Gems that sparkled

GEMS THAT SPARKLED

 

I believe it was my youth or being grateful that I was still employed after not only the earthquake but the Christmas season. But I always felt like I was part of the family of people who worked at Shreve & Co.

 

There was one employee who was 89 years old and had been working at the store for over 56 years. Miss Lackey. She was still quite tall though slightly bent over. Her hair was white and kept in a tight bun and she wore thick glasses. When you entered her department, she would chime, “Good afternoon Sir” …then she would squint to focus and realize it was not a customer and then lose her friendly expression and murmur, “Oh, its just you…”

 

She woke every morning at five and took three buses from Oakland where she lived to the store until she retired.  She was a self proclaimed virgin but at 89 years old, I am not too sure anyone was interested in that trivial and sad fact. She made the best lemon bundt cakes and would leave them in the basement for Jun, our manager. We would eat it entirely before he got back from a truck run but he would never tell her.

 

There were many stories about Miss Lackey but we respected her because of her age. But with old age comes surprises, like her screaming, “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!” because her bowels had overreacted as she was guided to the restroom.

 

We also had Sally who was the store’s receptionist. Sally used to work in the basement until she could no longer go up and down the stairs due to her weight. I think she weighed in at 500 lbs. Her husband would drive up the alley next to the store in their Suzuki Samurai and then she would slowly get out of the passenger side and balance herself around the hood of the car and walk cautiously to the freight elevator wheezing from the exertion. She would then ring the doorbell of the elevator which we could hear in the basement.

 

We would then send the freight elevator up to street level for her to get in and then she would ride the elevator to the mezzanine level where her desk was.

Many times the delivery trucks would be stuck behind her husbands car as she went through this ritual and they would honk for her to hurry up. She, always the lady, would tell them to go fuck themselves as they sped by. The distance between the elevator and her desk was only about twenty feet but it would take her the most part of about one minute per foot to go the distance to her desk.

 

By the time she arrived at her desk, she would pant for about ten minutes until she could settle down to answering the phone and running the inventory of the store. By the end of the day, she would have to go down the stairs backwards as the freight elevator was closed. So she would go step by step down the stairs backwards hanging onto the hand railing for dear life, literally. Once she reached the sales floor, she would then balance her way across the floor and out the door and sit on a tree planter where unfortunately some Japanese tourist would usually take her photo. She would suffer through the humiliation with a smile.

 

Once the store had a bomb scare and the streets were cornered off and the entire store had to be evacuated. By the time the box had been opened by the bomb crew, Sally had only been able to get down the stairs and to the end of one of the counters.

 

As she turned back to head up the stairs, I asked if she wanted to go out to the alley and I would send the elevator for her, but she said it hurt too much to walk that far. So she spent the most part of an hour crawling up the stairs on her hands and feet.

 

Sally used her bra as a temporary safe. It was always shocking when you ask where a $400,000 diamond ring had gone and she would say,”In the safest place in the store” and in response to your blank stare, she would reach in her bra and pull it out.

 

Though I had started in the shipping department, after the Christmas season was over, I asked if I could transfer to the Service Department. I had to interview with George, the manager. Jun, my Korean manager interrupted the interview and said, “George is gay so don't bend over around him.”  George had a lot of class so ignored him and gave me the job. Partly to get me away from him.

 

George was a handsome man. This was 1989 so ground zero of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. George did not see any reason is going out because he said all the handsome men had already died because they were the only ones getting sex.

 

George was a classical music fanatic and knew almost any score. Towards the end, George had met a new boyfriend who as also sick and George joked that they would probably die at the same time and were thinking they should be buried in a double coffin in the 69 position.

 

As amusing as that was, that is when I realized that people who know they are sick are in a different dimension to the rest of us.

 

When George left on disability as he could no longer stand working as he thought it was a literal waste of his time, I took over as the manager for the Service Department. Though the service department is on the ground floor, my office was in the basement. And it was under a metal door which is how the shipments used to get into the basement from the street before we installed Sally’s elevator. Unfortunately the metal door on the sidewalk was now the new home to the guy who tap danced on it from morning until evening singing, “Keep on smiling, just keep on smiling and the whole world will smile with you.” He apparently made quite a bit a money doing that all day everyday and it drove me crazy.

 

The office was dark and dank. It also stunk badly. I always thought it was because the building was so old.

