The Big Day.......
Yesterday, Amanda and I stayed bunkered in for the big occasion......weeping in public is not my thing.....even though we had some very sweet invitations for group bonding.
Plus the 7:30am start time did not match well with the 1:30am Monday Night Store closing.....
And.....it was beginning to occur to us that we had invested so much personal effort and personal worry and anxiety into the Obama campaign that we just wanted to experience his inauguration privately.
This was an event that we were so sure would never happen that our investment of hope and work and cash seemed like a form of suicide. You leap off the cliff in despair.....and land in a warm pool with mermaids....
Well.....plus the brutal hangover. Silver Oak '89, indeed.
Later that day I had an appointment about a wedding on the beach at Stillwater. Of course, Granpuppy had to go along. First test for the bride.....love me, love my dog.
Well, Brendan's dog.....
There is a certain class of brides-to-be, and mothers of brides-to-be that cast expectation before them like Red Army artillery......and leave in their wake the scorched earth and salted fields of wrecked creativity and spontaneity. Of course, these women often have all the money......so we are always tempted to try our hand at bidding the job.
This is where Grandpuppy comes in. Or Monday Night Dinner at The Store. Or a private tasting in Cachagua on a Sunday afternoon, with Grant and Pablo and Dave and the Store Chickens in full bloom. Not to mention the Compost Heap.....
Our view of weddings....beyond the obvious financial incentives.....is that they should actually be meaningful rites of passage, valuable to the families involved......and to society at large. We think our work is to facilitate that larger meaning.
Fucking dummies, us. Taking full responsibility for creating a successful wedding is like running a soccer team through a minefield. We should just stick to tri-tip and salmon, overbill the fuck out of people and clear out.....our obscene profits protected by reams of paper contracts, like our competitors.
At least my credit score would be up in triple digits......
This bride and mom hit the tri-fecta. Did not mind Puppy....even when he climbed the cliff and pillaged the fourth fairway of Pebble Beach. They pretended to be comfortable with Puppy running loose at their property, even as half the population of Guanajuato was busily installing brand new landscape all around us. When I demurred and put Puppy in the Jag, they insisted on shade and bottled water for the beast.
I will run through machine-gun fire for these ladies.....
Anyway, after the long meeting my contract with Puppy requires and equal time pillaging Carmel Beach. A walk the entire length.....from the eighth hole to Carmel Point....and back.....just about does it.
Puppy is still in possession of his 'nads.....despite the best efforts and wishes of every female of any species he has ever met....Carmel Valley Veterinary.....and the Animal Control folks at Carmel PD.
It is usually OK......though it is true that John Cherry once brought Amanda a box of condoms as a present on a sunny Sunday at The Store. When she blushed crimson (they were sweethearts thirty years ago...), John said: "No.....they are for your puppy. That is the humpin'est dog I EVER saw......"
Yesterday Xabi's fanatsies ran to black labs owned by mothers of young girls. Not good....but WAY better than the day he fell in love with every Standard Poodle on the Beach. Standard Poodle owners have control issues.....
Oh....and Amanda will no longer walk on Carmel Beach after the unfortunate Cavalier King Charles Spaniel day.......Don't ask.
It was another glorious Carmel winter afternoon.......the sun was almost blinding to us Irish folk. That was almost OK, as it helped to mask the other Irish anathema.....eye contact. That is another essay.
In the midst of all the ebb and flow of tides and kids and dogs and walkers, I ran across an eighty-something woman with a three-year old yellow lab. The lady had a ball throwing stick.....invented by Ayla of Clan of The Cave Bear if you are checking.....and was working hard at getting her dog to actually run and chase balls.
Xabi was not helpful. The lab wanted to play, and Xabi would run a bit....but his eyes were on the horizon and his heart was not in it. He was looking for black labs....with young girls. Kind of like Bill Clinton at a skinny blonde convention.....polite, but looking for dark hair, and some heft.
While I chatted with the nice lady, she immediately turned to the events of the day. Like everone else I know, she felt her life had been validated by Obama's inauguration....or at least a big part of her recent life.
She went on a bit.....and we chatted about each other a tad. She had news for me that Sherry Van Bibber had survived her triple anyeurism...saved by her dog trainer's wife from what was demonstrably not a bad headache.
Sherry lives across the street from The Store, and is a horse and dog icon for almost a generation, and some random dog lady on Carmel Beach knew more about her brush with death than I did.
While we were talking, the lady had been aimlessly dragging her ball-throwing stick through the wet sand....while I prayed that Puppy would run her dog, and not madly hump her dog.....
Xabi finally trotted back and gave me a look.....like a gay man abandoned for a quarter hour in a Florsheim shop: Enough!
I turned to go and looked at the sand behind us. My new friend had carved a big "Obama!" with her throwing stick.
It had been unconscious, and she gave a verbal blush......"What do you know?"
I gave her a kiss......
Plus the 7:30am start time did not match well with the 1:30am Monday Night Store closing.....
And.....it was beginning to occur to us that we had invested so much personal effort and personal worry and anxiety into the Obama campaign that we just wanted to experience his inauguration privately.
