promising to stop at the first opportunity for lunch with available parking. Well, west of our development, the land turns to National Forest, and the sole restaurant I passed had no parking. So we were hungry when we had climbed the eight hundred feet or so to the Castle trailhead, an eight hundred feet that we then quickly descended as the castle lies back at lake level, just like our cabin. It wasn't so much a castle as it was a faux-longhouse, and I wasn't all that impressed, especially as I leave this afternoon for five weeks around Scandinavia and the Baltics and expect to see the real thing there. On the climb out, it started to rain and I had visions of a flash flood wiping out my entire friends-list. fresne was counting about three seconds between lightning flashes and thunderclaps, which at five seconds a mile meant that we were imminently toast.
I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing our survival. I drove Aqui, Bit and LS back, and I caused them to think that I was vindictively trying to discomfit car-sick Aqui by racing around the mountain curves. But, really, I'm just reckless. We were shocked to discover on our return that the cabin had electricity. Not shocked like that. Masq wanted pizza by four-thirty; lacking the traditional whiteboard, fresne and I discovered that the pizza-ordering process is a lot smoother when we eschew even a perfunctory attempt at democracy and just go straight into tyranny; thus, lots and lots of pepperoni. After a bit of Timmverse (speaking of tyranny) I started collecting the money, impressing Aqui into keeping notes on who had contributed what in an attempt to equalize everyone's contribution. This never went anywhere, but somewhere there is documented proof that the universe owed me the delivery guy's tip. I think the universe has repaid that in spades. Margaritas were made -- I kept my distance, but really, fill the blender with ice, then one part mix to one part tequila, more or less. None of this "one shot" business. Though, really, with my tolerance these days, the aroma enough could make me tipsy. There were also Pina Coladas, pleasantly coconuty, and Smile Time, just plain nutty. Dave showed us some episodes of Scrubs, and then I think there was some more Timmverse, and some more Timmverse, and some more Timmverse after that. Once everyone had left, I used LS's stuffed otter to put on a puppet show for Aqui, and then sat around talking about the prevailing cabin politics with Rob and TCH.
Sunday morning I actually ran. I'd been saying the past two mornings that I was "acclimating myself to the altitude" or some bullshit to cover up my laziness, but Sunday morning I actually ran. I pushed out on Venice Blvd., and turned down Fifteenth into the trees (actual trees!) to Eloise. West of Twelfth Street, it's McMansion after McMansion, some on respectable acreage with what appear to be real set-backs. East of Eleventh, there's a cabyard and a trailer park. It was in the liminal area between Twelfth and Eleventh that I was attacked by Hermes, an aggressive golden lab. He took off out of his yard after me, and I immediately stopped running, spinning into a crouch facing him, hands out for some reason. His owner from her house started calling at him, but he kept circling me, staying two feet away but bluffing towards me. She yelled at me to run but I didn't want to tempt Hermes into chasing me, so I waited for her to emerge with a leash before resuming my run. Soon after that, a couple of grackels started swooping down uncomfortably close to the back of my head; I surmised that the trail of my lovely scent was attracting gnats. I hit my thirty-minute mark at the far end of Venice Blvd., and realized that if I quit then I'd have to walk back for at least fifteen minutes, so I kept going and broke through a long-standing plateau for me, which was intensely gratifying.
I guzzled a bottle of water and opened all the windows and doors I could downstairs, so hot was I. I stretched while watching TCH watch England face off against Portugal in their World Cup match. I could hear the Batman wafting down the stairs, which was unfair, Timmverse viewing without me, but as I hadn't yet had my post-run shower, I was mortified at what I might be wafting up the stairs. Soon, though, I came up to watch some Superman and the excellent finale of the first season of Justice League. Then we, having discovered that we don't much want to have to walk up any sharp differences in elevations, decided to try to make the 2:00 boat, picnicking first in the local park. I packed myself a beautiful salad, and we went jaunting off to the nearest Safeway so everyone else could pick and choose at the deli. As we sat in the park, and it neared 1:30, it was acclamated that we would probably miss the boat. I tried to make a push for renting kayaks as an alternative, but a few thunderclaps put an end to that. We decided to essay the cable car up the mountain. After driving almost to the Nevada border, parking at the mall, and wending our way through to the base station, I discovered that it was closed due to lightning strikes. I tried getting ann1962's attention to let her know this, and found that while she won't respond to "Yo!" or "Hey!" she won't respond to her birth name either; she will, however, turn around quite rapidly in response to her posting name. Plan C, which worked out, was ice cream. There's always room for ice cream. I was playing virtuous, so I reached the front of the line and didn't order anything. Outside, soon after, I thought better of this and started banging on the window, holding a sign reading "Get me a small chocolate milkshake," trying to get Rob's attention. Well, I almost had the woman behind him ready to buy my milkshake when his ears cleared and he got my message. Well, all but "small." I did manage to lose weight in Tahoe, though sometimes I wonder how.