 

Mark Hsaio worked with us. Mark was Chinese American and had gone to Julliard and was a professional pianist.  He worked in the service department with us and only washed his hair on certain days of the week to save on shampoo. His boyfriend Lee was fat and nasty but had once been a male model. Mark decided that he was reaching 30 and it was time for him to get serious about his piano playing and wanted to go back to New York. Lee was cheating on him by dating a Korean movie star who was rather flagrant when in the United States. He would wrap his arms around Lee and scream, “You are the best rooking guy in the whore prace!” and when I repeated that to Mark it made him laugh because he couldn’t cry anymore.

 

Mark was in New York and was stood up by a friend at a bar called the Townhouse in the upper east side. Next to him was an older gentleman who had also been stood up. They struck up a conversation and now have been together for almost 20 years. At one point Mayor Rudi Gulliani lived at their house when he split up with his then wife. Mark washes his hair more often now.

 

The customer is king, so the mantra goes. It is embarrassing though, when you are witness to the behavior of some of the customers to each other. One man had brought in his most valued treasures which he insisted on having appraised for his insurance. I thin there was a diamond horse shoe ring, maybe a few other rings and a bracelet. He was very nice to me and quite talkative. An older man, possibly southern accent. Just then with his treasure laying on the glass counter, he looked to his right where there was a young African American gentleman waiting in line. My customer instinctively bent over his treasure and shielded it from the guy next to him putting up his arm so he could not even see what he had. In a hushed but still loud enough voice, he asked if there was somewhere private we could meet motioning his eyes towards his neighbors as if I would understand.

1989 Earthquake

I grew up in the Napa Valley.  We actually lived on Vintage Street. You made a right on Pinot and down passed Chardonnay, Cabernet and left on Vintage.

 

As a child I used to look up at the hills and think, “I’ve got to get out of here…passed those hills!” I now know it is true, one can be from one of the most beautiful places on earth and not realize it until we are far away.  I now understand how lucky I was to look up at the hills and have no skyscrapers blocking my view or wires or telephone poles.

 

We were originally from England on my maternal grandmother’s side and from Ireland on my maternal grandfather’s side. I did not know my biological father, so I have no idea where he was from or where he went.

 

My grandmother’s paternal grandfather worked for the government and had lived in China in 1900 around the turn of the century. My great-grandfather, his son, was just an infant. His mother wore the fashion of the day and claimed that many had lifted her skirt to see why she was shaped like a bell from the petticoats. My great-great-grandfather would report back to the US about the prison systems in China. He would write about how the Chinese would disembowel their prisoners by making them cut off their long braid (que) and force to eat it like noodles. The hair would churn inside their digestive track and cause them to die a painful death.

 

My great-grandfather as an infant was kidnapped while they were living there but their chef chased after the kidnappers with a machete and got him back. Otherwise, I might be part Chinese today.

 

It was the many stories my grandmother heard growing up which made her weary of Asians. When later on in life I lived in Japan she advised, “If they ask for money, just give it to them or they may spit on you!”

 

Around 1906 the family had returned to the United States. They lived in San Francisco and my great-grandfather would later tell the story about the great earthquake. How he would lay under his bed while the chandelier swung back and forth above him. Also in 1906 Shreve & Co. a fine jewelry store had moved into their new building on Post and Grant Street in San Francisco. On April 18,1906, it the building was gutted by fire after one of the largest earthquakes in San Francisco. The building, however, stood and it was one of the few that did. The great fire had burned for four days followed by 135 aftershocks.

 

 

In 1989, I had just returned from Japan after a summer holiday and newly transferred to the University of San Francisco. I quickly realized that finding a job to pay for my tuition was not going to be easy as I had thought despite the several previous years I had worked at Macy’s selling jewelry. One day while walking down the street in the Mission district, I spotted what looked like the envelope of a paycheck on the ground.

 

A few hours later, after dinner, when I was walking back from dinner the check was still there. So, I picked up the envelope and looked inside at a check that was for quite a bit of money. I did not recognize the address of the company in Minneapolis that issued the check but the address of the payee was in Sausalito so when I returned to my dorm room, I enclosed a note explaining how I had found the check and to contact me if there were any questions. I then posted it.

 

A few days later, I had actually forgotten about this episode when I received a phone call. It was the gentleman to whom the check belonged and he said he had already stopped payment on the check but wanted to thank me nonetheless. He went on to say that he was the General Manager of Shreve & Co. and if I should need anything, to look him up. I very quickly said, “Well, I just moved here and my background is in jewelry and I need a job!” He then said, “ Then come down to the store, your integrity has already been proven and perhaps we can use you for the holiday season.”

