Typical Day on the Road

November 2006

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Nov. 1

We finally pulled out of the Santa Clara Co. Fairgrounds in San Jose, where we've been holed up for 6 days and nights, a rare arrangement for us. Then we headed to Oakland, where Kimberly enjoyed a rare girls' night out with her old high school chum Tania. They went out to a yoga class, took a dip in a hot tub, got a manicure and pedicure and stayed up half the night watching old movies and in general had a grand old time.

Meanwhile Dennis and Zephyr headed to Vallejo. (At the toll plaza before the bridge, they saw the aftermath of a strange incident in which a car apparently had zoomed into the toll gate too fast and crashed, twisting around to block off the gate and practically flipping over.) In Vallejo, Z went to visit his friend Libby, taking along his guitar and portable recording studio to work on some music. Meanwhile, Dennis had a few hours to get some work done in peace and quiet, including some computer work at the library.

Nov. 2

Dennis and Zephyr picked up Kimberly and complimented Tania on the muffins and cake she made and gave to them yesterday. Then we headed toward Sacramento, stopping in Vacaville to get some Internet-ness done at a wi-fi coffee shop.

Nov. 3

Up early and headed to the Channel 10 TV station in Sacramento, where we appeared live on the morning talk show "Sacramento and Company". We were included in 5 (or was it 6) guests appearing over the course of an hour, including an expert on fishing, a group of models showing off apparel that promotes the Sacramento Kings baseball team, and a teacher who writes and sings children's songs. In our segment, we were interviewed for a few minutes, then had an opportunity to hastily throw on some costume pieces and perform a scene from "The Emperor's New Clothes". We had to have wireless mikes, which we're totally unaccustomed to using, and during one of the physical bits, Dennis' mike fell off, but he recovered it quickly.

On down to Modesto, site of tomorrow's performance. But first it was Trader Joe's and laundromat.

Photos by MARTY BICEK The Modesto Bee 11/4/2006

Nov. 4

After a brief stop at an Internet café, we headed to the Modesto Library, where we performed for the many-th time. It was a rather large audience, including many repeaters. We also were reunited with something we left behind after our last appearance here: a cloth bag containing the base for our set, and the tennis racquet we formerly used. These items (as you may recall if you've been following our wanderings for a while) were replaced quite hastily when they were discovered missing just before a performance in Quincy, CA.

At the end of the show we announced that books, tapes and CD's were available and someone in the back of the room held up both of Zephyr's books, having brought them along! Our web host Shawn and his wife Annette and son Zach made it to the show! We finally got to meet these remarkable people who have come to our aid countless times online, in person.

After the show, we drove back to the San Jose area, where Zephyr attended a party for those who worked at the haunted attraction. Dennis, meanwhile was working at another party in San Jose.

Nov. 5

Returned to the Fairgrounds in San Jose, where Zephyr pitched in to help dismember - oops, dismantle the haunted house attraction, while Mom and Dad took care of the business end of show business.

Nov. 6

Same as above.

Nov. 7

Another quiet day at the Fairgrounds. We took advantage of the space - i.e., the haunted house that has been deserted even by the ghosts - to do rehearsing for our new shows. One of them is a Shakespeare smorgasbord, so we practiced our swordplay bits for the benefit of the plastic ghouls and goblins still enjoying squatters' rights in this dilapidated homestead.

Dennis took a bike ride downtown to the post office to mail his latest script for a play competition. He also stopped by a bicycle shop, an establishment that looked like something out of a Twilight Zone episode – you keep expecting to see some of the junk (or junque) that's littering the place take on a life of its own. Out front and inside are numerous models of antique bikes including those from around 1900. Even the cash register looks as if it may have been brought over by Columbus. In short, the place is wonderfully chaotic, decrepit and dusty, a classic example of what the Japanese call wabi-sabi, which roughly means the perfection of imperfection (right down to the perfectly annoying hordes of decidedly imperfect flies swarming around).

Nov. 8

Would you believe we're still at the Fairgrounds? Next thing you know, people will be asking us about jobs available. Oh wait, they already have.

We all biked downtown to do some getting-online-ness, but we were delayed for a while at San Jose State University where we attended an appearance by representatives of Road Trip Nation, a PBS program that sponsors teams of 3 college students to spend 6 weeks during the summer traveling across country in an RV and interviewing successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. The team from SJSU consisted of two young women and one young man (all of them, incidentally, African-American) who had some amusing anecdotes about the hurdles they faced in being on the road; they did not, for instance, have a functioning shower in their RV, and had to sponge off with baby wipes, and had only 5 actual showers during their 6 weeks on the road. But despite the drawbacks, they found the expedition very positive and life-transforming. One of the young women had been pursuing a career in journalism but after this adventure decided instead to let her passion for dance pursue her.