After that there was Proust-buying and rock-shopping and we played with the bears. (Chicago has cows and Cleveland has guitars and New York has cows, the lazy bastards; Tahoe has eccentrically decorated bears.) We wandered into a casino on the other side of the border and collectively lost one dollar. Then we headed back so anom and I could discuss Don Quixote and mamculuna and I could discuss Barcelona and Jane and I could organize an outing to the only seafood restaurant listed in our papers, conveniently at the far end of Venice Blvd. I had oysters and two servings of garlic spinach. I've come to this strange point in my life where I crave spinach more than I crave ice cream. I wandered off at one point to go down to the jetty and watch the sun set behind the mountains, the sky turning redder and deeper as my thoughts drove inward.
Then that night was "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "Once More With Feeling" and "Selfless" and some more Scrubs and eventually "Disharmony." I developed a tic sometime during the gathering of just reaching out and grabbing people, squeezing Scroll's shoulder, or mussing Ann's hair, or generally having my way with Rob, and this tic was almost in full evidence Sunday night. I went around squeezing and mussing just about anyone I could. I think Scroll became a little wary.
Monday morning, bright and early, after I'd gotten four hours of sleep, and before I'd done any packing for my afternoon departure, I somehow found myself as the designated driver on a wine-tasting tour of the gold country, an hour over the mountains from Lake Tahoe. I was mortified pretty early on when I found out the hard way that just because I couldn't see it through the rear-view mirror didn't mean that the aforementioned three-body trunk wasn't behind me all the time; then I had to fill up the tank at $3.29 a gallon. By the time I reached the first winery, I was hot and headachy and none too happy. I had been worried about getting all my stuff packed, as due to the generosity of Rob and TCH and my purchase of Swann's Way, my overstuffed carry-on was not sufficient to the return journey. But the first winery was not particularly upscale, and this provided me an advantage in the thrift store next door, where I spent $2.50 on what will become a disposible suitcase. Also, I managed to get a couple of Advil down thanks to Ann or Mamcu, I apologize for not knowing whom. So I had brightened considerably by the second winery, where I had a few sips of a Cabernet Sauvignon. I used the full extent of my oenological expertise and proclaimed, "It's not bat piss." The third winery was closed for a private function, so we sat at their picnic tables admiring their view of a previously hidden valley, taking one ripe cherry from their orchard apiece. It may have been my favorite. At the fourth winery I waited until all had worked down their flights, and then ascertained that the consensus favorite was the shiraz (here called a "syrah," but I feel more affection for the other term, having once, in its namesake city of origin, felt like the most attractive man in an entire nation). Quite lovely. "Certainly not bat piss." Then we wended our way to Placerville for lunch; they had one hamburger on sourdough and another with Monterey Jack, but being in a town selling itself on its 1849 legacies, I wanted the full cliché and so got my burger with one and on the other. An excellent combination. I would have wished for a more boutiquey mustard though than French's yellow. Now there is a comestible for which my snobbery and effete aesthetism is fully recognizible. Someday I must go on a mustard-tasting tour of France.
After that it was packing and hugging and driving away, quickly so no one would see me tear up. I managed the trip back to the Bay Area all right despite my solitude, reaching a parking space on Solano Avenue right outside Zachary's at five past eight. Unfortunately, they don't sell by the slice in the evening and there was no way I was going to eat enough of a small deep-dish to justify it. Plus, I was having a craving for greenery so I went to a near-by Thai restaurant, where they took my two favorite substances, filet mignon and sauteed spinach, and slathered them with an overbearing peanut sauce (which compared unfavorably to the Weeping Tiger, a beef dish I used to get at a Thai restaurant on the Leytonstone High Street, to which I will never return I am sad to suspect). Driving back down Solano to head for the airport, I broke down completely, so overcome was I with leaving my friends behind. I know that this has been one of the more egocentric Gathering recaps, but I do miss you guys something fierce.
