Cruz

[cranefly]

Lady Cranefly came in and wanted to read over my shoulder what's going on with the move. That meant going back to the beginning. I don't know why she can't just log in herself and keep up to date. I mean, Greg was nice enough to admit her, and she has a username and password. Not certain she remembers what they are. Which presents an interesting challenge. Could I break into her account? I have some very good ideas of what her username and what her password might be. And she has it coming. I could take on some totally demented personality under her name -- you know, the complete opposite of me. And who would know? Who could possibly know?

Anyway, she wanted to pass on a comment to DM. It refers to a phrase DM used midway through his babbles: "S, T & the Pom." Lady Cranefly felt it important to point out that that's an anagram for stomp. Her direct words: "Tell Gene that that's an anagram for stomp."

I'm figuring that, in DM's current fragile state of mind, maybe anagrams aren't the flavor of the day; but still, I'm not one to disobey my master. Therefore, Stomp.

Deal with it.

[Drunk Monk]

My mind is always fragile. My brain bruises like a banana.

Not sure how much you all know about sage. It's used in Native American shamanism, and therefore huge in the hippie circles, so I often get sage sticks and bundles gifted to me. There's even one on my desk here. But a stalk of fine white sage, that's a rarer thing. Sage puts out a heavy sagacious smoke that lingers like fog and permeates everything. That white sage has this sweet undertone fragrance, something I'd never before experienced with sage, and I've huffed a lot of sage.

Of course, when I got home yesterday to the abandoned MacBeth Castle, it reeked of paint. We're having it all fixed up for renting. The house was more or less empty, barren and soulless, save for that nasty paint aroma. The cat, which was freaked out, couldn't be found at first, but later emerged to nonchalantly sniff some flowers as I did my last carload. I'm glad we hired the movers. It cost us $1300, but they did a fine job (according to S) breaking down furniture and reassembling it in position at the beach bungalow. The full-size truck was packed tight. Had I done it with Cf and my good kung fu bros that also offered to help, we'd have got a truck half the size (maybe 'borrowed' the Rock Med truck) and it would have taken 2-3 trips over 17, and we'd all be sore now. So it was worth it. S picked up the cat. Everyone is now at the beach bungalow save me.

Meanwhile, last night sucked. Couldn't sleep at all. Are paint fumes a stimulant? No family, no pets, no TV, no internet, no microwave, not even my reading glasses, just a few Guinnesses and a crappy bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. You know JWR won a bunch of international awards - all in the late 1800's - nothing since. Couldn't even finish the shot I poured myself. I tweaked all night long - got only a few hours - despite dropping a fistful of melatonin to help me sleep.

It was another early Denny's run this morning. More reminiscing over daze (or rather knightz) spent 3+ decades ago with young master Greg.

My car is packed with the last remaining stuff, stuff I didn't trust to the movers, mostly because I didn't want it to get lost: a few choice swords, suits and robes, some odd documents, my best digeridoo which I haven't played in years, T's stuffy 'ice bat' which is one of those ugly dolls that she has determined should be in my bed, my therapeutic neck pillow, a suitcase of sin, some better whiskey. I'm waiting for G2 to return from China to check in with her about this weekend (Judge's Union meeting on Sunday here), then I'm going to drop a few things at my folks and head down to the BB. I hope to be there, unloaded, by the evening, and intend to walk down to the brewery for a pint and some calamari. I'll spend the next few days down there setting up.

New contact info forthcoming.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I hope you are asking the waitress at Denney's for a glass of water so you put one of those expanding bug thingies in it.

[cranefly]

Nothing goes better with beer than tentacles, as the unspeakable C always slurred.
http://cdn1.bigcommerce.com/server1200/h...0.1280.jpg

Though one could make an argument for breasts, properly encrypted.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XM7SNnQALEs/Ty...thulhu.jpg

[Drunk Monk]

The DOOM Beach Bungalow is here! I don't know the phone number yet, but the web is working.

