SHE GOT TO GO TO GIA'S PARTY, AFTER ALL

Aubrey has handled the delay to move to Ashland this summer better than all of us. A move-out date of August 15 means she got her big wish: she got to go to her best pal Gia's birthday party.

It's importance? Well, one morning in May, I learned it. As we were getting ready for school, Aubrey asked me, "Is August before June, Mom?"

I'd quickly answered, "Nope. You know that! You know... June, July, August?" and winked at her and kept brushing my teeth, or something trivial (oops, sorry Mick) like that.

At that point, Aubrey just crumpled onto the floor, sobbing. With huge tears streaming down her face she'd cried, "Then I'm going to miss Gia's birthday!" (That's when we thought we might have to move in June.)

I knelt down beside her shuddering little bod and held her for a while like that, realizing that at that moment she was really grasping our imminent move and what it would mean to say goodbye to close friends. It even made me feel sad to think of what it would mean to leave.

So, anyway, it turns out she didn't have to miss the party, and she/we have been able to say heartfelt goodbyes to all our friends with this extra time. In fact, we've said goodbye to several people several times, but that's just fine by us.

A Bone Thrown

Just so folks don't think I've stopped blogging completely, here's a mini-update:

We're saying leisurely goodbyes to friends down in Marin in these last weeks before our move to Ashland.

Last night I got to say goodbye to the Writing Mamas over snacks and wine after salon, earlier in the week we said goodbye over meals to Scott/Toni/Jade, Kelly/Richard/Maya/Emily/?, and Celine/Leandro/Vincent/Amelie.

The kids have had chances to play with (say goodbye to) their pals, Nick, Mia, Josh, Abby, Makayla, Gia, and Jade.

And today, Jacob, Dane, Josh and Mick are at the batting cages, while Aubrey and I are headed to the library, Starbucks, and Ross to buy a birthday gift for Gia.

In the meantime, the apartment is about half-packed, if I had to guess -- and lots of excess has been taken to the Good Will or to the dumpster. That makes me very happy.

That's all for now...

It's not a Craftsman, but it's cool!

We nabbed a great one-year rental last week, up behind Southern Oregon University (SOU). It's owned by an artist who did the remodel herself, and it was written up in the paper. Go here if you want to check it out: http://www.aliciamannix.com/mailtrib1-05.pdf

Two days after we put down our deposit, the owner/artist asked if we'd like her to leave much of it furnished, which is wonderful and hilarious since just the day before I'd written a huge list of stuff we'd have to buy to furnish the place. Things like extra couch, area rugs, coffee table, guest bed, kitchen table, etc., etc., can now be scratched off my list, and can save us some big bucks for a while.

We also told her (only half-jokingly) we'd be happy to display some of her art that admiring guests might want to buy -- we have no large wall hangings and this house looks good with a few of them -- and she said sure! I hope we get to choose which pieces to display.

Other than loving the house itself, it's in a sweet location: within walking distance to the kids' new school, Walker Elementary, and a grocery store. It's also within biking distance to the Y, where we'll probably get a family membership in August.

While in Ashland last week, at the tail-end of our three-week road trip, the kids attended YMCA Super Soakers camp with their cousins. They loved it. They got to bring squirt guns, go to sprinkler parks and water slides and swimming pools, and do silly camp games. To top it off, they got to come home every afternoon and swim in their cousins' pool.

We're back in Marin City now, but we're looking forward to heading up there again. The only catch is that we move out of the apartment on August 1st, we can't move in to the new place until August 15th, and Mick has new job training for two weeks in Eugene somewhere in there. It should be interesting... Kai and Dana might have a guest house available by then, but whatever the case, with some fancy footwork, I'm sure it'll all work out.

P.S. The house has a great yard with a lawn and trees and low-maintenance landscaping. There's a chance she'll sell the jacuzzi before we move in, but we're still crossing our fingers.

Eat, Pray, Love -- with the book club

Tonight my friend Arlene from book club has made dinner reservations for 6 pm, followed by a night out at the Marin Civic Center for me and two more of our fellow book clubbers, Elizabeth and Merrill (she's new). Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert will be speaking to a sold out crowd. I'm so excited. Both authors are top-notch; I'm also honored to be invited by Arlene.

I've been in this book club for two and a half years, meeting monthly at my little Marin City library. I've often lovingly referred to my friends there as my 60-something (gal) pals -- although recently we were joined by a 40-something man, Stephen -- and these women have always inspired and intrigued me.

