Operation Creepy Mountains/Tall Trees
After the drama of the wallet fiasco, it has taken me some time to gather myself to report on the rest of my trip.
I had promised a description of where I was staying in Albion. Albion is a town about 6 miles south of Mendocino. It consists of a gas station, a grocery store, a big old trestle bridge, a llama ranch, and the Albion River Inn. The Albion River Inn has the best restaurant on the "Mendocino Riviera," and the cost of my room included breakfast there. Yum Yum. I ate the smoked salmon omelet, with dill and a coulis of tomato and cucumber. Albion is called Albion because this part of Mendocino County used to be called New Albion because Sir Francis Drake allegedly ran aground somewhere between SF Bay and Mendocino. Albion is the ancient
name for England. Albion, California has 525 residents.
My room had the world's most comfortable bed. Also, the bathroom had a shower stall lined with redwood. I had a bottle of Navarro Vineyard wine and a coffee pot with an organic blend of coffee in a vacuum-sealed can, too. The room looked out on the ocean. In the middle of the bay outside my windows there was a fog beacon that made fog-beacon noises ALL NIGHT. That was kind of annoying but I was so tired after the Wallet Drama that it didn't really keep me awake. I liked this place, and would return to it -- it had just enough rooms to feel anonymous (unlike real bed & breakfasts where the proprietors make you uncomfortable) but it also was small
enough and constructed in a way that you had a lot of privacy. I overheard at breakfast that some people had to book months ahead of time to get a room. Lucky me -- I got the single-person's room (no built-in Jacuzzi) which I guess is not in high demand for weekend getaways.
After eating my smoked salmon omelet (this is still Sunday), I drove up the coast to the "Mendocino Coast Botanic Gardens: 47 Acres to the Sea." What a wonderful place! It is wedged between Route 1 and the ocean, and you can wander around 47 acres of ocean bluffs, pine woods, and formal gardens. Every imaginable microenvironment is there. There is also a cemetery for a pioneer family that lived there in the 19th Century and grew potatoes. 40 acres of their land disappeared into the ocean during the 1906 earthquake. I spent 1.5 hours in the gardens and decided that it might be my favorite place of all time. There was a dahlia grove with AMAZING dahlias in bloom, there was a fern valley, there was a rhododendron grove, there was a perennial garden, there were fields of sea figs, cliffs with kelp growing on them, and all kinds of fabulous trees and plans with signs telling you what they are. I found a humongous plant growing in a stream that looked like a begonia gone haywire. Later I found one with a sign under
it, and it's called Dinosaur Food. I took a picture of that. I found a rhododendron variety called, "Kimberly," so I too a picture of that, too. I found a bench made out of a cedar tree, and some wacko purple flowers that I couldn't identify, and acres and acres of small, seaside succulents and Bishop pines. Woo hoo!
Then I hit the road again and headed up the Coast, north of Mendocino and it's ugly sister town, Fort Bragg (where I bought gas). North of Fort Bragg a ways, Route 1 veers off the coast end heads inland to connect with the main fast road, Highway 101. 101 hugs the Eel River north through the redwoods, and only gets back to the coast at Eureka, which is practically in Oregon. The part of the coast between where Route 1 leaves and Route 101 returns at Eureka is largely inaccessible by car, and is called the Lost Coast. The little road across the mountains to 101 is SCARY. It is very high, very steep, very curvy, and very remote. You drive for at least a solid 1.5 hours through absolutely nothing on a creepy two lane road surrounded on all sides by redwoods and other conifers. One side of the road is a mountain going straight up, on the other side is a cliff going straight down. If it weren't for the trees it would be terrifying. Occasionally you drive through a "saddle" in the mountaintops, and the cliff side exchanges places with the mountain-side. There is no wind. It is silent. I got completely disoriented and couldn't tell whether I was facing north or south or what. The road is so curvy that there is never a moment when you are not turning your steering wheel. After an hour all I wanted was to get out of the dratted mountains. I started humming "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes...." I expected to see large lumber jacks, or maybe Paul Bunyan, standing in the road around every corner. (side note, it had been Paul Bunyan Day in Fort Bragg....) The Beverley Hill Billies would probably be right at home up there.
