The other day, someone gave us some Pepper Plant barbecue sauce, made in Gilroy, California, and we decided to give it a try on some chicken breasts.

The bottle of BBQ sauce.

My husband has barbecuing down to a fine science. We use a Weber Grill and plain charcoal, which we light with the use of a chimney starter.

The chimney starter lights your coals quickly and without the use of lighter fluid. I think we learned this trick from an old episode of Alton Brown’s show Good Eats, and it definitely works more efficiently than lighter fluid does. (Not to mention it’s more cost-effective in the long-run, since you never have to buy another bottle of lighter fluid again once you have a chimney starter.)

In the end, we had chicken breasts and kabobs with leek, bell peppers, and mushrooms. We sat at the top of the hill in our backyard looking out over the Petaluma hills, watching the sun set. Since it was January, we needed some blankets and candles, but otherwise we were quite comfortable.

There are a lot of spectacular hikes in Sonoma County. Maybe that’s why I never paid attention to Helen Putnam Regional Park in Petaluma. I had read it was an easy 2.8-mile hike, and because it seems like it is in the middle of town, I had it in my head that it was going to be a city park with a jungle gym and a lot of planted landscaping.

But to my delight, I discovered that Helen Putnam Regional Park is a lovely park. A concrete road takes you over a series of hills and down to a little lake. In January, with the endless oak trees and everything green from winter rain, it feels like walking through one big meadow. I sat by a lake, climbed a hill, ate an apple, saw a jack rabbit, and looked at a lots of spectacular views. Here’s some photos:

What kind of man am I married to? I am married to a man who skins a TickleMeElmo Doll and puts it on the Internet for all to see.

Haven’t you always wanted to see what the robot under the TickleMeElmo looks like? Well now you can! Complete with videos!

Elmo Stabs!

In between all the other things I have been doing, I’ve been experimenting with wire working. Above is part of a necklace I made this week.

To make the necklace, I cut 50 pieces of copper wire at 6.5 inches, curled both ends with pliers, and then hooked them together.

I’ve been playing with beads since high school, but I like working with wire more. You have no need for crimp beads or clasps or connectors or anything like that. However, I now understand why metal necklaces are so expensive. They are not hard to make, but time intensive. Good thing they look good on.

Oh New Cup! So fresh and clean. Yet to have coffee stains, yet to have cracks and chips. How I enjoy drinking lattes out of you. How I enjoy looking down at your cheerful-yet-elegant design. I thank you for brightening my morning.

Hail new cup!

I have been busy. The New Year is full of writing and I’m in a good place mentally about it, and about life in general. That wonderful focus I got at the beginning of the year hasn’t left me yet. If I could feel like this all the time, I wouldn’t have any problems with my career.

Here’s a run down of what I’ve been doing:

1. I have finished one major project and am having readers look at it.
2. I am making significant progress with another major project that has been kicking around in my head for a long time.
3. I have a lot of deadlines to fulfill.
4. I’m preparing for the Word Pirates reading on February 8.
5. I’m working on the Petaluma blog.
6. I’m pitching for new articles to write.
7. I’m organizing my documents, submission tracker, life, et. all.
8. I’m reading a lot… I mean a lot.

So that’s why I haven’t been posting. Also, I really wanted to post a video on here yesterday, but YouTube/Word Press won’t let me. I have no idea why and it makes me sad.

Regardless, you should check out this YouTube video of writer Margaret Atwood talking about myths and religion. I agree with her about human nature being the same throughout time. We have a tendancy to look down at people in the past as though they are stupider than us, but in reality, I think they were just like we are today. As she says, just look at the myths–our desires, our fears, our dreams are the same now as they have always been. That goes for all humans, everywhere. It is maybe the very thing that makes us human to begin with.

Last Saturday, I took this photo of a protest of the War in Iraq in downtown Petaluma. It looks more dramatic than it actually was. The police officer is not arresting anyone–she’s helping a car that got into an accident while watching the protestors.