It's tight. Way too much stuff. Needs to be sorted. It's going to be 'Tokyo-style' living here, but the beach is so outrageously close, closer than I have ever lived to it before.

Now for that beer!

[El Dingo]

Address? Frequency of police patrols?

[Drunk Monk]

Once you live back in SC for a while you are going to get used to it and never be able to leave.

After just 2.5 days of living here, I don't want to leave. The Cruz was the land of my greatest failure - dropping out of my PhD program tarnished my feelings about this place. But that was a quarter century ago, and coming back feels so right this time.

Or pitch a tent in my yard more likely.

I have been trying - TRYING - not to think of this as a euphemism. But living is tight here in the Cruz and the same goes for the new DOOM Beach Bungalow, if any of you want to visit. I wasn't kidding when I said I have to stand in the shower to pee. I also have to sit side-saddle to poop.

And now, the awaited data, as requested by master ED (I suggest you check it out on Google street view because you'll be able to see the dimensional rift quite clearly):
535 Windham, Santa Cruz 831-427-9034
Also swapping email to: <!-- e --><a href="mailto:geneching@gmail.com">geneching@gmail.com</a><!-- e -->

So the happy hour at Seabright Brewery is from 4-6, and I've been consuming mass quantities of Cruz locally-grown organic delicacies. Almost everything is unpacked but remains to be sorted, which, well, to be honest, I found things that weren't sorted after living at Castle Macbeth for 12 years after moving there, but that was far more spacious. At the Beach Bungalow, if it isn't sorted, I'm stumbling over it to get to my side-saddle potty. The last few days have been Tetris applications, but things have been fitting surprisingly well - like with an inch to spare - and we think we'll only have to let go of one Ikea chair which I never liked anyway. Between the dust and the SC bloom, my allergies have been playing total havoc upon me, which has been very balancing as I've been pretty blissed out in that Cruz way. The weather has been summery, a fine welcome save for the plant sex in my nostrils. Everything is in walking distance: beach, awesome eats, supermarkets, Ace hardware, two dog parks, two tattoo parlors, two head shops, and that brewery. The Rio is just down the street and I can't wait until there's a show there. The Skatalites were playing a short jaunt away and I was sorely tempted as there's still one surviving member there - the sax player who is 77 - but decided to watch netflix instead. Castle MacBeth has had over 20 bids already and is being shown by our property managers. We still have some random stuff there which we need to clear out soon, plus there's a few more repairs to be done. We'll go back on Sunday for the week with the Pom. But the cat is here to stay. She's adjusted to the litter box quite well, but as soon as we get her new tags, I'm going to cut a cat door in the back door.

Oh and about the police - I'm happy to see them about. They are very present downtown and that's great. Keep the tourist riffraff and the UCSC rowdies under close scrutiny. I'm a law-abiding family-man local now.

All is well. Now to adjust to that commute...

[Drunk Monk]

The Beach Bungalow is 95 years old. That gives it a lot of charm, as well as a pain in the arse to work on, especially if you have a totally lame tool kit consisting of an ancient bottom-of-the-line Makita with batteries that barely hold a charge anymore, and a lot of odd tools that are useful for maintaining swords and some minor gardening, but impractical for cutting cat doors and setting door jams. Plus 95-year-old doors are wacky - super thick door frames with super skinny doors so some things just don't work without major adjustments. As always, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of my Leatherman Blast and cutting a lot of things with my treasured-yet-impractical-for-anything-but-one-handed-cutting-and-beer-bottle-opening-(which-I-do-use-the-most) Leatherman Skeletool. I humbly bow to the massive manly macho tool chest of the Wood Butcher Greg.

On a side note to CF, I saw an only-in-Santa-Cruz bumper sticker that said "My other car is a Pynchon novel".

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

That is correct. I have the best package. Or biggest tool. Something like that.

