Week 6-Fairfax, CA

I've been called herbally in my lifetime.  Earthy, zen, centered. But there's something in me that just effing hates hippies.  Blame it working at Whole Foods and having to deal with dozens of them day in and day out, varying from the Marin moms with pierced noses and will only buy $9/lb. asparagus that is organic, to the hippies that straight up just smell.  Or being born into a vegetarian household with parents who banned Tylenol from the house and if you were really were sick told me to "breathe deeply and drink water." My brother and I grew up on salad and whole wheat pasta, never any soda or frozen dinners.  And there was the organic vegetable garden in the back yard.  We recycled everything, shopped at thrift stores and spent a lot of time outdoors. 

I've kept a lot of these practices but I've never gone overboard and became vegan and dreaded my hair and worn only hemp clothing.  Hell no.  

So regretfully Buster was not with me this week.  Think about all the hippies out there-they all have mangy looking pits and labs.  Not little chihuahua.  So spending the day in Fairfax meant leaving Buster behind unfortunately.  But he likes rich dumb blondes, not hippies anyway.

Fairfax, CA is about a billion miles east off the 101 freeway.  It's so far from actual civilization that my phone lost service out there and I thought I was going to be stranded because my car was out of gas and I couldn't find a gas station.  What do hippies need gasoline for? They ride bikes or steal vegetable oil from outside Mexican eateries. 

I didn't want to go to Fairfax in the first place considering it's almost at hour away from my house once you drive all the way out there. But a friend from work lives out there and wanted to hang out before going to a bar in San Rafael to see our other co-worker's band play.

Her house in Fairfax was at the top of this hill.  The street wound it's way around the hill where little houses were stuck into the side of it nestled in between trees.  I have to pause here to admit that Fairfax and southern Marin is actually a environmentally beautiful place.  It's very lush and green and the architecture is funky and unique.  The hill however was making me carsick with all it's sharp turns and I was the one who was driving.

The people however....we drove into town to go to the grocery store 'The Good Earth' to get some snacks and walk around downtown to kill time.  The Good Earth had some woman in a floor length patchwork skirt eating some sort of gluten free nonsense and chatting to her friend about cleansing her aura.  I'm not kidding. The whole time I just felt like we were in a movie, like do these people realize how stereotypical they're being?  The grocery store wasn't as bad as expected, just smelled a lot like incense, I'm guessing to cover up the smell of unwashed humans.  And I could tell they were unwashed.  When you were sandals all the time it's easy to tell-exposed foot is a dead giveaway to your cleanliness factor. My friend Cat was talking about steak she made for dinner last night as we were being rung up and you could just see the checker's eyes boring death rays into her for even mentioning meat products.  But hey were buying fruit and sugar free vegan granola bars so she should have been happy.  It might have just been the eyebrow piercings that made her eyes look like they were boring.  Maybe they weren't really.

Downtown was full of bars and a lot of drunk assholes and girls yelling 'Oh my goddess!' as they belly danced around the patio.  Another pause to wonder why hippies smoke cigarettes.  yeah yeah they may be clove cigarettes but what with all that attention they pay to their organic diets the amount they drink and smoke counter acts any amount of healthy food.  

"My aunt came down here one afternoon with her dog and got so drunk she fell asleep in the street.  The post office called my uncle to come down and pick her up," Cat told me. "She calls herself a functioning alcoholic."

Doesn't sound very functioning....

We drove up to San Rafael and hung out at the 4th Street Bar and then played pool and got Sol Food.  Sol Food tastes even better when intoxicated if you can imagine that.

Check back in next week for post about LA-Me and Buster are heading to So Cal for spring break.  Holla! 

Week 5-Helen Putnam Park (P-town)

In light of last week's misadventures in Hippieville, and the every rising price of gasoline, me and Buster decided to take a week off and stay in town.  I got a call from my ex's (Buster's previous owner) brother Kailum, who was in town from San Mateo.  He wanted to hang out although to be perfectly honest I think he missed Buster more than me.  We picked up Kailum and headed off to Helen Putnam Park.

This park is pretty awesome.  I've witnessed LARPing going on there, geo-cachers, artists, photographers, hippies banging in the bushes, the usual.  On more than one occasion I've gotten high there and on this particular day Kailum just so happened to already be high as a kite, so it was a very slow, rambling hike.
Putnam has a lake, weird tree covered muddy trails, and a huge open field right in the middle of it.

"I want to see an epic battle take place right here," said Kailum.  "With like 122 soldiers....no maybe 112. 122 is just too many people to keep organized."

Since where were battles all that organized?

We kept walking.  We saw a guy laying down on the grass trying to take some artistic photograph of a tree.  The interesting part was he was taking the picture with his iPhone stuck in a tripod.  Like if you're going to go to all that trouble get a real camera.