Never a dull moment around here.

I originally posted the following for the Word Pirates, but since I still more or less agree with it, I decided to post it here as well. You can also read about the wine tasting I did this weekend over at my Petaluma blog.

Lately I’ve been thinking that I should have more established ideas about the function of creative writing. Is it to entertain? Communicate? Recreate emotions? All of the above? Chekov thought that the writer serves as an observer of life. Is that what I’m doing? Virginia Woolf thought that writing illuminated the otherwise isolated subjective experience. Do I agree?

Word Pirates is the closest thing I have to my own ideas about writing. Co-founder Marcia and I generally agree on these issues. For example, we both think that writing shouldn’t be boring. That sounds like a no-brainer, maybe, but you would be shocked by how much is written with no particular thought about being entertaining. Today’s writers are fighting tremendous odds–TV, Internet, short attention spans, et. all. They have to grab the reader right away and hold on tight.

Or, we both agree that writing should clearly say something. We want stories, we want a point. We aren’t the type of readers who can slough through a bunch of experimental poetry and feel like we got something out of it. And there are other things: We think short stories should be short, that essays should not be naval gazing, that pop culture is actually important, and that humor is awesome.

As for the deeper aesthetic meaning of art, I don’t think Word Pirates has gotten there yet. However, I do think writing, particularly creative writing, serves several purposes. Writing:

1. Puts you in the head of an individual in a way that nothing else can. It bridges culture gaps, age differences, and even death. After all, you are literally reading someone else’s thoughts. As such, it teaches you ways of thinking that you would never be able to understand without it. I think you could read the entire history of China and still not understand a particular kind of Chinese thinking the way one single Lu Hsun story could teach you.
2. Serves as a critique of the world around us. Nothing gets at the problems of our culture and government like art can. The writer is someone who explores the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual impacts of our social systems, which is an essential and important role.
3. Connects us to each other. Often this comes in emotional connection. You’re reading along, and then suddenly you realize that a character is describing an emotion that you believed only you had experienced. It’s like finding a friend who truly understands you. You are filled with amazement; you feel less alone. But writing also inspires connection through everything from new ideas, innovative language use, and an entertaining story. Language is communication, and communication is what binds people together. Fiction writing is communication distilled down to get at the places where language fails us–those unturned stones of the mind that we know and don’t know about at the same time.

I think that this is my basic opinion of why creative writing is important. But I could be leaving something out. If so, what?

It’s a well-known fact that wine tasting has gotten more expensive. In Napa, for example, it used to cost around $3-$5 per winery to taste about five samples of wine. Now, many wineries charge $5 per taste of wine. As such, I don’t go wine tasting in Napa unless I want to spend a lot of money.

Sonoma, however, is still pretty inexpensive. Many wineries are free, and others refund the fee when you buy a bottle of wine or compensate by giving you a free glass or food paring.

On top of that, tasting in Sonoma is more fun than it is in Napa. Not only is the wine just as good and the vineyards just as pretty, but there are fewer crowds and the pourers tend to be friendlier (read: less snooty). Tasting in January has lots of benefits too–it’s a slow time for the wine industry, so you get the vineyards to yourself. And, while the leaves are off the vines, the land is lush and green from winter rains, and a host of spring flowers, like mustard and acacia trees, are starting to bloom.

(vines in winter)

Of course, wine tasting isn’t about getting free booze. It’s about sampling the wine to get a sense of the winery’s style and to decide what you want to buy. I hardly ever go wine tasting without getting a couple of bottles of wine. But having to shell out $5-$15 per winery adds up and tends to feel more like bar-hopping after awhile instead of the educational experience it’s supposed to be.

And besides, we just had the holidays and I’m broke.

