It was 1970, I was with my family, and much to my un-dying shame my younger brothers and I were dressed in identical clothes.  (Even the Brady Bunch kids were cooler than that…sheesh..but our step-mother, Momma Sue, liked the look and so whatchya-gonna do when you’re 9?)

Anyway, I was daydreaming about how life would be when I was an adult and in control of my own destiny (and clothes), musing about my future life on water. I was walking along “balancing” on the edge of a walkway, acting like a tight-rope walker and thinking how cool my life would be…and then Momma Sue, who was walking ahead of me,  fell off her mile-high wedgies.

S0 I moved away from the edge.  If an adult couldn’t even balance herself on her SHOES, the certainty of my remaining high-and-dry on the walkway’s edge instead of wet and floundering in Richardson Bay was suddenly questionable.

Ahhh…the 70’s.  Good times, bad fashion.

While I HAVE lived in Sausalito as an adult (twice, actually),  I still hadn’t full-filled the old houseboat dream.  Until this week.

My friend, Joe rented a houseboat to celebrate his birthday and I got to share in the experience.  He found a great boat on the VRBO website,  booked it and away we went.

Tiny little place that rocked with every step…which I loved (being a Californian I’m so used to the earth moving under my feet now and then that I don’t even notice it…usually).

Houseboats of Sausalito by Phil Frank

Great time, great boat, great to have finally “lived” on a Sausalito houseboat.

Clearly the Herald’s graphic artist wasn’t aware of the implications the adornments they added would suggest.  The picture now seems to suggest a need for…ahem…censorship.  It looks like Paul and I will go to any lengths to promote the show.

As always, the Dallas Market Center did it big (even going as far as a stick-thin model coming out in a unitard and headdress before - BOOM- opening her cape, raising it up and becoming a ” peacock.”)

Other than her and the poster, the rest of the evening stayed peacock-free (though one winner had thought ahead and wore a peacock feather in his tux pocket…or maybe he just plucked the model.)  There was even a shortage of preening from the winners, which I found interesting.

The mood in the room was more thankful than joyous, it seemed to me.  Many of the speeches gave thanks to people who had perservered and put up with the winners through 2009, so the bright side was that I wasn’t the only one in a wistful, sorta shell-shocked mood.

Or at least it seemed that way to me.

But don’t get me wrong, the evening was fun and worth the trip, and not just ’cause we won again.  Over the years I’ve gotten to know a number of the people who were in the room not just from doing business with them but  from conferences, roundtables and panel-discussions, so it really did feel like being surrounded by friends.

My speech, I’m told, went fine (though I always sort of black out about that kind of thing), but I hear the hi-def 15 foot screen was a bit “harsh.”  I overheard a friend tell another friend of mine that he’d never realized she had so many freckles.  “You looked like you had leprosy,” he said.

Yikes!

I do NOT want to see the DVD.

Long-timers know Beau and I opened our first store in 1996 in an old, condemned laundry we rebuilt.

We did the ol’ build-out trick again in 1999 when we opened in downtown Carmel.

When we opened Homescapes Carmel, we had NO idea that we would be running a store in downtown Carmel for 10 years.  We thought that we were only opening a temporary store to test the foot-traffic of Carmel shoppers against business in Pacific Grove.  But then our “owners” sold the building and thus began a long, often arduous tenancy in a building that became increasingly controversial.

Not to say that we aren’t thankful for our time in the building.  It’s led to some great opportunities for me and Beau, not least the new garden store we opened last May in the Barnyard.  But now the time has come to end the bank building chapter and open the Carmel Plaza chapter of Homescapes Carmel.

That’s right…those rumors you heard are true.  We’ve been approached by the Plaza to relocate to the 12,000 feet right below Anthropologie.  Perfect location for us and we are THRILLED with the neighbor…talk about stylish and in many ways similar (the buyer even has a television show, Man Shops World, that is a way-better version of what I’ve been doing on this blog for the last too-many years.)

The new space will have a Tasting Room Cafe where we’ll do wine pairings and classes, a specialty book-store with travel, decor and design books and magazines from around the world and an interior design studio.  In the long-term we also intend to partner with someone and bring the Flower Shop aspect back into play.  We’ve always credited the late Michael Weidner and the flower shop he created for us in The Grove Homescapes as the leading factor in our being so quickly embraced by  locals.

