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Throwin’ Down

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Title: New Year's Eve! Artist: Rosemary B Mudry Painted: 2002, Oil on Canvas

There are party goers and party throwers.  There are amazing stars that shine at both and duds who’d best just stick to dinner and a movie.  What determines success?  How much fun was had by all. 

Consider Robin, a consummate party thrower. She loves throwing parties, but even more, Robin loves planning parties.  Before she has completed one party, she already has 3 or 4 more under construction.  Themes and events stream through her brain at rapid speed and inspiration is found everywhere.  She has a list of people she relies upon to get the job done and she knows who to call for everything.  Need a cake?  Ask Robin and she’ll provide the top 5 bakeries to contact.  Looking for tables and chairs? She knows who to call and how much it’ll cost (if anything).  Need a prop?  She’ll check her “closet.”

The Party Closet - that is – a common element among party throwers.  This space is dedicated to housing props, gifts, costumes and anything else that screams PAR -TEE!  These items are not frivolous.  Expert party throwers are not pack rats. They are selective about what they keep on hand, knowing exactly what is required for the perfect party and impossible to find on short notice.  Everything in the party closet is used at some point or it gets passed along, and not every closet is the same.  Each depends on the unique interests of the party givers.  For example, there may be gowns, tuxedos, table linens, western gear, wigs, folding chairs, assorted hats, palm trees, cake pans, crystal, paper plates, jewelry, strobe lights…the list is diverse and seemingly infinite. 

Robin shops all year, looking for bargains that may come in handy for a future event.  She’s bought Swarovski crystal and iPods at rock bottom prices knowing that they will make perfect prizes for a raffle or contest.  She’s found curtains, lamps, chairs and a sundry of inflatable’s to suit every conceivable backdrop. 

One time it was an in-door beach party, complete with sand, trees and water (beach attire required, despite the minus zero temperatures outside).  Another time it was a Red-Carpet Oscar party, complete with what else?  A red carpet (lined with Paparazzi) and Oscars (awarded through a traditional envelope opening ceremony) for all the guests!

“Parties take work.”

“They cost a lot of money.”

“It is impossible to make everybody happy.”

“There is always a crisis.”

“Throwing a party is exhausting and thankless.” Really?

Not according to Robin.  Throwing parties is pure delight and she hosts parties to entertain herself!  She enjoys every minute of it, from the first idea to the day after clean-up.  A last minute crisis to others is an opportunity for her to tap into that unending reservoir of ideas, props and resources.  Friends and acquaintances come out of the wood work to help her prepare and clean up with the hope that they will end up on the next guest list or get a referral from her in the future. And she is always ready to step-in to save the day for others – that’s just what party throwers do!

Excuses don’t fly with Robin because it’s not about the venue, any locale can be party ready.  She regularly moves furniture in and out of her bungalow style house to accomodate her theme.  It’s not about the money, finding ways to party on the cheap is part of the thrill.  And it’s certainly not about hiring someone else to do it for her.  That would absolutely defeat the purpose.  According to Robin, there is only one real reason to throw a party – and that’s simply for the fun of it!  Stick to that premise and the rest will fall perfectly into place. 

~Nancy~

 

Good Maurice, The Badd Llama

Who’s Guarding The Roost?

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Good Maurice, The Badd Llama

 “How many teeth does it have?” 

That’s the first thing my mother asked me after learning Jane had a surprise for her. As a messy blond kid my younger sister’s surprises included a humming bird, some snakes and several families of pill bugs, which she relocated to my bed. Steadily, these unexpected gifts grew in size. 

Thanks to Jane, now a farm-oriented business lady, we own goats, sheep and hundreds of chickens. 

“Do you really want to know?” I asked. 

“No, don’t tell me.” 

My mother likes a good shock, which must be why our home looks like Old McDonald’s petting zoo. Still, she had some initial reservations. 

“I have a feeling it will require a lot of care and will harm me,” she said. 

I wanted to ease my mom’s fears, but couldn’t since I knew nothing about llamas. Jane had mentioned getting one, but it seemed she’d considered taking in creatures ranging from Shetland ponies to hippos, so I didn’t take her seriously—until she wrote me the following. 

“… also don’t tell mom, but I am buying them a llama, b/c the coyotes have eaten too many of our chickens and I am afraid for the goats.” 

When Jane puts something in writing it’s a done deal. 

On one level it made sense. Our home is in a rural-ish suburb, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, but close enough to open space for wild animals to roam comfortably. Coyotes had recently moved in, and we’d spotted them lurking around the goat pen and once my mother saw one bounding through high grass to pounce on an unlucky bird. 

A hole  in our fence was plugged with a tree branch, but that was a temporary solution. Jane wanted a more permanent fix for our wily problem, and she argued, what better than a lama?  

