Two historic, storied franchises, Musial versus Mays, set to duke it out old school in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. A rubber match of sorts. 1987 to the Cards, 2002 to the Giants. 2012?

Who will it be tonight?

I’m a Giants fan granted the thrill of a World Series win just two years ago. Still on a high from the first San Francisco win. But I’m a baseball fan, too, and those are different things.

The Giants fan wants black and orange to prevail. The baseball fan wants a clean game, no questionable calls, no errors, a fair fight and a solid feeling that the best team won.

My Giants fan wants Marco Scutaro to tear the cover off the ball so Matt Holliday knows never to try a late slide take-out hit at second base when he plays my boys; Pam the baseball fan knows it’s part of the game and the baseball gods generally even the score without human intervention.

I want to see outstanding play and know I’m watching the best that the best can deliver out of both dugouts; I also want my team to be just a little bit better.

My baseball fan and Giants fan watch together in stunned admiration of the team that won three championship road games in a row to rally from the brink of elimination in the division play-off.

And here we are tonight. Two teams that evenly split wins during their regular season meet-ups. The St. Louis Cardinals, a team built to clobber every other with outstanding hitting and a filthy bullpen loaded with 100mph flame-throwers.

My Giants? Can’t categorize them and have it hold from one night to the next. They’re up, they’re down, as soon as one pitcher finds his mojo, another goes MIA. They’ve defied description in the best and worst ways leading the league with errors in the early season, turning it around with a shortstop holding the best defensive record in baseball. They’ve thrilled fans with MVP play, then sucker-punched them with a crowd favorite suspended for PED use.

My baseball fan knows the San Francisco Giants aren’t supposed to be here tonight. Their closer placed on the DL early in the season went without replacement. The league leader in hits was bounced from the team. Their All-Star catcher, recovering from a near career-ending injury, took off with a slow start. Their award-winning pitcher had an ERA above 5 till the last week of the season, and another All-Star position player spent half the season disabled in two separate stints on the DL.

For the sixth game this post-season, the Giants are on the cusp of elimination. Or maybe, this time, a trip to the World Series. Only 50 times in the history of baseball has a championship series needed all seven games. 50.

For a baseball fan, it doesn’t get better than this. A game of games where both teams are literally playing for their seasonal lives. 162 games, plus five divisional play-off games and six league championship games have been reduced to tonight. A slow, plodding progression over six months ends and begins with a one game frenzy to see who lives and who dies.

We are an hour from the first pitch of the last game that determines who moves on to baseball’s last rung. Two evenly matched pitchers will meet on the field of play. My Giants fan’s throat aches from life on the edge, endless cheering, and shoving my heart back down into place. My baseball fan knows it’s a privilege to see such a match, even greater because my hometown team is a participant.

Tomorrow morning one team will have been victorious, will be shaking off a champagne shower, wearing a World Series cap, and doing a light work-out in prep for game one of the World Series. Their fans will be arranging schedules to attend or watch televised games wearing bright new championship t-shirts; one team will empty lockers as their fans count days till pitchers and catchers report to spring training. 

Cardinals Red? Giants black and orange? In which group of fans will I be? Either way, what a ride, what ride.

It’s baseball. And I’m reminded of a Rogers Hornsby quote. Win or lose, my baseball fan completely understands. 

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

I’d be lyin’ if I did. It’s 94 degrees outside. I checked on my electronic digital meat thermometer.

That’s the truth. About the 94, and the thermometer. It’s the only one I have. 

Those familiar with the Bay Area know fog fades this time of year, beat back to sea by a high pressure ridge that allows La Cité, Peninsula and North Bay temps to soar. Not in mid summer as in other places.

In July and August our inland valleys heat up and draw fog to the coastal cities of northern California. There the wispy fluff hugs and hovers; Mark Twain is often erroneously credited for the thing he never said about the coldest winter he ever spent…

That’s why you bring your sweatshirt when you visit San Francisco in the summer, right? Oh, you didn’t? Then you bought yours at Fisherman’s Wharf. 

By October 31st the weather shifts. Predictable cold and drizzle threaten to dampen festivities. Parents argue with kids over how to keep warm and dry. Nothing like a jacket or raincoat to ruin a costume’s fun.