I finally came down the mountains (on a 7 percent grade, the signs told me) and landed in a town called Legget, where California Route 1 ends. The sign says, "Route 1 END". I thought about that
Internet commercial -- "You have reached the end of the Internet. You have seen everything there is to see. Please go back. Now." In Legget there is a giant redwood that you can drive your car through. It is called the Drive-Thru Tree. Apt, that. Over the course of my many trips to California I can now say that I have now driven the entire length of California Route 1. I bought my ticket for the Drive-Thru Tree and asked the lady, "Do I really get to drive through the tree?" She said, "Yup!" It's not so easy to drive through the tree, it turns out, because it's kind of narrow and you have to be careful not to tear your side view mirrors off.
Then I set off north on 101 to see if I could make it to Eureka/Oregon before I had to turn around and head back to SF. More lumberjack/Paul Bunyan country. The Eel River is narrow and mostly dried up and creepy. The place was covered in haze that I later learned was smoke drifting down from the Oregon wildfires. I drove along the Avenue of the Giants and saw lots of redwoods.
I actually got tired of the redwoods -- they're not such interesting trees after all because you can never see more than about .02 percent of any given redwood, i.e., the very bottom of it. And the very bottom of one redwood tree looks very much like the very bottom of the next redwood tree. They grow close together in the bottoms of valleys. This is because they have no taproots and tend to fall over easily if there is any kind of breeze. Pretty dumb engineering for such a big tree. So you can't even glimpse one from afar because there are usually a mountain in the way.
I raced along the Avenue of the Giants at top speed, trying not to slice my side view mirrors off on the corners (the trees are very fat and they grow very close to the road). Everyone is clearly
trying to do the same, i.e., preserve his or her side view mirrors. At a gas station in the tiny hamlet of Cooks Valley I saw a car that had failed in this endeavor. Its side view mirror dangled limply from the passenger side door, the whole side of the car was sheered off, and the driver sat morosely under a madrone tree smoking a cigarette, utterly desolate. Everyone else was inwardly delighted -- hah hah! He didn't make it! He hit a tree! Not very Christian of us.
After 2 hours or so I got to Eureka -- a total waste of a town. The Eel River delta opens out into dairy land with black and white cows. It feels very Pacific northwest. Eureka has allowed its
residents to build malls and industrial plants along the water, so there is really nothing to see there. I stayed for exactly 7 minutes and then turned round. On the way out of town I stopped at the lovely hamlet of Loleta, which I had heard has good cheese, and which was the main reason I had torn through the Avenue of the Giants so fast. There are about 7 buildings in all of Loleta, and I took a picture of all of them. I also bought some cheese at the Loleta Cheese Factory, which is across the abandoned railroad tracks from the Humboldt County Creamery Association. Then I hit the road for the 5 hour drive back to SF on 101.
Five hours later I crossed the Golden Gate and headed straight for the Mel's Diner parking lot in the Marina so that I could empty my Hyundai Elantra of trash before returning it to the Mark Hopkins. In my zeal, I managed to throw out the Loleta cheese as well -- how 'bout that? It was in a brown paper bag just like my banana peels and pistachio shells. All that way for nuthin.' Sigh. I'm quite sure I will NEVER go back to Humboldt County, or Eureka, much less Loleta, so I will never really know if Loleta had good cheese or not.
I will close by noting that this was the first drive back into SF where I was actually sort of pleased to be back there. I had this bizarre feeling of "coming-home" while crossing the bridge. Hmmm......
Lost and Found
This morning was so foggy in SF that I could not see Grace
Cathedral from my room at the Mark Hopkins. I could not even see
the
Fairmont, which is right across the street.
