Gaunt’s House

I spent two years in an online interfaith seminary based in London. Because of Covid, we did not meet in person which was good for me, because I live in California. For graduation however, I decided to go to the last retreat and ceremony in person. Incidentally, three weeks before my fly date, my landlord sent me a text giving me 30 day’s notice to quit, which meant I had to very quickly pack up my whole life and put everything in storage while packing for the trip and tying up all the loose ends. It was quite stressful. But the silver lining was that I had no ties, and could go wherever I wanted without worrying about “home.” So off I went. My classmate Melanie picked me up from Heathrow airport and took me around London for two days, which was exhausting but also thrilling. Then we drove down to a place called Sherborne in Dorset, which was such a sweet little town I wanted to stay there! We stayed there for a couple of days and then went to the retreat venue called Gaunt’s House in Dorchester. 

Why our seminary staff chose this place is beyond me. They talked it up and said how amazing it was but what I saw was a run down old house with stained rugs, gaps in the tile, half the showers didn’t have hot water, and the quality of the rooms were wildly different. Half the rooms in the main house were what the English call “posh,” large rooms, well decorated with en-suite bathrooms. The other half (including the one I was in) looked like a boarding school room, sparse with shared bathroom and shower facilities. The rest of the poor souls in our class got sent to the stables, which also had wildly varying qualities of accommodation. One lady said her room was so moldy she couldn’t sleep in it. I also killed a centipede in my neighbor’s room and dealt with a plethora of flies, a bee, and spiders in my own. Ick! If I were booking accommodations for a class of 35, I would make sure all the rooms were of equal or at least similar status. 

Then we get to the food. It was supposed to be a vegetarian place, which I have no problem with. I have had phenomenal vegetarian and vegan food, even though I am neither myself. What we had instead was poorly cooked food, and not enough of most things. I was hungry quite often the first few days until I figured out how to find snacks and use the tea service to get me through to the next meal. There were a couple of good meals, for example, one night we had ratatouille with baked potatoes and cheese for the non vegans. That was actually really good! One night we were served rice which had been massively over cooked and was mostly a mush with some loose rice around the edges and something unidentifiable which was basically a broth with some chickpeas and tomatoes floating around. And naan. That was way too many carbs for me but I had no other options. Which led me to an epiphany. The next time I am asked about dietary restrictions, I am going to say that while I don’t mind vegetarian/vegan options, I personally need protein. I would have been happy with steamed veggies or lentils, it didn’t have to be animal protein. 

Anyway, after all that, one of the ladies came into session and warned people that she had found several ticks on her body(!) During the next day or so, a few more people found ticks as well. That for me was the absolute last straw. Ticks can be extremely dangerous, and can carry Lyme disease, which can cause lifelong disability. I fully understand that it’s not possible to eradicate them, but the grounds should have been kept better and we should have been warned to stay out of the grasses. Completely unacceptable. As far as I can tell, I escaped tick-free (fingers crossed) but then again, I mostly stayed in the house. 

After all that madness, we actually did have a beautiful and inspiring ordination service and I have achieved my goal of becoming a Reverend!! It was just a bit of a rough road to get there. 

Water Lantern Festival 2022

 AKA several hours of hassle for five minutes of “ooh, pretty!” 

Back in 2020, I had asked my best friend Howard if we could go to a Water Lantern Festival for my upcoming birthday in May. He thought it was a great idea, because we enjoyed going to festivals, and bought tickets. As you may be guessing, we didn’t get to go because that March was the Covid lockdown and everything was cancelled. He held on to the tickets and two years later when they reopened the festival, we decided to go. 