And, indeed, the gathering somehow managed to get along without me, it seems, not in fact starving to death as expected. And the rising of the proletariat against its masters, once an inevitable outcome of the dialectics of history, was in fact averted, as shower-hoarding Bit just emailed me. I suppose that what kept her from being strung up from a lamppost was the lack of public utilities in the development. And without me there, I suppose Masq might have forgotten that she liked this character named Connor, or that she occasionally wore a leather jacket. I suppose people didn't laugh as hard or feel as deeply since I left. I know I haven't.
But I get ahead of myself. I left Cleveland last Wednesday evening on a delayed night flight to San Francisco; by the time I'd rented the car and driven to the hotel it was 2:15 California time, or about six hours past my bedtime. I did take a perfunctory earful at the door TCH, Rob (buffyannotater) and scrollgirl were staying behind, trying to pick up any spawnful burbles, but luckily reached it during a rare lull and resignedly retreated to retire. Thursday morning, I reach the breakfast room in time to meet atpolittlebit, ladystarlightsj and Aqui, who has brazenly taken someone else's hash browns. We talk of much, and confirm that my Zachary's fetish will hold sway for our lunch plans. We then go wake the kids. I had worried about making the long drive to Tahoe without company, but TCH agreed to do his spawnial duty and ride with me. And once all got a gander of the red Dodge Charger muscle car I was driving, there was much envy and jealousy, which kept being expressed through the stuffing of spare luggage into what became known as its three-body trunk. Rob slid into the back and we roared north on 101 towards the Oakland Bay Bridge. I regale them with stories of the 1989 earthquake collapsing portions of the upper deck onto the traffic below. It's still one of my favorite bridges though, slicing placidly through the bay.
I have decided, that as we are seven, we will venture to the spacier but less bookstore-surrounded College Avenue Zachary's, where by sheer force of raw sensuality I convinced all the women to share with me a large deep-dish with pepperoni and garlic, though I gracefully accede to someone else's suggestion of mushrooms. I had earlier invested a great deal of self-worth in the opinions of the crowd as to what I think is the best pizza in the world; however, cutting through the thick tomato goop into the cheese and fillings below, all I could think of was how happy I was to enjoy this again, and screw what everyone else might think. Luckily, though, everyone agreed that it was indeed great pizza, and making a quick stop for batteries and fruit, keeping my mp3 player and me going, we struck out up I-80. We learned all about Rob's ability to acquire top-of-the-line electronic goods from his friend Justin, who is certainly not hitting on him at all. TCH was enlightened by the racial politics of Swamp Dogg. Rob's constant repetition of the phrase "13,000 tracks on my 60 GB iPod" so flustered my poor Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 that it randomly played, over a five-song stretch, four tracks from London Calling. Sick of seeing Bit's minivan in my rear-view mirror, her geekmobile like a nerdy younger sister tagging along after her glamourous older sibling, I was finally able to shake her with the inventive tactic of slowing down.
We reached the house we'd rented around four. Considering that I had been expecting a cabin with at least some treelife around it, I was surprised to find that we were staying in what to all appearances was a surburban subdivision. The house was, if not a full-blown McMansion, perhaps a just slightly more down-market Jack-In-The-Mansion. I decided to go straight through the garage and grab a bedroom on the ground floor, not even attempting to fight over the upstairs bedrooms. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Bit herself had told me that bedrooms were first-come-first-served, and what Bit first came to upstairs was a bedroom of the approximate size of the Sistine Chapel -- though the Sistine Chapel has a much less appealing bathroom. The common area of the cabin had comfortable couches, a huge cathedral-dimensioned window, and a rather nice kitchen. After getting the feel of the space, and losing our electricity, we met up with cactuswatcher and midnightsjane, and knullabulla and peggus must have shown up at some point in there too, and we all set out for $8.95 Prime Rib at a Casino restaurant across the Nevada border for which I had seen an ad but ended up back in California at the official California state restaurant: Chevy's. At the last minute before leaving, Bit had cajoled me into driving in place of her, and I was rather irritated that we'd chosen an establisment where the best entree was its margaritas. Instead, I drank water, and finding my fajita a little vitamin-poor, ate most of the greenery out of Jane's Chicken Caesar. That night was bowling night, where LS put on a symposium on proper form and technique.