A dog, I guess, but my sister isn’t one for convention. Besides, she said, these South American camelids are badder and bigger than any dog. 

That’s what my mom was afraid of: a six-foot wooly beast that needs its “fighting teeth” removed to prevent ear ripping and genital biting (mostly of other llamas) according to the care manual. 

If there’s danger, Jane said, “The goats and chickens know to get behind them.” As for the coyote, she said, “it gets trampled.” 

A few days after the email, a truck pulling a large trailer drove up to the house and a woman from a dusty llama and schnauzer farm (the owners raised the llamas for pleasure, the dogs for profit) led the latest member of our menagerie to his new home. 

From a distance Maurice, or Banjo as we sometimes call him, looks terrifying and ridiculous. His ears arch like devil horns, his eyes look slanted and red.  

 He’s been shaved around his mid section, so that only his neck and legs are covered in dark brown, ocher-highlighted curls of wool—like a French poodle demon.  

On closer inspection, however, he appears much less imposing. Maurice is about my height—with maybe 100 pounds on me—but while he’s big enough to ride he’s shy. His face looks like a cute wooly camel and his deceptive eyes are actually large and black orbs. He spent the first few days in his new home whimpering.  

With lama pellets, we’ve slowly begun to gain this big softy’s trust, and he’s kept up his end of the bargain—there hasn’t been a single coyote sighting since he showed up. 

Yesterday, after my mom had finished corralling the animals and feeding them, I asked what she thought of Jane’s latest present. 

“It’s a good one,” she said. “But I’m all animaled out.  No more for a while” 

Now I’m wondering if I should tell her about the Indian runner ducks my uncle ordered her this summer, as a surprise of course. 

-Will

Milky Lookalike Portrait

The Zone and the Art of Goat Milking

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It took sweat, tears and getting peed on, but this month I learned how to milk a goat. It wouldn’t have been possible without a lesson I learned at eight years old inside a dim elementary school gymnasium, when I first experienced “the zone.” I’m sure you’re familiar with it—that mindset that transports you to a state of potent, yet effortless focus.

I was toeing the free throw line to practice shooting, growing increasingly frustrated by a series of misses. Everything distracted me: the old building’s echo; dust particles in the light; my dad’s firm reassurances.  

After one particularly bad miss, he stopped me.

“Let’s take a break,” he said.

We walked outside to a tanbark playground and sat, looking at the dry hills for awhile. My dad asked if I was excited about the house we were moving into.

“Well yeah,” I said. “It’s got so much space.”

“Did you explore with your sister?”

“Around the house a little. The neighbor girl played tag with us.”

“It’s a good place for sports” he said. “Maybe we’ll build a basketball hoop there.”

“I think I want to be a baseball player.”

My dad laughed. “Come on. Let’s give it one more try.” He slapped my shoulder. I was feeling pretty good.

Inside, I stepped to the free-throw line once more, took three deep breaths, bent my knees and made my first shot. And my next one. Then I couldn’t miss. It was better than that; it was like the ball couldn’t even touch the rim. The walls reverberated with swoosh after satisfying swoosh.

 “You’re in the zone son,” my dad said.

The next shot went up, way wide. That was lesson number two about the zone—when you’ve got it, don’t think about it.

Over the next 17 years my family and an assortment of pets grew into our house, and I had plenty of opportunities to get into the zone. It helped me pull weeds in the garden; helped replant the flowers I mistakenly yanked, and helped me shoot baskets in the backyard. It also came in handy when I came home from college one summer and constructed a goat pen for some new residents.

 I can rarely recall needing it more, however, than earlier this month when my parents left for a summer weekend in Yosemite and I had to milk a goat for the first time. And not just any goat. Milky. So named by my sister for her whitish complexion, though she could have also been called “Kicky,” or “Obstinance” or “Stumpy” for a variety of her other traits.

“There’s no way that’s a goat,” my mom told my sister when she brought the scrappy looking creature home, believing for months it was a pig, and eventually a sheep.

But Milky proved her genetics when she gave birth to three very cute baby goats last month. To keep the milk flowing and our fridge stocked after the kids were weaned, my mom and dad went out every morning to milk her, until it was just me home alone.

My practice run the day before my parents departure ended very badly. I squeezed, Milky’s udder and nothing came out. I squeezed harder and she had bucked and rocked. I squeezed one more time and she peed on my hand.

“She’s never done that before,” said my Mom.

“Aaaahhhhhh,” I said.

“Oh well,” she said.

“Aaahhhahhh aahhha hahhhh,” I said.

My parents finished the job while I cleaned my hands off, thinking about the mess I would be in the next day. I returned to watch the last stages, and hopefully pick up a few tips from my mom. Milking a goat is not a difficult process. You gentle push the udder to guide the milk into one of the teets, clamp it with thumb and forefinger so the liquid doesn’t retract, and gradually squeeze down with your middle and ring fingers to push the milk out.

