Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world. ~ Marilyn Monroe
Recently I decided to buy a new pair of Merrell hiking shoes. And when I finally unboxed the new shoes I took a look at my old shoes and felt and emotional response to the idea of donating or tossing them. After a little thought it made a lot of sense, this pair of shoes has been on a hell of a journey with me. I bought these Merrells when I was preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail seven years ago. I bought two pairs right before I started the trail. My first pair went belly up after my first 800 miles on the trail. That meant that my first pair ended up doing over a 1000 miles of walking. This pair did the last 200 miles of the trail with me. But they did so much more. These shoes have been with me for the last seven years, they started on the AT, they walked the streets of Pensacola with me while I wrote my book Appalachian Trail Happiness. The were on my feet for three Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans and one in Mobile, Alabama. The strolled across the playa at Burning Man. They’ve hiked across parts of the Mojave Desert, as well as Spain, Portugal, Morocco and all the way across Scotland. The life of these shoes has been a story of adventure and while I’ll be sad to let them go, they’re being replaced by a pair that I hope will be what I’m wearing on the first steps of my next hike on the AT. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
You should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in New Orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine. ~ Francoise Sagan
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is not just Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras is not a holiday, it’s a season. The first Mardi Gras parade happens a month before Fat Tuesday. Officially, Mardi Gras starts 12 days before Fat Tuesday, but in New Orleans, Mardi Gras (Carnival) starts with that first parade. The city embraces the season, hell it revels in the season. Work schedules change around parade days and on the final weekend, which starts on Thursday and ends on Fat Tuesday, the city is fully on holiday.
I did my first Mardi Gras around 15 years ago. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I’d been to New Orleans before and I really loved being there. There is absolutely something about that city that touches my soul. I have often said, New Orleans is the only city that from the first minute I set foot in it, felt like I have always been there, like it was home.
So I knew I would have a good time, like a lot of folks though, the images I had about Mardi Gras were the drunken debauchery that is Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Imagine a mile long drunken frat party that is hosting an episode of Girls Gone Wild. That is Bourbon Street on the last weekend of Mardi Gras, but that is NOT Mardi Gras. The central part of Mardi Gras are the parades. As a kid I hated parades. In my hometown a parade meant a couple of poorly designed floats, a couple of mediocre marching bands, cop cars, fire trucks and clumsy cub scouts and old dudes in uniforms. The only thing I ever found exciting was the time they actually had a tank in the parade and the cleats tore up main street.
So I wasn’t all that excited about Mardi Gras parades but I figured I’d give them a chance. So for my first parade I found my way up Charles Street on the parade route looking for a place to watch. The first surprise was that the route was full of families, they had ladders for the kids to sit on and people were picnicking before the parade. It became immediately obvious, this was not going to be like the frat party on Bourbon Street. The second thing that became obvious was that people were super happy, they were social and friendly and it was easy to meet people.
The parades themselves were amazing, incredible floats including some that were very political and funny. The marching bands were incredibly skilled, there were dance crews, riders on horse, walkers carrying torches. The parades were huge and went on for hours. Then there were the throws, as most people know, the riders throw beads, stuffed animals, toys, signature throws that are unique to each crew and often hand crafted. They also throw doubloons, fake metal coins stamped for each krewe, I love these. I have collected a doubloon at every parade I’ve ever attended. I give away almost everything I collect either to kids at the parades, cute women, and I mail a bunch back to my nieces and nephews. The only things I keep are signature throws, the occasional quirky or interesting throw and of course the doubloons.
This year, in addition to the doubloons, I caught three grail from the Krewe of King Arthur (their signature throw) and a really nice winter hat emblazoned with the krewe’s name on it. And I usually keep a couple of strings of the nicest beads.
My last Mardi Gras was 2020, yup, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Returning home the first headline that I saw was Mardi Gras – Super Spreader Event! Fortunately, I didn’t get COVID somehow, although I had a small cold. Which of course led to my staff joking I was patient zero for COVID in California.
As I’ve written about before, I went into a bit of what they’ve termed languishing, during COVID. I wasn’t depressed, I was functioning at work, working out but I was really void of motivation. A book project didn’t get finished, my writing dropped off significantly. And while socializing wasn’t a good idea for health reasons, and I’m a bit antisocial to start with, I definitely withdrew a bit more than usual. Of course, my joy is travel and that was pretty solidly curtailed as well. I found myself spending a lot of time just watching TV after work and exercise.