Friday morning, TCH and I walked down to the end of Venice Boulevard, which was the main artery of the Tahoe Keys subdivision. We returned with a slight glow, and a quick poll showed that everyone had believed the constant LJ reminders that it gets cold up at Lake Tahoe and brought sweaters; it was a brisk and chilly ninety-two degrees. Masq came over and I drove her and four others to lunch (no margarita again). In the afternoon, TCH, Rob and I tested out the rooftop hot tub, and from up there, where all you could see were treetops and mountains in the background, it almost felt as though I wasn't in North Olmstead.
Cactus Watcher and Jane were cooking everyone a pasta dinner, and after our cabin again lost electricity, we walked the mile or so over there. fresne was already there when we arrived, and this was significant. It was very important to me that fresne had arrived because it meant that I no longer had to organize every freaking meal. (That Jane and CW weren't cooking, that is.) I was a bit dehydrated after the twenty-minute walk from our cabin to Jane and CW's, so I tried to reliquify with whatever was at hand, which sometimes was actually water but was more often one of the case of wines fresne had carried with her. Soon, Masq and I set off for Nevada to pick up dlgood, which I'm still convinced was somewhat of a mistake, as I'm often very threatened by Dave, and not just sexually. Indeed, that very night, he would assert that Casablanca was released in 1941; as it is set concurrently with the attack on Pearl Harbor, I found that a bit ludicrous, but I went three years too far in contradiction, and made a bit of an ass of myself claiming that the proper date was 1945 (thus knocking myself off of any future phone-a-friend lists). Did I mention that I had been drinking wine like water? Anyway, we all settled in to watch Serenity, but I'd already seen it for fifty cents and fresne and I were talking Timmverse loudly enough that Masq had shooed us, Dave and the Spawnlings downstairs as Chiwetel Ejiofor unsheathed his katana. Watching the sunset just out the back door, we were subjected to some warning shots, or just poorly-aimed shots, of water balloons from the next house, and we retreated inside to plan our retaliation. Unfortunately, we realized that we were all pretty pacifistic or that there just weren't enough trees to toilet-paper. Then the wine in my blood left my brain and settled in my intestines and I sort of curdled up inside. Eventually, those of us who were walking back walked back; I sat up talking to TCH for a while, and tried to fall asleep but discovered that wine contains a fair amount of sugar, and my body had been about 70% wine that evening. I got up to play word association with TCH, Scroll and Rob until I am told three in the morning. I popped right up at seven the next morning -- this would be almost the most sleep I'd get all trip.
Saturday I took that same three mile walk to the end of Venice and back, returning to find that anomster had arrived, and that people were watching unwatchable B-movies with Buffy alumni in starring or minor roles. After Rob switched our gears to Kenneth Branagh's musical version of Love's Labours Lost (which, a musical and Shakespeare, must be much more appropriate to Joss Whedon's intentions and pretentions than My Stepmother Is An Alien), we started to attempt a consensus activity for the day: a boat ride around the Lake, or a hike down to an imitation Viking Castle. The final tally was six-five for the castle; I had abstained, having given up on my dreams of getting everyone into white-water rafts due to the hour-plus drive to the put-in area. I led westward in the muscle car, promising to stop at the first opportunity for lunch with available parking. Well, west of our development, the land turns to National Forest, and the sole restaurant I passed had no parking. So we were hungry when we had climbed the eight hundred feet or so to the Castle trailhead, an eight hundred feet that we then quickly descended as the castle lies back at lake level, just like our cabin. It wasn't so much a castle as it was a faux-longhouse, and I wasn't all that impressed, especially as I leave this afternoon for five weeks around Scandinavia and the Baltics and expect to see the real thing there. On the climb out, it started to rain and I had visions of a flash flood wiping out my entire friends-list. fresne was counting about three seconds between lightning flashes and thunderclaps, which at five seconds a mile meant that we were imminently toast.