If you’re bad at this, it produces a meager drizzle of milk. If you are good, it’s more of a stream that hits the milking pan in a satisfying shower. For the experienced milker, it’s a 10 minute job; for the inexperienced one, it’s half-an-hour plus.

Probably the real challenge is getting the goat to cooperate, and handling the assorted goaty smells.

Before my mom left, she gave me some good advice.

“You’ve just got to get in the zone,” she said. 

The zone. Of course. But easier said than done.

The next day I should’ve done the milking at sunrise, but overslept and had to go to my sister’s house to help her build a fence. When I next looked at my watch, it was 5:35 p.m.  and I’d left Milky with a near bursting udder for an entire day.

She let me know about it when I finally got home with a bleating that started strong but faded to a whimper. I lured her onto the milk stand with some grain and fastened her in. I don’t know the exact consequences of not milking goats at the right time, but the way she wavered uncomfortably on her perch, it looked bad. As I started, the more she stomped and kicked, the more I started to feel the pressure. If I didn’t pull it together, my situation and that of the animal I was supposed to be helping, was bound to get worse.

But the goat did not seem to be in a cooperative mood. With each squeeze of her udders only a few drips of white fluid came out. My arms and wrists grew tired. A goat of her size typically yields three cups of milk; my efforts had produced a quarter teaspoon.

I stopped for a break and went to cut some rose branches.

“Alright Milky,” I said. “We can do this.”

I put her favorite food in front of her and took three deep breaths, then started again. The milk came out a little faster, the strain on my arms was less severe and then the sound of the milk hitting the pail became hypnotic.  And there I was—in the zone.

I squeezed Milky’s udder once more and nothing came out, this time because the bag was empty. Milky seemed content as she walked back to her pen and I returned to the house to strain the milk and have some with a bowl of cereal.

My mom and dad returned two days later.

“How’d it go,” they asked.

“Easy,” I said.

Really though, I’m not taking anything for granted. They’re headed out of town in a few days and I’m prepping for another visit to the milking stand and the zone.  

-Will

postscript:  Time has passed and Will is now a “semi” pro at milking Milky – look for the long video version of “How to Milk a Goat” under EntertainingYourself – Hip Hobbies. It’s sure to entertain – at least for a bit!  

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Hawk Camp: The Worst and Best of Times

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I love camping – despite the fact it almost always involves some measure of discomfort, misery and danger, either real or imagined.  And if you survive, those are all good things because camping pushes you out of your comfort zone, shows what you’re capable of and, hear me out…provided you keep your sense of humor and an eye on the BIG picture, it’s one of life’s greatest opportunities for Entertaining Yourself –and others too –with the stories you bring back.

When things do go wrong, (as they inevitably do when nature’s in charge), sometimes the situations get so ridiculous you begin to wonder if you actually lived through them, saw them on TV or just remembered them from a dream.

I discovered this for myself at the ripe old age of 18 when my girlfriend, Bijani—a name with Persian origins meaning hero— suggested we have one final romantic getaway before leaving for college.  Hey, it was the summer before freshman year – a time full of promise and new experiences – so without hesitating (or truly thinking about what we were getting ourselves into) I said “Absolutely!”

Our destination:  The remote Hawk Camp, which overlooks Gerbode Valley in the Golden Gate National Recreation area.  Bijani knew enough about the Parks to call ahead for a reservation, and I knew that camping would give me the opportunity to impress her with my handiness at directions – especially since the Park is just a short distance from my house.

Full of enthusiasm, we planned a dawn start, hoping to arrive at the campsite with plenty of time to scope out the area.  In fact, it was 10:00 a.m. when two sleepy teens backed out of my girlfriend’s driveway, which probably explains why, somewhere between her house and the park, we got lost. Not badly exactly, we just couldn’t for the life of us find the trailhead.

“What were you telling me about a natural sense of direction?” Bijani chuckled.

Oops…this was not going quite the way I planned…but I thought it best to be a good sport. “Ok”, I smiled, “we can ask for directions.”

Three parking lots, a couple of off ramps and onramps, and one visit to a ranger station later and we had a map, (as well as a clue) about where to go.  It was 90 degrees, Bijani’s car had no air conditioning, but hey…we were young and our readiness to laugh at anything, plus a sing along session to “Tainted Love” and other 80s classics, saw us up to the point where we unpacked the car in high spirits.

Yes, it was already 1 p.m., still, we had the whole bright afternoon before us and the prospect of a leisurely, satisfying hike. What did a dusty, steep fire road matter? We had glorious sunshine and coastal shrubbery surrounding us, as we passed the time doing what a pair of kinda nerdy high-schoolers like to do: discussing our friend’s lives and Star Wars trivia, and arguing about whether Hobbe’s description of man’s condition as “nasty, brutish, and short” was right (at the time I argued it wasn’t, but after our trip was over, I wasn’t so certain anymore).