 

The Shreve & Co. store is one of the most impressive stores in the world. It really defines opulence with the lapis azules columns reaching up to twenty foot high ceilings and a darkwood paneled mezzanine which ran along the store’s perimeter. The executive offices were also along the mezzanine including the office of the president and receptionist and further vaults.

 

There were diamond counters, fine watches, Fabrege eggs in cabinets and on the other end of the floor was the fine china, crystal and silver. The most expensive items were kept in the vault to avoid anyone coming in and smashing the glass, taking the jewels and running. Tahitian black pearl strands and canary diamonds the size of small fruit.

 

In the original days in the late 1880’s the store had employed many artisans, jewelry masters, silversmiths, engravers, appraisers and pearl stringers.  All catering to the wealth from the gold rush and wealthy settlers on the west coast.  As years passed, the employees became independent vendors who then rented the spaces in the building above as they do today.

 

The store also had a basement which was deep below the streets of San Francisco…very old and very dark. A once functional elevator had been condemned to the basement floor and built over the shaft. This elevator became the make shift office of the old Italian man Henry who was the store’s maintenance man and where he would sleep during lunch.

 

The remaining two jewelry masters on staff worked there as did the entire shipping department including Julia the Mexican lady who had been wrapping gifts for 35 years. There were also further vaults that housed the china and crystal.

 

Luckily for me, after the holiday season they kept me on, so I was going to school full time but also working full time at the store. I felt that I was living two lives, one of the starving college student and then walking into the store of the super rich the rest of the time.

 

On October 17,1989 I was on a truck delivery which was made several times a week. We would deliver merchandise to other stores as well as transfer items in between stores. We were ahead of schedule that day and crossed over the Golden Gate bridge on the way back to the store. We parked the van and we descended into the basement. At 5:04:21pm…the building started to shake, the contents of the shelves started to fall off and all crashing on the floor around us.

 

Everyone in the basement, all six of us, ran to the only open doorway and huddled there clinging to each other. The next 15 seconds lasted for what seemed an eternity.

Yana, who was a very beautiful Russian merchandise manager exclaimed when it was over, “Wow, I haven’t been stuck between five guys in a shaking doorway for years!”

 

Meanwhile, Tom who was one of the jewelers, had run from his office through the basement to the stairway screaming, “EARTHQUAKE, EARTHQUAKE”, we decided to grab our stuff and go upstairs. When we reached the ground floor, we found Tom in the center of the stunned room assuring the silent customers, “this building stood in 1906, it is safe! It is safer to stay inside then to go outside!” I am sure Tom reassured himself this everyday as he worked in the farthest corner of the basement for years.

 

Safer here then outside!?! Outside was something we could not see through the windows. The steam and dust from fallen bricks and gargoyles left very little visibility.

 

An uncanny silence came over the entire city with every single person wide eyed, not knowing what to do or where to go…silence.

 

I had decided to venture home which was not too far from the store on Nob Hill. When I got outside, Eddie had his car waiting as he was there to pick up Dante as usual. Shocked but relieved we were alive, he drove us up the hill and I got out and walked the rest of the way.

 

At the top of the hill stood Lyn, my roommate. She grabbed onto my arm tightly without saying a word and we walked passed stunned neighbors gathered in the streets. We walked up the stairs of our building in the dark and like an idiot I lit a lighter to light the way not thinking until someone screamed, “TURN OFF THE GOD DAMNED LIGHTER…EVER HEARD OF GAS LEAKS?” I was glad it was dark and hoped no one knew it was me. I felt foolish to be so dumb and yet also felt lucky to be living amongst earthquake experts as most of the tenants had lived in San Francisco and in some cases, that building their entire lives.

 

Our building had been built in 1910 so was much sturdier then most. Our apartment  was fairly untouched…at least my things were. Lyn had almost everything destroyed when it fell to the floor as she ran out barefoot while the plaster from the ceiling rained down on her. She fell down the stairs in the dark and realized she didn't have any shoes on so ran back to find her shoes under the fallen furniture and then ran downstairs again.  There she waited for me to return.

 

These were the days before mobile cell phones were owned by everyone and I am not sure if they would have worked anyhow. I was surprisingly not too scared at all, to me it was very interesting to see how everyone reacted and how people you would usually pass in the hall and ignore were now like family.

