We’re going to Sonoma!

Kristina had it all planned.

We were doing it because she had always wanted to take me there and show me the wonderful place, and Chaz would be even further north visiting friends who were gamers and loved to get together and he would come back down later to Sonoma and we would drive up in the other car to Sonoma and look around then and we’d meet for dinner at the girl & the fig, a wonderful restaurant where we could celebrate Chaz’s birthday and drive back home caravanning cars. It would be another perfect day.

Kristina and I got a later start than planned, but that’s ok because time is so generous it gives us plenty of itself. We crossed the bridge and Kristina was talking while driving and missed the turnoff and we had to go back and try again.

Google is and should be our navigator. She’s that disembodied voice that comes out of the iPhone and shows us the route on the screen and tells us ahead of time where to turn and then tells us again as we get closer to the turn, and tries not to sound annoyed if we miss it and then tells us how to take a new route to make up for it and get back on track so we can finally hear her say, “You have arrived at your destination.”

Google and Alexa, and Siri, she seems to be everywhere we are, and has gone everywhere we want to go, she’s in the air somewhere somehow up there looking down and following our every move, and sometimes she tells us how to get somewhere we already know and has us going on back roads and alternate streets, and I say, “The quickest way I always go is just straight down…” but she doesn’t listen and has her own agenda, probably influenced by traffic considerations she can see from up there where ever but I can’t see ahead down here on the road, and occasionally I think she gets confused, but won’t admit it, and maybe she just wants to show us alternative scenery we otherwise might miss, so maybe she’s just trying to enrich our lives and give us new experiences so we won’t get bored.

I think Alexa is Siri’s sister, but lives in our house, and turns things on and off for us, and tells us when somebody’s at the door, and she detects movement, and she’s always listening so I have to watch what I say. And I think she and Siri talk together the way sisters do, so they both know more about us to be helpful.

Anyway, we got back on track, and drove up north through wonderful scenery, all those hills and trees and farms with big houses, and Kristina pointed out where over-development was encroaching, which she could tell because she’d been there before.
And we went past vineyards with roads leading up to wineries we could see looking splendid and inviting, so we knew we were in the wine country where California became competitive world wide.

And suddenly we were in Sonoma.

And I kept looking right and left at the same time to see everything and tried not to twist my neck, there was so much everything to see, and I thought, yes, Shirley and I could have lived here and been happy, and we could finally have had our store back in the days when property was affordable.

And Kristina said, “We’ll drive around the main square, and then park, so we can walk around and see everything.”

And we did.

I got out my walking sticks, like ski poles, which I’m still using as I’m getting stronger and better at walking. I tell people, “I’m still learning to walk.” They agree.

We walked along one side street and down an ally to another street and the place Kristina wanted to show me where she and Chaz got married. Things change, disappear, transmogrify. It’s a day spa now, and the garden in back is gone, paved over into a parking lot. Kristina took a picture. I said, “I saw the original photos, as you know, my copy you gave us of the whole wedding album. Beautiful.”

Our lives center around major events that intersect. Some days are more special than others. This Sonoma tour was special, and we walked all around the square, a beautiful central park with trees and a pond with ducks, and an amphitheater, and a rose garden, and a library now a visitors center. We walked past shops and restaurants where people were happily eating, and I was already hungry, but was holding out ‘til dinner where we already had reservations. So we walked past the donut shop and I only looked. We went by the grand theater, a reminder from the past when every town tried to have one for live performances, and then put in a screen when movies came along, and entertained generations until covid and the Internet closed so many, but this one still open and operating, and we walked down the arched entrance and the door was open and we stepped into the lobby and the smell of fresh popcorn and posters for tonight’s showing, old classics the audience would love, which the management was probably able to get for cheap royalties, but how wonderful it is there are still theaters still open and operating because that’s the way to see movies, in a theater, on a big screen, with other people in the audience, and snack-bar food, a real outing, an event, life the way it should be and which we shouldn’t lose, and generations now living diminished lives not knowing what they’re missing.

And Kristina took pictures in all directions in Sonoma. She took one of a store with the neon sign “Woof” as a reminder that there are people in Sonoma who speak my language.
Sonoma’s holding on to life, a vibrant present that keeps the past alive, and I thought again, “Shirley and I could live here and be happy.” And I held on to the thought of “happy” and suppressed the thought of “could have,” and we crossed the street and looked in at The Girl and the Fig, restaurant with covered outdoor seating in the back, but our reservations were for inside because we weren’t sure about the weather, and people were already gathering at the door.

But we still had time to explore, past the mission, and the barracks from the history of Spanish conquest and occupation now preserved as visible memory, not just for tourists.
And we came to a sign for a pop-up French Flea Market. There was a bench out front and a man was sitting. He said, “I’m waiting for my wife.” Kristina said, “Is she looking for French fleas?” He laughed, and we went in. An outdoor back garden area with tables and displays, fabrics, vases, collectibles, people milling and fingering, chatting, friendly. I thought, “Shirley would have loved this.” Kristina said, “Mother would have loved it.” I said, “Yes, she would have bought this, and that…” I said it reminded me of Bastille Day in Santa Barbara, the park where on a much larger scale they had booths and food and a stage and music and everyone sang the Marseillaise and Shirley was impressed that I knew the words, and I said, “High School French.”
And when we came back out from the little back flea market, the man was still sitting on the bench, his wife now sitting beside him, probably telling him what she’d seen inside. We acknowledged each other, and crossed over into the park.

I was happy and excited. A beautiful town, vibrant, alive, quieting into the evening but with pubs and bars and restaurants and lights and hang-outs and here and there live music, people inside and into the night, as we would see later after the dinner I was looking forward to, so ready for.