We went back to where Kailum was staying and met the neighbors.  The property is out in West Petaluma on an acre of land.  Some guy with dreadlocks and cargo pants came shuffling out of the front door drinking a Great White.  We met his chickens, some of which he explained he was trading for a goat from the neighbors the next field over.  In the basement he apparently had some eggs in an incubator.  Right next to the clones under lights.  Gotta be a steep electric bill.  But there was something relaxing about just taking a lazy Petaluma day.  The other neighbor Rick, likes to get high (I'm noticing a theme in this post) and work outside in his yard, fixing his diving equipment and playing with the dogs.

We sat in the sun and threw tennis balls for all 5 dogs that were on the property and drank some beers.  It was a good day to stay in town.

Week 4 Tahoe Photos

Week 4-South Lake Tahoe

I’ll start off by saying this: never bring a Chihuahua to a hockey game.  Said Chihuahua will howl, shake, growl, and attempt to attack the hockey players whenever the crash into the wall of the ice rink.  The ref will also give you weird looks and your friends will have to pretend they have Down syndrome in order for you all not to get kicked out for bringing a dog.

Let me back up and explain how we got here. 

My best friend moved to South Lake Tahoe when I was 12.  I’ve been going to Tahoe every winter since then.  However I’ve been Buster’s official owner for less than a year and he has never been.  I decided to drive up for a 3 days week this past week since there hasn’t been any snow.  (My driving skills leave a lot to be desired even in the driest of weather so this seemed to be a prudent decision). 

What I had forgotten was that Buster gets carsick on long trips.  Like very carsick, like his tongue lolls out of his mouth and he pants like he is lost in the Sahara. I seatbelt him in so he can’t move as much but it hasn’t helped yet.  So after a miserable 3 hours of listening to him pant and whine we finally made up the mountain to Ally’s house.

Or commune, should I say.  The house itself has 4 dwellers, one of the out buildings houses Aria’s (the landlords) father, and the other building is his music room.  Her father is also a “car guy” so when Ally said to just pull up to the house with all the cars, she wasn’t kidding.

One roommate is never home at the beginning of the month due to the fact that he spends most of his rent money on ecstasy (hey, it’s Tahoe).

Aria, at 26 years old has just retired, Ally is a yoga instructor, and Laney is a waitress and probably makes 4 times as much money as all of them combined in one night of work.  Good for her.

Upon arrival Buster decided to dig up the carpet in multiple rooms, prompting Aria to consider replacing the carpet…..let me just add that I refused to sleep on this carpet and I sleep with a dog every night that pees on himself.  So I’d say Buster did her a favor.

A friend of the commune was playing in a C league hockey game that afternoon so Ally, Aria, and I put on about half the clothes we owned, wrapped Buster up in a sweater and bundled him in a blanket.  I carried him in like a baby.

We were 3 of maybe 7 spectators at this event.  “They lose EVERY time,” said Aria of Nick’s team-The Green Team.  But that didn’t stop her from screaming and swearing the whole time.  

Buster lay still for MAYBE 5 seconds.  He was shaking due to the fact that we were in a freezing cold ice arena but also the echo of the puck slamming against the wall and players shouting at each other freaked him out to the point of him deciding to started barking and growling at them each time they ran into the wall in front of us.  Which is funny because he is barely bigger than the hockey puck.

This caused the players to start looking at us funny so Aria began to start barking and acting retarded in between screaming at the players to get up faster each time they fell down-not the most PC of hippies. 

Eventually I had to put him in the car because he was totally flipping out.  The Green Team lost just as Aria predicted.  We made dinner, which was vegan (for Aria who is vegan), peanut, soy, and meat free (for Ally who has food allergies and a Mexican parasite) and totally bland (for Laney who is Crone’s disease). I’m not sure how much of this what bullshit and how much was true although considering how much time Laney spent in the bathroom after dinner, her food particulars might have been valid.

When we drove up to Tahoe there was literally ZERO snow on the ground.  Pretty odd for February.  The next morning we were in a blizzard.  Everything was white.  I let Buster outside to pee and he took 2 steps out the door and U-turned right back in the house.  So we left at home to dig up more nasty carpet and walked to the Key’s Café where we spent 2 hours talking to some hot ski bum guy, an old eavesdropper who talked way to close to Aria’s face, and the ski bum’s weird old 50-year-old friend.  We also enjoyed soy free chai tea, acai bowls with granola and bananas, and gluten free oatmeal.

The rest of the day consisted of yoga, more bland food, shoveling the driveway about 3 times, and meeting more random potheads.  Oddly enough there was no actually smoking of marijuana. It probably wasn’t vegan or something.  I was too busy drinking a bottle of wine to myself anyway to care.