 

There was no electricity but the phone could call out overseas as all the local lines were out for three days. Apparently a fire had broken out in the 911 telephone equipment room and people had to rely on the fire alarm boxes for emergency protection. I called my friend Marie in Tokyo who was just waking up and surprised by the news and turned on CNN which reported that the Bay Bridge, which I had been on earlier that day, had fallen. There was a fire in the marina district and we realized that where we were was as we could be.

 

We luckily, had been grocery shopping the day before. Since I was new to living in the city still and did not have a car, I tended to buy more then we could carry. So, like pack mules, we carried our bags and I remember the toilet paper falling out of the top of my bag and since I could not pick it up, I had to kick it like a soccer ball to our apartment. This made Lyn laugh in hysterics which made her load more difficult to carry.

 

So, with no electricity, we had to eat things faster then normal before then went off. Again, I ended up surviving on peanut butter sandwiches as I had done many times throughout college and growing up which is why it has always been a comfort food to me.

 

When night fell, we realized all the things we were missing; batteries, candles and water.

 

On the outskirts of Nob Hill, many of the grocery stores were owned by the Chinese. I am reminded of the quote, “during bad times, it brings out the best of people and the worst of people”.

 

(My Grandmother’s third husband Michael had bought a grocery store in the early 40’s on Nob Hill. His mother used to come in and rob him. He had to sell it when he was drafted into the world war. He had grown up in San Francisco and remembers selling papers on the piers and singing in the church choir. During the war, he went AWOL and when he returned his entire infantry had been killed. He got a dishonorable discharge but lived well into his 80s. Even today if you mention his name to the old timers at the Italian restaurants, the treat you like royalty.)

 

The shop owners in Nob Hill now had raised the price of their perishables and raised the price of votive candles which used to be 99 cents to $20.00!! Batteries were now like jewels. I looked them in the eyes and asked how they could cheat people at a time like this and vowed never to shop in their store again.

 

Out onto the pitch black streets, police officers were in their cars shining spotlights on people coming in and out of stores to deter looters. I thought they should have arrested the shop owners. The streets were unbelievably dark. No moonlight, nothing to illuminate the way or the street signs. We had very little cash and the ATM machines were not working for days, so we had to be very careful what we spent our money on.

 

We were more fortunate then most. The quake had killed 62 people , injured 3,757 and left 12,000 homeless. The exterior of a brick building crumbled and crushed six people to death.  Dozens of fires had broken out in the city and people formed bucket brigades much like the quake my great grandfather survived. After three feet of water rushed out of the Santa Cruz harbor, a four foot tsunami hit in Monterey Bay. A cable car was stranded at the top of the crookedest street in the world and blocked it.

 

We also received more accurate news about the Bay Bridge, that it had not fallen into the bay but that one section had collapsed like a draw bridge. So people driving along the top, were spilling down to the lower deck like a ramp into traffic in the opposite direction having to break not to go up the ramp. People on the bridge were stranded and not able to get home.

 

There were stories of people who had walked up the ramp and the owner of a Mercedes Benz would swap his keys with a stranger who had owned a truck. They would then turn the cars around and head in the direction they needed to go promising to swap the cars back when they could.

 

The few people who had car phones were letting people call to check that their families were OK and wouldn't take a dime for the calls. The significant feeling of insignificance of mankind in the wake of an earthquake is sobering, to say the least.

 

The unlucky ones were those who had expressway overpasses collapse on them flattening them in their cars instantly, never to return home. People had been trapped under the bay in the BART trains. Finally they just opened the doors and walked along the tracks until they could get out, not knowing if the tunnel would hold or the waters of the bay above them come crushing down. I could not help but remember that I had just made it over the Golden Gate bridge which swings like a jumping rope in an earthquake.

 

The quake had also struck right before the opening of the third game of the world series at Candlestick park. My friend John was there and months later had come to the store to get a crystal baseball with the richter reading etched on it.

 

When I could no longer read my book by the light of my $20 candle, I fell asleep under my cardboard table that I used as a desk. Lyn was mad because I did not make room for her and the constant tremors and aftershocks scared her to death. I think in the end we slept with our heads under the table.

 

The next day Lyn’s brother Ricky had come to get her. It had taken hours for him to get across the remaining bridge into the city. They left for her mother’s home and I remained in the apartment. I got dressed and took a cold shower and headed down to the store where I found several staff who couldn’t get home, they had either camped there or booked into neighboring hotels without electricity.

 

The gates that protected the store were stalled open and so the policemen who worked for us on their days off as guards stood guard with shotguns around the vault. I thought about what it had been like that April day in 1906 at that very same store. Though our earthquake was 7.1, the one in 1906 was an 8. So strong, it had knocked the seismographs off their supports. It was felt from Oregon to Nevada all the way down to Los Angeles; 375,000 square miles.