In this heat it’s hard to imagine that conversation lies less than 30 days ahead. But it never fails.

 

Yesterday, when it was 97 degrees, I contemplated foregoing Halloween hubbub. Admittedly it’s early to begin the annual search for orange squash with jack-o-lantern potential but a hectic schedule threatened to squeeze the fun out of October till late in the month, maybe even too late. Not worth the trouble for only a few days, a week at the most. That’s what I said to myself. Yesterday.

Perhaps 2012 was designated somewhere as the year to skip Halloween hijinks.

I live on a winding street that climbs a hill overlooking a canyon. Street lamps are few. Sidewalks none. The paved road is narrow and though the speed limit is 20mph to safely accommodate pedestrians sharing it, not everyone abides. The night brings critters. It’s poor trick or treat territory.

But we justify a candy purchase by telling ourselves someone may knock and we don’t want to be the house that spoils the fun. Just in case, that’s what the hubs and I say while buying a sack of our favorite treats.

Then five years ago a baby was born next door. He easily became our neighborhood’s child. Drew us all in and each October I would see his mother push his stroller to two houses displaying a few decorations. One across the street with a blow up witch sitting on the red brick steps, toes curled upward, striped witch’s socks. Then they’d roll to our house with my pile of pumpkins and glowing lights.

A whole new haunting Halloween spin on things with the arrival of that boy. As he grew he began to walk with his mother, hand in hand after his nap, to visit the witch and sit next to it on the steps. I added to our collection enthusiastically. More ghoulish fun. A skull with light up eyes. An animated Grim Reaper.

No mystery why the houses next to his have the most decorations. We’re tickled by his delight.

Now he runs here on his own, within Mom’s watching range, to check that we’re appropriately festooned for fall. Monitoring our progress.

A month ago he became a big brother. Last evening with windows open to the hot, still night I could hear the infant’s cry. In the season when life prepares for the dormancy of winter, to pull back and hunker down, I’m reminded that in some places life is new. I’m renewed as well.

The sound of life. I couldn’t help myself. I rethought my original plan. For our neighborhood’s child, Halloween will visit my house. For his baby brother, too, who will pass fast asleep in a buggy.

In big brother’s smile I’m reminded that rituals and novelty are cookies and milk, should never be separated or ever skipped.

I climb a ladder to string peeking, peeping, blinking, spooky eyes around a tree, no longer remembering that yesterday I thought to do otherwise. 

The sun shines brightly without a hint of dark and stormy night though one will doubtless visit soon. If you’re fortunate enough to be here today you can shed that fleece for a while. 

This is autumn in the Bay Area. As it is every year dating back to my childhood and long before me.

Nearby is one little boy and his new baby brother soaking up October. While they go about the work of being children I’m reminded to play. 

Some things are too good to take a pass on. Like warm and sunny fall.

Hello, October. We meet again.  And I’m all in.

 

Yesterday my parents’ car was sold. You remember that from last time we met?

My brother came from Arizona for a week. Another of his life-saving visits (that refers both to my life and my parents’ because otherwise I might have to shoot someone). He and I went together to have the car cleaned and polished. He’s a pal who understands my sorrow and what the car has meant to Mom and Dad.

I’m sure Brother had many of the same thoughts and emotions I had but he sorted them privately. In the open he helped me manage me and was wonderful support. Inside we probably both cried over our mounting, mutual losses. Death by a thousand cuts. 

I made a post on Facebook and said I was glad and sad the deed was done. My friends either silently or publicly nodded. My friend BB answered with something so true. “That is very tough. I don’t know why doing what’s right can feel so wrong.” 

She nailed it. Every step I take to do the proper and safe feels disrespectful. Unloving. Without compassion. My emotions and thoughts constantly dissonant.  

After the sale was completed I needed to be somewhere I could feel whole, accomplished, warm, nurtured, absorbed, in flow, and in control. There are few places where I can be so swaddled, cocooned and complete. My kitchen is one.

So yesterday’s Sunday dinner gnocchi-fest was born. Italian soul food comin’ right up.