The last couple of months I’ve turned the corner, started writing a bit more, and then the message popped in. It was my buddy Rich, it was a simple message, Mardi Gras 2023? I immediately said yes. It felt like this trip was a fitting end to the COVID period and my languishing. Now, don’t jump all over me, I’m a trained biologist and I know the pandemic is not over. I’m still very careful and masking actually far more than most people. But there’s a shift for me as COVID and COVID protocols have just become part of life, and I’ve adapted to that new way of life.
So this trip to Mardi Gras was going to be significant for that reason if nothing else. But this was the best trip I’ve ever had to Mardi Gras. First, it was a great balance of time in town with a good friend as well as a few days on my own. This was my first time attending the next to last weekend of Mardi Gras and it was wonderful. All of the things you want from a Mardi Gras weekend but the crowds were much smaller and I got to see parades I’ve never seen before. Rich and I met some great people at the parades, we hung out with some great folks from Alabama, and as it always seems to happen, met some New Yorkers.
The trip started with an error on my part. I thought I had booked the last place I stayed. I got to the hotel and everything was different. At first I thought they’d done a big remodel but it didn’t make sense. I was happy when I got to my room because it was huge and well furnished. When I first left the hotel it immediately hit me. I had booked the Hotel St. James, but in fact I had meant to book the Eliza Jane, also nice, but in fact the rooms at the Hotel St. James were nicer.
The one downside to this trip, it was really cold for Lousiana, in the 40’s one night at the parade, low 50’s during the day. We did a swamp tour which was great, our captain Zander was a hoot. But it was too cold for alligators to be out and about, and of course they are usually the stars of the tours.
The one thing of course that never lets you down in New Orleans is the food. I’ll be doing a post later this week just on my food and other recommendations for New Orleans but I want to mention two places. The first is Cochon, my favorite restaurant in New Orleans. This time I got my favorite dish there, the rabbit and dumplings and it was and always is absolutely transcendentally good.
The second restaurant was one that had been on my list for some time, but I had not made it to, and that was Coteri. Coincidentally it was recommended to me twice while in the city on this trip. I made it the day before I left and ate there three times before leaving, they have the best gumbo I’ve ever had. I also added another to do off of my list, a Sazerac at The Old Absinthe House. It’s become a tourist trap in the French Quarter but how often can you drink an Absinthe drink in a nearly 200 year-old pirate bar. One other restaurant that has always intrigued me is the Ruby Slipper. I stay near there and walk by it every morning, and every morning it’s packed with a huge line out of front. On my last morning I finally got there early and in without a line. I had a plate of very good biscuits and gravy, I’m not sure it was wait 30 minutes to get in good, but it was very good and from what I saw on other plates, the food is very well done.
When I woke the last morning, I got an email upgrading me to first class for my first flight home a really great way to wrap up the trip. Below are some pictures from the trip, enjoy. ~ Rev Kane
The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed. ~ Eminem
Life is like standing in the surf. One minute your there, your feet solidly on the ground, the next thing you know, you’re sky high and floating, a minute later you can be tumbling out of control about to drown. It’s a roller coaster ride, you’re up, you’re down and rarely, at least in my experience, to consistent periods of calm last. Mark Knopfler probably said it most poetically, “some times you’re the windshield, some time you’re the bug.” Within the last week I went from cruising along in my job, to being prepared to quit and go hike the Appalachian Trail, to back to cruising along.
Sometimes the hills and valleys of life cycle over a week, a month or longer, sometimes it swings between the two in a single day. Today was one such day and in fact the swings came fast and furious all day. But I want to talk about a specific swing.
I have worked the last couple of years with a really great young man. He’s dedicated, hard working, responsible and all around just a really solid human being. He’s the kind of person who does what he says, stays out of the workplace gossip and works hard on behalf of our students. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He popped over to my office today to ask if I had a few minutes to talk and of course I did. He seemed a little distressed and we talked about a small issue we had been working on and then he paused.