Normally we would both show up early to a festival like this, get good parking, and spend as much time as we wanted there, hanging out and telling stories. However, unfortunately I had taken a dog sitting job and could only leave the dogs alone for a few hours. So we agreed on a time that would be late enough so the dogs wouldn’t be left alone too long, but that we could still do all the activities. As I was on my way, he called me. He had gotten there early, of course, and scouted everything. He had bad news. The place was packed and there were cars lined up down the street trying to get in. I said, "ok, you go see what's going on inside and have some fun and I’ll let you know when I get in." So I called my sister and we had a nice conversation to help me pass the time waiting to get in. Once I got past the entrance booth, Howard called me. I put my sister on hold and answered. “I’ve spotted you,” he said. I asked “where are you?’ He said “behind you and to the right.” I asked “are you walking?” He said no, he was in his truck with his binoculars! He sat there and watched all the cars until he found me. I told him I needed to wrap up my call with my sister and then I would park. He said ok. I went back to my sister and told her what happened. She laughed and said “he’s a good guy,” and I agreed. She told me to have fun, and I parked. Not ten seconds later, Howard was walking up to my car. 

I gathered my things and off we went. I told him first order of business I need a bathroom. If you have read any other stories on this blog, you know that periods can happen at most inconvenient times. This was one of those times. So I went to the bathroom and got that all taken care of, then we went in search of the bags and lantern kits. We got to the tent and Howard told me to find him a color, since he is red/green colorblind. I looked at the bags and they were all green, pink and orange! I told him so, and we laughed, and I explained to the guy sitting behind the table that Howard is colorblind. He had never heard of it, so we spent a minute or two explaining it to him. Howard showed him the app on his phone that lets him find colors, and the guy was fascinated. So I got him a green bag and picked out a teal colored mandala blanket, which also came with our ticket. 

We then went in search of food trucks, one of our favorite things! Howard had seen one on the advertisement called Wonton Tacos, so we had decided to try those. We found the truck and the line was shorter than the others. Howard said “do you think the line is short because the food is bad, or people just don’t know what a wonton taco is?” I said “either way, it’ll be an experience!” While we were waiting for tacos I realized that each of us should have gotten a bag, and I hadn't picked up mine. Whoops! So I went back and got a bag. They were out of any of the good colors, so I got an orange one. That's ok, I got the blanket. We got our tacos and tried to help a lady who had too much stuff and was having a hard time holding on to it. I don’t know how much help we were though! Having gotten our food, we headed off to find a spot far away from the crowds. I was starting to get a whopping headache, so I needed to hydrate, get some food, and take my night meds. We were standing in line and I told Howard this and he joked “those meds aren’t going to make you do anything crazy, like last time? I didn’t bring a shovel!” I shrugged and said “no promises.” We often have dark humor, and I wonder what the lady in front of us in line was thinking! 

Anyway, we managed to find a picnic table, which was a huge score because the park was absolutely packed. We ate our tacos, I drank my tea and got my meds down, and we got to work on our lanterns. He had brought all his runes with him and knew exactly what he wanted. I had been so stressed all week that I hadn’t even had a chance to think about it. But I found a few designs online and made up a few more, and was pretty happy with my lantern. We made a couple of TikTok videos and it was getting dark, so we went down to launch the lanterns. That part was actually pretty stunning, it was dark and there were all these lanterns floating on the water and other people finishing theirs up and bringing them down. We launched ours together, and watched them float away to join the others. We mentioned that it was like us and our friendship, going forward and having other adventures. 

That lasted all of five minutes, and then it was time to turn our attention to how the heck we were going to get out of there. There was already a line of cars all the way back to where I had parked, which was almost all the way back. We told each other goodbye and good luck and I got in my car and got in line. I got another friend on the phone to pass the time and it was a good twenty minutes before I even moved. When we finally did move, we went all around the park road, then saw that they were diverting the food trucks on to the actual road, and diverting us to one of the trails that ran around the park! So that was an interesting drive. So what should have been a twenty minute drive each way turned into at least an hour! Later I learned that Howard had found a back road out and avoided the line altogether. No surprise there, he’s good at that sort of thing. 

All in all we had a nice evening, albeit a little stressful, and got our food truck food, TikTok video and Instagram pictures. Was it worth it? It would have been better if I wasn’t double booked with the dogs and could have come earlier, but we had a good time and some new stories to add to our lexicon. So it was worth it. 

