Posted 1:54 PM by Michelle
It’s a go!


I’ve accepted a new job, about which I cannot now and possibly may never be able to talk specifically, but suffice to say that it is very exciting and I cannot wait to begin. I have two more weeks, starting today, at my current place of business, and those weeks are going to be challenging in all sorts of ways. First and foremost, I coordinate the classes where I work, and there are no classes to coordinate for three weeks. So basically I get to watch paint dry and look like I’m busy. Fun, fun, fun. After the 4th of July weekend, I will officially dive into my new job. As the days progress, I’ll feel out what I can make public, but the job itself is exceedingly high-profile so I’ll do my best to keep my big mouth shut.

Quitting a job is a hard thing to do. You think that you’ve got the best possible words and timing, but something ALWAYS goes wrong. When I quit my job at a winery earlier this year, I had already planned a trip out east that was approved and my shifts were covered. I gave two weeks and was gone for most of them, but wasn’t scheduled anyway, but then when I got home the winery asked me to work an extra weekend which I couldn’t because I was already starting the new job. Which pissed off everyone at the winery. Clearly not the best timing, but I thought my bases were covered. And now, I made the mistake of telling my boss’s boss first, because my boss (as usual) was out of town, so she didn’t even get to hear it from me. She thought I’d chosen to go behind her back, and she is a very defensive, suspicious creature, so I’ve had to deal with her hurt feelings all morning. But I wanted to give proper notice; I did not plan for her to be gone the day I had to tell this company that I’m leaving.

All in all, though, my three bosses have been very supportive and excited for me. My direct boss is not entirely surprised, because she knows what an ugly uphill battle this institution is. I think I will be able to keep good relations with the other higher-ups as well- when they heard what I will be doing, they understood completely and were very disappointed to lose me but happy for my new opportunity.

So that’s that. In other news…

I’ve been following all the articles on BBC news about the genocide in Rwanda. I’ve actually been reading about it and studying it for years, because when it was happening, I knew nothing about it. In 1994 I was ensconced in my Musical Theatre BFA program, heedless and careless of what was going on not just outside my country, but outside my college. Which is strange considering how politically active I’d been the years prior. But I knew nothing- I’d never heard of Tutsis or Hutus and maybe, just maybe didn’t even know the meaning of the word “genocide”. (Interestingly, that very meaning is the one Clinton skirted around for dismally long.) Historians say it is one of the worst events of the 20th century, along with the Holocaust.

Sometimes it seems as though I can’t absorb all of the evils of the world- I have to pick and choose which ones I can deal with in any given period of time. I know as much about the Holocaust as the next person, which is to say, not that much. I visited Dachau in southern Germany, I’ve read as many articles and books as I’ve been able (including the incredible Maus comics), but there is only so far I can go, so much I can explore in that chapter of history. However, the events in Rwanda have captivated me. This is something that happened in my lifetime, when I was an adult. Not knowing about it happening at the time may have fueled my gentle obsession, but regardless, it’s something I’ve had to look at close up. I’ve not shied away from one picture or one fact, and god knows if you want to know all the gruesome, horrific details of what happened, the information is out there.

I guess it’s just the question of what can make a man take up a machete and drive it into the heads of his neighbor’s children. Clearly there was a group-think conceived in hatred happening, a horrible join-or-be-killed ideology, but there also was so much more, so much violent hatred, so much blame, but also so much I will never, ever, ever understand. I suppose if I can understand abandoning people you love, or the capability to hit or in any way abuse people you love, I could extrapolate that to even more violent behavior. And I know that there is a way, somehow, to make other people seem less human. The forefathers of this country succeeded swimmingly in that pursuit. But somehow I just can’t let it go, can’t stop reading and learning about it. Especially now, when the things that we thought would never happen on US soil, or to Americans, have come to pass.



Regarding the apparent execution of Paul M. Johnson Jr., our President Bush said, “America will not be intimidated by these kinds of extremist thugs."