He first off gave me a very nice compliment, he said that he felt we’d always connected on deeper than a colleague level and I agreed. He referenced that we both share complicated realities in the way we grew up. He then said, “life is lonely for men like us.” This young man it turns out is struggling and his struggle is one I understand. He’s always been a responsible man, he grew up early in life because he had to, he’s the person who people turn to when they need advice or help, he’s the person who’s responsible for taking care of everyone else. The fact is, he’s just tired of being where the buck stops, and of not having anyone to go to and that’s why he’s so lonely.
I understand this position very much, it’s exactly the position I’m in, that I’ve been in most of my life. In that position you’re not allowed to be weak, you’re not allowed to be down, there isn’t anyone to turn to when you don’t have an answer, so you always carry all of the weight of everything and it’s exhausting. At this point in my life, I’ve learned to cope with this weight, it doesn’t mean it’s easy or comfortable or that it isn’t incredibly lonely at times. So I understood what he was saying and I did my best to comfort him, to let him know I understand and that I in fact am there for him. My most sincere hope is that I can at least in some way take some of the pressure off of his shoulders, erase some of the feelings of loneliness. I remember being his age, I remember how unrelenting and massive that pressure can feel.
These types of moments are when I’m truly in my role as a minister. I don’t have a physical church, I don’t preach a gospel but I take the mission of the Ministry of Happiness and the Church of Abnormal Acceptance seriously. I’ve had a couple of people in my life who have been there for me when I needed it and this is my way to pay it forward and it makes me happy to do so. But that first statement he made about the world being lonely for men like us, also hit really close to home. And while I was happy to help him out today, it was that moment where you go from floating high to tumbling around in the surf feeling like you’re drowning. But I’ve regained vertical status, my head is back above water, the mechanisms I’ve developed to right myself are getting me through tonight. Hell, I even resisted, pounding a huge plate full of carbs and a drinking a lot of Coke tonight.
So why am I telling you this tonight? I’m hoping that you’ll do the same thing I’m trying to do and pay it forward. There was a time when the world went south on you, when you need an anchor, a helping hand. And I know you’re busy and your life is hard too, but if you see someone struggling, reach out, lend a hand if you can, it will make you feel better and might really be something significant for them.
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exuper
I spent Christmas this year in the Mojave Desert like I often do. However this year, instead of going to my usual haunt, Anza Borrego State Park in California, I ventured out to the Nevada Desert. Two old friends were celebrating their 35th Wedding Anniversary in Las Vegas and I was planning to attend the affair. So I was looking for somewhere to camp, hike and explore closer to Las Vegas. My research led me to try and get an open camping spot in Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.
I believe that they are starting campsite reservations, but as of December, camp sites were first come first served. I figured since I was going in on Friday around noon, a couple of days before Christmas I’d be ok. As I approached the gate for the park my heart dropped, there were a line of cars for the park that was easily 30 or 40 cars long. I couldn’t believe it! Sitting in the line and looking at the cars, and it was mostly cars, I didn’t see what looked like packed cars for camping trips. The park is only about a 45 minute drive outside of Vegas so I started hoping that these were people off work, or tourists looking for a pretty afternoon of sightseeing, it also convinced me that I would certainly be heading for Arches, the more primitive and least popular of the two campgrounds.
A half-hour later when I finally got to the gate I asked the ranger if there were still campsites available, his answer was, “I think there are a few primitive sites available.” That absolutely sealed I’d be heading for the Arches campground. Happily, I think what the ranger meant was there were only a few spots in the more modern campground with electrical and RV sites. Because when I pulled into the Arches campground the lower campground was nearly empty and the upper sites were only about half full. I picked a site overlooking the lower campground but still close to the comfort station. The campground was nice and simple, surrounding by fabulous rock formations and a lovely view of the valley. The rock formations, much like fluffy clouds, are perfect for seeing different types of shapes in the rocks. Around my site I could see turtles, gorillas and crazy lizard faces in the rocks. For all but the last night, I had no neighbors so it was incredibly peaceful. There were afternoons lying in my hammock where I didn’t hear a man-made noise for an hour or more and nights were incredibly quiet.
