Don't Push The River

I had on my calendar and in my heart to see Mari Kono's slide projections and light show with her friends The Secret Chiefs 3 and Estradasphere at Palookaville in Santa Cruz, but my preparations did not flow. A confirmation call on my upcoming visit to San Francisco storyteller Joan Sutton revealed she was in Europe until after I was to leave the Bay Area. Apparently she had asked someone else to tell me she would be gone, and they forgot. I had to finish writing a list for my editor's assitant, Tim Farrell, at Random House, of celebs who might want to look at and comment on Living On The Earth for a mailing going out next week. I felt as if I were trying to move through jello.

By the time Lani and I pointed the car toward Santa Cruz, the freeway was gridlocked. More jello. Lani decided she needed frappe cappuchino. We exited the freeway at Los Gatos, the epicenter of silicon swank, where the cool young millionaires and wannabes strut their new outfits and the results of their gym subscriptions on Saturday nights. Lots of Victorian gingerbread cottages and forested hills, homes from half a million and up. All form and no substance. Give me Santa Cruz any day.

Lani and I decided to restock her refrigerator at the health food store and try the freeway later. I used to think that health food stores were hip community centers, and, where there is a hip community, they often are. I had to admire the quality and variety of natural foods at Real Foods in Cupertino, but otherwise it looked and felt like a big chain supermarket. Health food is mainstream now. May it grow. Workers in fields of organically grown produce are not dying young from chemical poisoning.

We stored our precious produce, Lani declared she was too tired to go to Santa Cruz, and I checked the voice mail of my cell phone. Mari had called twice to let me know she was ill and would not be working with the band until their next gig in San Francisco. Source of jello revealed. Mellow evening at home.