In viewing video clips from the interviews they conducted - as well as those conducted by other participants – one message came through over and over again: Do what you love rather than what you think will be most profitable. It was a refreshing bit of advice to hear from the CEO of Starbucks (among others), and one that youngsters don't hear nearly enough.

After the presentation, we met the participants and some of the staff of Road Trip Nation and even went aboard their big green RV parked out front. And they gave us souvenir rubber duckies.

Nov. 9

Finally broke away from the Fairgrounds and headed to Walnut Creek. We spent much of the afternoon at an Internet coffee shop - one of those innumerable establishments called Sufficient Grounds, or some such. Then we headed to the home of our longstanding friends Craig and Ann. After visiting with them for a bit (during which interval we all were break-dancing around the moon over the recent election results - just about the only good news we've had on the World Events front in at least 10 years), we headed out to Sweet Tomatoes, the buffet-style restaurant franchise. We were joined there by their son Kyle, who arrived for the weekend after being stuck in the horrendous Bay Area "rush hour" traffic (which generally takes considerably longer than an hour and doesn't really rush anywhere). Kyle was the ring-bearer at our wedding when he was 3; he's now 19, and a student at UC Santa Cruz.

Nov. 10

Picked up our mail in San Leandro, then found a car wash with an accessible high-powered vacuum so that we could do some housecleaning. Then we drove to the home of our friends Sue Ellen and Ron. She's the one who's responsible for Dennis and Kimberly meeting in the first place, and he's the one who had surgery for a hernia this morning. (But he seems to be doing quite well, even though he was rather tired.) We had lunch and said howdy to their son Greg, who dropped in briefly and whom we hadn't seen in years. A lot of people don't see him for extended periods of time because he's a sailing fanatic, and once sailed solo to Hawaii.

After saying goodbye to these good folks, we headed to Castro Valley (a town where Kimberly once lived while going to school in Hayward, and where Dennis once worked while living in Hayward, though the two time frames didn't quite overlap) to stock up at Trader Joe's.

Kimberly '85, Erika '85, Mark '84,
Arlene Hood (director) and Tania '85
on the stage of Moreau

Then it was off to Hayward, where we had a rendezvous at Olive Garden for dinner with Kimberly's old high school chums Tania and Erika (as well as the latter's family). After dinner, which we prolonged more than we'd realized, we rushed off to their alma mater, Moreau High School, arriving just in time to see the opening night performance of "The Importance of Being Earnest". It was quite a stroll down Memory Lane for the three chums, who performed on this very stage. In fact, the current production was directed by the same director who worked with them as students those not-terribly-many years ago, and after the show they all sat on the stage and reminisced and gossiped and did some catching up until long after the building was otherwise deserted. Kimberly and Tania even revealed to their former mentor, after all this time, the deep dark secret of how they once sneaked into the theatre after hours and spent the night on the stage (sleeping on one of the mattresses being used in "Once Upon a Mattress", in which Erika played the lead), then sneaked back out early in the morning so no one would know.

Nov. 11

Okay, so guess where we ended up today? If you guessed a sushi bar in Zanzibar, you're nowhere close, but it's not surprising that you'd never guess we went back to - you guessed it - the Fairgrounds. But this time some of the staff actually showed up and did a little disassembly. Zephyr even got to sit in on a meeting and lob some of his ideas at some industry professionals.

The weather was considerably colder today, and we even had quite a bit of rain last night. Time was, this date, would have been Veterans' Day, until they made it illegal to observe holidays on non-Mondays.

This evening, Dennis and Kimberly attempted to watch a dollar-rack DVD of the old movie "Till the Clouds Roll By", a putative portrait of Broadway songwriter Jerome Kern. (Zephyr was engaging in symbiosis with the phone.) We only made it about halfway through because the disc started arguing with the computer on which we were playing it. Perhaps it's just as well, since the whole production was cornier than Kansas, and the most fun thing about watching it was adlibbing the dialogue that we thought the characters SHOULD have uttered.

Nov. 12

Heigh ho, it's back at the Fairgrounds. We took advantage of the solitude to catch up on some rehearsing, which we've missed for the past 3 days. (The sword duels are shaping up). Later, some of the workers returned, and Zephyr went back to plying the screwdriver and hammer.