So if you drive by and see the empty bank building, don’t dispair!  We’re still open daily at the Barnyard and we’re working hard to transform yet another unattractive space into something beautiful that will make y’all proud.  Until then,  here’s a few pictures of the duckling before it becomes a swan.

Trust me, it’ll be beautiful.

and cuddly…

…but I’m not one who’s all that big on Christmas (evidenced by the fact that of ALL the Christmas”y” images I could have used to exemplify the season, I picked the ones that were on the tip envelopes I got this morning from my garbarge-men).

You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

It’s not that I’m anti-Christmas.  I like it fine when I’m traveling or doing something outside my normal life.  But here in Carmel, “cute” as it is, it’s more sigh than yippee.

Maybe it’s ’cause I get moody from light deprivation and Christmas is usually accompanied by cloudy, gray days and damp, starless nights. Or maybe ’cause I’m not big on amping myself up to be happy just because it’s the season when you’re expected to be happy. (Same reason I’m not big on New Year’s Eve parties…who cares about it really unless that’s the only time you’re allowed to stay up to midnight and drink champagne.)

Still, I’ve done the requisite stuff to be in the spirit community-wise.

I put up the tree in the store…

I built my yearly snowman in Caledonia park for the kids in Pacific Grove…

And I sang Christmas music with a community chorus.

But completely by coincidence and not in any way of my doing, I’ve agreed to loan out the garden store for the most UN-Christmasy thing I can imagine.  (Not the event, itself actually.  A book-signing is kinda season-friendly…lot’s of people give books at Christmas.)

But THIS book is about terrorism and the insurance industry.

Ahh, pull out the eggnog and sit on Santa’s knee.

Th p.r. blurb for Terminal Policy reads:

Well, it may not be glad tidings and cheer, but it kinda fits my mood.

When I started on the “marathons on every continent” thing, I decided that one day I’d commemorate its completion by altering the globe and adding some sort of wing.  Trouble is, at this point I’m bonded with the tattoo the way it is and I don’t want to screw it up by picking badly. Plus, it’s kind of weird, but I’m commemorating a goal that went out with a wimper not a bang.

Race day started out with torrential rain making it hard to get through the Plaka with every street being a river. The apartment was well located, so I had THOUGHT it would be a breeze to make it to the buses that would carry me to Marathon.

Sidebar: I got really lucky with an online search for a vacation rental apartment in Athens. It was right in the middle of everything, and all I had to do was look out the windows to remember that I was in Greece. The Acropolis and the Agora were bigger than life right outside.

Lucky it was pretty from INSIDE, ’cause the marathon itself wasn’t quite the romantic run through the Greek countryside I imagined. Of course, if I’d done even a TINY bit of googling, I’d have realized that the “original marathon course” is now a highway (that runs mostly uphill of all unfortunate things). Still, though, it DID have the best finish of all marathons I’ve done…running into Panathinaiko Stadium, the stadium from the first modern Olympics in 1896.

But of course, these kind of marathons are always about the site-seeing for me, both during and after the marathon, so after drying off and resting up, my friend Joe and I hit the Aegean to see what there was to see.

We were on a small”ish” boat, but despite the look in the Safety Officer’s eyes…

…there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. But the food.

So now I’ve done it…cruised the Greek Islands and cruised to the finish of my 7 continent goal. Now all that’s left is inking it on my body. In Ephesus there was a carving of  the Goddess Nike.

She’s supposed to epitomize triumph, and while I’m too slow to say I’m triumphant as a runner, I AM “triumphant” in achieving a long-term goal.  So maybe I’ll let her (and not the shoe company…I wear Mizuno religiously) inspire the tattoo-metamorphosis. There was a carved block in Ephesus with a Nike wing that MIGHT work well wrapped around the globe:

It would be kinda cool, I think, to have the wing that commemorates the run come from the trip that completed the goal.

On November 8th I will add Europe to the six other continents I’ve run and complete the FINAL marathon in my quest to run around the world.

Yup, that’s right folks…I’m off to Marathon to run a marathon.  And thank god and Frequent Flier miles, by this time two weeks from now I’ll be lifting a frothy Athenian and yelling “Yiamas!” (A frothy Athenian is a beer, by the way - as opposed to a sweaty Carmelite, which would be me.)

This particular finish line won’t come a moment too soon, let me tell ya, ’cause this has been ONE stressful goal.  I’ve spent the last couple of years waiting for my age or an unleashed dog to catch up with me and turn this goal into a proverbial “fool’s errand” (’cause when it comes to fool’s errands I’m halfway there by definition).