I ate a breakfast of smoked salmon, strawberries, figs, brie, and
pistachios (and coffee) at the Nob Hill Restaurant, and then went
out to the doorman to get my rental car, a disappointing
beige-colored Hyundai
Elantra. It's nowhere near as photogenic as
the white SUV was. I inched down the incredibly steep driveway of
the Mark Hopkins, turned immediately UP and over Nob Hill, and set
off for the Golden Gate. I no longer need directions on how to
get to it. You take any road west to Van
Ness Street, turn right
and go to Lombard Street, turn left, go through the Marina and
past Mel's Diner (of American Graffiti fame), past the
Presidioand up and over the Bridge. I even know what lanes to be
in now. I
left the hotel at 9:07. I spotted my first cow sitting under a
live oak tree at 9:36, by which time I was already north of San
Rafael. Incidentally, it was so foggy that I could not see the
top of the Golden Gate Bridge even while I was driving over it.
I drove on the fast road to Santa Rosa, and turned left to go
through
Sebastopol and along the Russian River. I stopped in
Guerneville for provisions. Careful readers will recall that on
my last jaunt north,
Guerneville was the end of my two day odyssey
-- it's the town where the Armstrong Redwood Grove it. Today, I
got there by 11 a.m. (shows you how much faster the fast road it).
I bought some more pistachios, some peanuts, and a disposable
camera. I kept going to Jenner, where the Russian River meets the
Pacific, turned north, and pushed on to Fort Ross, that wonderful
old Russian stockade. I got to Fort Ross by noon.
Now I was in uncharted territory. The coast road north of Fort
Ross is very wild and rugged and covered in
Monterey cypresses
(not
Monterey pines -- these are different), eucalyptus, and old
overgrown sheep ranches. The towns are infinitesimal. This part
of the state was originally
Miwok Indian, and was then settled by
Russians, Finns, and Scandinavians. The coast is so rugged that
19
th century schooners had to load provisions by sailing near a
long chute that stuck off shore. Someone on shore would send the
provisions down the chute to the boat. Boats were launched by
poles and log runs, but it was too dangerous to try to land them.
It was a one-way operation in most places. Many of the towns are
still called "dog holes," which means they are barely big enough
for a dog to turn around in.
I pulled off the road California Route 1 at
Stewarts Point and
went down to the beach. This was the only sunny part of the trip.
When I had finished taking pictures and absorbing salt spray, I
hiked back up to my
Elantra. Turns out the beach was a
SonomaCounty Regional Beach -- not a State Beach -- which meant I had
to play $3.00 and put it in a yellow
envelope and stuff the
envelope in a little box. A park ranger had nicely left the
envelope on my windshield -- which also indicated that she had
record my license plate number in case I didn't pay. The problem
was I
didn't have $3.00. I had $20, or $2.40 in change. I was
not about to pay $20 for a 20 minute walk on the beach, so I
stuffed all my coins in this little yellow envelope and then tried
to stuff the bulging envelope in the little box. It was
difficult, but eventually I succeeded. So I owe
Sonoma County
sixty cents. I wonder if I'll get arrested.
In the town of
Gualala I pulled off again and went grocery
shopping at the
Gualala Supermarket. I bought
swiss cheese,
bananas, apples, water, and another camera. The next town up is
the smallest dog hole on the road, according to my book, but today
it was PACKED. There was an Elk Festival or something going on...
There was actually a traffic jam. This is strange considering Elk
consists of about 4 buildings on one side of the road and 3
buildings on the other side of the road, and the road is way up
high on an exposed bluff. Next town was Point Arena, which has a
nifty lighthouse. I saw a great sign in point Arena -- it said,
"Italian
Specialites -- Cocktails." I took the long wind-swept
detour out to the lighthouse. I think I've been to every
California lighthouse now between San Luis
Obispo and Mendocino --
Morro Bay, Point
Ano Nueva, Pigeon Point, Point Bonita, Point
Reyes, and now Point Arena. I ate some of my
swiss cheese and an
apple in my car -- windows rolled up against the howling
wind and
salt spray. The car was shaking. My only other stop before
pulling into
the Albion River Inn was the Navarro Point State
Beach, where I took some great pictures of redwood driftwood.