Saving Baby Turtles

While visiting my sister in Barbados I got the opportunity to help look for baby turtles to rescue. Unfortunately in modern society that lives by the beach, the lights that the humans produce are brighter than the moon and the baby turtles follow the light to get to the ocean, which causes them to go the wrong way, become stranded and die which is tragic. On Barbados local conservationists have several strategies for trying to prevent this including digging ditches or building barriers between the nesting sites and the road so that the turtles can’t physically cross them but the most common strategy is for volunteers to keep an eye on nesting sites, figure out when the turtles are hatching and monitor them to make sure they are getting to the ocean safely. 

When my sister said we were going to look for turtles of course I was excited! As a lifelong animal lover, this was a great opportunity. What I wasn’t expecting is how hot, dirty, difficult and dangerous that task is. Our guide took us to an area that was near a nesting site. It was kind of late in the season and we didn’t get out there very early so our chances of finding anything were pretty low. Our guide was fearless, caring only for the turtles and without regard for her own safety would walk through trash infested yards and even sewage pipes in sandals and a skirt! I was horrified at the amount of trash and waste there was everywhere. I even spotted a used condom laying on the ground. By some miracle we found two baby turtles near death in a yard. One was doing ok, flapping its flippers vigorously, a good sign. The other didn’t look so good. It was lethargic and had an obvious injury to its flipper. We took them both down to the beach straightaway and released them into the ocean. I have said more than a few prayers that they made it and will grow into happy adult turtles. 

What I learned that day is that saving baby turtles is hard, dangerous work and my respect for these selfless, brave volunteers shot up about 1000%. For all the conservationists out there on the front lines, thank you for all you do! 

Beautiful Scenery, Ugly Task

I took this beautiful, scenic picture on my way to dump two weeks’ worth of poop into a giant hole in the ground. 

Let me provide some context. For about six months a few years ago, I lived off grid in a trailer in the woods in Fiddletown, CA. Living off grid was all the rage in the blog world, and I wanted to give it a try. I was looking for a place to live, and ran across an ad on Craigslist. I called the owner, drove to the property and looked around. I was sure it was too good to be true but after talking to him about what I would need to get set up, I decided to go for it. And then spent the next month living at my sister’s house while we had the flood of the decade. I couldn’t drive out to the ranch in my little Ford Focus without getting stuck in the mud, much less assemble my solar set up in the pouring rain. So I waited. Finally the weather cleared up and my brother came up with me to help me set up my solar panels. They were big and unwieldy, and he is a handyman so he taught me a lot that day. I got everything set up and moved in. It was very exciting and a little scary at first. There were a lot more spiders than I would have liked, but I found that even though they freaked me out, I could deal with it. And there was a nice family right down the hill who I could interact with and get advice from, so it was a pretty nice set up. I only lived there part time in between house sitting jobs, which could be from a day to a week at a time. I had running water from the well and electricity from my solar panel, but the pilot light wouldn’t work and my landlord wasn’t that interested in fixing it so I had no heat, hot water, refrigerator or freezer. I had a nice little propane stove that I could heat water in and take sponge baths so it was just fine. When I turned on the stove and lit the flame, the spiders that had been living down in the burners all came running out. That was entertaining. And every day I found fresh mouse poop in my kitchen drawers. So I made sure to clean every utensil before I used it. I had a toilet in the bathroom and was told that urine was ok to drain out but feces and toilet paper had to go in a bucket lined with ash and straw. I figured it would smell pretty bad but after I covered my deposit with a generous amount of ash and straw, I found that it didn’t smell at all. Which brings us to the picture. When the bucket got relatively full, I would have to take it on a fairly long hike up a trail which then disappeared into a meadow. The owner showed me once when I visited but by the time I had to make the first trip I had forgotten where it was. So the little boy from the family was kind enough to take me. He wasn’t very old but he was whip smart. He helped his dad and the owner with all sorts of projects. Once we got to the top of the hill, there were two holes the owner had dug out with a tractor. For some reason, even though he had over 50 acres of land, he had chosen to place these holes right next to a neighbor that disapproved of this practice. So the boy told me I had to be very quiet so I didn’t attract the attention of the neighbor. Great. The other thing I learned very quickly is that the sides of the holes were sloped, so I had to be extremely careful not to lose my footing and fall in myself! There was no cell signal up there and the holes were easily ten feet deep, so that would have been a bad situation. I managed to get a foothold far enough in so that my poop and toilet paper went down into the hole, and returned to my trailer with my empty bucket. Fortunately, I didn’t spend a lot of time there between jobs so I only had to make that trip a few times. 

