High Stakes Algebra

In the category of "I told you so" research, this just in: People who walk errands typically weigh less.

Since 1981, my Walk Score has plummeted from New York City sneaker-brigade 100 (out of 100) to minivan-me 17.

Click for your Walk Score

True, Walk Score is a generalized index, need-focused with no jogging credit, limited to Google-imposed definitions that mean 7-11 counts as "grocery" store.

But facts are facts. And here are mine: My score is down and my weight is ... up.

The solution? That's on me. Again.

One Crazy Question

Surfing channels, I landed on 1959's boy-meets-girl beach classic, Gidget.

Familiar fluff, hokey happily ever after stuff. With sappy music.

Except this forgotten scene:

As war vet turned surf-bum Kahoona walks with Gidget along the shoreline, Gidget asks this "one crazy question" about his life style:

"What if you could go back ... what if something happened ... and you could choose all over again?"

Oh. My. God. Gidget food for 2008 thought.

Real friends ask tough questions. Offer hope, alternate endings.

That's not fluff. Or hokey. Nor slightly sappy.

Just classic.

Etched Hope

Weathered and worn, Martinez Fishing Pier intersects the Carquinez Strait where trains, boats, cars and planes do, making its view a would-be Richard Scarry Transportation Town.

Yesterday, though, I was into words.

God Loves You

I thought what I thought when I read it from an airplane, letters carved into field grass. What I thought when it was painted on hillside rocks.

I know, thanks. But ... Why. Are. You. Shouting?

Then I saw the tiny letters inserted mid-message: "doES NOT"

Whispered despair?

Angry spit?

Maybe, proof ... Some people remain hard of hearing.

Storied Truth

It's 1981, and I'm on a quest, literary-like.

573 solo sedan miles, the promised rendez-vous before I move to New York. Without him.

Peril pervades -- broken car, lost driver's license.

Then ... the cliff-edged snake, mountain parkway engulfed in heavy fog. I slow, gulp Tab, fantasize my fate:

Dead at 21, one trail clue -- 4:42 p.m., Ed's Market, soda.

But I live.

Shaken, I rebuff his first hungry kiss, half Granny-up -- settle, sip beer, cross-stitch.

Yes. Gnomes. No symbolism.

The lesson? My needs sometimes trump his wants, our love.

Khuri '47 -- Is it you, Pauline?

In a perfect Web 2.0 world, I'd already know. But the watercolor is pre-Internet, a recent estate sale find.

So instead, I'm Gretel gathering Google crumbs, churning them into cyber leaps, emails to strangers, long time colleagues of Pauline Khuri-Majoli, Art Professor Emeritus of Loyola Marymount University, retired since the eighties. My best guess at Khuri's identity.

Emails that boil down to this: Please help. I mean no harm. I'm just looking for color, the story behind the painting, its artist.

I hit SEND, a virtual serve, and wonder: Will someone play?

Obit Class

They show up every few days: Homespun life-stories, women of a certain age who succeeded against the odds, now gone.


Mid-obit, gloves come off. Intimidating. Strong-willed. Judgemental. Unexplained wounds elbow Mom's deals done, passionate pursuits, homemaker honors.

It's as if to say: Sure, the resume shines and she was quite the hostess -- but what about us? We had to live with it all, with her, for God's sake. Can you imagine?

Silenced, there is no retort. Until now:

So ... Mom held you to the same bar as she held herself?

Shameful.

Devil in the Eggs

Eyes forward to the counter but ears tuned to the table behind, I listen. Two men banter -- WWII food memories transition to today.

One needs a haircut. Apparently, happens often: "My grandfather had curly hair, curlier than Mo."

"You sure do have pretty hair for your age," says the other.

"It's the only thing that's left," half-laughs the first.

"Yes. You have good hair and lousy teeth. I have great teeth and lousy hair."

Breakfast over, I see proof: Thick and wavy, silver gray. Beautiful. Really. For any age.

Which would you choose?

We'll Always Have Monday

Thanks to WORDPLAY, the LFC documentary about the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, I've been tackling the beast. Again.

Back when I lived in NYC, I never filled in all the boxes. But Monday, my 6th grader and I came close. We figured:

P

U

Z

Z

L

E

S

R

U

S

On to Tuesday, Wednesday, even Thursday. By then we'd reworked the answer:

M

O

N

D

A

Y

S

R

U

S

I'd forgotten the progression -- the puzzle starts Monday, kitten-like, then builds to Sunday's monster. Today's puzzle? A nightmare.



On-line, though, it's puzzles-for-all. Archives. Mondays, back to 1996.

Perfect.

Renewed Views

Pitch it, I tell Windy, silent that my nieces once played in her bridesmaid choice, length lopped.

I hunt for pictures but find Windy's "Dear Girls" letter, a wedding what's what, sometimes by the hour:

4:30, Saturday: Guess what? We are going to dress at the church. It is fun that way and everyone looks fresh and "just pressed!"

And the swatch -- sent so shoes would match.


Together, more powerful than Kodak.

I am back ... at the Carolina Inn, twenty-three, grown-up and little all at once, awe-struck. My friend, married. The first.

Story Bets

Today's San Francisco Chronicle highlights a teen-produced documentary about Class of '81 Oakland teens credited with making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a California state holiday.


