Dog Eared Truth

Ahh-it's that time of year again when spring cleaning gleans treasures from house and garage to yard sale. Craigslist is currently a bastion of people selling crap, as well as people advertising yard sales to people in need of extra crap.

The very best of these sales offer a glimpse of fly-on the wall truth. Think impromptu Sociology project as more often than not dusty paperbacks offer up subject matter that speaks volumes about the seller. How you ask? Take a quick scan from the book bins at any yard sale, then let's discuss. Books color a pretty realistic view of the inner-workings of family dynamics and turmoil. Personal drama isn't just for television reality any longer. Reading junk and how to books can be beach friendly.

 Used book bins are the windows to the soul, no need to look deeply into ones' eyes- just do a bit of digging thru used book bins at yard sales and take note. Finding health books owned by the wanna bees of healthy living as they circulate the yard sale soft-drink in hand. Perhaps it's the hypochondriac neighbor with the latest and greatest medical journals and how-to-live germ free. Another popular subject matter of dog-eared hope: Marital strife. How to fix_________ seems to always be popular in the yard sale book bin.

I like fix-it themes. More so boat and yoga . Most recently VW Manuals.

On the east coast yard sales are a contact sport. Here in Santa Cruz the theme can be a bit more spiritual with more than enough natural fiber clothing and hemp shoes to encourage anyone shopping to be a kind gentler version of themselves while sporting alpaca sweaters. Locally harvested of course.

So as you shop, remember that bargaining at yard sales here in Santa Cruz is considered a faux pas.
Be politically correct and pay the full boat price and walk away knowing more about your neighbors than you ever thought possible.

Tough 2 Be Buff

The manly Man, a brute force dose of testosterone or simply a guy with a grumble against humanity (and so we all pay with dick like behavior to all living beings.) Why is that? I suppose it has to do with a myriad of problems that most likely started in tadpole stage. So why write about manly men? Because thank goodness Virgina, there is a Santa and he is a metro sexual.

The traits of the meto sexual male? I'll start with the good stuff: he will buy tampons, wear earrings, be found drinking hot tea with honey while getting waxed. The last one of course is my personal favorite. For as long as Wilma Flinstone has shaved we girls have had to undergo the torturous task of having our short hairs yanked out with waxing.

Welcome to the club Barney Rubble.

Manly men drive beef cake cars and ride fatboys. The metro sexual man drives piously in a Prius.

Put your yoga mats down ladies, news is out as the once zen oasis of the ever posh spa-beauty industry has changed the last bastion of female refuge. Yes, now the spa chairs are filled with hetro-metros receiving nail treatments.

Fighting for a spa chair is tough enough on a Saturday morning. But wait.... the yoga studio has made me very un'zen in the arm-wrestling asana for mat real-estate. Yoga guys stretch before getting to nails- wax- trim. The world is a softer place now literally with these guys. Yes, we like.
btw..... I only found that shaving vid as I dug deep with a proper search for a proper nickname for such smoothness.

The Here & Zen

So it's true what they say about a beach town mentality. A few choice adjectives come to mind like bum, slacker, and my personal favorite: surf savant. But what if there was a laundry list of good monikers. Praiseworthy list of lists with a bright and shiny badge to be worn as proudly as sunscreen and flip-flops?

The reason there has yet to be a revival of all things beach zen makes me believe in a theory (ok, yes it is MY own theory: If everyone else knew how low -keyed delight plays on the corporate/professional step ladder in our wi-fi saturated, skype plump world my wait for my morning latte here in Santa Cruz would be much longer.

I will never be a true convert/transplant of Beach town hang. My affinity toward stilettos runs deep as does my taste for the big city. But I am smitten with the gentle rhythm of things sand centric. When life gets too complex and overwhelming, the best RX is gonna be toes in the sand and a drink in hand (or just toes and some beach yoga for those of us on the wagon as of late.)

I like to spend my mornings tooling around town on my beach cruiser. The trees are in bloom and morning air fog free. It's like a little piece of the Truman Show but with an influx of Medicinal 420 and spiritual namiste thrown in for good measure. Now if I could just find a place that sold my beloved Sunday New York Times, within my bike routine I really could be living in the Truman Show. Zen has a name. Just keep it safe or we'll be complaining about our morning wait for coffee.

Hippy Dippy

You decide.
The magic of a new place always makes me fall in love in a kinda-now-kinda -wow way. Shiny new faces and places all mixed into a dee-licious way of looking at the world.

That rose colored glasses thing-it's a real phenomenon. Just wish they woulda' worked longer in Toronto, but pink layered atop of mono chromatic gray scale is just a different shade of grey.

Fast forward to hippy dippy Santa Cruz.
Beach cruiser-eye candy central minus the 'tude and tats of Venice beach.

Luscious ocean breeze and the Seabright Brewery is my answer to "yes Virginia there IS a Santa Claus..and he surfs a Softops board" (santa needs serious stability.)
The real gift this past week? While my Subaru was rock-star parked at an unfed meter in front of a local bike repair, I was tapped on the shoulder by a lovely woman who reminded me to feed the meter. Of course I thanked her and walked to the meter quarter in hand. The dropping of the quarter drown out by the meter maid mobile wheeling away with her pony tail blowing in the ocean breeze, recognizing the pony tail as the same one belonging to the shoulder tapper.. My heart felt like the Grinch heart when it expanded to three sizes too big. Thump thump.