So, this Saturday, my friends and I decided to go wine tasting around nearby Healdsburg to see if you can still taste for free there, something that was very doable five years ago. It turns out that more places are charging these days, but the whole endeavor is still a bargain. Here’s where we went:

Clo du Bois–$5 to taste five wines and we got to keep the glass. Because we were tasting in January, the Clo du Bois tasting room was empty, giving us the undivided attention of our pourer. He explained how the winery makes the wine and the difference between French and California oak wine barrels. Very educational! Cost: A friend and I shared our taste, so $2.50 per person.

Preston Vineyards–$5 to taste four organic wines and to pet cats. The last time I went to Preston Vineyards, it was an adorable family farm complete with fresh fruit and a basket of kittens to pet. Now, a couple of years later, the kittens are cats and the vineyard has gone organic, complete with slightly unfriendly alternative types to pour your wine tastes. The pourer informed me that Preston doesn’t use any chemicals in the making of its wine, even insecticide soap. You can also buy tee-shirts there that say “I Veg To Differ” on them. I didn’t dig the wine, but I did sample some delicious olive oil that Preston makes on the premises. Too bad it was $32 per bottle. Cost: A shared taste at $2.50 per person.

Raymond Burr Vineyards–Free to taste seven wines. Actor Raymond Burr, star of the TV show Perry Mason and Hitchock’s Rear Window, was a partner in this vineyard before he died in the 1990s. It has a great location on a hill overlooking the Dry Creek Valley. We tasted several excellent wines and talked about the actor. The pourers lamented that people in their early 20s are often unfamiliar with Burr, and then somehow we got on the topic of Burr’s ghost. Once, one of the pourers was in the office of the winery when a bell rang. When she looked, no one was there. Spooky! Well, if Burr’s ghost is around, he’s supervising some fine wine. Cost: Free.

(view from Raymond Burr Vineyards)

Lunch at El Sombrero–$2 taco, $1 diet pepsi. The town of Healdsburg is full of fancy restaurants and $10 gourmet sandwiches, so thank goodness for El Sombrero, a Mexican joint just off downtown. There, a chicken taco fills you up for next to nothing. Cost: $3.

Roshambo Winery–Free to taste six wines. Roshambo, whose slogan is “fighting for fun in a winey world,” is in the process of moving to new premises, but you wouldn’t know it. Unlike the other places we visited, Roshambo’s tasting room was packed with people, most of whom were in their 20s and early 30s. A little kid was kicking beach balls on the side of the tasting bar and people were using rubber chickens to launch wine corks into the air. I think Roshambo is the funnest winery in the North Bay. Cost: Free.

(a rubber chicken at Roshambo)

Wilson Winery–$5 to taste five wines. I have wanted to taste at Wilson for awhile because it keeps winning awards for its red wine. It did not disappoint. Our pourer told us that she prefers working in Sonoma County over Napa. “I’m not going to lie to people,” she said. “If people ask me what I think of certain wineries, I am going to tell them. And in Napa, that kind of thing is frowned upon.” Of course, we then got the inside scoop about those certain wineries and also got recommendations for next time we go wine tasting. On top of that, because it was the end of the day, she waived our tasting fee. How nice! Cost: Free.

(Wilson Winery)

So, if you don’t count the three bottles of wine we bought, a whole day cost $8.50 per person. And while those bottles of wine certainly add up, they are great additions to our collection. Money well spent, in my opinion.

Somehow it completely escaped my notice that an album of Johnny Cash’s last songs, Amercan V: A Hundred Highways, was released in 2006. Cash wrote and recorded the vocals shortly before he died, and the songs were finished by other musicians.

Usually, an album completed after a musician’s death is pretty bad. You can always tell things were done to the songs that the artist wouldn’t have done himself, he had lived. But I think this Johhny Cash album is an exception. The songs on this album are mature meditations on death and life, and are often really sad, but they have a restrained elegance to them. The arrangements are suitably subtle and drift more towards blues than country. I hope when I’m on death’s door, I’m still producing art that is as relevant and interesting, although really, I’ll just be grateful if it’s readable.

Anyway, I’m really digging this tack from the album, God’s Gonna Cut You Down. Listen Here.