Practicing... December 10, 2000 ...watching American TV, returning of broken stuff, climbing (some of us practiced too little, as it became apparent in a competition), and picking mushrooms.

Right from the start of the week both Sid and I got properly "duned". By chance we noticed that a three-part TV show was being broadcast, a new Dune (after Frank Herbert's book of the same name), which we naturally could not miss.

It meant sacrificing three evenings to television, always from nine to eleven, while half an hour of that was taken by commercials. It was very well done, they just assumed you have read the book. I did, though some ten, twelve years ago and so I sometimes hesitated who was who and why he did what he did. First two parts were breathtaking, but the third one, where oppressed peoples rise to power (under the direction of the only leader, who is always right), invoked associations not always pleasant.

Why am I writing about it? I noticed final credits. Theodor Pištěk, Forman brothers, Barbora Kodetová, Pavel Kříž... there were plenty of them, for the movie got made in part in Barrandov, Prague. Strangely, they kept the original, deformed English of many Czech and German actors.

On Monday I got hit by an attack of migraine. It happens to me once in two years and I used to think that migraine was and illness, which pre-war housewives invented when they ran out of ideas. When it hits me, I squirm somewhere for a half day, and quietly hope for a sudden death. If I manage to swallow some pills soon enough to keep them down until they kick in, I can return to normal in about two hours, which has a bad impression on my surroundings. What would you think about a woman who crawls on all four and hurls and then suddenly gets up and walks away, smiling??? If you associate it with the aforementioned bored housewife, then I wish you to experience one such seizure for yourself -- and then we'll talk.

Well, I recovered from my Monday's migraine just in time for lunch at Tien Fu. Sometimes I go to meet Sid and his colleagues, most frequently Mark. He and his wife Paula are older than we are, their children are all grown up. Paula works as a private fitness trainer, but not very regularly, and she stays at home a lot. And now imagine that their maid has left their household!!! Mark was collapsing, and he claimed that they can't possibly manage (they live in a two bedroom house).

On Tuesday I went through another round of gym climbing with Alfy (I may have misspelled his name with an -i- before). I got a little upset there, as I wanted to lead, and was not allowed, for it "dangerous" and I first must (for "only" $75) attend a CLASS. I think that I had seen such class there last Friday. It consisted of one poor lecturer who explained to people how to tie into a harness. Six of his victims were listening, but a seventh girl, by the look of her a good climber, wore a disgusted face. I suspected her to sign up for the class to chase men, but she might have also been forced by circumstances, as I may be. Well. I won't be climbing fisherman style forever, I could just as well hang myself on it. Alfy said that he would go for the class, maybe Sid would too, if he gets off work. It might be some fun. We shall see. But on that Tuesday at Planet Granite they pissed me off so that I began to re-consider my original decision to participate in their Cranberry Crank Competition.

I went to visit Martina on Wednesday, planning to continue our trek from one superstore to another. Šmudla is my only complication with these visits, as he came to conclusion that I keep coming exclusively for his benefit (males never lack self-confidence!!!) and so I spend my first half hour on trying to do smart talking and drinking coffee, while the little dog jumps up to my head. Only one thing helps -- to tire him out thoroughly. I roll him on a carpet and jerk him about, till his ears flap. A puppy is like a little child, he will easily fall asleep in the middle of ingesting my sleeve.

Martina needed something at Macy's, and so we dropped in, also to check whether they did get any kitchen scales, as they promised her last week. The clerk shook his head, but then Martina made some face, or gave him a secret sign or something. The man suddenly asked us to wait and trotted away. He came back -- with scales. It weighs in pounds and kilos, and he would sell it to us for $3.99, as the scales missed a bowl (I have plenty of those at home), and the original price could have been some $20. Would you buy it? Sure! So with Martina's help I won again, although, when we were leaving, the chap made some pointed comment, like thank you for your endurance... he must have remembered Martina as an insufferable buzzard.

Once being in a shopping frenzy, I bought some Christmas cards at Piazza's. That's another tough task. It's an art to find a Christmas card, which does not contain a stereotypical "Santa", reindeer, religious rhetoric (those are obviously very popular here) or an Advent wreath, which invokes in me the idea of a cemetery, as opposed to anything "merry", much less Christmas. Finally I found something that did not look like funeral notice, or Disney's nightmare, and I took it home, where it turned out to be a fake Made in China. Top card in the box was OK, the rest, covered by envelopes, had no color. So I had to return it.

That is another wonderful thing here -- merchandise can be, without problems, returned, mostly they don't even harass you about a receipt and a reason for bringing it back. At most, they ask you if something was not right, and if you tell them that you / don't like it / did not fit / changed your mind, and you want your money back, they don't object.