Then I checked in (I''ll tell you about this place later), and
quickly drove the last 6 miles up to the town of Mendocino.
Here's where the story really gets interesting.
Mendocino is the town where Murder She Wrote was shot -- it is the
imaginary town of Cabot Cove. It looks like it's in Maine. It's
got a very East Coast feel. I bought a Pocket Naturalist
pamphletabout California birds at the wonderful independent bookstore on
main street, and also some fudge at the chocolate shop down the
street. The town was completely shrouded in mist and fog. The
place most people stay in town is the old Victorian Mendocino
Hotel, which is one of America's Historic Hotels. Across the
street from it is a National Park -- the Mendocino Headlands Park
-- which is all sand dunes and cliffs and lagoons. The park
benches are all made of redwood. I sat on one and ate my fudge.
I walked all over the dunes, and climbed all over the cliffs and
rocks. I sat on the very end of a promontory amid a pretty
flowering plant with
peapod-looking thinks on it, which decided
must be the Giant Sea Pea plant (which made me giggle). From the
promontory I could look straight down into a lagoon,
with seagulls
(which my Pocket Naturalist thing told me were California gulls),
and watch the waves crash on the cliffs. The water was covered
with bizarre seaweed -- it had a long stem and a huge balloon-like
bubble on the end. It was kind of gross. It looked like aquatic
version of a medieval torture
weapon. I decided I should go back
to the bookstore and by a Pocket Naturalist book about seaweed.
And then I realized I no longer had my wallet.
AAAAGHHH! Panic.
I tore around the sand dunes, retracing my steps, looking for it.
I figured I last had it when I sat on the redwood stump eating
fudge. Stupid fudge. It wasn't there. I nice gray-
haired man in
spectacles was there -- he hadn't seen it. I retraced all my
steps again -- I went back to the Gian Sea Pea grove. No wallet.
I decided to remain calm -- surely a park ranger had found it. I
went back to the bookstore. "Is there a lost and found?" I asked.
"I've lost my wallet." The
crunchy-chewy proprietress told me to
do down to the ranger station. She said it was closed but that I
should bank on all the windows. I ran down there and banged on
all the windows. A gray-haired lady came out and said no-one had
turned it in -- that she'd been closed since before I'd bought my
fudge. She looked sadly at me. I asked here where the police
station was. She said she had no idea, that she was just in
Mendocino for the summer, and that she really lived in Seattle. I
decided to go back to the dunes and try one more time to find it.
No luck. I began to think what not having my wallet meant. No
money. No credit card. No ATM card. No checkbook. No driver's
license. How would I get back to SF? I had half a tank of gas in
the
Elantra, which might be enough.... And once I did that, how
would I get back on the plane to get back to DC? I couldn't even
get a temporary government issued ID because how would I prove who
I was? I began to feel VERY FAR AWAY FROM HOME. I began to feel
like those Russian settlers at Fort Ross must have felt. I began
to feel that being six hours north of SF was six hours too
many....
In desperation I went to the Mendocino Hotel. I figured maybe
someone found my wallet and turned it in there, since it was kind
of centrally located, or if not, at least the hotel might let me
call the police station. Mendocino is so small that it doesn't
have a police station, as it turns out -- neither does the town
I'm staying in -- Albion. The nearest police station is two towns
north, in Fort Bragg. The Mendocino Hotel did not have my wallet,
but the desk attendant kindly called the sheriff --as he called
him -- and then transferred the sheriff to the House Phone for me
to talk to him. The House Phone was hanging on the wall and at
first I thought it was an ornament -- it was an ancient Victorian
phone somehow engineered for modern use. The person on the other
end of the House Phone was Laurie in
the sheriff's office, who
took my name and asked how I could be reached. Der. Good
question. I dunno. Mendocino has no cell phone service because
it's TOO REMOTE. So I said I guess I could be reached at the
Albion River Inn, so I hung up and drove back there. Before I got
off the phone, I asked Laurie if she knew how I could get an
airplane without my driver's license. She said she thought a
police
report would be sufficient, and that this happens all the
time, and that she had never heard of a police report not working
before. I decided that Laurie was my favorite person on the
planet. Once I got back to the Albion River Inn, I stopped at the
check in desk and told them my tale of woe and asked if they could
give me cash off my credit card number, since they had the imprint
already for the hotel charge. They said they'd have to find out.