I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing our survival. I drove Aqui, Bit and LS back, and I caused them to think that I was vindictively trying to discomfit car-sick Aqui by racing around the mountain curves. But, really, I'm just reckless. We were shocked to discover on our return that the cabin had electricity. Not shocked like that. Masq wanted pizza by four-thirty; lacking the traditional whiteboard, fresne and I discovered that the pizza-ordering process is a lot smoother when we eschew even a perfunctory attempt at democracy and just go straight into tyranny; thus, lots and lots of pepperoni. After a bit of Timmverse (speaking of tyranny) I started collecting the money, impressing Aqui into keeping notes on who had contributed what in an attempt to equalize everyone's contribution. This never went anywhere, but somewhere there is documented proof that the universe owed me the delivery guy's tip. I think the universe has repaid that in spades. Margaritas were made -- I kept my distance, but really, fill the blender with ice, then one part mix to one part tequila, more or less. None of this "one shot" business. Though, really, with my tolerance these days, the aroma enough could make me tipsy. There were also Pina Coladas, pleasantly coconuty, and Smile Time, just plain nutty. Dave showed us some episodes of Scrubs, and then I think there was some more Timmverse, and some more Timmverse, and some more Timmverse after that. Once everyone had left, I used LS's stuffed otter to put on a puppet show for Aqui, and then sat around talking about the prevailing cabin politics with Rob and TCH.
Sunday morning I actually ran. I'd been saying the past two mornings that I was "acclimating myself to the altitude" or some bullshit to cover up my laziness, but Sunday morning I actually ran. I pushed out on Venice Blvd., and turned down Fifteenth into the trees (actual trees!) to Eloise. West of Twelfth Street, it's McMansion after McMansion, some on respectable acreage with what appear to be real set-backs. East of Eleventh, there's a cabyard and a trailer park. It was in the liminal area between Twelfth and Eleventh that I was attacked by Hermes, an aggressive golden lab. He took off out of his yard after me, and I immediately stopped running, spinning into a crouch facing him, hands out for some reason. His owner from her house started calling at him, but he kept circling me, staying two feet away but bluffing towards me. She yelled at me to run but I didn't want to tempt Hermes into chasing me, so I waited for her to emerge with a leash before resuming my run. Soon after that, a couple of grackels started swooping down uncomfortably close to the back of my head; I surmised that the trail of my lovely scent was attracting gnats. I hit my thirty-minute mark at the far end of Venice Blvd., and realized that if I quit then I'd have to walk back for at least fifteen minutes, so I kept going and broke through a long-standing plateau for me, which was intensely gratifying.
I guzzled a bottle of water and opened all the windows and doors I could downstairs, so hot was I. I stretched while watching TCH watch England face off against Portugal in their World Cup match. I could hear the Batman wafting down the stairs, which was unfair, Timmverse viewing without me, but as I hadn't yet had my post-run shower, I was mortified at what I might be wafting up the stairs. Soon, though, I came up to watch some Superman and the excellent finale of the first season of Justice League. Then we, having discovered that we don't much want to have to walk up any sharp differences in elevations, decided to try to make the 2:00 boat, picnicking first in the local park. I packed myself a beautiful salad, and we went jaunting off to the nearest Safeway so everyone else could pick and choose at the deli. As we sat in the park, and it neared 1:30, it was acclamated that we would probably miss the boat. I tried to make a push for renting kayaks as an alternative, but a few thunderclaps put an end to that. We decided to essay the cable car up the mountain. After driving almost to the Nevada border, parking at the mall, and wending our way through to the base station, I discovered that it was closed due to lightning strikes. I tried getting ann1962's attention to let her know this, and found that while she won't respond to "Yo!" or "Hey!" she won't respond to her birth name either; she will, however, turn around quite rapidly in response to her posting name. Plan C, which worked out, was ice cream. There's always room for ice cream. I was playing virtuous, so I reached the front of the line and didn't order anything. Outside, soon after, I thought better of this and started banging on the window, holding a sign reading "Get me a small chocolate milkshake," trying to get Rob's attention. Well, I almost had the woman behind him ready to buy my milkshake when his ears cleared and he got my message. Well, all but "small." I did manage to lose weight in Tahoe, though sometimes I wonder how.