Arlene reads voraciously (five books a week? that might be a conservative estimate) and she travels once or twice a year to Egypt to soak up the culture there. She keeps her gray hair cut short and dyed red, and has bronze skin, different colored fingernails -- or flowered -- depending on the week's manicure, and likes shiny gold jewelry. Elizabeth (yes, I've mentioned Elizabeth before!) is my favorite librarian ever, a former lawyer, '60s war protester, general call-it-like-she-sees-it lady. She comes to book club fully armed with historical and biographical information for us. Barbara (not coming tonight) is a high school teacher, retiring this year, who was born and raised in Whatcom County -- Ferndale, to be exact. She's thin and wears these gorgeous fitted suits, leans over a little bit like she's cold, and speaks warmly with the voice of a long-time smoker. In retirement, she just might start writing -- I'm crossing my fingers on that one. There's also Joy, who arrives weekly in her motorized wheelchair from across the street, who's suffered from MS for years. She likes to talk about stories from her life that the books remind her of -- even if she hasn't finished the book -- and recounts her tales in this great Bronx accent.

That's the core group. Maybe I'll think of another person later. I'm getting a little sad thinking of saying goodbye to them in June (or whenever). I won't dwell on that right now, though. Instead, I'll show you what we've read since we started the club when I moved here.

2005
Nov - Wicked, Gregory McGuire
Dec - Moo, Jane Smiley

2006
Jan - Middlemarch, George Eliot
Feb - July's People, Nadine Gordimer
Mar - The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester
Apr - Ghostwritten, David Mitchell
May - Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
June - In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
July - Walking the Bible, Bruce Feiler
Aug - Attack, Yasmina Khadra
Sept - My Story As Told By Water, David James Duncan
Oct - Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Llosa Vargas
Nov - Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt
Dec - The News from Paraguay, Lily Tuck

2007
Jan - The Orientalist, Tom Reiss
Feb - Talk, Talk, T.C. Boyle
Mar - Daughter of Fortune, Isabelle Allende
Apr - Sex, Time, and Power, Leonard Shlain
May - The Afghan Campaign, Stephen Pressfield
June - Rain or Shine, Cyra McFadden
July - The Forest Lover, Susan Vreeland
Aug - The Untouchable, John Banville
Sept - Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
Oct - The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Nov - Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene
Dec - The Enormous Room - e.e. cummings

2008
Jan - The Moon By Whale Light, Diane Ackerman
Feb - Crossing To Safety, Wallace Stegner
Mar - The Dissident, Nell Freudenberger

(upcoming)
Apr - A Hatred for Tulips, Richard Lourie
May - The Glass Castle, Jeannette Wells
June - Saving Fish from Drowning, Amy Tan



(Note to self: Take book club group picture.)

We returned from our winter trip north Thursday night to A STORM a few hours later. (Think 1 a.m. wind and rain tossing everything about and pounding the windows all through the night and into the next day...) We didn't get power for 36 hours, not bad in comparison to some in Marin -- but our luggage, opened in the dark, contents strewn about the apartment, was not pleasant come Saturday afternoon. When I download my personal pictures, I'll update more on that personal experience. For now, here's a little blurb on the local experience.


MARIN TAKES A BEATING...
(from the Marin Independent Journal)

MARIN COUNTY was all but paralyzed Friday as a spectacular storm walloped the county, pounding the region with hurricane-force winds and torrential rains that closed key thoroughfares.

Highway 101, Interstate 580, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Highway 1 and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard were all closed for a time Friday, leaving thousands idling in gridlock as their cars swayed in ferocious winds.

Winds reached hurricane strength on Marin's highest peaks, gusting to 83 mph on Lucas Valley's Big Rock Ridge and 78 mph on Angel Island. Truck traffic was banned after winds gusting to 70 mph rocked the Golden Gate Bridge.

Golden Gate Transit bus and ferry service was suspended at the height of the storm.

Some 42,000 Marin residents were still without power Friday evening, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reported. The biggest pockets of outages were 6,000 customers in Sausalito, 3,300 in Mill Valley and 2,900 in Fairfax, said PG&E spokeswoman Jana Schuering.

The storm dumped more than 4 inches of rain in San Rafael and Novato, and forecasters said light rain is likely to continue through Wednesday.

The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was closed about 8:30 a.m. Friday after five big-rigs tipped over due to wind.

But it was the closure of Highway 101 at Interstate 580 after debris flew off the new flyover that really wreaked havoc in downtown San Rafael.

With the freeway closed in both directions, traffic was forced onto city streets, where high winds and power outages had taken out traffic signals at key intersections.

Somethin's rotten in Marin City.

After my previous morbid post, you probably think I'm speaking figuratively, but I'm not. This time, I'm being literal.

I've scrubbed my bathroom, where I first noticed a rancid smell -- think dead rat, dead cat, dead neighbor. Then I smelled it in the kitchen, so I scrubbed under my sink (ew!), re-garburated the garburator, loaded all my dishes up and ran them in the dishwasher. I picked up anything on the living room floor, I lit candles in the living room and kitchen, I sprayed a little Pledge on the bookshelf. (Well, really, just one shelf -- there's obviously nothing dead up there, so why go to the trouble? I just needed to spray something clean-smelling.)

But that rotten smell's not going away.