I go to my room -- I called Laurie and give her my number -- she
says a sheriff's deputy will call me shortly. She calls back a
few moments later and says that it turns out that because the
Mendocino Headlands Park is a National Park, it's outside of the
sheriff's jurisdiction but she's referred it to the rangers, etc.
Laurie and I are by now on a
first name basis. "Kim? Hi, it's
Laurie from the sheriff's department...?" She said a ranger will
call me shortly. I sit and open the Navarro Vineyards chardonnay
that is fortuitously waiting for me in my room. I began to think
wild thoughts. For example, I thought about calling my
ex-boyfriend Joe, who lives in San Luis
Obispo and who happens to
own his own plane. I could ask him to fly to Albion (there's a
landing
strip a mile away) and to bring me money. He did say he
wanted to see me again.... I'm sure he'd do it....
The phone rings again, but it's not the park rangers, it's Laurie.
"Kim? Hi, it's Laurie from the sheriff's department? Listen, the
Mendocino Hotel just called and someone turned in your wallet.
They have it in the safe there behind the front desk."
Can you believe that? That someone found it and took it to the
Mendocino Hotel? The same place I had gone, even though neither
the people who found it nor me were staying there? And that the
Mendocino Hotel knew that the sheriff knew how to reach me, even
though the whole thing was in federal jurisdiction and even though
I was staying in a different town and the
sheriff himself was in
still a third town? Amazing.
And even more amazing, the whole ordeal took just under an hour.
I think the moral is don't lose your wallet, but if you do, let
everyone in town know about it so that you have some hope of
getting it back. Also, if you have to lose your wallet, lose it
in a tourist town.
Tourist understand the horror, and will make
sure it gets back to you....
The Mendocino Hotel gave me the phone number of the couple who
turned in my wallet, so I'm going to call them and thank them
profusely. And tomorrow I'll tell you what the Giant Sea Pea bush
is really called -- I've since looked it up in my Wildflowers of
California book.
Operation Deja_Vu-All-Over-Again for the Second Time
The Mark Hopkins is such an authentic San Francisco experience that I slept all night to the sound of the street cars clanging. They really clang. It's possible that they lack the ability to stop in intersections and that the clanging doubles as a horn. The intersection right outside of my hotel room is the intersection of California and Mason, which is at the tippy top of Nob Hill and is perhaps the highest spot in the city. The top of Nob Hill is not very big -- maybe one block big -- so the sides of the hill drop immediately off on all directions. There's room only for California Street and the park in front of Grace Cathedral, and then everything else built around the street is built on a cliff. For example, the driveway of the Mark Hopkins is flat enough for only one car to park on the level. The rest of the driveway is at practically a 45 degree angle. The part of the driveway that meets California Street is the ONLY part of California Street where you can enter the Mark Hopkins property on the level as well -- every other entrance requires climbing steep steps or driving up or down a ramp. Maximum amount of flatness is probably no more than 50 feet at a stretch. Not very flat. In fact, not flat at all, really. More like hilly. This lack of
flatness must be exceedingly dangerous for street cars, hence excessive clanging. Although my book tells me that street cars were invented because someone got sad at the sight of a horse drawn carriage tumbling down California Street, dragging its horses behind it. So maybe steepness is the reason streetcars exist. Very confusing.
My deposition today was bizarre and I have not quite figured out whether the testimony I got from it was good or bad.