Mammoth Mountain

Here I am, on top of the incredibly gorgeous Mammoth Mountain, at 11,053 feet! I was not planning to visit this mountain, and how I got up there was purely by accident.

A few weeks prior to this journey, I saw a newsletter from Cheryl Strayed, one of my favorite authors, in my email inbox. I scanned it and saw a sentence announcing a writer’s workshop at the Mammoth Yoga Festival. I did a quick check to see where Mammoth was and learned that it was about a four hour drive from Sacramento. I decided this was the chance of a lifetime so I registered for the seminar and booked two nights at the resort the yoga festival was being held at, thinking it would be easier to just stay where the seminar was so I wouldn’t have to stress out and drive and find it. More on that later. 

I left a couple of hours early from work on Friday and hit the road, trusting my GPS to do all the thinking for me. I got to the resort four-ish hours later. I thought it was odd that I had clearly been routed through Nevada, as I could see the “Welcome to Nevada” signs, but I was so exhausted I put that thought aside and limped up to the check-in desk. I felt like a zombie and my brain was fried, so I did my best to understand all the instructions, signed all the paperwork, and figured out where the heck my parking space was. They actually have a genius underground parking garage with parking areas for each section of the hotel. I got into my room, dumped all my stuff, rested for a bit, then set out to explore the resort. 

If you are ever in the area on the off season, definitely consider The Village Lodge Mammoth. It is brilliantly designed, with all the shops and restaurants right there in a village setting, so everything you need is within a few minutes’ walk. I had a look at the souvenirs, then got some groceries at the local grocery store; much cheaper than eating out. 

I went back to my room and settled down to figure out my strategy for the next morning, the morning of the seminar. This is where things got… interesting. 

The first thing I discovered was that despite all my planning and cleverness, my seminar was not going to be held at the resort. Great. My anxiety level shot up as I started strategizing for the next morning. I am completely paranoid when it comes to these type of events, and will go ridiculously early to ensure that there is no chance I might be late. So I decided to go a full hour early, (it was only a five minute drive to the venue), scope out the place and sit and read while I waited. 

The next morning I got up early, grabbed some snacks from the grocery store, and headed out. As I was getting closer to where it was supposed to be, I saw something incredible; skiers on the hill. Did I mention this was in the summer? Then I started to see something concerning; cars parked on the road for at least a mile. I kept driving, hoping that this was not going to affect my schedule. I got to the venue which turned out to be a ski lodge, and was told by the parking attendants that I had to go all the way back down the hill, park, and catch a shuttle bus back up the hill. Oh crap. Suddenly my extra hour was not so comforting. I was now in a race against the clock. I drove back down past the rows and rows of cars that seemed to go on forever and finally pulled into the first spot available. The parking attendant had said the shuttle signs were lettered A-E so I started my long walk up the hill. Mind you, I am not in great shape, my anxiety at this point was through the roof, my heart was pounding and my blood pressure was probably scary. But I was determined. I started walking. I had to stop frequently and rest because did I mention I was at 6000 feet elevation? I employed all the mind tricks I have learned from years of training martial arts to keep going, and after what seemed like forever, I saw a sign marked C. I leaned on a car and caught my breath and started to worry about whether the shuttle would really come or not. At this point, I had about 30 minutes before the seminar started and I knew that time would go quick. I stewed for a few minutes and a couple walked up and asked me if this was the shuttle stop and when it would come. I said I didn’t know so we stood there together and worried. Fortunately the shuttle did come after a few minutes and we rode up to the lodge. Whew! 