After that there was Proust-buying and rock-shopping and we played with the bears. (Chicago has cows and Cleveland has guitars and New York has cows, the lazy bastards; Tahoe has eccentrically decorated bears.) We wandered into a casino on the other side of the border and collectively lost one dollar. Then we headed back so anom and I could discuss Don Quixote and mamculuna and I could discuss Barcelona and Jane and I could organize an outing to the only seafood restaurant listed in our papers, conveniently at the far end of Venice Blvd. I had oysters and two servings of garlic spinach. I've come to this strange point in my life where I crave spinach more than I crave ice cream. I wandered off at one point to go down to the jetty and watch the sun set behind the mountains, the sky turning redder and deeper as my thoughts drove inward.
Then that night was "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "Once More With Feeling" and "Selfless" and some more Scrubs and eventually "Disharmony." I developed a tic sometime during the gathering of just reaching out and grabbing people, squeezing Scroll's shoulder, or mussing Ann's hair, or generally having my way with Rob, and this tic was almost in full evidence Sunday night. I went around squeezing and mussing just about anyone I could. I think Scroll became a little wary.
Monday morning, bright and early, after I'd gotten four hours of sleep, and before I'd done any packing for my afternoon departure, I somehow found myself as the designated driver on a wine-tasting tour of the gold country, an hour over the mountains from Lake Tahoe. I was mortified pretty early on when I found out the hard way that just because I couldn't see it through the rear-view mirror didn't mean that the aforementioned three-body trunk wasn't behind me all the time; then I had to fill up the tank at $3.29 a gallon. By the time I reached the first winery, I was hot and headachy and none too happy. I had been worried about getting all my stuff packed, as due to the generosity of Rob and TCH and my purchase of Swann's Way, my overstuffed carry-on was not sufficient to the return journey. But the first winery was not particularly upscale, and this provided me an advantage in the thrift store next door, where I spent $2.50 on what will become a disposible suitcase. Also, I managed to get a couple of Advil down thanks to Ann or Mamcu, I apologize for not knowing whom. So I had brightened considerably by the second winery, where I had a few sips of a Cabernet Sauvignon. I used the full extent of my oenological expertise and proclaimed, "It's not bat piss." The third winery was closed for a private function, so we sat at their picnic tables admiring their view of a previously hidden valley, taking one ripe cherry from their orchard apiece. It may have been my favorite. At the fourth winery I waited until all had worked down their flights, and then ascertained that the consensus favorite was the shiraz (here called a "syrah," but I feel more affection for the other term, having once, in its namesake city of origin, felt like the most attractive man in an entire nation). Quite lovely. "Certainly not bat piss." Then we wended our way to Placerville for lunch; they had one hamburger on sourdough and another with Monterey Jack, but being in a town selling itself on its 1849 legacies, I wanted the full cliché and so got my burger with one and on the other. An excellent combination. I would have wished for a more boutiquey mustard though than French's yellow. Now there is a comestible for which my snobbery and effete aesthetism is fully recognizible. Someday I must go on a mustard-tasting tour of France.
After that it was packing and hugging and driving away, quickly so no one would see me tear up. I managed the trip back to the Bay Area all right despite my solitude, reaching a parking space on Solano Avenue right outside Zachary's at five past eight. Unfortunately, they don't sell by the slice in the evening and there was no way I was going to eat enough of a small deep-dish to justify it. Plus, I was having a craving for greenery so I went to a near-by Thai restaurant, where they took my two favorite substances, filet mignon and sauteed spinach, and slathered them with an overbearing peanut sauce (which compared unfavorably to the Weeping Tiger, a beef dish I used to get at a Thai restaurant on the Leytonstone High Street, to which I will never return I am sad to suspect). Driving back down Solano to head for the airport, I broke down completely, so overcome was I with leaving my friends behind. I know that this has been one of the more egocentric Gathering recaps, but I do miss you guys something fierce.
And, indeed, the gathering somehow managed to get along without me, it seems, not in fact starving to death as expected. And the rising of the proletariat against its masters, once an inevitable outcome of the dialectics of history, was in fact averted, as shower-hoarding Bit just emailed me. I suppose that what kept her from being strung up from a lamppost was the lack of public utilities in the development. And without me there, I suppose Masq might have forgotten that she liked this character named Connor, or that she occasionally wore a leather jacket. I suppose people didn't laugh as hard or feel as deeply since I left. I know I haven't.