Gnocchi is the simplest and most humble of Italian dishes but require a light touch. A small potato dumpling served with a sauce and/or cheese, they are the ultimate comfort food.

And they’re a mess to make. They take over. Leave room for nothing else. I don’t care what Lidia says or how she whips them up a half hour before dinner on her television show – my kitchen becomes a starchy mess of sticky countertops, every surface covered by a step of the process.

I use a Lidia Bastianich recipe and I bake the potatoes rather than boil them. Less moisture in the potato means less flour needed to make the dough. Less flour equals lighter and fluffier, and if the gnocchi gods smile upon ye, pillowy little delights practically float upward from your pasta bowl.

And even though I haven’t figured out how to make gnocchi without the concomitant potat-apocalyspe, it was the perfect undertaking, allowing me to immerse myself in a wonder of creative cooking. No space for melancholy.

 After baking my potatoes I peeled and riced them, then incorporated cheese, flour, egg, salt and white pepper. Ingredients such as thinking about tomorrow’s challenges or last week’s pain were omitted, kneaded away into a smooth, soft, yielding, slightly sticky dough. I rolled each dumpling across the gnocchi board. Perfectly imprinted ridges for holding sauce. No tears allowed.

When the gnocchi were made, covered, and awaiting later boiling, I began dessert.

Every pass of the rolling pin across puff pastry pressed sadness from my body. I spread a creamy combination of almond paste, egg and sugar on the dough, then covered it with sliced peaches and fresh blueberries. As I watched the pastry rise and become golden on an oven heated stone, a galette was born and I too came to life. Began to shine with my egg-washed pastry. I inhaled deeply of the baking fruit, wafts of almond and cinnamon billowed through my kitchen.

From brilliantly red tomatoes I sliced away longing for a life different than the moment, and tasted the creamy richness of buffalo mozzarella. I arranged both on a plate, mistress of my kitchen art, with no room remaining but for the dazzling green freshness of a basil scattered across the top. No place for wishing or wanting anything more than the platter offered.  

The gods definitely gave a big, wide grin last night. Half the gnocchi were served with fresh basil pesto, the other half with our family’s traditional sauce. Spaghetti sauce is a bit like macaroni and cheese, potato salad, slaw or fried chicken. Each family has their own special version, passed along generation to generation, evolving with each iteration. A secret ingredient lending a twist on tradition.

My husband picked up my parents and brought them to our home. We ate in the warmth of the kitchen where the best of meals seem somehow even better. My kitchen. The table was set with my mother’s favorite old, red and white tablecloth and napkins. We told them the car was gone; they nodded at the news. We opened a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino. We clinked our glasses. Chin-Chin. The depth of the wine’s beautiful jewel tone equaled that of the dinner, and the diners. 

I watched my mother, who now finds it difficult to eat, have three small helpings of gnocchi, the most she’d eaten in months. She smiled after every bite. “These are the best I’ve ever had, including my own.” What a compliment.

She chased them with a square of peach and blueberry galette and a side of vanilla ice cream. Washed it down with a strong cup of Italian roast coffee.

Last weekend I did what needed to be done. I continued the difficult task of sorting, dismantling and reconfiguring the lives of my elders. Then I went about the work of reassembling my spirit in a place I find solace and safety. We feasted on food that came from my kitchen, was created by my hands, and was born of my heart. We feasted on life.

Sorrow turns to joy. Despair becomes hope. Loneliness finds a friend. My kitchen. My world. My art. My work. My play. My gift. My peace. My salvation. I find life again, in my kitchen.

One of those fans was my son. After 30 years of attending Giants games, he came up with a ball, perfectly scuffed and dinged, rubbed a pale yellow brown from requisite Mississippi mud. A surprised and happy smile was on his face.

Then he generously handed it to his mama.

Sitting to my right was a pleasant and friendly British couple visiting San Francisco while celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary. The man explained that toward the end of the day he decided he wanted to attend an American baseball game while they had the chance. He didn’t know the Giants were about to meet their century-plus dreaded rivals in the first home-turf match up of the year. He had unknowingly chosen the biggest game of the still young season as their introduction to baseball.