We continued climbing, but the higher we ascended the foggier it became and the less helpful our map seemed; it dawned on us that we hadn’t seen a sign for Hawk Camp since we first started. Now a cascade of fog greeted us as we crested a hill, only able to see the fuzzy outlines of nearby brush and what looked like lunar landing equipment.

“Where are we?” Bijani said.

“A weather station?”

“What’s there?”

From the haze a shape approached us rapidly, and a biker gradually materialized before us.   “Thank heaven,” we thought, “someone who can help us!”

“Excuse me.” Bijani said after he stopped for a drink of water, “do you know where Hawk Camp is?”

He wasn’t from the area, he told us, remounting his bike and slowly riding off. “Sometimes what you seek is right before you,” he said over his shoulder.

“Thanks… I think,” Bijani said, and we laughed.   A real life brush with a Philosopher…or a jerk…I wasn’t entirely sure, but at least we knew there was human life out there so we couldn’t be too far off the mark… could we?

We decided not to “look ahead” but to follow our own inclination to turn around, descending back into the sunshine where we found a sign for Hawk Camp, hidden behind some chaparral (which for those of you who haven’t spent much time in the woods of the Southwest, are thorny bushes not really fun to be close to.)  Back on track, and with only a few burrs in our clothing, it was now 4:00 p.m. and, starving, we stopped at a small rock outcrop for a well deserved snack.

I got out our olive bread and cheese (real campers have to think healthy, so we didn’t bust out the Twinkies, even though you always see those wrappers in parts of the park you wouldn’t expect).   Mmmmm…I could all but taste the delicious combo, warm from being in our back packs…but just as I ripped off a piece, ready to take that big first bite, a sharp, slobbery something chomped my hand. I heard a yelp in the distance: “No Bobo, No Bobo!”

I found myself wrestling with Bobo, a generously proportioned yellow lab, who was alternately tearing bread from my hand and biting it. Victorious, the dog scampered off with the entire loaf still partially inside it’s now ragged bag.  A jogger in full spandex ran past. “Sorry—he doesn’t usually do that. Come back Bobo, Come back.”

Bijani and I looked at each other in stunned silence for a second. “Who is this person???” we thought.

“Don’t come back,” I yelled, and we sat down laughing again. We only had one loaf of bread left for tonight and tomorrow morning, but we had some other provisions and good company goes a long way.

An hour later, we spotted the last sign for Hawk Camp, following the arrow along a narrow trail to a somewhat dejected gathering of cedars. Not quite the setting we were expecting, but hey…we were on our own and so far, our adventure had been <mostly> fun.   It was nearly 6:00 when we finally unloaded on a bench near our allotted campsite. It’d been a long day and both of us just wanted to set up and eat an unobstructed meal.

Already the coastal fog was rolling in and the sun grew weaker and weaker. This was the real test of the positivity we’d maintained all day. As we struggled to erect the tent, a strong wind picked up, snapping one of the supports and threatening to blow the whole shelter away. After a pitched battle lasting nearly two hours, we stepped back to admire our handiwork, which would have passed for the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s less attractive cousin. It was almost completely dark.

We gave up on exploring, settling into our sleeping bags to realize that not only was the ground slanted,  but moisture was condensing on the campsite’s trees, falling in large drops exclusively on our slouched tent, and filling it with water to kiddy pool levels.

“We could move,” I whispered.

“Too tired,” Bijani replied, turning away.

I’ve heard adversity brings people together, and at that moment, I felt like I could read Bijani’s thoughts. She was thinking: I hate you for bringing me here.  And then I thought…hey, this was your big idea…and then I thought…well, actually, I was too exhausted to think anymore and I fell into a deep sleep, the kind that is easiest when you are young and you are trying to escape life’s pressures!)

We woke up wet, exhausted and hungry, and silently, we drained our tent. I figured we’d return home, Bijani would break up with me and I’d probably catch pneumonia.  But then something amazing began to happen, even as we were hauling our waterlogged clothes and supplies, our spirits rose with the sun, and increased the further we got away from Hawk Camp.

“Well,” Bijani said as we retraced our steps on the fire road, “at least we have a good story.” I realized she was right!  I already couldn’t wait to call up our friends and tell them about everything that had happened; we’d be the life of the next party.  Or not… it didn’t really matter because at least  Bijani and I were laughing about it. And in the end, I guess, that’s the best thing you can hope for from a camping or any other experience.   Of course, one good tale per adventure is more than enough and for this excursion, we were both happy to have an uneventful trip back to the car and home. But the next time a friend called to ask me to go camping…you know what I said… “Absolutely!”   Hey..sometimes you’ve just got to go ahead and jump-in!

-Will-