California

Okay, after a week in Mexico (one hour different from California when we got there) as a sort of April Fool's joke, it was two hours different when we flew back. Don't ask me, I did not make the rules regarding Daylight Savings Time.

Carl and I wasted no time in getting ready for passover. We headed up to wine country as soon as we could. We found some good although a bit pricey Cabernets, and because they were not Kosher for passover, we had to try to drink them fairly quickly. It was a tough go of it, but we did what we could.

Carl and his wife Claudia (or Claudia and her husband Carl) are conservative Jews, and I had never been in a conservative Jewish household as people prepared for passover. While they said that they really did not do a good job of it, the preparations were amazing to my goyish eyes. Everything had to be cleaned, non Kosher food had to be put away, and the special passover plates and silverware and cooking utensils and pots and pans had to be gotten out so that they could be used during the passover period. In addition, Carl decided to study a book about passover so that he could be prepared for the first Seder, where family and friends got together to recound the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt toward the promised land.

Unfortunately (Carl said fortunately) I missed the first seder so that I could attend a concert by Rory Block at the 60's style coffee house Freight and Salvage with my friends Spence and Cathy Burton, who are relatives of one of the Sacco families here in Sciacca. We dined at a great Indian Restuarant around the corner from the coffee house, and enjoyed a great blues concert afterward. It was so nice of the Burtons to drive down from Petaluma to join me. According to Carl, I missed a marathon Seder, where the meaning of the story was discussed until the wee hours in the morning.

However, I was able to go to the second Seder at the house friends of theirs the next night, and it was interesting and a lot of fun. I was even furnished with an Italian version of the Haggadah so that I could follow along in a different language, and it came in handy when it was unclear as to what area was being referred to in the English translation that people were using. It was also wonderful that Carl and Claudia's daughter Kyla came home to spend some of passover with the family, and of course Josh and his wife were there as well, and Josh is taking his Judiaism more seriously now, so he was really prepared to
talk about the meaning of passover.

Carl and I also spent time on Treasure Island, which provided Fran with some of her favorite views of the San Francisco Bay, and the weather was wonderful to look out of the sparkling blue waters of the bay.

Of course we also headed over to San Francisco to visit City Lights bookstore, and we took the ferry from Oakland over so that we did not have to worry about traffic or parking. The views from the ferry are also spectactular, and if I lived in the area and worked in San Francisco (or lived in San Francisco and worked in Oakland) I might take the ferry on a daily basis.

The rest of the time was spent listening to music, writing a bit of poetry, lieing about our mutual past in high school, and dreaming of our future plans. It was a magical time for me, and had a wonderful time.

Just before leaving, we had another dinner with friends. We ate with two couples who had both adopted children with some very special needs, and it was fun for me to share the meal with them, and to see how much the children were loved and were thriving in their adoptive homes. It can not be easy to take on such a task, however the parents may be complimented for doing a fine job.

So I want to thank Carl and Claudia for once again putting up with me, and providing me with another great experience, and another great memory of life in California. It almost makes me wish I lived there, however, writing this next to my terrace door, looking out on the Mediterranean Sea, I guess I am just as happy living here, and being able to visit my dear friends in California when the urge strikes me.