Well, except for the first night. The campground had gravel roads, the kind of crunchy gravel roads where every step goes, crunch, crunch, crunch. So you could hear someone walking from a long way off. The first night I fell asleep blissfully and about four in the morning I was suddenly woken up by what sounded like a truck driving into my campsite and coming to run me over. I woke up with a shout and suddenly everything was quiet. As I gathered my wits it suddenly hit me what it might have been, what was so loud and was now silent. So I rolled over and slowly unzipped the flap of my tent and right in front of me was a one-hundred and fifty pound big horn sheep and several of its friends. I said hello and it bleated and they thundered off out of my campsite. I love bighorn sheep and have seen many in Anza Borrego over the years. And I’ve always wanted to get a photo of them standing up on the ridgeline, thank you Valley of Fire for making my desire a reality.
The pattern that happens in Valley of Fire State Park at least during the Christmas holiday works perfectly with the way I camp. The park, being so close to Vegas, starts to fill up at about 11AM and gets crowded around 3 or 4 PM. Typically when camping I’m up early, I like to get out and hike early and so most days I was coming off trails about the time the crowds started coming in. After lunch I like to chill out and read, lay in my hammock and just chill out before making dinner and setting a fire for the night to sit by and look at the stars.
The one complaint that I have about Valley of Fire is that the hiking trails are terribly marked. I’m a very experienced hiker who has hiked literally all over the world. I got lost twice on very short tourist trails. There was never any danger, the trails were short and I could dead reckon my way back to the parking lots, but even when I was pretty far off trail there were lots of footprints. I wonder how many tourists with little experience end up badly sunburned, dehydrated or worse in the hotter months of the year.
My five days in the park were wonderful. I’d bought a new camp stove as a Christmas present to myself so I did some wonderful camp meals. I’ve typically been a minimalist on this front so it was a bit of a luxury for me. The weather was wonderful, 60 degree sunny days and warmer than expected nights with temps in the 40’s instead of the 20’s I’d been expecting. It was incredibly relaxing and just what I needed, and yes there are photos, enjoy! ~ Rev Kane
There is no sincerer love, than the love of food. ~ George Bernard Shaw
It’s been raining in Northern California pretty much constantly since December 24th. I happily avoided a week of the rain by being in the Mojave Desert for a week, a post on that will be up in the next week with lots of pretty pictures. So it’s been difficult to do my daily walk, I’m just not willing to put on all of my rain gear and walk in cold and windy rain storms every day. Plus, it seems I picked up a case of COVID, not confirmed since I didn’t have a fever so I didn’t test. But I’ve had no energy for two weeks and still have a nagging cough. However, whenever there’s been a break in the rain I’ve gotten outside to walk.
One of the things I’ve always done more in the winter than in the summer, is grill outside. My new apartment has a patio so I can once again utilize my small propane grill and today’s six hour break in the rain opened up an opportunity to grill up some really delicious pork chops, the ones pictured above.
I’ve taken quite a journey in my life where pork chops are concerned. My mom was generally a very good cook when I was a child, but she had a few things she just missed on. One of those was pork chops. I think falling prey to the idea that you don’t dare cook pork anyway other than well done, you know, to avoid trichinosis. So she would turn pork chops into dried out hockey pucks. Now I still liked pork chop night because she often made them with potato pancakes and Spanish rice which were both quite tasty. We always ate the pork chops with copious amounts of apple sauce to both give them some moisture and flavor. As such, once I was out on my own I didn’t bother to buy pork chops nor order them in a restaurant. Then in 2010 I was fortunate enough to spend three months at my aunt’s cabin in Utah while training for my Everest Trek. The nearest town to the cabin is in Panguitch, Utah and it’s a one-horse kind of town and certainly a one grocery store town. The store was seriously lacking in a lot of ways but it had the most incredible meat department. All of their meat was from local farms, super fresh and reasonably priced. The girl that worked the meat counter most days was also really cute and one day she tried to sell me some pork chops, I declined. But if I have a weakness in life…., I told her about my mom’s pork chops and the deal she made me was this. Marinate the chops, put them on the grill and cook them medium rare, if they weren’t absolutely delicious, she’d refund my money. So I did and they were, and my whole relationship to pork chops was permanently changed and I’m so happy it was.