The film project started after Nick Parker, then 16, challenged a stranger to tell a story that would inspire him. That stranger had taught those Oakland kids.

Everyone knows stories can inspire. The question is -- when do they inspire?

Do we sprinkle stories and pray for germination? Or wait ... for the right moment, the right someone?

Maybe it's best to hedge. Try both. See what sticks.

Water Refreshment

I was returning to my towel, having used the hotel's bathroom, even though I wasn't a guest, when I spied the seagull. Walking along the hotel spa pool's otherwise deserted deck, it took a gentle hop-of-a-flight into a fresh-water glide.

If the bird noticed me, she didn't flinch. Perhaps she felt as I did: At that moment we had more in common with each other than I had with any hotel guest that might wander by.

Certainly, she was in no danger of my giving away her secret pond.

Beach Sights

It's high beach season.



It makes no difference whether you wear Hotel Del Coronado kaki and white...

... or tired workman's chinos.

To earn a living at the beach, the time to hustle is now. Have you noticed?

It's a hobby of mine, studying "invisible" workers: Clearing clutter, refilling vending machines, power washing piers, even trolling for empty cans and lost treasure. Useful work most vacationers take for granted. Workers we fail to see.

Okay -- perhaps I am too harsh.


It's true. This weekend, two vacationers did notice.







Two
others
even
joined
the
ranks.

Lucky Left

Not on any of the beach maps our hotel gave us, Tourmaline Surfing Park is the kind of spot locals love to keep a secret.

Today, impatience steered us to this sandy scallop embraced by coastal cliffs.

,
Already, we'd driven nine hours to San Diego. 45 minutes after hotel check-in, friends filled the mini-van to capacity and we set out for a quick pre-dinner beach hit. But the maps proved hard to read.



"Let's just turn left," I said, seeing shoreline a block west.

Proof -- once again -- luck is sometimes the better navigator.

Pear Down

A limb of our 100-year-old bartlet pear tree tore itself off today.

It landed next to the trunk, like it took a nose dive, no parachute.

True, a single pear weighs little.

But this branch, the width of a lady's wrist, held nine dozen. Toss them into a crate and your back strains to haul it to the minivan.

I feel strangely guilty, as if we asked Old Man Bartlet to do too much, that we should have realized, should have intervened. Anything.

Instead ... we did nothing. And time ran out.

Summer Read

Boring. That sums up, if not my 13th summer, then at least the diary that chronicles it. One of my favorite pages, though, is that summer's reading list.

Drug addiction and unwed mothers. Nazi camps, classic tortured love and more.




I inhaled these books, the way Harry Potter's Voldemort needs to feed off another to survive. You might interrupt me mid-chapter and find that far-away look of a reader lost in a story.



Boring? Maybe. Or was it just the diary's misguided writer? I wonder now if "lucky" better describes the real story.

Courting Comfort

My son is back at Excel in Basketball Camp. This week, the camp's theme is: Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.




Quiz: What do you see in this picture?
-------->

Look closer.



A flower blooms where it should probably die. And yet, it looks ... comfortable.




You idiot, you say, that's no flower. It's a weed.

Weed or flower, I don't care. I am jealous.

Challenges are everywhere. I face them as parent, spouse, writer, even friend. And that's just at home.

Discomfort is easy.



Get comfortable, I tell myself. Or ... risk losing more than a game.

Sister Secrets

I look at this picture and I'm filled with questions.


Why is Karen all buttoned up in her fancy winter coat and snow hat, but I'm in something akin to an Easter dress? Maybe Spring was hard that year? Or was it just my favorite hand-me-down church dress that Christmas?

Then there's the look on Karen's face -- like a secret lurks behind that cheshire grin. Karen is best at remembering childhood details. But I'm not going to ask. I'd rather believe I'm smiling because she's finally shared that secret with me.

Happy Trails

Forget shopping at REI. Just take Teresa on trail.

Emergency food. Toilet paper. Medical supplies. Binocculas. Animal track guides. Even an air horn. Teresa's pack has it all.

Our other hiking buddy doesn't just know CPR -- she teaches it.

"Thank goodness you're here, Barb," I said this morning, only half-joking, as we scaled yet another sun-baked hill.

I'm a sweaty writer in old running shoes, carrying water bottle, cell phone and Kodak. What about me?

My friends smiled.

"You have the camera," Teresa said. "I forgot mine."

Works for me.

Click.

Bridge Views

Cameras rarely enter San Francisco without taking Golden Gate Bridge shots. No surprise -- our visitor took dozens with his Nikon.




Recently, I had a vantage point new for me -- the water. We sailed towards the Golden Gate, under it, and back. All the while I click, click, clicked the Kodak.






News Flash: The line between unparalleled view and stellar photo easily blurs.





Luck, though, was with me in 2006:

I didn't notice then what is so clear now: My son's hair is Golden Gate orange.



Without him, it's just another digital Bridge dud.

Land of the Free

When flaunting American spirit, it helps to have a VISA.




Even so -- there are limits.

For these local veterans, $35 per vehicle was it. Way too much to pay to join a parade. So, after years of participating, they dropped out of Danville's.



Instead, today they met here, cut their engines and waited. It didn't take long for people to notice.
This is better, one veteran said. In the parade all you got to do was wave. Here they meet people, answer questions, tell stories.





Welcome back, Good Old Days.

We've missed you.