People here merrily buy incredible junk, and don't think twice about it, for "they can always bring it back", while I personally reckon that in over half the cases they forget. For me, all this is a very humane arrangement -- I often hesitate with things and can't decide, or find out at home that I don't like it as much as I did in store -- careless returning could save me from much stress.

On Thursday, right in the morning (already at ten, that is!!! ) I drove out towards Sid's work and Sid directed me into a car store for windshield wipers. Cecilia has not shown me her better side during all those occasions when it rained. Wipers which had the consistency of old chewing gum did not work too well. I just readied myself for a rubber blade replacement surgery, but after looking into the racks, all was clear. Rubber blade for three dollars, whole wiper for six. And so Cecilia got two new wipers. Sid also directed me to DMV in Sunnyvale, which I was looking for the other day, and could not find. It is on a connection between two expressways, the only thing I had not known, on which one of the eight possible ramps, and when I had managed for the third time to enter one of the expressways (where it is rather impossible to U-turn), I had gotten mad and given it up. Of course the place was on one of the ways I did not try. I asked them at them DMV if it were possible to have driving tests with them earlier than December 22 at our Mountain View branch. They offered me an appointment for January 5. Oh, the joys of business with the government. Their regulations forbid them from moving a finger.

On my way back I returned the unfortunate Christmas cards and then it was just Cecilia and me, going up on Page Mill to Borel Hill. Now, in December, our hills have gotten pretty green. Our foliage cycle is somewhat reversed -- grass is green in winter and dry in summer. At the entrance to the park, there were, to my surprise, some maps available in a little box, so I grabbed one and had a pretty good hike. I had seen for the first time how it looks without fog over the ocean, I could see all the way to the coast. On the other side, the Valley was all smog. I did not feel like coming back down there.

Yet I was to test my new scales, and bake some Moroccan cookies. Sid claimed that he likes Moroccan cookies, but it turned out that under this term we each imagine a different thing. Well, if he won't have them, that's his problem. I just happen to love this pastry and I think I can manage to engulf it all without any help.

Friday also became our "climbing" day. (First we aimed for Thursdays, but Sid could not get early out of work.) Twisters was empty this time, which was fun. Stacy, the local boss, was at the register. She put us on a list and she was going to mail us notes about local happenings. First Tuesday of a month they hold "pot luck". People get together, everyone brings something to eat, so people eat and talk. In our case, I hope, there will be also some climbing.

Planet Granite held Cranberries Crank Competition on Saturday. I was still mad at them, but Sid told everywhere how I was going to compete, so I could not disappoint them. My darling was, on top of that, willing to abandon his disassembled server because of MY competition (the poor thing was having terrible seizures -- the server, not Sid!), to be my driver and couch.

It's interesting how a brain works. This was just a for-fun competition. People signed up for one of three categories: beginners (up to 5.9+), medium advanced (up to 5.10+ -- I'm not quite familiar with American ratings yet, but I know that I just can't get through 5.11 at Planet Granite, so I signed up for this category), and advanced. The system was well designed. There were seven routes built for each category on the wall, and two in the bouldering section. Each route represented points, and once could climb maximum of seven routes (any routes -- including those in categories higher or lower, and of those, five best results counted. If a competitor managed to collect more than bottom 25% of the higher category, he/she would be automatically upgraded). Competitors belayed each other and signed their score cards mutually. All climbing was top rope , only routes topped by the competitor got counted, and there were up to three attempts for each route.

Comparing that with classic competition, where one has six minutes to preview each route and then one squats closed two three hours in isolation , it really did not look too difficult. Nevertheless my mind had decided that this was competition and ordered pumping adrenaline throughout the morning (actual race started 3:30 pm!!!). Sid was having fun of me, as I trembled, had a completely icy hands and kept running to the bathroom. It must have been the fact that I did not compete for a long time.

Beginning of Cranberry Crank was somewhat chaotic, but eventually it got sorted out. I registered myself, Dave explained the rules and ordered climbers without belayers to gather around him; there I hunted down a boy. He was waving a card with the same category like myself, and he looked capable of good climbing.