My message tonight is short and simple. Even when the weather is bad and you’ve been caged in side for three weeks, don’t let your mood crash, find little ways to bring a little joy and happiness into your life even if it’s in small ways like a couple of well marinated, medium rare pork chops. ~ Rev Kane
I believe in Karma. If the good is sown, the good is collected. When positive things are made, that returns well. ~ Yannik Noah
I am a believer in Karma, to me it’s simple physics. Like the proverbial pebble into the pond the energy pushes ripples of water out until they hit a barrier, then they reflect and return. I believe that’s exactly how Karma operates. You put energy out there, positive or negative and it flows and then rebounds and comes back to you. What we don’t ever know is how far away the reflecting barrier is from the start. So, consequently, we never know how quickly Karma (the return) will show up. Sometimes the barrier is very close and the return almost instantaneous, hence, instant Karma. Most of us appreciate the type of instant Karma where someone does something bad and moments later something bad happens to them. Like in the image below, you get immediately what you give and I think this is often how people think of instant Karma.
But there is also positive instant Karma and so tonight a quick little story about the Endymion Dragon in the picture at the top of the post.
It was my first Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and it was absolutely magical. Most people when they think of Mardi Gras think about drunken crowds on Bourbon Street and women lifting their shirts so that people will rain beads down on upon. And while Bourbon Street absolutely represents a drunken debaucherous side of Mardi Gras, it is such a tiny part of the month long celebration in New Orleans.
The real center piece to Mardi Gras are the parades, the societies that sponsor them and the balls and parties that they throw to celebrate the season. I’ve never been someone who has enjoyed parades. Even as a kid I really didn’t enjoy them, a bunch of fire trucks, old people and kids marching and some poorly playing bands never got me all that excited. And the crappy balloons and toys they sold, I never got them and honestly had no interest in them.
But Mardi Gras parades are a completely different animal. There is a complete culture around the parades. Families show up on places like Charles Street hours before the parade. They bring picnic dinners and folding ladders with seats on them for the children. The parades are extravagant events, the floats are amazing as some are artistic, some comical, some political. The krewes on the floats spend thousands of dollars of their own money to provide “throws” for the parades. Throws are the things the krewes toss into the crowd from the floats, mostly beads,dubloons, small toys and plastic cups. But every krewe has at least one signature throw, the really nice throw they provide but only a small number of them. For the Endymion Krewe, it’s the dragon.
So at my first parade, I was intermixed in the crowd with people from NOLA as well as other tourists. While hanging out with families, who more often that not offer you something to eat and drink after talking for just a few minutes, I was super excited. As the floats came by, some parades have nearly 100, along with horse riders and the best marching bands from all over the southeast, I was catching and collecting throws and there was a little boy from the family I’d been hanging with next to me. So we fell into a pattern and anytime I caught a toy or a big string of beads I’d hand them over to him. He would get so excited and it was a total blast for me as well.
So at one point, the parade was paused, this is always crazy as now all of the throws are happening right in front of you and beads and other throws fall like rain from the sky. At one point, one of the riders pulls up a dragon and is teasing the crowd and people are going nuts. Suddenly, we make eye contact and he kind of smirks, like please dude, I’m not throwing this to you. But in that moment I gesture to the little guy below me and the rider got what I was saying. So he tosses me the dragon and I give it to the little guy and he goes completely nuts he’s so excited. The rider whistles, and as I look up the dragon in the picture above is flying at me. Instant Karma! My good act led to an instant and amazing gift, one of the best throws I’ve ever gotten and absolutely my favorite.
The point to this is be kind my friends, wherever possible. Don’t make yourself a door mat, don’t let people take advantage of you but be kind and I promise it will lead to happier days. ~ Rev Kane
Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it’s more important to make yourself feel good. ~ Ina Garten
I love Thanksgiving and this year I decided to go all out for dinner. So this year I made a full seven course meal. My favorite holiday and one of my favorite things to do, cooking. So after my annual Thanksgiving hike, the meal started and below I bring you along with the experience and provide some recipes as well. Happy Thanksgiving my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Course 1 – Appetizers
Deviled Eggs – standard deviled eggs although I do add horseradish and some cayenne pepper and paprika on top
Bacon wrapped cream cheese bites, stuffed celery and spanikopita. The spanikopita was store bought, the celery was stuffed with veggie cream cheese and here’s the recipe for the bacon cream cheese bites.
Roasted Honey Nut Squash rounds with goat cheese, walnuts and cranberries. These were fantastic, toasted the walnuts, used dried cranberries and a maple bacon goat cheese. The recipe calls for butternut squash which would have been great, but I used honey nut squash.