 

Yet still almost 83 years later, an estimated three billon dollars of damage had been done by this quake. I walked passed the Palace Hotel which in 1906 had been home to the visiting opera singer Caruso. He had come down to the lobby screaming, “I will never return to a city that allows so much noise and commotion.!”

 

I saw the San Francisco Mint which in 1906 had stayed completely intact but moved from to is current location.  On top of Nob Hill the Phelan Mansion still stood but is now a club unlike the other robber baron’s homes had in 1906. Many had been destroyed and the land was subsequently donated or sold. The Crocker bank family’s land is now where the Grace Cathedral stands and on the Huntington’s land now has the Huntington hotel.

 

Earthquakes seemed to follow me. I had just left Mexico city when it was hit by an earthquake. I was in the quake of 1989. I had left Los Angeles when the big quake hit and was in Japan when the Kobe quake struck.

 I know live in Japan where earthquakes occur daily. In fact there is now a new system you can purchase for your home which is connected to the quake sensors and an alarm will go off prior to a quake striking so you can turn off your gas and flames if you are cooking and brace.

Family Tree to Kings

I used the ancestry.com software and was able to trace our roots to the William the Conqueror, the Kings of England, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark through Grandpa Perry's Mother's Mother side.

Climbing Mt.Fujii

Word to the wise, do not go hiking with anyone in their mid twenties,
if you are not in your mid twenties...or if you are me.

Some of the kids at work had the idea to climb Mt.Fujii. I had been in
1997 but was too sick when I reached the top to stand in line for the
last branded mark into my walking stick to prove I had made it to the
top. It was all a bit of a blur. I remember inviting friends over for
dinner who said they could not because they were climbing Mt.Fujii and
I was welcomed to join. I rememebered that at one point you are
basically rock climbing to get to the top and made a mental note of
everything i needed to take if I ever went again.

So I had my two cans of O2, water, aspirin, food, all the right
clothes but just forgot that I sit on my fat ass and drink and eat
everyday for a living.

First off all, from my office was Chris from London, 6 foot 2 athlete,
Victor from Russian who is in IT and a young guy and some lady who was
a friend of a friend who is Irish and wearing a Lisboa triatholon
tshirt...(SIGNAL ONE TELLING ME TO GO BACK).but I still went.

Train from Tokyo to Gotemba, Taxi from Gotemba to the 5th station.

Walked 200 feet and I was panting and my heart was pounding. (Signal
two)

The three kids went ahead of me naturally and I put my foot in a hole
and fell down the ascending path onto the descending path in a forest
and a startled old man said to his son," What is he doing here?"

In the pitch black darkness I heard a voice, "you should be here" who
was just a voice in the darkness of a middle aged Japanese man like a
guardian angel.

The three people I was with I told not to let me slow them down and
even though I seriously was going to turn back, as soon as my heart
rested and my breathing was back to normal, I looked up at the moon
and thought, I am going to do this. At my own pace and I will just
have a little "me" time.

Each rest stop along the way is like an oasis, tin roofed huts that
sell everything for three times the price and also for 6,300 yen (a
business hotel charge) you can sleep on one of their futons in the
hut. The toilet is 200 yen and for a country that has 2 trillion USD
in personal savings...I kept wondering why haven't they built a tram
to the top? AND why do the toilets smell like ancient rotting
death....what I imagine the Egyptian tombs smelling like when they are
opened for the first time!?!

Fujii was/is a volcano. By the time you get past the rich soil of
forest, there is nothing. It is just rock and it gets steeper and
steeper and steeper. My pace, ended up being five steps and a rest of
about ten minutes. I wish I was joking but I am not. I then tried to
do one zig , rest then a zag. Thank God for my flashlight because it
is pitch black. I took a picture of the Ascending Route signs as if it
was out of Monty Python...YES YES, it IS an ASCENDING ROUTE....we can
tell!!!! I find that the strangest things give you reassurance that
you are not insane and have no business taking the stairs much less
climbing a 12,000 foot mountain...like people who were purging from
the exertion or had a bloody nose...oh I am not THAT bad!

