A Day in the Life......

I heard the news to day......oh ho.

The Blog has lots of different readers.

We have food folk, politics folk, gossip folk.

Some are homesick and far away and want a taste of California, or Carmel, or Carmel Valley, or Cachagua.

Taste of Cachagua? Don’t go there.

So.....for those folks.....I bring you:

Today at The Cachagua Store:

It was a gorgeous 84 degrees with perfect filtered sunshine. The creek is still running, so the mellifluous sounds of cold water over rocks is a gentle background to all that happens.

It was warm enough that the compost really stared cooking. The black plastic almost melted into the piles in the heat. The chickens and peacocks stood around waiting for something to move that they could eat.

How romantic!

The Vibo-Meter was set on "Kindness and Understanding".

Among the news:

Melody got up at 4am to make pot brownies for By and Connie. They were going fishing. She had to get up early because she burned the butter the previous night. She gave one brownie…actually a cupcake…to Amanda. Amanda gave it to Grant, who got so high he forgot to be annoying. Grant came in later and said it was one of the best days he can remember. Which would mean it is better than yesterday.

Grant is waiting for the Creek to stop flowing so that he can have his old bedroom back. He spent the winter with Mexican Christian Evangelists and got new teeth….but they don’t fit right, and Jesus is wearing a bit thin…..

Grandma DeeDee spent the day at The Store…..talking and reminiscing. Kira, the reporter for Monterey County Weekly spent the day on the bench with Grandma DeeDee, trying to assess the situation at Jensen Camp.

Grandma DeeDee was so happy at being able to tell nice stories about Cachagua that Amanda thinks she will die now. She has lived here for 70 years, and just wants people to think well of Cachagua. I wish Conall were still here to record some of her stuff…….

Toddy came in and wanted to talk to the reporter as well….about Officer Cocksucker. Amanda had to explain to Kira that she had to interview Toddy out back, because Grandma DeeDee hates him.

James, the unemployed Union Carpenter got a part-time gig with Duncan tomorrow….after heavy lobbying from yours truly. This morning he was on his way to Barney’s and stopped in for coffee. Amanda had hidden the last pint of Coconut Pineapple Haagen Dasz under the frozen foods for Barney, and sent it along with James. She is hoping this will make up for her mistaking Barney’s new girlfriend with the wooden leg for his mother last weekend…….

Christine came in and was cold to Amanda. Last weekend we came in to work for Sunday Brunch and found that someone had done Diggy Donuts in the parking lot and filled the porches with rocks, dust and gravel. These folks had also kept the Camp up half the night…..and carved “Fuck Mexicans” into the sandstone message board on Cachagua Road.

We instantly knew it was Robin….he is already banned from The Store for doing Donuts in the parking lot and almost killing Store Kitty. Amanda made a giant sign from butcher paper that hung across The Store all last Sunday:

“Donut Boy Sucks!”

All day long people came in and inquired about doughnuts: “I didn’t know you guys had doughnuts! What…no delivery?”

Christine says that it wasn't Robin.....She knows who it was, but isn't telling.

Meanwhile.....Wednesday morning found me at the sandstone in my chef's coat scratching out "Fuck Mexicans"......and scratching in: "Metal is Gay!"

Giant James came in and sat out back holding court. He was The Connection for a long time, but now lives in The Desert. Giant James is Jabba The Hutt. He was The Man for a long time. He used to keep Amber The Whore on a string….he traded sexual favors for crack, and confiscated her psych meds for re-sale.

Amanda tried to save the girl, and was even her designated financial executor for a while. The State pays Amber $1100 a month for being a Polar Bear…..sorry, bi-polar. Plus health care and meds. When Amanda balked at writing checks to Giant James supposedly for food, Amber reported her to The State as an embezzler. We had State Auditors poring through Amber's charge account at The Store. They rejected a couple of charges where Amber bought notebooks, pen and paper as being inedible.

Amber still is on the State tit, and has a doctor in Soledad who prescribes her enough State sponsored drugs so that she so she can re-sell them and can pay for gas for her Mercedes and her extra-curricular fun. She doesn’t bother with the whole license and insurance thing for the Mercedes. She was never stopped, which probably has nothing to do with the fact that our local Sheriff was sleeping with the daughter of the other local crack dealer, who took over when Giant James moved to The Desert.

And Amber doesn’t need to worry about rent, since she is in State sponsored Section 8 housing.

Oh, and to receive State and Federal Polar Bear money, or Section 8 housing, you don’t need to pee into a cup….ever.

Go ahead and wonder why I am a Barry Bonds fan……..

Giant James is so fat that he used to pull up in front of the store in his truck and honk for service. He sat and chatted with his two sons, Grant and James the Union Carpenter out back. Giant James asked about me in a kindly way.

I have employed both his sons….the elder at Silver Jones back in the day. He had worked for us for a couple of years when I asked him to drive the van to Seaside for a smog check.

He declined…..and I asked “Why not?”

“I don’t have a license!”

“Shit, you drove to Laguna Seca and back last weekend….”

“Yeah, but that was at 4am!”

“What….did you get a DUI?”

"Mike….I am only 13!”

We later wrote letters and got this kid into the CIA in Hyde Park. He parlayed that into some gigs in Denver and Las Vegas and did very well. He stopped cooking and now runs all the computer stuff for a local government agency. My ex-landlords at Rippling River, in fact.

The second son was drifting towards Idiot Land like his Dad…..so I lent him $5k to buy a truck, and set him up with a pretend loan at the bank to establish credit. This is after the whole family took me to the Labor Board for supposedly under-paying one of the sons…..and they were embarrassed by their forged paperwork….which in California means it was really bad forgeries. Second Son used the truck to drive to a job, and now he is a Union road worker. Still hasn’t actually paid me back….but whatever.

Meanwhile….Kayla the Hippy dumped 20 chickens at our house and built a Hippy Chicken Coop….from which the chickens escaped in four minutes. They spent the next year living in the oak trees outside my room with a dysnumeric rooster who would start crowing at 3am. I used to bring home empty champagne and wine bottles from catering and line them up on the deck railing to throw into the trees in the middle of the night to try to kill the crowing roosters and chickens. It never worked.

Chicken Super-Heroes. Who knew?

Finally the ex-wife of one of the major old-school, Native American gangster families who was working as a bartender for us and living with Giant James at his compound in Arroyo Seco came by and collected the chickens. It took us hours to catch them, and the vision of this woman running around through the woods in a faded grey sports bra.... chasing crazed super-chickens through the poison oak….would be better than chemical castration for sex offenders.

At one point her frustration led to automatic weapon fire at the rooster.

My neighbor Marilyn called up: “Michael, is everything OK? I thought I heard an AK-47…..”

“No Marilyn…..it's fine.....one of the Chioni women is trying to shoot a rooster….It is not sighted in......”

“Oh, OK then. Just checking…..”

The chickens were eventually caught and moved to James the Giant’s compound in Arroyo Seco....aka "Meth Land". I later heard that the chickens were so violent that they pecked to death the rabbits in the next pen and ate their brains. The rooster was donated to Hacienda Hay and Feed at Mid Valley…and still lives a happy dysnumeric life.

It was nice to hear that James the Giant thinks well of me….

It was a gorgeous day in Cachagua.