The lodge was a long building that was maybe three or four stories high. I hopped out of the shuttle and ran up to the attendant and said “I’m here for the writing seminar; where is the conference room?” He replied that it was at the far end of the building and up two floors. Ugh. I only had about 15 minutes to spare. So I started out. Up one staircase, walking as fast I could not knowing where I was going, hoping I wasn’t going the wrong way. I found the kitchen they mentioned, then up the second staircase (I was so exhausted by this point but I was going to make it if it killed me). I finally reached a nice lady sitting at a table and said “Is this the writing workshop?” She said “yes” and I let out a big sigh of relief and said “Oh my God!” She apologized and said none of them knew it was going to be this busy. Just then Cheryl walked by and I heard the facilitator explain to her that a lot of people might be late because they did not foresee all the crowds. Mind you, I had started a full hour early and only just made it. There were a few people already there. I found a good spot, more people filtered in and we started the seminar. It was everything I had hoped it would be and to hear one of my favorite authors speak was an incredible treat! 

So, here’s where I accidentally end up on the top of Mammoth Mountain. After the seminar, I noticed signs for a gondola. I remembered that my booking had included a free gondola ride, so I went to the counter to check it out. I had no idea where this thing was headed, but I figured, free ride, might as well take advantage. I had everything the hotel had given me, but there was no pass. Given my zombie state at check in, this might have been completely my fault but the guy at the desk was very helpful and called the hotel to confirm. I was all set and headed over to the gondola building. I got in the gondola and was told I could get out as many times as I wanted to at stops one and two but once I got out at the station, my ride was over. I didn’t really know what that meant but I agreed and off we went. It was breathtakingly beautiful. As we pulled in to stop one, they asked if I wanted to get out, but I decided I would get out on the return trip if I wanted to. Then I looked forward. The line went straight up, so far I couldn’t see where it ended. This leg was even more incredible than the first. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew it was high. I marveled at my surroundings and thought that even though I am not a skier, after this experience I have a new understanding of why people do it. The views are spectacular! I got off at stop two and took the picture in this post. There was a nice little cafe and mini museum with facts about the mountain. It was there I learned where I was and that this was easily the highest elevation I have ever been to in my life. I took some pictures and bought a t-shirt and rode the gondola back down the mountain. It was a very cool, completely unexpected experience. Once I had my feet on the ground, I was faced with the task of finding my car and getting back to the resort. The shuttle came around and I was able to identify where I parked and got back with no incident. I bought some souvenirs and made a bad choice of restaurants and had cold tacos, but otherwise had a nice evening. 

Later that night, I called my friend Leila who was 94 and had been camping and backpacking for decades all over the West Coast. She listened to my story and quizzed me on my route and was insistent that my GPS took me too far out of my way. She implored me to use a map to get home and I promised I would look at it. When I did, I had to agree with her. I did some internet research and decided I wanted to come back via State Route108. I spent an hour painstakingly writing down my route with towns and markers to look out for in case I lost my signal, and went to bed. 

The next morning I checked out and headed for my first marker, a town on the edge of 108 where I planned to stop for breakfast. I had breakfast and entered a town on the other side of 108 into my GPS. The GPS was trying to get me to go all the way around, hours out of my way. I tried several more times, but the GPS would not route me through 108 no matter what I put in. I checked the internet, and all the notices said the route was open. So I decided to risk it. I turned onto 108 and saw all sorts of signs warning large vehicles not to take that route, and immediately got stuck behind an RV going at the pace of a sloth. After a frustrating few minutes, I decided to stop at a turn off and take a break. After that, it was much better. 

Once I got into the pass, I was rewarded with some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen! Unreal vistas, with mountains and valleys and views that blew my mind! I started stopping at almost every turnout to take pictures because with every turn there was a new incredible view. Pretty soon, even though I had been careful not to drink much, I had to go to the bathroom. It started to become very uncomfortable, so I started to look for a turnout that had a place that I could hide behind. I finally found one that had a rather large tree with a little ditch behind it. Certainly not completely hidden from the road, but I was hoping that by the time passersby saw me, they’d be driving past me before they could figure out what I was doing. Plus, there was hardly any traffic on the road. I pulled over and got behind the tree, and did the deed successfully, went back to my car and continued my journey, feeling much better. Fortunately, that was the only time I had to do that. I kept stopping for pictures until I finally said to myself “you’d better drive or you’re not going to get home!” So I did. I stopped at a tiny little town, went into an old style diner and had chocolate ice cream, which tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten. They suggested I go downstairs and have a look around. It was an antique/bookshop but as I walked around, I could hear water running. I discovered that this level had been carved out of the hill and there was a natural waterfall that went through it! Another accidental, pretty incredible discovery. After that, I drove the rest of the way home, exhausted but very satisfied with my adventure. 