On my way up from my fifth trip to the laundry room (I know now it's not my stinky laundry) I got a clue. New guy coming out of the apartment under mine.

"Hey! Are you one of my neighbors?" I say.

"Uh, no," he says, holding a plastic bag behind his back. "No, I'm just living here for a little while."

Thought nothing of it at that point, said, "Well, hey, I'm your neighbor upstairs," and walked on up.

Now I'm suspicious, though.

Maybe HE'S here to dispose of the dead body.

If it's still smelly tomorrow, watch out -- I'm all over it, fella.

DISTURBING NEWS

Dear Friends,
I'm sad to be posting this.

Trust me, I'd rather be writing about Tahoe and Father's Day and the first day of summer camp (and I will), but instead I find myself needing to write about our home.

In many ways, I've loved living in Marin City. The weather's gorgeous, a terrific bike path is minutes away, the library's across the street, and we live among a friendly and diverse community of people. Our neighbors are of different races, religions, economic status, and abilities -- and I've loved that Dane and Aubrey find such diversity normal and good.

However, I never EVER want them to believe violence and violation are normal, and, quite frankly, this is an aspect of Marin City that infuriates and terrifies me.

Remember my post about the Iranian woman who was mugged? Since then, there have been several muggings -- of men, women and teens.

Remember my post about Dane's bike being stolen? Well, I hate to say it, but a kid broke into our garage just 2 weeks ago and rode off with the replacement bike we'd purchased that week for Dane. A man in the parking lot saw it happen, called the sheriff, and within minutes a sheriff was at my door asking me down to my garage to file a report. (Good news: I told one of my favorite little 4th grade boys about it and he was on the lookout for it. Two days later, he found it on the lawn across from the library, banged up but fixable. He is NOT a suspect. AT ALL.)

A local pastor was recently picked up at 3 a.m. wandering around drunk, with a crack pipe in his jacket. To his church's credit, they held day-long and night-long vigils in the community (I could hear them from my balcony), focusing on the sickness of addiction, reminding each other to look out for each other: If it could happen to their pastor, it could happen to anybody.

Marin City needs help.

There's more evidence that would make you sick to your stomach, but I'll just include this final piece.

This ugly, evil event seems, unfortunately, to represent the risk of living here. It fits with the reputation Marin City residents have tried valiantly to overcome, but, honestly, haven't.

In spite of all the love and kindness and goodness found in the rest of my neighbors and our friends at Dane's school, such an assault weighs heavily on me. In spite of the huge list of reasons I could give for living here, I question my standards of safety, and try to assess my ability to keep us all safe here for one more year. There's an ominous, scary tone to such a statement; I can only hope that by articulating it, I can come up with a good solution.

Of course, it all begs the bigger question: What needs to be done to make it safe here? What needs to be done that's not already being done? And can it be done while my family's here?

FYI: Marin City is a very small place -- it feels smaller than most amusement parks. This beating took place just two blocks over from our apartment.

Peace,
Anjie

***

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

MARIN BOY HOSPITALIZED AFTER BEING BEATEN WITH BASEBALL BAT
Diana Walsh and Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, June 18, 2007

(06-18) 12:33 PDT MARIN CITY -- A 13-year-old Marin City boy remains in the hospital with serious head injuries after he was beaten with a baseball bat, allegedly by another 13-year-old who now faces an attempted murder charge, authorities said today.

The suspect, who also lives in Marin City, will appear in juvenile court today. He was arrested early Saturday on the Drake Avenue in Marin City, where the beating took place, said Marin County sheriff's Sgt. Keith Boyd. The suspect's name was not released because of his age.

Boyd said police who responded to a call of a boy bleeding from the head about 4:49 a.m. Saturday found the bat on the street. The victim was taken first to Marin General Hospital, then to Children's Hospital Oakland after his condition stabilized.

The boys know each other, Boyd said. He would not elaborate on what the motive for the attack might have been.

On Sunday, a woman who identified herself as a cousin of the victim said the boy's face was badly disfigured and swollen. She said that he had been conscious when she arrived on the scene and that he had been able to talk to paramedics.

But she added, "I was crying so much, I didn't understand what he said.''

The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said the boy was on a ventilator at Children's Hospital Oakland.

Boyd would not provide specifics on the boy's injuries other to say he was seriously injured.

Garvin Williams, who lives on Drake Avenue, said the two boys were friends and that the incident was not gang-related. "Both of them are good kids; nobody really knows what happened,'' Williams said Sunday as he sat near the blood-spattered concrete where the beating took place.

Shelia Jones lives in a unit just a few yards away, but said she heard nothing until paramedics arrived shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday.

"It's a tragic thing. Two kids' lives have just been destroyed," Jones said.

Jones, the mother of three, said the incident made her think about moving.

"You come out your front door and CSI is here roped through your front yard. That's too close for me,'' she said. "You don't know if you are going to become a witness or a victim."