Course 4 – Main Dish
Bacon wrapped Honey, Garlic Pork Tenderloin – basic pork tenderloin with a little honey and a bacon wrap.
Course 5 – Salad (I eat my salad like the French, after the majority of my meal)
Asian Chicken Salad this is a pure cheat, Asian salad kit from the grocery store and some pre-cooked chicken, add some scallions.
Course 6 – Dessert
Chocolate pudding pie with bananas – simply graham cracker pie shell, sliced bananas, cover with chocolate pudding, decorate with some sprinkles.
Course 7 – Digestif – fancy damn way to say after dinner drink. Not quite the equivalent of aged agave, but very smooth and tasty
Agave Tequila Liqueur with a slice of lime.
Hope you all had a lovely and happy Thanksgiving. ~ Rev Kane
When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire. ~ Angelina Jolie
It’s been a really lousy week and I’ve just recently moved so I was cleaning up some things today when I found this image. It made me immediately smile. So tonight I thought I’d tell the story of my vampire dam.
It was my first or second year in the dust, those early years run together. I was bartending in camp at the Nowhere Bar. It was a typical night on the Playa with the normal, if I can use that term, cast of Burning Man characters. It was getting late and three exquisitely dressed people came into the bar, a man and two beautiful women. The man came to the bar and got them drinks. I got busy and didn’t pay much attention to them for a bit when I felt someone looking at me, I turned and she was staring at me. She crooked her finger in a come here motion and I thought, what the hell. As I walked over she stood and offered me her chair, I declined and she stared deeply into my eyes as she reached down and took my hand, “take my chair,” she said directly, so I sat down. She straddled my lap and sat down facing me. We began to talk, quietly but very intensely and the entire time our eyes were locked on each others. At one point she leaned in and kissed me, slowly but incredibly erotically. We continued kissing for a time when she slid around and sunk her fangs into my neck. It was one of the most amazing, shocking and confusing moments of my life.
She came up after a minute, smiled and said, “you’ll always be mine now.” The she stood, kissed me sweetly and left. At that moment I realized her friends were already gone and I wondered how much time had passed, there was almost no one left in the bar. One of my campmates came over and said, “what the hell was that?” I sat there relatively stunned and told them that I think I just met a vampire. At this time Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a pretty popular TV show and one of the theme camps at Burning Man was called Spike’s Place. The camp was effectively a vampier camp that ran a bar. I didn’t make it to Spike’s that year but always wondered if she was part of that camp.
The next year on the playa I was having an amazing night. There was a camp that I was destined to interact with, It was a pizza delivery camp whose name I’m drawing a blank on and can’t track down. Their gig was that they basically made pizzas and randomly delivered them to people on the playa. So we were having a great night and Bubbles and I were walking down the Esplanade and I was ranting about how ridiculous it was that someone who loved pizza as much as I did, had never gotten one of these random pizzas delivered to me. About a minute later a guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “did you order a pizza?” We call it playa magic, when really incomprehensible and magical things happen at Burning Man. Even more amazing it was a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, my go to pizza and it was magnificent. So Bubbles and I chowed down that entire pizza in minutes. I couldn’t imagine the night getting any better and we were wondering near Center Camp when heard music and wondered toward it. We’d wondered our way to Spike’s Place.
We walked into the bar and looked around a little bit, got a drink and I had a really weird feeling. I spun around and there she was, my dam, five feet behind me, staring at me, “what took you so long, I’ve been calling you all night, I told you, you were mine” Bubbles knew the story and asked if that was the vampire from last year, I said yes. Then I said goodnight to Bubbles, because my dam wasn’t wrong and that night I was hers.
That memory is what brought me such a smile when I found that picture tonight. Hope you’re having happy memories as well my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased. ~ John Steinbeck
In 1988 I came to California for my first time, I was coming here for my best friend’s wedding up in Eureka. I flew into Sacramento with a plan of going over to the coast for a couple of days and then back to Sacramento to fly up to Eureka for the wedding. The place on the coast I had decided to go was Monterey, mostly because I wanted to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I landed in Sacramento and picked up my rental car and drove out onto I-5 heading for Sacramento. A few miles out of the airport a car started to pass me, slowed down, and a beautiful woman smiled, waved and drove off. I immediately thought, I think I’m going to like California.