The true goal of going without sleep and going to Mt.Fujii at night
and climbing all night is to reach the summit at 4:30 for sunrise,
then you descend. That is what I did eleven years ago. This time the
sun came up and I was about half way there. It was beautiful. The
country is actually very beautiful....something you forget living in
Tokyo. And the people are lovely. I rekindled my love affair with
Japanese people (in a different way) because strangers kept telling me
"Gambette" and one old man kept asking his kids how to say "where are
you from in English" and they wouldn't tell him and he just looked at
me and said "HURRY UP!" in English. A six year old kid named Miki was
walking up the peak talking a million miles a minute, a blind woman
passed me with her husband telling her where to put her feet literally
every step of the way. People asked if I was alone....and I said,
"well, yes...basically" and when they asked, "What? you don't have any
friends up here?" I shrugged, "well, NO, basically!"

I ran into Chris and the others as they were coming down and I was
going up, they didnt realize I was there and they were saying, "well
basically he is just too out of shape, I mean, I go to the gym at
least, you go to the gym...I have had relatives die from being that
fat and out of shape"...I then said, "G'day Chris" and he looked up
and said, "Oh, we were just talking about you" i said, "yes, I am in
worse shape then I thought" silence...... they said after the first
rest stop when they didnt see me that i may have turned back. that
they were on to an onsen and would call me.

The Japanese always have all the gear. The best pants, boots, little
protectors over the boots to keep sand and rocks from getting in, so
they chuckled as I took my trekking shoes off and emptied the rocks out.

So I finally reached the top. I was thrilled, I imagined there would
be a party of all the people who had encouraged me along the way just
waiting for me to get there. That they would run up to me and have
photos taken with me buy me a beer.

Instead I just stood in line and got my last stamp which was from the
shrine and they use a piece of metal to hammer it in. I had a bowl of
Curry Rice. BLOODY LOVELY dish. I dont know what it costs these days
but I paid 1,200 and people were watching me with envy. Miki, the six
year old finished a bowl of ramen and screamed that is was delicious!

I asked someone who had said that he had seen me on the way up the
mountain and by the way lived in New York and went to city college and
got his bachelors and masters and.......then I realized my Yankees hat
sparked all sorts of stories from strangers about New York.
He advised me to take the Yamaguchi trail down because it was just a
trail. There was no way I was going down the way I had come up, I had
no more strength left in my knees or legs.......then began the journey
from Hell and the worst experience of my life.....

The trail, I remember, was steep....Miki and I became friends as his
father kept asking him to hurry up, Miki asked if I knew what potato
chips were... DO I?

at one point people were just running down, I was afraid of losing my
traction, flying off a cliff and bashing my head on a boulder...so I
kept the breaks on the whole way....then the wind kicked up and dust
was everywhere, I forgot sunscreen and was getting burned (right now
my face is swollen as I was wind blown and burned the whole way
down)...my hands look like I put them in hot oil and let them cook.
the way they move things from one rest stop to the other is a
bulldozer which started towards me, since I couldn't run and I didnt
have the strength to get off the trail, it chased me like some horror
film...I finally found a ledge I could climb on to.

Then the rain clouds came and started to hear thunder and remember a
man was struck by lightening the previous week and died. I was wearing
metal glasses.....so I thought I had better take refuge in one of the
rest stops. The clouds went away and left a fog mist that gave me 10
foot visibility....I started back down the trail and walked passed a
small pile of bells which is where I imagine the man had been struck.
The remaining part of the trail was a 45 degree angle sand and rock
road. It was 2:30 and I slid down this path with ten feet visibility
for 2 hours and 30 minutes. When the path turned to forest and I
thought I had reached the end, it opened up to a new sand road. I had
no idea how long the path was going to last, I had no idea where the
exit was, my phone was dead.....I had no idea of anyones number but
the house in Napa who I thought I would have to call and wake up to
call Sean to wake up Cathy and Ed to call SS and tell him I was alive.
Finally, at 5pm, I walked out of the 5th station. For a trip that was
suppose to be up at 10 pm and to the summit by 4:30 and back ended up
being almost 20 hours.

I can now barely walk, I cannot sit or stand without help, my face is
swollen into the scowl I had coming down, I cannot feel my finger tips
on my right hand and my face, neck, lips and hands are burnt...every
muscle in my body is aching and this will take about six months to
recover if memory serves me right.

But I did it!

The boys are back

Is a beautiful Australian movie where there is a line, "Life is a journey that should be travelled, no matter how difficult the road."

Namesake

I saw the movie, "Namesake" loved the line, "You have journeyed to a place where there is no where else to go.!"

Lemonade

Today I saw the movie, "Lemonade" about people who are unemployed. It was very uplifting and I got a lot of interesting ideas out of this to keep moving forward.