Young mothers need our support

Last week I accompanied a photographer friend of mine, Brooke from Brooke Imagery, to Sac State to take portraits of some young mothers and their children. Here you see one of the little guys confronting a rather belligerent rooster who escorted us around the Arboretum. He was fearless! (The boy, not the chicken!)

It was nice to see these young women taking their responsiblities seriously and doing their best to rear happy, healthy children. Certainly, they are learning to do the hardest job on the planet--parenting.

Fortunately, they have the support of a great organization that helps foster youth get established after the system cuts them loose. Connections for Youth, Inc., is a Sacramento-based non-profit established by Samantha Olson. Check them out on Facebook. Good work, Sam!

A strange sight on Carmel beach

So far it had been a lovely trip to Carmel. Mindi and I had enjoyed fabulous massages at Le Spa. Full of margaritas and chicken chile relleno with mole sauce from Club Jalapeno, we sauntered down Ocean Avenue until, drawn in by the scent of a thousand bubblebaths, we discovered Lush, the best little soapery this side of Paris. (OK, so it is a franchise, but I'm absolutely hooked on the Godiva solid shampoo bar. It leaves my hair so volumized and shiny!)

So, we were feeling giddily pampered as we strolled down to the beach, sinking luxiously into the sugar-like white sands as we made our way down the dune, until -- EW! What was that?! A dead deer washed up on the beach?

"It's a male," a teen boy declared as we crept upon the swollen animal. "We watched it wash up."

The crowd of youngsters joined us in our inspection. It was, indeed, a male, though the evidence thereto was rapidly diminishing in decomposition. Felt still covered both points of the young innocent's antlers; its tongue dangled loosely in the sea.

The boy and a friend came over to pose for me by the poor thing, mocking a posture of conquest.

We met the girl's father the next day manning the Gallerie Rue Royale, where we were drawn in by Todd White's Night Life collection. The girl blew in noisily past the father, her cell phone trumping his request to keep it down.

The beleaguered gallery manager greeted us wearily and we revealed that we had met his daughter the previous night. He said he'd heard about us, and noting that we were a mother and daugther enjoying a getaway together, he asked hopefully, naively, what to expect of the abyss of adolescence that lay before him: "How long till I get my daughter back?"

We laughed. "How old is she?"

"Thirteen."

We laughed louder. "Oh, about ten years," I replied.

The poor soul visibly caved. He shared his concerns about the coming years, of which there were plenty, his being a retired physician and all. We offered our best strangerly advice and slipped out of the gallery, thankful to have those years behind us.

Now it's just good, honest hardheadness that comes between Me and the Min. At least she comes by it honestly.

Lunch at Nepenthe

Our trip to Carmel in June was humming lazily along as we lounged on the patio of Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur. I wondered why my beet salad came on a bed of bread crumbs.

While I was trying to summon the will to reach for my fork, BAM! -- a blue jay swooped in, snatched a bread crumb and was gone in an instant. Evidently I had ordered his favorite dish.
I was ready for his next pass, and he was kind enough to smile for my camera. I thought it was hilarious, though Mindi wasn't so keen on dodging birds between bites of crostini.

After lunch we stopped at one of my favorite spots on the coast: Pfeiffer state beach, a 2-mile crawl off Highway 1. My dreams of dramatic sunset shots blew away with the sandstorm, but not before Mindi obliged me with a roll down the sand dune.

Tahoe wildflowers in spring

"What are those red flowers?" I asked the park ranger at Vikingsholm, the Skandinavian castle on Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe.

"Snow flowers," she replied. I became fascinated by the unusual red stems protruding leafless through the sandy soil left softened by the winter's snows. "What do they do after this stage?" I wondered, and she answered smartly: "They die."

I'll resist the urge to grasp at a methaphor about life at this point and say simply that these saprophytes are a uniquely beautiful manifestation of the fragility of spring. (OK, so that's a mouthful anyway. I feel a writing spurt coming on.)

My daughter Mindi enjoyed a late spring Memorial Day getaway with a couple of days at the lake. The crowds had yet to arrive. The weather was still, warm and sunny. Pure bliss.

We stopped in to the Camp Richardson stables and joined another pair for a ride to the hilltop and back. Our guide was hilarious, keeping up an entertaining narrative the entire time as we trusted the horses to pick their way carefully through the rocky terrain.

I've been to Tahoe many times over the years, but I've never seen it so beautiful. I'm just sad we couldn't tour the inside of Vikingsholm, which opened the day after we visited, I beleive.

Well, life is fragile, and timing is everything.