Day 5, Playing lost & found with Tim

I’ve been sleeping in the old master bedroom (AKA Josh’s room) so I wouldn’t keep Dave up with my cold, but since I’m better I slept in our bedroom last night, which is why I was wide awake at 7:30 with the light streaming in the skylights. Also coming from the skylights was the sound of heavy rain, which is nice as long as it doesn’t stick around too long. I headed to town for yoga, realizing a shoe mistake as I prepared to go – my sneakers are mesh and would be soaked through pretty much right away; I need to bring casual walking around town shoes that are water resistant but aren’t my boots. Yoga was with Claire, who is a kind of bossy yoga teacher. She spends time at the beginning of class talking about the body’s way, but then during class she’s verbally fixing everyone from the front of the room – “Gail, put your hands further apart,” “Ed, put your feet closer together,” “Heidi, move your legs further back,” “Beautiful, Rachel”. I’ve never gotten so many perfects in my life, so of course I loved class. We did one pose where you were in a deep lunge and you put your elbows on the floor and I was the only one I could see who could get all the way down, which just goes to show that 1. The competitive part of me NEVER shuts off and 2. I’m made for that pose.

It was raining quite hard and blowing on the way there, and nothing had changed when we were done. We’d made a plan to meet at Pig’n, but I didn’t want to walk all that way in the rain and  I wasn’t sure if there’s a 2 hour limit where I parked. Town was all parked up and there was no space in the Pig’n lot, so I parked in the secret church lot and walked down. It was very crowded in there, but I was about 15 minutes early so I put our names in. They have many things to look at and buy, but the 4 foot long stuffed squid that had a long snake body between its head and tentacles was just wrong. Anyway, by the time Dave and Tim got there it was almost our turn. I was able to trade Dave one of my pigs in blanket for 1.5 of his bacons, which worked well, but we still need Tim for the extra toast and hash browns.

After lunch it had stopped raining, so Tim drove Dave’s car home while Dave and I went to the North by Northwest gallery to look at our art, giant beautiful photos by Christopher Burkett and bronze sculptures (especially the bunnies) by Georgia Gerber. The owner was started talking about the paper that C Burkett prints on – basically he and the French Army (?) bought the entire last run of it, and he has about a 10 year supply left before he can’t make prints anymore. That seems like a long time but it’s about half as long as we’ve been visiting this gallery and looking at his pictures.

It had started raining again so we headed back to my car and went home. Dave wanted to go for a walk, but I was feeling the need to sit down for a while, so I got some laundry started and had some relaxing time. He went in and accidentally took a nap on the bed – long enough and deep enough that I did an extra rinse cycle, moved the clothes into the dryer, and started the second load without him fully waking up (the washer/dryer is in our bedroom). Eventually he did wake up, so we put on shorts (workout capris for me) and raincoats (and a fleece vest for Dave, which I wished I’d done) and headed out for a walk on the beach. It had stopped raining, and we decided to drive to Arcadia and walk from there, since we’ve both done the home-to-Arcadia walk at least once already this trip. When we got to Arcadia it still wasn’t raining but the wind was fierce. Fortunately it was blowing from the south and we were walking north, so it was helping us along.

I’d chosen to wear my Tevas (we call them Kuvasz) for the walk onto the beach & barefoot for the actual walk; Dave had his hiking boots on. After a very short way my feet were really hurting. I thought it was kind of weird, because I spend a lot of time walking and dancing barefoot, but then I realized that the sand was a very strange shape. The wind was picking up the dry sand and it was forming these hard tiny clumps that were really uncomfortable hurt to walk on (like those sandals Ben had once with the rubber protrusions). We didn’t want to walk on the dry sand because the wind was blowing it like little needles into the backs of your legs, but it turned out that the sand down by the water was fine.

We saw so many cool things! I mentioned the sand being blown along, and even though it was painful it looked like mist blowing over the beach, only more solid looking. Dave called it a ghost wind, or a sand ghost – mesmerizing to watch. The wind also made patterns on the water that looked a lot like the uncomfortable sand, and it was interesting to watch the waves fighting the wind as they spread out onto the sand. It was also fun to play with body position – turning a little to the side made the sleeves flap less, for example. But the best thing was the gulls. They had to be very careful to stay facing the wind, or it would blow all their feathers backwards, which I imagine would be uncomfortable if not downright painful. So we saw several of them walking sideways – actually crossing their legs one in front of the other. There was a large group of them on the sand by the rock Wahii, all facing in the same direction. They all had their heads up and many were making the usual gull screech. But there was one poor juvenile that had its head down with its neck stretched out, and it was making the most pitiful peeping noises. Some of the birds that nest on the rock Wahii had flown off and were just stationkeeping in the breeze. We also saw one gull that was flying into the wind and then made a broad turn to fly with the wind; as it went by it seemed to be screeching in a combination of absolute terror and complete delight – look how fast I’m going! AAAAAAHHHH!!! There were also squadrons of smaller birds, schooling kind of like fish. One came up from behind us, so they were going with the wind. They went by so fast they scared me!