Well, Mr. President, I’m intimidated. I’m certainly intimidated by that kind of anger and hatred. But I think that as a man and a president, I’m just as terrified of what you’ve done.

Posted 4:24 PM by Michelle
I was just sitting here, minding my own business, staring absently at my computer screen when my contact fell out of my left eye. Just fell right out and plopped onto my keyboard. Yeesh.

But, dear readership, that is not the story I’m here to tell.

I had dinner at Calistoga Ranch last night, which is the brand-spanking new resort here in the Napa Valley, owned and operated by the folks who brought us the ever-awesome Auberge. This is going to be a treatise, a treatment, a rare, detailed description of What Can Go Wrong When No One Is At the Wheel. Or, Very Sucky Expensive Dinner.

I should have known when we pulled off the Silverado Trail onto a little sweet back road, only to see “Calistoga Ranch” and an arrow crudely spray-painted onto a plank resting at the base of a dwindling tree. Jon and I looked at each other and said, “Mmmm. Classy.” We drove up into the parking lot where two lonely cars looked over a man-made ravine. A sign said “Wait here for attendant”. So we did. And then we finally got out of the car and went up to the reception area and talked to a woman who had been looking out the window at us for some time. She fetched a valet, who showed up with a golf cart to drive us up into the main body of the resort.

And it was beautiful. Rustic, smelling of both fresh cut wood and woods, trees and flowers. Each “unit”, or hotel room, is a freestanding building sharing no walls. After a seven minute drive we were dropped off at the restaurant. The valet cheerfully took our $5 tip. We found our friends and embarked on the best part of the evening- a tour of the rooms and spa. It was incredible. The bedrooms in each unit are separated from the living space so if you have friends over to your room, they aren’t actually in your sleeping space. Everything was marble, brick, wood and copper, hot tubs in the decks below the stars, Egyptian cotton spreads, beautifully detailed furniture. The spa was outrageous- particularly the couples massage room- and the two-person outdoor granite tubs and copper showers inspired fantasies galore.

But then we had to go back to eat dinner.

Our reservation was at 7:30, and we probably didn’t sit down until 8:30. We sat on the deck overlooking a huge man-made pond, complete with ducks and swans and vigorously healthy population of mosquitoes. Lucky for everyone else I was there; the mosquitoes ate more of me than I did of my dinner. We took turns looking over the wine list, and I was told to order the first bottle. I chose a steely, racy Chablis, since I don’t drink it very often. I then passed along the list and we started discussing the menu. A full twenty minutes later, the bartender comes over with the bottle of wine and presents it to one of my friends, a man, at the far end of the table. He looks at it, and then says, “Oh, they ordered that down there,” gesturing towards us. So the bartender walks over to my friend Jon and presents the bottle to him. “She ordered it,” says Jon, pointing to me. I can’t help it. I’ve got a gimlet in me already, and I’m pissed. “You really shouldn’t assume,” I said to the bartender, who is also a friend and who was responsible for getting us this reservation where only members are supposed to eat. “Just because I’m blonde and goofy looking, don’t always present to the men. Man, you know who is at this table!” I’m trying to laugh while I say this.

He finally shows me the bottle, then circles around to the other side of Jon, and pours Jon a taste. At this point, I’m defeated. Jon scoots the glass over to me, I swirl it, put it down and say, “It’s too warm.” And it was. It was actually room temperature, and “room” meaning a hot night outside. The bartender looks at me, nods, and then pours Jon a full glass. “Wait, uh, too warm to drink at all right now!” I say, and the bartender looks at me, and then leaves to go put the bottle in the fridge, leaving the very full glass of warm Chablis on the table.

The night only got worse.

We didn’t get to drink the Chablis for at least another 45 minutes. And our food took so long it became funny. It was well after 10 PM when we actually got our first salad course, and close to midnight before we saw dessert menus. My bedtime these days is 10:30 or so, so I was getting truly sleepy at the table. The salmon course was excellent, but ANYTHING is excellent if you are made to wait long enough for it. We even started to tire of each other, taking long trips to the loo or away to make phone calls.