True love is hard to find. Even tougher to sustain but I have a good sense of well being at the moment totally attributable to this sandy little beach town. Let's hope the love will last. Or I can find groovy pink glasses to match my surfboard.

Land of Sun and Surf

As someone who prides them self as a lite traveler and can typically put a plan of action into motion with little more than a text message prompt from a friend, I have found the last few weeks particularly stressful trying to juggle biz calls, emails, kids surfing in the ocean and deciding upon what flavor of fruit works in the tequila concoction for the evening sunset cocktail del dia. Yes, it's not the typical boo-hoo but it is worth parsing out the following pearls of wisdom.

Stream lining a trip by tying in another trip/move/relocation may seem like a great idea but when it nets out that you become a sherpa of shit-you- don't-want to- deal - with
(but now defines your choices of where to go.) I'd rethink that game plan had I really had a non-frozen brain cell. Always the ambitious traveller preferring to wing details and see where the wind takes me.. only really works well when one is nimble, nimble of mind, yes but lite is tantamount to happy travels. Crankiness and logistical nightmares will be your unwelcome shadow should you have too much crap to cart.

My biggest Epiphany this recent trip? No connectivity is good. The inability to check email with relative ease takes an entire layer of complexity off the table. Living wi-fi free is as liberating as swimming naked in the ocean- with a full moon and a fire on the beach. Yes, really that good. Why is it so compelling to check when we are supposed to unplug from the world.

A holiday in theory is a giant yank upon that great extension cord called life.. While it's been enjoyable and a fresh perspective for the minions it's a welcome thought to return stateside.

Sayulita IS the new Saucy

So why travel south of the boarder you ask?

Mexico is to California as Cuba is to Canada. A vitamin D boost helps everyone cope with the cranky nature of mid-winter blahhs and when you can no longer stave off placing your head in the oven, ala Sylvia Plath (for warmth of course) book a flight and thank me later.

I can't get enough of the sand-in-places you never knew could chafe. Why use a glass for a drink when you can buy a fresh coconut and reuse it later with a few shots of ron, purely for medicinal reasons. Plus it's fun to drink from a cup made from a coconut..nothing looks as legit with sand in the crack of your toes and a drink of re-cycla'ble material in your mono.

The real reason to travel to far flung places, and drink dangerous amounts of peptobismol, is to remember that in the end, you're simply money on legs. Nothing more, nothing less.

Enjoy! ( imagine a picture of cute gurls with surfboards and drinks in hand, sporting saucy 'kinis, but google mexico would not let me upload the pic..so sad;(

It's Not What You Think

It's a wacky world out there.



Travel is the one true indicator of this.

My recent stateside romp was a sweet sojourn from the tundra of Toronto.
Venice beach a mer blur in my rearview mirror.
Lingering is the weirdness of what it is to travel in twenty ten.

TSA has become an unweilding force of ineptitude. If I had to describe what the stateside airport security look and feels like, it might be a psycholtic blend of visuals, think or envision a hybrid of midwestern high school homecoming queen blandness mixed with the blunt force percision of a butter knife, add a blog for know-it-all-ness and voila-it's the Transportation Security Administration.

Throw stones if you will but someone has got to pretend to be in charge, now with Al Haig gone.

The rules change. Just when you think in a smug swagga' that you've got the drill-poof it's changed from the country club feel of the Tucson airport to the uber scrum of L>A. In it's regal-real ness stands the SFO experience where as the later shoes must be in a separate bin. My mind of course played this as a real estate metaphor- where separateness is a fabric in San Francisco life that shoes deserve a separate and quiet place before the laptop but after the camera gear.
Think Namaste but for footwear.

Crocs still seem to be in bankruptcy but available in too many shades to think about, all over the airport, all over-stocked.

The true object and marketing genius lost upon the wearer of said plastic shoes: a non pharmaceutical form of birth control.
The quaint kiosk quiet as the croc sales rep or as I called him the croc monsieur, surfed porn on the free airport wi-fi. I guess his lack of eye contact meant he knew I wasn't a true shoe shopper, either that or my footwear du-jour was too telling - I am more of a Christian Louboutin girl than plastic shoe girl.

The airport moment that stood above the rest - the q tip test experience.

The no-fly list of prohibited items is weirdness personified. Think twice before picking up the $13.00 snowglobe from Hudson News- it's been banned. Not because someone got bonked on the head but rather it contains an undetermined amount of liquid, and therefore banned. Verboten.

So back to the q-tip story. While awaiting a Denver connection, I notice a blue gloved harem of TSA "officers" wielding q-tips and hovering near a very pedestrian looking woman who was simply sipping from a plastic water bottle. Nothing exotic, a garden variety crystal geyser brand in the handy 500ml size. The q-tip in the hand of the specialist- or at least dressed to look like one hovered over the open water bottle while the perplexed sipper looked mortified.

Since when is anyone on the TSA team equipped to address this sort of testing? My first thought after thinking that the TSA is now employing biologists- wow the economy really is worse off than we thought, biologists at the TSA gotta make less than 30K a year, when actually they are compensated a bit better, at 35K. But alas, none of these agents possessed any science or biology background. Nary a one barely possessed a GED..but really, why throw stones?

Now who is calling on the white courtesy phone?? Ayn R. Key, paging Mr. Ayn R. Key.
It's a wild and wacky world, don'tcha feel safer in the confines of the airport as of late?.....Me neither.