I made my way to the coast and checked-in to my hotel. I spent two days in Monterey, going to the aquarium, driving around and exploring and I absolutely fell in love. Monterey is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The weather was excellent, the ocean wonderful and the aquarium spectacular. I told myself I would live there someday and it would take almost 15 years but eventually I would for three years. Monterey has always been one of my happy places. It’s been a place where some big things have happened for me, the photo at the top is San Carlos Beach. It was off this beach that I did my one and only open water dive. It was an amazing morning, diving at the edge of the giant kelp forest. I even had a sea lion pup come and play with me for a bit as mama kept a nearby watchful eye.
On the way in from the dive however, I got a reverse block and as a wave rolled over, my ear drum ruptured. While many people describe this as insanely painful, for me it wasn’t, but I knew something had happened. When I got out and pulled off my hood, the husband of one of my classmates looked at me and said, “dude, you blew your drum!” So instead of doing my second checkout dive the next day and getting certified I ended up at the local hospital where they basically said, your drum will heal, don’t fly for three weeks. So I always make a stop at San Carlos when I’m in town to remember that day.
Recently I went back to Monterey for a weekend. It’s been a stressful time lately and I just needed to checkout and take a break. As always, Monterey delivered, great weather, good food and just a nice mellow weekend. I spent one morning at the aquarium, walked along the coast and generally just relaxed. It’s important at times just to stop and be and that’s what this weekend was for me.
Of course I brought my camera so I thought I’d share some of the photos from my time at the aquarium and at the bay. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
So I’ve been moving this weekend and as always it’s a big job and it sucks. But in fact I’m getting away from a neighbor who plays electronic dance music sixteen hours a day so I’m pretty happy about it. It’s a bigger apartment, moving from a studio to a one bedroom, I gain an extra 100 square feet, a dishwasher and a balcony and a nice little rent increase, nothing is perfect, except a Pizza Pit pizza and you can no longer get one of those.
So just a quick post this week, I was making a trip to Walmart to pick up a few things for the apartment. Since Walmart is banned in our county, although our county is fine with having there online ordering headquarters here, it’s about a 40 minute drive to the store. I figured the round trip total time matched up pretty well with the full duration of Pink Floyd’s, The Wall so I decided to crank it up and listen on the trip. My favorite song on the album, although I literally love every song on that album, is Comfortably Numb. The line in the quote at the top of the post is the lyric that resonates the most with me.
Before I became a Pink Floyd fan, back during the The Wall tour, a friend offered me a ticket to see the The Wall performance in NYC with him and his older brother. I passed, something that haunts me to this day. And I spent over a decade trying to rectify that mistake and catch Pink Floyd live, but Roger Waters left the group and honestly to me, Pink Floyd isn’t really Pink Floyd without Waters AND Gilmour. However, I was able to catch David Gilmour on a solo tour at the Saratoga Performance Art Center in upstate New York. To my great joy near the end of the show I heard the first notes of Comfortably Numb and I was thrilled to get to watch Gilmour perform it. And this is what I always remember from that night and it’s a great concert memory for me.
As I was standing there I caught some motion out of the corner of my eye, and as the big guitar solo fired up I had the experience of watching David Gilmour play my favorite solo, while watching this other guy air guitar it next to me. Gilmour, a consummate professional musician who had played this solo untold number of times, was calm and controlled and perfect. The guy next to me was flailing around like some kind of epileptic musician playing while having a grand mal seizure. In the moment, I almost said to him dude, look at the stage, but he was as deep in his air guitar bliss as I was watching Gilmour so I let him go unbothered.
It was an important lesson. You see, what’s important is that people are happy, that they enjoy themselves. That’s likely to look very different for different people and that’s ok. You see, at a concert I like to sit quietly and enjoy the experience that the performers provide, others need to jump up and down and sing along. Neither way is wrong, it’s just a matter of doing what brings you the most joy. The epitome of the different strokes for different folks cliche.
For those of you who don’t know the song or now just need to here it, here is,Comfortably Numb.
So remember, to bring joy and happiness into your life do what brings you that joy, not what brings others joy, be good with that and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 