It’s pretty exciting for me to be this close, to tell you the truth.  My drive towards this has seemed insane even to me at times.  But really, anyone who’s ever seen me KNOWS I’m no athlete, and yet I’m about to become one of less than 300 people in the whole-wide-world to have done this.  If it ever gets easier to get to Antarctica those numbers will probably explode (well, maybe not EXPLODE), but odd’s are I’ll get to be in a fairly exclusive club for awhile or forever.

And the nicest part for me, really, about the impending run is that from Day 1 of this goal the movie in my mind has ended this experience with the Athens Marathon…a run that starts in the mythical birthplace of the marathon and ends in the coliseum where the first modern Olympics were played.

The countdown:

Asia:  Great Wall Marathon 2005

South America:  Rio Marathon 2007

Australia: Sydney Marathon 2007

Antarctica: Antarctica Marathon 2008

North America: Vancouver Marathon 2008

Africa: Kynsna Forest Marathon 2009

So THAT road has just about ended…BUT I’m literally at the beginning of my next marathon-related thrill.  And the beauty of THIS experience is that I don’t have to run to participate.

Anyone who has been to Salinas knows the work of muralist John Cerney.  (He paints those ENORMOUS figures that dot the local landscape.)

John has been commissioned to paint new mile markers for next year’s 25th anniversary of the Big Sur International Marathon. And I get to be one!  Literally “one” ’cause I’m Mile Marker #1 (which is a weird kind of honor, I think).  The idea is to make each mile memorable and humorous, i.e. the proverbial “hitting of the wall”  at Mile 20:

The concept for Mile Marker #1 was for me to look like I’m so amped about running the Big Sur Marathon that I sleep in my running gear to save time so I can hit the ground running on race morning…and then much to my horror and dismay, realize I’ve over-slept.

I posed for the mural yesterday when I was over in Salinas and gave it the ‘ol college try to look “bigger than life” (’cause I will be by the time John is through with “me”).  He’ll enhance the punchline by painting in a calendar over my shoulder X’ing off the days until the event and other Big Sur Marathon”y” stuff.

BTW:

1) I was TRYING to make my eyes bug out of my head…and I think it worked (FYI: it hurts to make your eyes bug out of your head).

And 2) No, I’m not wearing a one piece bathing suit.  (I hope he paints in longer shorts.  Didn’t know they were going to ride up.  Lawdy.)

Ahhh…running immortality. As the caricature of a runner that I truly am:

Amazing…John’s even captured the mis-colored crown I have in my mouth and the dent in my tongue when I screamed!

UPDATE:

I just got an email with the Mile Marker Homescapes is sponsoring. The image is kinda mean, but really funny I think, because the joke on us slow runners is VERY appropriate to how I, myself, am feeling after crossing the Bixby Bridge and contemplating the next 12+ miles:

Too bad I actually need to make a living…being non-profit is fun when you’re supposed to be non-profit.

The free-for-all-work so far this year began with the Concours on the Avenue event in August in which we did some tent set-ups on Ocean Avenue.  They wanted it “manly,” which is kinda hard to define so I decided “over-stuffed” would work:

We followed that one with displays and vignettes at the Carmel Art Auction at Sunset Center in the beginning of September.  For that one they wanted a Bohemian Artist’s garret look to evoke the old Bohemian days of Carmel:

The next event we supported in September was National Run@Work Day.  The Carmel version of the event started in our parking lot and circled back to end in the Wine Bar across the street.  Amber and I pretended like we were Amazing Race-er’s and led the pack:

All the huffing and puffing was followed by the physical lifting of furniture to create a den-like vignette for the Sunset Center stage for the Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival:

And then, with all these worthwhile Carmel events behind us, we got to work on the one I MOST wanted to help in any way succeed:  The Carmel Art and Film Festival. Friends of mine were taking the leap to make this oft-started before-crashing-and-burning event a reality.  And BOY-O-BOY was it a lot of fun.  Worth the back-ache I’m still feeling 4 days later from all the heavy lifting.

My friend Edward’s cousin, Chuck Casella, is a graphic artist and skateboarder who came up with a fundraiser idea to benefit Dorothy’s Place in Salinas.  He calls the show “What the Deck?” and all of us “artists” will decorate the bare wooden boards with something inspired by the mission of Dorothy’s Place to empower women, children, the unemployed and the homeless.

