Deborah, Adinah and I drove up to Napa last week. A trip of any distance and to last some duration of minimal significance requires the cargo carrier to be mounted on the roof of the Forester, as well as the bike hitch to be snagged onto the rear. When we travel in this car we look like we’re running away from home. It’s like the dust bowl or something and we’ve stuffed every earthly possession into the deceptively small (don’t buy a Forester) rear of the car and the rest sorta clumsily into the surfboard shaped photon-torpedo on the roof. Frankly it looks stupid. I hitched the bike incorrectly the first time and about two miles from home it collapsed onto National Boulevard and I moronically dragged my bike for about fifty feet. My handlebars were bent and the wheels got fouled up too. I wasn’t about to turn the car around and put the bike back, so I re-hitched it and all was well after that. I hadn’t noticed the damage until we arrived in Napa anyhow and lo and behold the bike was still road-worthy despite the thrashing.
So we get to this place in Napa; The River Pointe Inn. Sounds posh, and in fact it’s quite nice. It’s like a make-believe little neighborhood of vacation cottages, all protruding from their lots (or slots), perfectly parallel, but each at a diagonal. The whole place is well coiffed and very clean – but get this – the cottages are freakin’ trailers. And this is coming from a person who’s worked in double-wide trailers for the last 10+ years; you’re not supposed to know you’re in a trailer when you’re in a trailer. At my place of employment, they raise them off the wheels with these metal pylons, and then strap the steel beams underneath directly to the parking lot. It’s like being in a house. It’s solid and secure. The River Pointe Inn apparently has plans to put the whole operation up on pontoons and head for the high seas at a minute’s notice because these buggars are still on their wheels. So you’re in this nice, albeit narrow little cottage with a couple of TV’s and a whole kitchen and a full size frig and dishwasher – the works. And it wobbles. Yes, you read it right. When my wife was coming down the hall, I knew it. At first I thought this was our first Northern California seismic excitement. But nothing so glamorous. I almost went to the front desk, demanded our money back and hauled the whole Singer-Frankes vacation caravan back downstate to LA at that moment.
I had just finished my time at Siggraph – the big annual computer graphics convention where the very hungry for work and attention meet the very geeky and hungry for attention and everyone has a big look-at-this-neat-thing moment together. So I had an interview with a major animation studio only to learn that they were looking for more “senior” people in that specialization. So I was feigning joy on my vacation – having stayed up hours for months finishing my animation piece, only to have my expectations farted upon by men who looked tired and finished with their careers. But hey, I had an interview. So someone must think I have something to offer. Cue violins and break out the handkerchiefs.
So when I got into this glorified trailer unit, which waggled and wobbled with each stride and nobody else had called me for an interview, and it was the nine days before Tisha B’Av – it was just a pesky pile of things which made me pissy and short-tempered. I was feeling some relief, but I was also seeing a big dark depression looming just around the soft tires of this trailer and with each creak of the floor, my life was on uncertain ground. So I biked to the Trader Joe’s, stuffed a bunch of good grub into my knapsack, grilled up some really fresh steak and chicken, had some nice local grape nectar and things began to get better. Amazing that the TJ’s in Napa has Aaron Rubashkin’s rib eye steaks. I guess we weren’t the only Yiddin’ vacationing in wine country. Still ahead was biking up the Silverado Trail to the Mumm winery where I was to sample some very special Pinot Noir sparkling beverage. Nice. The iPod is an amazing invention. It was made for bicycling. It’s too good to have the Napa Valley in front of you, sun shining, a bike lane on a lovely road, and your personal radio station playing in your ears. It just doesn’t get better – truly.
So we get to this place in Napa; The River Pointe Inn. Sounds posh, and in fact it’s quite nice. It’s like a make-believe little neighborhood of vacation cottages, all protruding from their lots (or slots), perfectly parallel, but each at a diagonal. The whole place is well coiffed and very clean – but get this – the cottages are freakin’ trailers. And this is coming from a person who’s worked in double-wide trailers for the last 10+ years; you’re not supposed to know you’re in a trailer when you’re in a trailer. At my place of employment, they raise them off the wheels with these metal pylons, and then strap the steel beams underneath directly to the parking lot. It’s like being in a house. It’s solid and secure. The River Pointe Inn apparently has plans to put the whole operation up on pontoons and head for the high seas at a minute’s notice because these buggars are still on their wheels. So you’re in this nice, albeit narrow little cottage with a couple of TV’s and a whole kitchen and a full size frig and dishwasher – the works. And it wobbles. Yes, you read it right. When my wife was coming down the hall, I knew it. At first I thought this was our first Northern California seismic excitement. But nothing so glamorous. I almost went to the front desk, demanded our money back and hauled the whole Singer-Frankes vacation caravan back downstate to LA at that moment.
I had just finished my time at Siggraph – the big annual computer graphics convention where the very hungry for work and attention meet the very geeky and hungry for attention and everyone has a big look-at-this-neat-thing moment together. So I had an interview with a major animation studio only to learn that they were looking for more “senior” people in that specialization. So I was feigning joy on my vacation – having stayed up hours for months finishing my animation piece, only to have my expectations farted upon by men who looked tired and finished with their careers. But hey, I had an interview. So someone must think I have something to offer. Cue violins and break out the handkerchiefs.
So when I got into this glorified trailer unit, which waggled and wobbled with each stride and nobody else had called me for an interview, and it was the nine days before Tisha B’Av – it was just a pesky pile of things which made me pissy and short-tempered. I was feeling some relief, but I was also seeing a big dark depression looming just around the soft tires of this trailer and with each creak of the floor, my life was on uncertain ground. So I biked to the Trader Joe’s, stuffed a bunch of good grub into my knapsack, grilled up some really fresh steak and chicken, had some nice local grape nectar and things began to get better. Amazing that the TJ’s in Napa has Aaron Rubashkin’s rib eye steaks. I guess we weren’t the only Yiddin’ vacationing in wine country. Still ahead was biking up the Silverado Trail to the Mumm winery where I was to sample some very special Pinot Noir sparkling beverage. Nice. The iPod is an amazing invention. It was made for bicycling. It’s too good to have the Napa Valley in front of you, sun shining, a bike lane on a lovely road, and your personal radio station playing in your ears. It just doesn’t get better – truly.
One man from Tarnopol tells of his parents’ divorce. Odd, sort of not culturally in my scope of mythology, that is for people originating in Eastern Europe in the interwar period. But people obviously did get divorced in those days, in that place too. His uncle, who took him under his wing; enjoyed playing cards. The man, now in his seventies, recalls, like ritual, in the dark off to the side of his bed finding the glass of milk with a chocolate bar placed on top, each night – a gift from his uncle. Another person, a different survivor, one who survived massacre and horror at that infamous factory of hellish memories near Katowice, Poland – that place whose name has become synonymous with the Holocaust itself; that place whose name I will not type today. Just one day without typing that name. She lost her daughter in 1979, to a blood clot in the brain.
Today I tried, at least with some semblance of dignity, to assist in hauling a box (one heavy pine box) containing a perished person to her final place. I managed to do so without allowing the pinching pain in my palms and wrists to weaken me to the point that I would actually drop my corner. I felt very much at one with the earth. I had some pebbles and stuff in my loafer when I entered Starbuck’s later to get my green tea frappucino. And I had just a touch more patience with the barista when she got my order wrong.
My brother Izzy released a new CD of his latest songs, entitled "Fall of a New Day." My personal favorite tracks are “Mind The Store,” and “Solitary Kiss.” I wish I was there sometimes, to help him mind the store.