And here’s the thing: there were four other tables at the restaurant. “Tables” meaning tables with someone sitting at them. What do they do when the place is full? Or will it ever be? It was remarkably, laughably bad from start to finish (except for the salmon- oh, my, the salmon) and when we got the many-hundred-dollar check (paid for by the best friend a girl could ask for), it only confirmed what I’ve always known: SERVICE SUCKS IN NAPA VALLEY. Don’t come here looking for world-class dinners, even though it’s a world-class setting with a few world-class wines. You do NOT get what you pay for in this town. If hard-working American citizens are going to drop hundreds of dollars on a MEAL rather than, oh I don’t know, donating it to a homeless shelter or something a little more worthwhile, then it better be a transcendent experience. Clearly we are lucky as hell to even spend 5 bucks on dinner (which is about what I could have afforded last night) but last night was a waste of time and resources.

That’s the end of my rant. Back to my regularly scheduled diatribes about men, President Bush, foreign policy, garden management, etc.

Posted 9:30 AM by Michelle
I’m starting to think that maybe having a garden is utterly selfish. And crazy expensive. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to pay for water and I can’t help obsessing about it. Every time I turn on the water to wash dishes, I see greenbacks pouring down the drain. I wait until I’m absolutely desperate to do a load of laundry, and the days of me standing in the shower, hair lifted, drumming water on my back, are long gone. I’m also realizing how much water one little ‘ol person consumes. I live alone and yet when I think about the shower, toilet, kitchen sink, bathroom sink, washing machine AND garden I just can’t believe how much water I use. And what was I thinking, planting things in earth so dry and hard-packed that the tree roots have risen to the surface in hopes of someday feeling rain.

And am I going to eat every single tomato that grows on the vines? I can hope that each of the four plants will ripen at different rates but HOW CAN I EAT FOUR PLANT’S WORTH OF TOMATOES???? Seriously, what was I thinking. My squash plant is wilted by about 2 in the afternoon, long before the hottest hours, and I have to cover it with a slatted deck chair and spritz it with more precious water if I want it to survive the day. I sit out there, in my lovely yard, and watch liquid money dance all over my baby plants while simultaneously usurping what feels like half the world’s clean water supply. I mean, clearly this is my latest neurosis but I’m confronted with it every day. It’s an interesting exercise, having to pay for what I consume. I wonder how many hamburger eaters would be willing to kill, skin, and butcher a cow. I wonder how many hamburger eaters actually think about the life extinguished in the process of creating said hamburger.

I don’t think I’ve broken the fact on this blog that I am now officially a flesh eater. The only thing I can stand is fish, and lighter, whiter fish at that, but I’ve probably eaten something that had a mother every day for a solid month. It was my baker’s fault; he cooked me scallops. But he was also thankful, clearly, openly thankful for every beast that died in order to create sustenance. I’d never met anyone who actually thought about these things, and it certainly goes in the Top Ten Reasons Why My Baker is One of the Coolest Men Ever.

But I digress. Who am I to plant a garden when I’m surrounded by excess? There are hundreds of heirloom tomatoes at the farmer’s market every Friday, and every week I can’t eat the last one or two that I bought the week before. Those will keep appearing, and they are probably grown in soil far better suited to plant life and therefore far less wasteful. Yes, they are a whopping $3.50 a pound, and that certainly sucks, but god knows that by the end of summer I’ll have spent exponentially more on my water bill, and probably shaved years off my life because of all my guilt.

Oh, and these stupid little bugs are eating my basil. Damn bugs! Stay off my favorite herb! (Which, incidentally, needs very little water.)

The skin tags on my face are back, as is my plantar fasciitis and eczema. Man, getting old sucks. Know why I’m feeling older all of a sudden? Because it’s BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! Only fourteen shopping days left!

Well. That was a paltry effort. I’ve been lax in creating birthday months for the past couple of years. It’s June 12 and there has yet to be fun of any kind.

Maybe for my birthday I should ask Mother Nature for summer rains.