I kept my deck propped up against my TV cabinet for about a month.  Just staring at it, trying to think what the heck to do with it.  Then I came upon a brilliant idea.

I can call it brilliant, ’cause it’s not mine.  The first piece of art I ever bought from my little sister Keri is a moody watercolor of a indian  shaman with a poem by Gertrude Stein written on it.

The Shaman actually always looked like Mother Teresa to me…and that got me to thinkin.’  I decided to grab photos of a bunch of smiling kids from all over the world, all the races, religions and nationalities I could find, and then write quotes all over them from Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, the dalai lama, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and on and on.

Keri had done a transfer project onto wood for a binder submission we’d done, so I thought I’d steal that idea as well.

So now that I had “my” idea, I thought the hard part was over and the fun would begin.  Man was I wrong.  I learned I do NOT have the patience or talent for image transfer.  I tried 4 different methods before one stuck.  And part of me wishes I had the patience to try a fifth and make the piece more artistic, but the first three attempts were  abject failures (and expensive ones too ’cause I didn’t own any of the materials to make this thing happen).

So, that’s it.  I’m done.  I don’t know if you’ll like the piece, and don’t blame Keri if you don’t ’cause she would have gotten it right (and better) the first time.

I call the board “Nurture.”

We bummed around the Waterfront for a few days, eating TONs of animals we’d never even heard of before (try the Wildebeast…really, IT’S GREAT!) then got some little squashed kind of economy car and hit the road.  I had the first leg and Joe was the navigator.  He managed to navigate us around in circles a few times before we finally made it out of town.

First leg was a swing down to the Cape of Good Hope.  We paid homage to the Antarctica Marathon by stopping in Simon’s Town to see the African Penguins.  They look different than the ones in Antarctica…smell the same though.

Then onward East along the Garden Route towards Knysna.  The concierge at our hotel in Cape Town had gone the extra mile to try and find us a Game Reserve that would be on our way to the marathon…and she found us this GREAT place called Botlierskop.  Beautiful to look at, lots of wild animals and GREAT guides and staff  (when they found out that I was on my way to a marathon they specially prepared a big ‘ol bowl of pasta with cheese and another big ‘ol bowl of potatoes just for me…they wanted to make sure I was sufficiently carbo-loaded).

One look at my belly and they’da known I was already loaded up.  But it was VERY thoughtful of  them.

After a couple of days “roughing” it in a tent…

…we headed on over to Knysna for all their Oyster Fest festivities (and, yes, I ate oysters even though I HATE them ’cause, well, hell, I was at an Oyster Fest in South Africa and whatch’ya gonna do?)

The marathon (which, of course, was the whole point of my being here) was…fine.  It’s odd how I can make a whole multi-year, beyond my portly capabilities goal, and NOT research the actual marathon to see if it would be “enjoyable.”

(Not THEIR fault at all.  I mean, they billed it as the Knysna Forest Marathon and it didn’t occur to me that the daily drudge of my running IN forests at HOME might effect my sightseeing pleasure.)

AND (whine alert): I probably would have liked it better if I had actually trained for a mountainous trail run in the rain with a 5 hour cut-off.

BUT I made it across the finish, got the dang medal and can now scratch Continent #6 off the list of Around-the-World marathons. But BARELY. Talk about a close call. If I’d been 2 1/2 minutes slower (and I’m not kidding) I’d have been disqualified and had to come back to Africa to try again.

Nothing against Africa…but thank god I don’t have to attempt a do-over. Sheesh.

We cooled our heals around Knysna for a couple more days.  Went whale watching from a helicopter…which is something I’ve never done before.  Fun, and easier to spot whales and get it over with.  (Nothing against whales, but I live on the Pacific Ocean so whales I’ve seen…that experience was actually just about finally being in a helicopter).

We also did  the Tarzan bit and went out to Tsitsikamma to do the Canopy Tour.  Basically, you swing from tree-top to tree-top on a cable.  Who knew growing up watching George of the Jungle that I’d actually get to “watch out for that tree?”

On the way back to Cape Town we took a northern route and found caves, ostrich farms ’til you were sick of counting, baboons eating whatever it was that they were eating in the middle of the road and some great towns. In Franschhoek we lucked into the Rickety Bridge Winery that had rooms available  in an old manor house. We basically had the whole first floor to ourselves. When we were having breakfast in the dining room at a long table for eight that was set up just for us, it really felt like we’d stumbled into a Merchant Ivory film.

Great trip, great experience, GREAT to be done with that marathon.