Lesson learned; GPS is fine for finding addresses around town, but for long trips into the country, plan your trip with a real map and make sure you know were you are going. 

The Expendable Spoon

When my friend Chris was leaving for his European backpacking trip, our friend Howard gave him a spoon to take with him.  I asked him why a spoon and here is what he said (as I understood it):

When we are young and just getting started in life we buy what supplies we can on our limited budget.  Cheap silverware, maybe mismatched plates from the thrift store, whatever we need.  As we get older, we are able to have more stability and maybe we graduate to a house, car, matching silverware.  So the old stuff gets thrown in the back of the drawer.  

But every once in awhile, we may have the opportunity to go on a trip or do something that requires packing a lunch and we need to take a spoon with us.  We don’t want to risk losing one of our nice pieces, so we grab the old forgotten spoon from the back of the drawer because it is expendable.  

We go on our trip, come home, wash the spoon and put it away, back in the forgotten recesses of the drawer.  Next time we need an expendable spoon, we grab that one again, and it comes with us on another trip, another adventure.  

Over the years, our nice silverware gets used, washed, and put away, but this old spoon gets to go on all the adventures with us, and after awhile, it starts to take on meaning.  We start to attach fond memories to it and it becomes more than the old expendable spoon, it becomes the adventure spoon.  

That’s why he gave our friend a spoon, to teach him that the ordinary can take on an extraordinary new life.  

As I reflected on that story, thinking what a great concept that was, he added: maybe some of us are like that, we are the oddballs, the expendable spoons, but we go on the greatest adventures.  

My friend is a genius.

(Clever spoon photo courtesy of Chris Domingo
Spoon story courtesy of Howard Martell)

Adventures in Air Conditioning

View from the window

My air conditioner at the first place I stayed in Chiang Mai, Thailand didn’t seem to work very well when I moved in.  At first, the temperature didn’t get below 85F.  I gave it a day or two and then I told reception that my a/c was not working.  They sent a guy up who looked like he was about 16 years old...

He stared at it for a few minutes...

Then looked at me and said “ok?”  

"Not okay!"  I showed him the thermometer. “See? it’s 30C, it should be 20C.”  

He stared at it some more...

and stood there, looked at me, looked back at it...

Finally he opened up the panel.  "Great," I thought, "we're finally getting somewhere."  

He finally took the filters out and washed them in my shower.  It seemed to work and that night it got so cold I had to turn it off!  Hallelujah!  

The next day it crapped out again.  I told the front desk.  They sent the tech up again.  

He stared at the unit for awhile...

Then he grabbed the remote, pushed the power button and "beep!" it magically came on.

I had no idea what he did, I swear I pushed every button on that remote, but it seemed to be working.  He handed me the remote and said "Ok?"  There wasn't much I could say, the unit was running so I said "ok, thank you" and he left.

That night, the air conditioner was still not working.  After fiddling with it, I finally figured out what was going on.  It would run for about 1/2 hour then turn itself off.  What that meant was I woke up every 2 hours sweating from the heat, turned the a/c on, cooled down enough to go to sleep, woke up two hours later sweating from the heat, etc etc.  By the third or fourth go around, I had a screaming headache.  

I went to reception the next morning.  I told them “you keep sending the tech, and he’s a nice guy, but he’s not fixing the problem.”  They said they will send a real tech from “outside” the next day.  Great, so that meant I was looking forward to another hot night.  I went to the mall to see a movie with a friend.  

When I got back to my room, from down the hall I could see multiple sandals outside my door.  I rushed in to see five workmen in my room, one standing on my chair working on the unit, the tech I had before, two sitting on the ground by the window from what I can tell providing moral support, and another walking around.  I said hi to everyone and sat on my bed and watched.  They showed me that there was a broken sensor that they replaced. That was finally the end of the a/c saga and I happy to say it has worked ever since!