After the deposition Mary and I compared notes about whether it was more jet-lag-inducing to have to fly between San Francisco and Hawaii all the time for depositions (her case) or to have to fly between San Francisco and DC all the time for depositions (my case). The flights are of equal lengths. We decided our travel schedules made us equally miserable, that no-one understood why traveling to glamorous destinations just for work was really not as fun as it sounds, and that the problem was the cumulative effect of flying back and forth essentially resulted in permanent jet lag. We ate some miniature chocolate chip cookies and decided that we were both terribly under-appreciated. We bemoaned idiotic opposing counsels who kept producing pertinent documents AFTER the deposition occurred, requiring us to reopen and revisit tired old topics, etc. We discussed how mini-chocolate chip cookies really have no calories in them because: a) not enough phosphorous, which we understood from our two biotechnology cases to be a strong
binding agent (inspection of ingredient list revealed no phosphorous whatsoever); b) they are too small and therefore not big enough to attach to the humongous fat cells marauding in one's
body; and c) one usually eats them whilst sitting absolutely still, which causes the cookies to pass through one's body like a cookie-ghost. Also, Mary claimed you got "negative calorie
credit" if you ate someone else's mini chocolate chip cookie, which struck me as a little to "results-oriented" and fanciful, considering that she was eating all of my free mini-chocolate chip cookies, after all.
Then Jones came in and busted up the party and wanted to talk about work. Dullard. Whilst Jones stood and stared at the remains of our chocolate chip cookie fest, we reminded him that we are allowed to eat cookies and complain to each other about our schedules because my working relationship with Mary extends back exactly 9.5 years. Pretty neat trick, considering I'm only a 5th year associate.... Jones stood there, gob-smacked.
The only other thing of note to report is that I am starting to collect all sorts of euphemisms for "cloudy weather." Today the weather was cloudy. No getting away from it. No sun. Just
clouds. High was 63 degrees. When I woke up it was 52 degrees. The news said to expect "Marine Condensation." I.e., clouds in any state that has a marine coast, such as, say, California.
Another newscaster said "pockets of sun." I.e., sun in pockets that hide above the clouds, invisible to human inhabitants on the ground below. Another said, "potential for overcast skies." I.e., skies potentially overcast EVERYWHERE for the ENTIRE day.
The best euphemism for "cloudy weather" is "fog." There is a difference between fog and clouds -- this weather is cloudy. Fog comes in and then goes away and is restricted to low lying coastal areas and is not a permanent attribute of the day's weather. Today was not foggy - it was CLOUDY. Fog moves along at a steady clip -- today's clouds plopped on top of the city and stayed there all day. They did not move. Fog often goes away at night, because the temperature in the desert cools down and the incredible suction force created by the Golden Gate lessens.
Today's clouds are still here and it is 9 p.m. Also, fog does not result in RAIN; clouds do. Today it rained on me on my way to work. Fog is romantic; clouds are depressing.
Tomorrow I get a second crack at our opponent's CEO. Maybe I'll ask him whether he met his deadline to certify his financial results to the SEC....
Operation Deja-Vu-All-Over-Again 2
My room in the Mark Hopkins has gold silk-washed wallpaper and melon-colored organza curtains. There is a long hallway with a bend in it from the door to my boudoir. Last night I lay in my gold and melon colored room, wrapped up in wool socks, sweat pants and a seatshirt, and watched Tootsie (with Dustin Hoffman) on television, drinking a beer and eating the canister of jumbo cashews from le minibar. It was wonderful. I could see the rose window at Grace Cathedral from my window. Before I'd come in to watch TV I had sat in the park in front of the cathedral on the top of Nob Bill and watched the American flags on top of the tall buildings whipping in the "marine coastal" wind. The flags on top of the Mark Hopkins are always blowing straight out -- the wind is always pretty strong up here. The park is built on the grounds of Mr. Croker's old house. He was a railroad attorney (how ironic) and his white wooden mansion burned down in the 1906 earthquake. His wife gave the land to the City and retired to
Washington, D.C. Now it has a nice group of fig trees and a fountain called the tortoise fountain, and is place where Chinatown residents come in the morning for Tai Chi.