The gentleman asked several questions about rules, tradition, players and positions, passing each answer along to his wife. They caught on quickly and did spot on impersonations of long-time Giants fans cheering and booing in all the right places.

I thought my husband and son, both to my left, were privy to the ongoing chit-chat. Mistake #1.

Son handed the ball to Mama as unwritten protocol suggests (hand-off hierarchy is generally an offer of the ball to the nearest small child, followed by girlfriend/wife, and last, mom, especially if a rabid fan). The Englishman looked as though his heart might stop from the thrill of being so near the major league ball. He asked if he could hold it.

It was obvious to me that though he’d been born in the land of cricket and tea he nonetheless had the baseball gene. He excitedly fondled, turned and examined the gem with a seemingly innate understanding of the sacred, spheroid symbol of the game.

He handed it back with slight hesitation.

“Do you think another will land this way?” he asked.

It occurred to me that I might have many more chances to win foul ball roulette and my son even more than I. In a fit of enthusiasm I gave the man the ball, catching only a glimpse of my son’s horrified face. Mistake #2.

I had assumed my son knew the situation next to me, understood my thinking, and given his tendency toward regular decluttering of random objects in his urban-slick flat, was completely in agreement. Mistake #3.

Wonderful British wife had apparently been peering over my shoulder as I faced her husband and saw the scene play out. She watched my son stare in disbelief when I offered the ball to her husband. She saw his aghast look when her husband lovingly clutched it. It was only when I observed her face that I had an inkling that something, probably not good, was occurring behind me. I turned to witness the face.

Could a mom feel worse?

I tried to explain. I tried to fix. I apologized profusely. I didn’t realize, I said. I didn’t remember there hadn’t been a ball before this one. I assumed he would be happy the ball was going with a tourist, that he would want it to go home with someone who’d never again have a chance to catch one. That the thrill of possibility we experience each time we queue for the squeeze through the gates of our stadium was enough to sustain us, along with the knowledge we’d provided joy to someone visiting our city and our team. Mistake #4.

I thought our conversation was on the down low and sufficiently quiet and no one would be the wiser. Mistake #5.

As the sidebar continued between my son and me, and he struggled to be graceful and game with my gaffe, apparently another chat was held behind me between husband and wife.

The gentleman said, “Please, we can’t accept this ball.” I think I noted a small gulp.

“In short order it will be gathering dust in a cupboard whereas with you it will be cherished. It’s a delightful gesture but we think the ball is more meaningful to you.”

Painful, I say, painful.

“No, please, sir, it’s yours. Your souvenir from tonight.”

He placed the ball in my hand. “We insist.”

So polite. So lovely. So British.

I took the ball, turned and handed it with embarrassment to my son. He stealthily snatched it away dismayed by the entire affair.

I was still trying to explain that I’m really not an ingrate by nature, I was simply caught up in the moment and thinking he would want to do what I had done.

“I’m keeping my ball,” he said with eyebrow arched. “And in case you haven’t thought about it, TV cameras follow the foul balls. Everyone saw you. You re-gifted my ball! The commentators were probably saying, ‘Look at that! That mom gave away her ball!’”

He had the gleam of payback in his eye. Mischief afoot.

The official scorekeeper says the error goes to the mom. In fact, multiple errors. A new record in baseball history books. (You know how they love stats in baseball.)

When things go foul, they fly there fast. Where was the umpire when I needed him? Game won. Face lost.

 

 

 

My house has a past. Not a good one. At least not all of it. It was about 50 years old when we got here. Fair to bad shape. Some had just used it without replenishing. Others tried to set things right. Didn’t know they were in over their heads. 

Maybe it takes some trips around the block to understand the past of a house can be hidden inside the walls. Open one up or try to take one down, it’s ancestry.com real estate style. Whoops. It always takes more time and dollars than one planned even when one plans on it taking more time and dollars than planned.

The roughest thing about this house was not the house. Though the wreckage inside would fill a long and boring list it was the abuse outdoors that had me wonder about those that came before.