Nov. 13

This was the OFFICIAL Veterans' Day, when banks and other offices took a holiday. But they couldn't exactly spend it at the beach, since it was chilly and rainy. So we holed up at the Fairgrounds again, staying mostly inside our cozy little home on wheels. Except that when the weather let up a bit, Dennis got on his bike and took a load of laundry to the laundromat a few blocks away.

We also recorded our podcast for the week. And speaking of podcasts, we downloaded and listened to our entry "Simple Ivan" in the Pickle Podcast "Tell Me a Story" Contest. The judges had some quite positive comments to make about our entry, and now the listeners get to vote on who advances to the finals. (The judges themselves chose which entries would be in the preliminary round.)

This evening we watched a couple of old Hitchcock movies ("The Lady Vanishes" and "Rich and Strange") but were rather disappointed; these early cinematic essays were definitely not Hitch of "Psycho".

Nov. 14

We're feeling the moss growing on our sides and the birds nesting in our hair at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. (Any day now, we expect the Jehovah's Witnesses to come knocking at our door.) Dennis and Zephyr bicycled downtown to get some Internet work done at a café (actually Zephyr spent most of the time at the Borders nearby). We purchased the plane ticket for Zephyr's next excursion to North Carolina to jam and record with his band. This will occur about a month from now.

Nov. 15

We're still at the Fairgrounds, debating what to plant in our garden next spring. Little progress has still been made on dismantling the haunted house. We still have a windmill and a miniature water tower in our yard, as well as a faux cemetery with a large statue that has toppled over in the wind.

Nov. 16

It was rehearsal day at ye olde homestead in San Jose, as we worked on our new productions. The family that swordfights together stays together.

Nov. 17

Finally pulled out of the Fairgrounds lot to face the wide, wide world again. Our first stop was a restaurant in Palo Alto, where we had lunch with Kimberly's old high school friend Tania and her mother; and we received the joyous news that Tania's cancer seems to be all gone! (This restaurant, by the way had the THICKKKKEST slices of coffee cake we'd ever seen, if those humongous hunks could be called slices.) After lunch, we brought Tania and mom aboard the RV so Kimberly could show them our photos from Japan, which of course we have to inflict upon everyone we see.

This afternoon we stocked up at Trader Joe's and a nearby shoe store; and we certainly hope the latter stock will last longer than the former. Next stop was a library for a couple of hours of Internet indulgence. Then we caught up on laundry before it caught up on us. And what was left of the evening we spent at a bookstore, just as we did so often in those pre-Fairgrounds days of yore.

Nov. 18

Today we returned to our old hometown, San Francisco (where we lived even longer than we've lived at the Fairgrounds), to attend Podcamp West, a two-day seminar for people involved in (or planning to be involved in) podcasting. (We, of course have been conducting our own weekly podcasts since early summer.) This event was held in the Swedish-American hall on Market Street, one of those grand old buildings with hardwood floors and ornate décor such as you just don't see anymore. The presentations mostly were staged in the ballroom/ auditorium, where experts and neophytes (quite often the same people) mingled and exchanged ideas. It really hit home that podcasting is essentially a new technological innovation, and we are among its pioneers. In fact, we were involved with another podcast program before anyone even came up with the term "podcast".

On the way back to the BART station to catch a train to Daly City, where we are staying tonight, we stopped at Brendan Lai's martial arts supply store (a fixture on Mission St. for 30 years – Dennis used to buy things here when he was studying shaolin) and purchased some swords to use in our new production of Shakespearean snippets. These are relatively real metal menaces that will be more durable and produce a more credible clang than the plastic posers with which we've been practicing. Our teenage son was delighted to have his hands on genuine lethal weapons for a change. (The edges of the blade are quite dull, but the points are somewhat sharp, and will need to be ground off. Shhh! Don't tell our audiences.) They were securely wrapped in newspaper, however, so as not to attract the curiosity of police as we carried them down the street and on the train.

Nov. 19

The second day of Podcamp West. A cool, foggy day on Market St., the kind of day that brought out the fabled romanticism of this fabled city. It was a productive session, and we made several useful contacts. We also won a drawing for a book!

Leaving the city again, we initially planned to start driving south tonight. But we ultimately didn't go very far, because we realized that we have two podcasts to record and edit this week. There's our usual weekly episode and then there's the next round of the Podcast Pickle competition, in which we've advanced to the next round. Thus we're going to need, at the very least, a full day of electricity in one spot just like normal people. So we decided to head to a place we haven't been in a long, long time: the Fairgrounds in San Jose. We pulled into our old spot, and saw that the crew had been there over the weekend, and had made some progress. Some of the walls were missing, as were the water tower and the windmill.