The rest in the park was necessary because I'd walked home from work which meant I had to hike up Nob Hill. It's only 9 blocks from the office but it's an almost 45 degree slope straight up.
Everyone who walks up the hill does pretty well until about block 4 -- then you see folks stopping to gasp for breath -- and hanging around a little extra at the cross street intersections -- which are flat for a few steps. I was wearing my nylon black topcoat and slung my briefcase across my body so my hands were free and cranked up the hill in my 3 inch loafers. I had the brains to leave my laptop in the office. I looked like a bicyle messenger by the time I got to the top, half an hour later -- hair askew, clutching my briefcase that had turned into a saddlebag.
This morning -- after arranging with the Mark Hopkins concierge for a rental car for the weekend -- I walked right back down the hill. Walking down is actually harder -- there are these little muscles that apparently attach your legs to the rest of your body and they get very tired. Also, walking down a 45 degree slope in 3 inch stack hills is just plain old hard. Your thigh muscles never relax and you are constantly pitched backwards. I did the hands free approach again. The good part about the walk up and down is that it goes right through Chinatown which is a very interesting place. There is a Cathay Pacific restaurant on California street in Chinatown that spans a whole city block -- the front door is un the uphill part of the block, an when you get
to the back of the buliding on the downhill side of the block, the floor where the front door is four stories off the street. That's how dramatic the incline is.
My deposition today was the resumed deposition of the other side's CEO. The other side unilaterally decided they would only stay for 3 hours, so after three hours they got up and walked out. I refused to go off the record and kept the video running (I wanted the record to show a blank room where the witness should have been), which put the other side's lawyer in an awkward spot.
He had already committed to leaving, but didn't want to leave while the record was running (for obvious reasons), but also wouldn't sit back down and let me continue asking questions. So he did all sorts of foolish thinks in front of the camera for 10 minutes or so -- like ask me what I was going to say on the record after he left (response: "nothing"), and like leave the room and call out and day "I'm gone!" and then leap back in and say, "now I'm back -- are we off the record?" (response: "no, tape is still running") -- until the tape finally ran out and It took pity on him and let him leave. Amazing. Another first for me – these Califronia lawyers do have a novel approach to the adversarial system. Also, a summer associate was watching the whole thing, which somehow made it all better.
Then Jones and I went to the Mandarin, of all places, for a drink. There I met the Mandarin bartender and his parents. Lovely people. They live in Morro Bay, down near San Luis Obispo, which as it happens is a place I have been several times. We discussed all the euphemisms for "fog" and "clouds." It turns out the bartender's parents had worked in Riyadh for a while, so we traded stories about the Muddle East and being an American in a Muslim country, etc. They gave me pointers on where to go in Mendocino, which is where I'm headed tomorrow. I ate some lamb and drank a Cabernet. Now I'm all excited for Mendocino.
Then, I walked out of the Mandarin and decided I couldn't face walking up Nob Hill. Out of nowhere, a normal car stopped and the driver -- an aging hippie with a short haircut and very raspy voice said, "do you need a taxi?" I said, "yes, but you don't look like a taxi..." He said, "my taxi -- which is really a Lincoln town car -- is broken, but I will take you to the Mark Hopkins in my TLC-registered SUV here for $6 bucks." On the way, he gave me a rose and told me all about which hotels I should stay in on my next trip. He's convinced me that the Fairmont (also on Nob Hill, across from Mark Hopkins) should be my next stop because he says they pay their staff more than union wages which means they have the best help in town.
We turned into the one flat parking space in the Mark Hopkins driveway and I said, "do I get to keep this rose?" He said, "Of course. I don't give roses away and then ask for them back." I gave him a big tip. He was like a magical, imaginary taxi driver
from heaven.