Kevin started his first route that we selected (240 points) and looked well in it. I was somewhat afraid how I was going to master it (he was on the edge), but I found I could climb better that he. Either he did not know how to think about the route, or he lacked accrued feet . Still we got it both down, he really climbed On Sight, I did a flash. Our second route was also for 240 points. It had a difficult step, in an overhang, a long one, leading to a slippery bulge that was a hold. Kevin got blocked by another climber from a neighboring route, staying in a way until Kevin lost it, but I, too, had a tough time. Our third route may have been the most interesting one, on a flat slope, for 250 points. All miniature holds and awfully far apart. As long as I was able to follow it, I was the only one who ever finished this route. As opposed to "established" gym climbers I thought of using a small structure in a place where you "run out" of holds, and where I lacked steps, I pulled my foot up with my hand to a higher step, where no-one could reach (this fun stuff is rather easy on a tilted flat slope, as one can safely stand on the other foot). I felt sorry for Kevin, and so I dragged him to a line which was only for 230 points and he finished it with only one misstep (I let it be as it was a light green hold which looked similar to his yellow route).

By that time we had pretty stiff canteens and so we agreed on fifteen minute break. While resting, Sid and I watched a small, unattended kid, who obtained a big cardboard box somewhere and made a snail (box on his back), then a slug (he crawled on his belly without the box), then a cat (he was a cat in a box, a salesperson selling it, then a buyer, and then the cat again, he blended from one role into the other), and then he climbed into the box, closed the lids and made a little bird breaking from his egg. It seems that not all American children are brainwashed by watching TV (as long as you tolerate that during the cat sale he yelled, "on sale, only a single dollar for this beautiful cat in a box" )

After this break we went to the bouldering place, and there was a route for 245 points, almost shamefully easy. Had I known this before, I would have dared some higher-rated bouldering route from the top category.

I tried one of the tougher routes on the wall (I had already scrounged my five routes), and it was not as tough, but very slimy, I fell on such a slick slimer about in the middle. Then I tried another bouldering in a higher category, even that was not too bad, but my hands rudely opened up. It was time to end it.

I was somewhat afraid that Sid would get bored during the competition, but he did not even open his "backup" (a book). All the time he honestly coached, kept me a company in between routes, brought me drinks, and he even rounded up some ice cream from the bar (refreshments were included in the competition fee). Anyway, it was an interesting race and the atmosphere was fine. People climbed and advised each other about the routes, taking it all rather seriously, but not enough to give each other hard time. There as an amazing mixture from beginners all the way to rather top athletes, maybe a hundred people.

I thought I might win something in my category (I climbed all the toughest routes), but there were people better than I... who grabbed points on higher category routes... I had it coming for being a wuss. But I have no idea whether I could climb better... I wanted to be sure, to FINISH my five routes, and in the end I was pretty beat... with my fingertips bruised and aching arms and legs. I must admit that they have some pretty good routes at Planet Granite. Ones that make you think, and though this gym is not as tall as Brumlovka (in Prague) is, the route builders manage to squeeze some juice out of you on those ten yards.

Eventually we both (Sid, too) received a little bag of magnesium. It's chalk in a small, porous sock, and you put it all in your typical chalk bag, and so you don't scatter your chalk around, wiping your fingers on the sock. We shall see how that works.

	Mushrooms		Sid with a 13 oz bounty

Today, on Sunday, Sid was fixing our server until noon and then we went for a family outing. Weather was unfriendly since yesterday and all hills were in the clouds. On our way up we passed a Christmas tree farm, hesitating for a while, and then we decided that we would save us another trip to the hills and bought a small fir for $38. Of course we look strange, for the locals buy trees that can't possibly fit into a normal house... But that is their problem. We stuffed our tree in our trunk and went for a hike. Sid grumbled a little bit that he would actually need to work on the server, but they he has beheld IT.

	... and the thing is perfectly clean...

On the side of the road, in a slope under an oak, there was a boletus mushroom. Sid ran up the slope and handed the mushroom down to me gingerly. I was permitted to hold it only for a short time, until Sid crushed down through some bushes to the road again, then he took it away from me, and continued, suddenly full of energy, marching into the woods. Meanwhile, the sun came out of the clouds, Pacific Ocean glistened in the distance, and our little hike became quite more enjoyable. We roamed the forest and found some more smaller mushrooms. We lasted in the hills till sunset, which we watched from our favorite Borel Hill. Thus our trip "paid off". We spent 38 dollars on a tree, but we found a boletus of almost a pound (1 lb of porcini = same thing = you pay $60+ at the store). Now Sid is cooking a soup and I am putting together this story.

top rope	securing by a rope attached on top of the route
to top	to grasp a hold, marked by a colored tape, with both hands
preview	competitors may look at the route(s), but to try to climb
isolation	serves the purpose of disallowing competitors to see how others climb. Men, who are the climbing majority, may spend up to five hours in isolation
accrued feet	part of climbing skill is (besides physical condition) rooted in experience, how much one can imagine climbing a particular section, what position would one thus reach, and in the ability to "read" the route
canteens	swollen forearms

Copyright © 2000-2004 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.