Nov. 20

Do you know the way out of San Jose? We don't seem to, as we ended up spending yet another day babysitting the haunted house. Not that we're complaining; it's been free hookups, and we took advantage of the day to get our podcasts done.

Nov. 21

Finally, finally, finally we left San Jose (not a bad town to live in, but for us living somewhere more than a few days constitutes stagnation) and headed toward L.A. After stops along the way to dump and fill our tanks, including propane, we pulled into Torrance in enough time to spend a couple of hours at a Borders. Good thing, because they had that video of Zefferelli's "Romeo and Juliet" that we've been searching for high and low and deep and wide. And it was only 10 bucks, so we pounced on it.

Nov. 22

At a Panera in Torrance, we met up with our daughter Ellie (also known as Kim) who in the past has met up with us in a number of places around the country, and is going to be staying with us for a few days.

Nov. 23

It was Thanksgiving Day for the rest of the country, but for Zephyr and Ellie, it was Disney Day. They spent the entire day, and we do mean the entire day (from 9:00 a.m. to midnight) at the park, while Dennis and Kimberly stayed "at home" in the Disney parking lot, except for a bike ride, a stroll through Downtown Disney and browsing through the shops, and seeing the movie "Déjà vu", which they really enjoyed.

Nov. 24

The day after Thanksgiving, which we used to celebrate Thanksgiving with a dinner that we all thought was among the best holiday feasts we'd ever had. The centerpiece was tofurkey, of course, since we're vegetarians. We also featured a salad made from a recipe taken from one of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books, which Zephyr has been reading to us (Yes, the WHOLE series). It was the first time we (and perhaps anyone) had done a Lemony Snicket themed Thanksgiving.

Nov. 25

Down to Santa Monica, where we took a stroll on the picturesque pier and a roller coaster ride as well. (Two tickets for two rides, as opposed to one ticket for one ride – go figure). While we were having veggie burgers, we met up with our nephew John Paul and his girlfriend Neva, who flew in from Connecticut a couple of days ago for their first tour of L.A. during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

We ambled and marveled at the sights from the Santa Monica Pier to Venice Beach, where we saw a number of street performers and vendors of various arts and crafts. We were especially impressed by a group of acrobats who among other things leaped over a line of 10 volunteers from the audience.

After Zephyr and Ellie parted company with the rest of us to attend yet another movie, the others in the party took a stroll on Third Street Promenade and then adjourned to the RV so John Paul and Neva could see our photos from Japan.

Nov. 26

In Pasadena, we met up with Zephyr's friend Madi and her mother and a friend of theirs named Matt who's visiting from Canada. We all went bowling, and as usual Dennis' score was near the bottom of the heap. But he did manage to pull off a stupendous feat that nobody had ever seen before: a gutter ball that bounced back out of the gutter and downed 5 pins!

Later, we met up with our old friend Mike, whom we knew about 10 years ago in L.A., but have not seen in a few years. He invited us to an evening party to consume Thanksgiving leftovers, and we played the game Guesstures for the first time. The food was excellent, and the guests included a Disney animator among other artistes.

Nov. 27

Having spent the night parked in front of Mike's house in Chatsworth, we stuck around most of the day to take advantage of the electricity to record this week's podcast. It was a steep street, and we had to finagle with boards and blocks under the front wheels to attain anything remotely approaching a state of levelness or levelicity. The neighborhood was a relatively rustic setting, despite being full of houses. The hills are alive with coyotes, rabbits, rattlesnakes and scorpions. Chatsworth has long been a community of refuge for Hollywoodites (it was once upon a time the site of the ranch, for instance, belonging to Lucy and Desi), and Mike's neighbor is a film stunt guy. In fact, the house in which Mike and his wife Patricia live previously belonged to the son of playwright Moss Hart.

Nov. 28

After several attempts along highway 99, we finally located a coffee shop in Madera where we could get online. And next door was a laundromat where we could wash our clothes at the same time. Life on the road is seldom this convenient.

Nov. 29

A pair of morning performances at Sipherd Elementary in Modesto, our third (or is it fourth?) time here. Then another coffee shop for more Internet work, and an evening stop at Borders, where we purchased "The End", the last installment in the Unfortunate Events series - Zephyr has already read us the first twelve.

Nov. 30

It looks like we've advanced to round 3 of the Podcast Pickle competition, having placed third in round 2. Thanks for the support, everyone, and keep it up!

Today at long last we took the RV in to get the shocks replaced. This should give us a smoother ride, with stronger shocks to absorb the bumps and considerably less cash to weigh us down.

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