After a half mile or so we both realized we weren’t going to want to walk back facing the wind, so Dave and Tim made a plan that Tim would drive the van up to Tolovana and run down the beach to meet us, and we’d swap keys and he could have a good run. I’m not sure Tim knew quite how strongly the wind was blowing when he agreed, but in a half hour or so he came running down the beach. It’s always strange to me when I meet him somewhere - how big and strong and adult he looks, and how facial hair he has. But his running style is unmistakable, with almost as much up and down as it has forward movement, and he recognized us as well. So we swapped keys and he kept going south. He’s a young person so it’s easier for him to go into the wind. We kept going and as we got closer to Tolovana it was interesting to see how many people had decided to go for walks on the beach. We were having so much fun that we didn’t want to stop, so we walked a ways past Tolovana before we turned around.

When we turned around it was quite a surprise just how hard it was to make forward progress. It was like walking up a very steep hill, or swimming against the current in an endless pool (at least I imagine it was like the latter. I’ve never swum in one). No wonder Tim hadn’t been sure he wanted to run all the way to Arcadia! But it was also exhilarating. We got to the parking lot and rinsed off our shoes/feet and found the van with no problem. Dave could see from his friend finder app that Tim was almost to the car, so we hopped in the van and headed towards home.

Now since this is a story of Tim alone at the beach but not in the house, you know it has to have some anxiety filled moments, and here’s where they come in. When we drove past Arcadia, we slowed down to see if the Volvo was still there. It was. It shouldn’t have been. There was, of course, no sign of Tim, and now Dave’s app was saying that Tim’s phone couldn’t be located. From the parking lot it looked like the big rocks that stick out towards the ocean might have cut off access from the north, so we figured we’d go back to Tolovana to see if Tim had gone back there. No Tim, no Tim’s phone. Dave did call Josh accidentally at this point. So we drove back to Arcadia (It’s a mile or two from Arcadia to Tolovana, and about the same distance from Arcadia to home). Still no Tim or Tim’s phone. Dave decided he’d go down to the beach to see if it was really cut off, and I headed to the house to see if Tim had missed Arcadia and gone all the way home. Which he had. But now Dave was at Arcadia with the car and no key, since Tim had it at the house. So I drove back to Arcadia to give Dave the key. We realize that if we’d not been such nervous nellies and hadn’t looked for the car at Arcadia we would have gone straight home and Tim would have been there. Also shortly after we got to our car it started to pour down rain (and some hail, too, where Tim was) so we found out that Tim’s water resistant jacket is not waterproof. But he got a good workout and we all eventually made it back to the house safely.

I meant to do some ab workout but then I didn’t and it was time to get showered and ready to go off to the dinner show at EVOO. EVOO opened in 2004 and we’ve been going there on and off since then, but the past three summers have all included dinner at EVOO. It’s called the dinner show and it really is a show. This year Bob & Lenore really seemed to be having fun with it, playing off each other and telling lots of stories. They do the same menu for an entire month, so this was the first day of the last 3-day week of this menu. It may be that they were more relaxed because all the bugs in the menu have been worked out. They also have two amazing kitchen helpers/servers, who seemed to always be there with a piece of equipment when Bob needed it, or to take away an extra pan. I enjoyed watching them almost as much as I enjoyed watching the chefs! The food was better than we remembered. We started with a perfectly cooked halibut paired with a sparkling faro and veggie salad, moved on to a summer veggie ragu over polenta with fresh corn, and the last savory course was a filet of beef with smoked beans (yes, smoked) and a slice of watermelon with feta cheese and a Serrano-cilantro dressing that was my very favorite thing of the whole night. Dessert was a red plum upside down spice cake with vanilla custard ice cream and a popcorn-pecan brittle. We ended up at a table with some folks who had two girls about the age of our boys and it was lots of fun. On the website it says 6-8:30, but it really never gets over until after 9, and then you have to buy some sherry vinegar since the stuff you bought last year is almost gone. Dave also remembered that last year we bought some fennel pollen and super-aged balsamic vinegar, and we need to be sure to use them.

Tim had been asleep when we left, and had slept until 8, but by the time we got home he’d made a fine meal of leftover pizza. Dave made a fire, and he and Tim played canoe, a dice game Uncle Ben gave Tim for his birthday many years ago and which Dave and Tim like to play at the coast. It’s a fun game but it made Tim say poop a lot. They played two games and Dave won both times.