A solid wood fence walled a backyard of little more than a rectangular lawn of grass and weeds, an orange tree, and redwood bark. Behind that fence in a wedge-shaped canyon lay the real sins. Empty containers. Old wood. Dead trees. Knee high weeds. Construction debris. Bricks. Unused tile and shingles. Anything one could pitch over a fence that hid the story of carelessness and irresponsibility. People had been playing pretend with their personal landfill for a long time. They never had to look down the hill.

Took a while to haul all the garbage up from the canyon, creek and woods below. To prune the trees and create a CalFire defensible barrier. To clear the weeds. And last, to remove the wooden obstacle to viewing the wilderness area and build a deer fence. Just in case we were lucky enough to draw wildlife back to the canyon.

The front of the house presented a different issue. In proportion to the refuse in back was concrete and asphalt in front. If behind was cluttered, the front was austere and vacant. But standing in the middle, where it had no doubt been for more than 100 years, was a heritage cypress tree. A bit worse for wear, bearing some disease and signs of poor pruning, with a few small limbs hanging brown from its branches.

Everything has its past. But before all this, the use, misuse, mindless negligence, and best attempts at doing what was thought right at the time, what had this place been? What wonderful stories might it tell?

Someone had grown vegetables here. I found thin plastic stakes buried in the dirt and marked with varieties of beans and tomatoes. Children’s handprints tickled a cement walkway, and a name was pressed into it. Plastic beach shovels and bits of broken toys were scattered in what once might have been a flower bed; I imagined toddlers running across the backyard lawn. And further down in the soil, sea shells. Shards and whole from clams and mussels. Perhaps from the first California inhabitants? Ohlone Indians.

Now my remnants. My handprints. I’ve lived here with my husband for eight years.

It’s 6AM on a near-summer morning of a near perfect day. At about 3PM the wind will bend the indigenous grasses we’ve planted where negligence once crept. The Pacific Ocean, just over the hill, will attract the evening fog. The breeze will announce its presence. I know this land. I can tell a tale of what it was not long ago, and describe what it is now. Sometimes I know what it will do before it happens. 

Why were we attracted to this place? I remember my husband and I barking at the realtor who showed it to us. Why would you bring us here when it needs so much work? ‘Fixer-upper’ does not mean ‘raise from the dead’.

Yet after we harrumphed and quickly left, we couldn’t forget it. Was it its past that called to my husband and me? Perhaps a beautiful surviving trace of long ago that stayed when all others abandoned. Did it whisper to us? You can do it. You can hear me. Bring this land to life.

Our time. Our money. Our energy. Our passion. Our imagination. Our skill. Our will. With all of that we have been interpreters of the past, and the future.

Now the lawn won’t stop growing and if someone mowed twice a week it wouldn’t be enough. 

Tree-trimmers have been here seven times in the last five years. They shake their heads and remark they’ve never seen such enthusiastic growth. One said, “Fecund is what they call this.”

Four-inch plants I brought a few years back have taken over and last month we removed half of what was planted. There are more oranges than we can use. A lemon bush bears year round fruit. Wisteria climbs a pergola and bloomed for five months from late winter through summer last year. Weeping cherries call out cold weather retreat and stargazer lilies break ground for brilliance in summer. Once quarterly we have help to cut it all back and it takes two trucks and our composter to remove what’s pruned.

Deer roam the canyon and gaze longingly through the wire fence at roses, hosta, and other delicacies thriving inside. They spend late pregnancy in the shade of the oak trees and have their babies creek side near the canyon bottom. From fruit trees I chase black squirrels attempting to escape with tasty bounty. Unwelcome raccoon and possum come for late night visits and I’m sure tap their toes waiting for August and September tomatoes. Darkness brings frogs roaring a chorus till they’re hoarse and daylight is summoned by a bird riot. 

As I look out on this brilliant morning I hear a familiar sound. No longer a whisper, the land shouts its thanks by offering abundance. 

Everything has a past. And I wonder. How many people and places have I written off, dismissed, or thought of as undesirable that might be different with care and time, and the ability to hear a whisper that came from another time? Some small spark that antedated current corruption. When have I missed the call to care a little more than I did? And maybe missed the adventure and satisfaction I found here.

The whisper we heard when we first came here, I’m sure it was a note from the past. It was also a summons to life.