This was an event that we were so sure would never happen that our investment of hope and work and cash seemed like a form of suicide. You leap off the cliff in despair.....and land in a warm pool with mermaids....
Well.....plus the brutal hangover. Silver Oak '89, indeed.
Later that day I had an appointment about a wedding on the beach at Stillwater. Of course, Granpuppy had to go along. First test for the bride.....love me, love my dog.
Well, Brendan's dog.....
There is a certain class of brides-to-be, and mothers of brides-to-be that cast expectation before them like Red Army artillery......and leave in their wake the scorched earth and salted fields of wrecked creativity and spontaneity. Of course, these women often have all the money......so we are always tempted to try our hand at bidding the job.
This is where Grandpuppy comes in. Or Monday Night Dinner at The Store. Or a private tasting in Cachagua on a Sunday afternoon, with Grant and Pablo and Dave and the Store Chickens in full bloom. Not to mention the Compost Heap.....
Our view of weddings....beyond the obvious financial incentives.....is that they should actually be meaningful rites of passage, valuable to the families involved......and to society at large. We think our work is to facilitate that larger meaning.
Fucking dummies, us. Taking full responsibility for creating a successful wedding is like running a soccer team through a minefield. We should just stick to tri-tip and salmon, overbill the fuck out of people and clear out.....our obscene profits protected by reams of paper contracts, like our competitors.
At least my credit score would be up in triple digits......
This bride and mom hit the tri-fecta. Did not mind Puppy....even when he climbed the cliff and pillaged the fourth fairway of Pebble Beach. They pretended to be comfortable with Puppy running loose at their property, even as half the population of Guanajuato was busily installing brand new landscape all around us. When I demurred and put Puppy in the Jag, they insisted on shade and bottled water for the beast.
I will run through machine-gun fire for these ladies.....
Anyway, after the long meeting my contract with Puppy requires and equal time pillaging Carmel Beach. A walk the entire length.....from the eighth hole to Carmel Point....and back.....just about does it.
Puppy is still in possession of his 'nads.....despite the best efforts and wishes of every female of any species he has ever met....Carmel Valley Veterinary.....and the Animal Control folks at Carmel PD.
It is usually OK......though it is true that John Cherry once brought Amanda a box of condoms as a present on a sunny Sunday at The Store. When she blushed crimson (they were sweethearts thirty years ago...), John said: "No.....they are for your puppy. That is the humpin'est dog I EVER saw......"
Yesterday Xabi's fanatsies ran to black labs owned by mothers of young girls. Not good....but WAY better than the day he fell in love with every Standard Poodle on the Beach. Standard Poodle owners have control issues.....
Oh....and Amanda will no longer walk on Carmel Beach after the unfortunate Cavalier King Charles Spaniel day.......Don't ask.
It was another glorious Carmel winter afternoon.......the sun was almost blinding to us Irish folk. That was almost OK, as it helped to mask the other Irish anathema.....eye contact. That is another essay.
In the midst of all the ebb and flow of tides and kids and dogs and walkers, I ran across an eighty-something woman with a three-year old yellow lab. The lady had a ball throwing stick.....invented by Ayla of Clan of The Cave Bear if you are checking.....and was working hard at getting her dog to actually run and chase balls.
Xabi was not helpful. The lab wanted to play, and Xabi would run a bit....but his eyes were on the horizon and his heart was not in it. He was looking for black labs....with young girls. Kind of like Bill Clinton at a skinny blonde convention.....polite, but looking for dark hair, and some heft.
While I chatted with the nice lady, she immediately turned to the events of the day. Like everone else I know, she felt her life had been validated by Obama's inauguration....or at least a big part of her recent life.
She went on a bit.....and we chatted about each other a tad. She had news for me that Sherry Van Bibber had survived her triple anyeurism...saved by her dog trainer's wife from what was demonstrably not a bad headache.
Sherry lives across the street from The Store, and is a horse and dog icon for almost a generation, and some random dog lady on Carmel Beach knew more about her brush with death than I did.
While we were talking, the lady had been aimlessly dragging her ball-throwing stick through the wet sand....while I prayed that Puppy would run her dog, and not madly hump her dog.....
Xabi finally trotted back and gave me a look.....like a gay man abandoned for a quarter hour in a Florsheim shop: Enough!
I turned to go and looked at the sand behind us. My new friend had carved a big "Obama!" with her throwing stick.
It had been unconscious, and she gave a verbal blush......"What do you know?"
I gave her a kiss......
posted by Txacoli at 9:24 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmmm the Irish and eye contact, ya know its soooo true. I have always had a problem with the eye contact thing and I always thought I was just weird...turns out its all that Irish ancestry huh? I know a lot of other folks in my genetic grouping that also stare at the horizon while talking rather than lock eyes....how interesting.
sorry to harp on this subject, but I found it so damn amusing and would love to read your future essay on Irish eye contact. But the more I thought about it today, I realized that eye contact is made for 3 reasons- your so drunk you cant focus your eyes anyway and your communing with your new 'best freind' or your making a clear invitation to a knock down blow out fight...or a knock down blow out fuck. And us Irish are renowned for drinking, fighting and making more kids, I have carte blanch to make fun as I am adept at all three, Hahaha.
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