Linda Grace came a picked me up on Monday for a nice drive to Pescadero. Despite having bounced from San Francisco to Santa Cruz for several years of my early adulthood, I had never turned off of Highway 1 to drive the two miles inland to visit Pescadero. It was a beautiful little town settled by Portuguese long enough ago to have given rise to some very pretty houses. We had cream of artichoke soup at Duarte’s accompanied by some of the best sour dough bread I have ever eaten. It was the day before Passover and wheat of any kind is definitely not on my diet, but I didn’t care. You don’t pass up bread like that when it’s plunked in front of you. No way, no how. We ate up the first basket and then asked for another.
Next we drove the stage coach road to San Gregorio, a beautiful ride through the Kelly green hills. We stopped at the General Store there and Linda Grace had some coffee while I looked on with envy. Coffee is one of those things I’ve had to give up, it being carcinogenic and all, and it’s perhaps the thing I miss the most. Linda Grace found a nice tote bag for $4 that said “Danger, Men Cooking” to add to her décor, then we got in her truck and made our way to Half Moon Bay where she has lived for the past three years.
We pulled into an alley and stopped by her garage, which has now become her home. It once house an RV, a full workshop and lots of the sort of junk favored by hyper-masculine types, pipes, car parts and the like. She put in a kitchen and a bathroom and lives in splendor in this large and lofty space. She points out that there is no stove. She no longer cooks; having spent years in front of a stove, it no longer has any appeal. She plays music as much as she can manage. She spent many years too ill to play, suffering from a rare condition, tumors on her parathyroid. It rendered her impossibly tired and so mentally slowed down that she couldn’t think fast enough to play music with other people. Finally, she got the surgery she needed and she’s back in the game, playing well with others.
She lives there with her two daughters who are are now 22 and 25 or thereabouts. They live in the house in front of Linda Grace’s garage. I met Lillian. She had just come in from work. She’s about to transfer to Mills College. Iris is working for Neiman Marcus at a job that will turn into a career if she sticks with it.
Linda Grace is also allergic to earning money. Or rather, she’s like me, not a great earner. She is about to sell her house at the beach and move north, probably to Oregon. She loves Half Moon Bay, but it’s out of her price range and keeping up the payments is too difficult, even though her daughters are rent payers. Ah, real estate in California. Unless one is a trust fund baby, it’s pretty unreachable. I moved north a couple of decades ago, which is the only reason I’m not still renting.
Next we drove the stage coach road to San Gregorio, a beautiful ride through the Kelly green hills. We stopped at the General Store there and Linda Grace had some coffee while I looked on with envy. Coffee is one of those things I’ve had to give up, it being carcinogenic and all, and it’s perhaps the thing I miss the most. Linda Grace found a nice tote bag for $4 that said “Danger, Men Cooking” to add to her décor, then we got in her truck and made our way to Half Moon Bay where she has lived for the past three years.
We pulled into an alley and stopped by her garage, which has now become her home. It once house an RV, a full workshop and lots of the sort of junk favored by hyper-masculine types, pipes, car parts and the like. She put in a kitchen and a bathroom and lives in splendor in this large and lofty space. She points out that there is no stove. She no longer cooks; having spent years in front of a stove, it no longer has any appeal. She plays music as much as she can manage. She spent many years too ill to play, suffering from a rare condition, tumors on her parathyroid. It rendered her impossibly tired and so mentally slowed down that she couldn’t think fast enough to play music with other people. Finally, she got the surgery she needed and she’s back in the game, playing well with others.
She lives there with her two daughters who are are now 22 and 25 or thereabouts. They live in the house in front of Linda Grace’s garage. I met Lillian. She had just come in from work. She’s about to transfer to Mills College. Iris is working for Neiman Marcus at a job that will turn into a career if she sticks with it.
Linda Grace is also allergic to earning money. Or rather, she’s like me, not a great earner. She is about to sell her house at the beach and move north, probably to Oregon. She loves Half Moon Bay, but it’s out of her price range and keeping up the payments is too difficult, even though her daughters are rent payers. Ah, real estate in California. Unless one is a trust fund baby, it’s pretty unreachable. I moved north a couple of decades ago, which is the only reason I’m not still renting.
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