“Reminds me of Santa Fe,” I said, “the art, the galleries, the bookstore, the warm inner light of the shops and restaurants and happy people, and the park…”

The park, a beautiful central square with tree-lined walkways, “Like around the L.A. City Hall,” and an actual pond with ducks, and a little bridge we walked over, looking down on the attentive mother duck herding her adorable little babies with the famous funny duck waddle, preserved so faithfully by Frederick Ashton in his choreography for the Royal Ballet production of The Tales of Beatrix Potter where as Jemima Puddleduck he waddles off into the landscape at the end. I said, “I wonder if there are coyotes around here,” worried about the safety of the little ducklings, but we noticed in the pond little islands of reeds and a duck safe house, so our fears were allayed.

We walked by the little amphitheater and sat on the benches and watched little children playing on the stage, making up games as children do, running around and playing to their audience, parents in the front row, us further back, and we applauded and they bowed.

And further in the park the slide and swings and children and watchful patient parents, family friendly where locals and tourists mix and mingle and you can’t really tell which, and the big stone building when towns showed respect for the Library, the sign chiseled above the door, over the newer sign Visitor Center, now closed after 5:00 p.m.

And the rose garden planted to show all the colors.

And we re-parked nearer the restaurant, waited in the car a few minutes, listened to music on the radio, then walked to the restaurant to check in, Chaz on the way and then parking down the street a few blocks over, and then joining us inside, then shown to our table reserved, and I said to the ushering employee, “I’ll have to put this in my blog,” and gave him my card.
the girl & the fig. Probably the only restaurant in the world with that name. Kristina was telling me about the woman who started it all, Sondra Bernstein, an artist who loved and did a lot with figs, and pointed to the very large fig sculpture on display above the bar, and took the picture.

We looked at the menu, and I said, “Alice Waters North?” though I’ve never been to Chez Panisse, passed it many times, seen people dressed and entering up the steps. Kristina said, “In many ways. The food sourced locally served by what’s available, the owner “girl” now many acclaimed restaurants and I marveled again at how much Kristina knows, her wide-ranging interests and experience and her mastery of the Internet.

The friendly attentive waiter proclaimed the special of the day, not on the menu, lamb, and Chaz decided on it, I thought about it, but settled on duck confit, though I didn’t know how you confit a duck, but was willing to find out, and absolutely refused to make any mental connection with the ducks we had seen in the pool at the park. Kristina ordered steak frites, medium rare of course, and a spritely beer, and Chaz ordered red wine which turned out to be remarkable. I stayed with water, dependable and free, endlessly renewed.

Kristina looked toward the kitchen and saw she thought one of the owners and mentioned it to the waiter who disappeared with our order and then the Chef and Managing Partner, John Toulze, appeared at our table and Kristina bridged the time from their last visit, and reminded, “ You catered our wedding,” and he said, “Yes, yes, we did cater several over there,” and Kristina brought him up to date on the current day spa there now instead, and she talked about family connections in Ireland and the touted No. 3 Wine Bar and Restaurant in County Louth Ireland, and the owner stayed talking by our table longer than the usual table chat of welcome, and then the appetizers came.

Chaz had ordered some kind of smoked white fish spread with three dollops of orange trout roe artfully radiating from the center, and a little loaf of sliced sourdough that they replenished by request. He fixed us all a bite, and we agreed he was correct to order it.

Kristina ordered the soup of the day, asparagus puree, locally sourced vegetables, we all tried it, the best asparagus soup I’ve ever tasted, reminding me again of the wonderful cans, almost as good but not quite, that Trader Joe’s used to carry long ago, and then stopped, and we asked why, and they got the manager who said something about problems with supply, another one of the many diminishments you experience when you live long enough.

Kristina took pictures of our entrees, and we gave Chaz birthday cards a day early, alerting the waiter who after the meal brought a large chocolate chip cookie on a plate, superb, we all had a bite, and Chaz, himself a Cookie Meister, said modestly, “better than mine,” and the waiter lighted a candle on the cookie plate which Chaz wished and blew out, and the waiter relighted for another wish. And we sang Happy Birthday, and I tried to crank up my un-warmed-up voice to loud, and the people at the next table applauded and said, “Encore!” and I didn’t say, “You shoulda heard me when,” and we ordered dessert and Kristina had some kind of raspberry rhubarb pastry thing that we all tasted and raved about, and Chaz had affogato, ice cream with espresso poured over, and I saw on the menu cookies in a box which it said included a vanilla milkshake, and so I ordered that because I’ve always loved vanilla milkshakes, and, even though I’d already eaten plenty, I could force myself to manage a little more, and then came a platter with two large chocolate chip cookies like the one Chaz had for birthday free, and I said, “What’s that about a box?” and the answer, “That comes later,” and I said, “Oh, ok…” and on the tray the littlest tiny little bottle maybe six inches high, with a straw, and that was the milk shake, and I almost laughed, but I drank it, and it was the real thing, and I had already eaten more than enough, and then appeared a paper bag with handles, inside a box, inside the box four of the big cookies sealed in plastic, so we could take the actual tactile memory home to revel later, and I left a good tip.

And when leaving, I joked the usual, “They said we could come back.” And they gave the usual rejoinder, “Anytime.” And I added on the postscript, “I’ll put it in my blog,” another promise I’ve now delivered.

And we drove home in tandem, Chaz carefully against the light of on-coming cars, Kristina driving the other car because my night vision is poor, and even the return journey was part of the adventure.

And there’s still more for the actual birthday, maybe Chaz will finally get the television he’s wanted for so long after the current TV has become a relic, and we haven’t yet eaten the cookies in a box, Kristina is going to make a cake, and memories are wonderful, and it’s wonderful that we can keep creating more.