[Drunk Monk]

I had the worst cat door installation ever. The back door is probably 95 years old and totally askew, so much so that a wedge has been added to the top that's easily over an inch thick towards the handle end. Everything that could go wrong with a cat door installation went wrong, but after several hours and a lot of ingenuity with my impotent tool kit, the job is done. If the landlords complain about the cat door, we'll just buy a new door and they'll be overjoyed (the previous tenants removed some pet stains from a new rug leaving big old bleach stains, so we're not overly worried about our pet deposit).

Walked down to the mall today. It's a short pleasant walk. Checked in on an old deadhead friend who opened a tiedye shop down there, then went by one of the two decent bookstores where another old friend still works but missed her. There are no decent bookstores in Tri-City at all anymore. Gotta cross Dumbo to get to Kepler's.

Went out for sushi tonight with the family of one of T's friends who's grandpa is a former bodysurfing champ and owns a house nearby. I've eaten way too much this weekend - and drank a lot of beer every night. :drinkers: The Cruz has made for a great 1st weekend. We all must be on the other side tomorrow, so we'll leave the cat at the Beach Bungalow and make for the abandoned Castle MacBeth for the week. Still a few things to sort out there. But I can hardly wait to return.

Just a few more odds and ends to hang on the walls - the streamlined altar, a sword rack, the Buddha hand mirror and the hands light, the Marley collection.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

My head swirled at the awesomeness of the statement 'We all must be on the other side tomorrow'. then I realized if you stuck 'hill' in there it would be nearly as profound.

[cranefly]

That wedge in the top of the door could be the work of Master Tu.
Bazinga!
Or should I say feng shui....

[Drunk Monk]

So after a lovely first weekend in the Cruz, I came back to a mess of a house in Fremont. Our property manager listed the property as vacant and included the address, even though we told him not to, and there was some trespassing looky-loos in my backyard that I had to chase away. The cleaners we hired did some of the work we asked them to do, but then also dumped all of our carefully-arranged remainders into garbage bags indiscriminately. We had left a carload of basic supplies for us to live off of during the week. Now we have to dig through the garbage to find our stuff like toothpaste and shampoo. It's getting sorted however. I'm very eager to close Castle Macbeth and be done with that part.

Meanwhile work has been a beyotch, but perhaps that's exacerbated from transitional stress.

[Drunk Monk]

I finally finished cleaning it out. There were some loose odds and ends still lingering, and I had to tuck the speaker wire back into the wall, which was harder than I thought it was going to be. T says it's still the creepiest room, even when empty.

I also cleared out the remaining boxes in the rafters of the garage. Tossed out more stuff - lots of old mags (ironic considering my vocation), a huge cache of Dupree's Diamond Blues flyers (only relevant to deadheads), a bag-o-wire (only relevant to rastas), stale stuff from my medicine cabinet. I found a lot of hotel-sized products purloined over the years, including a sample of a Japanese product that I though was moisturizing lotion. After applying it to my face this morning, I discovered it was actually some sort of sports cream, a Japanese Ben Gay, Beni Garu or something. That was a serious mistake. My eyes are still fuzzy from that. At least it had some moisturizing properties.

The pom seems to like the empty house. When we moved in, we replace the cream-colored carpet with pergo, so now the house is super echoey. When the pom barks, it sounds huge, like a real dog. He likes that and has taken to barking randomly in the middle of the night, just to admire the reverb. That being said, I haven't been sleeping well. It's been totally jamming my ability to write/work, but then again, writer's block is an old frenemy.

Looking out over the yard, I can see that the roses are on the verge of the most spectacular bloom so far. When we moved in there, it was just manicured grass, complete with a watering timer, akin to a miniature golf course. Over the last 12 years, we've taken all of that out, replaced it with native plants, some two dozen evergreens, fruit, nut and herb trees, and a few ornamentals. There are all sorts of flowers and fengshui rocks. I took out the front yard and made it a stone zen garden. That I will miss as my zen garden was my thotful spot, but the veranda of the beach bungalow trumps all of it.

Our property manager has three promising candidates lined up. We should have a renter in by May Day.

[Drunk Monk]

A Shaolin Monk offered to help me move. Seriously. Is that cool or what?