American Clay Walls

As you may know, it's been an utter pig sty in our house due to the recent renovations. A major milestone was accomplished just a couple of days ago. After many months of discussion, we finally hired someone, Jamie Cole (jamiecoleis@gmail.com), the owner of earthinteriors, to apply American Clay to our walls.
The price was prohibitive, but we absolutely love the swirling, sparkling, rock-like effect . "American Clay" is a natural non-VOC emitting clay that we learned about from Calie, our interior designer. It has more of a Southwest feel than regular Italian plaster.

I would recommend our artisan, Jamie Cole (jamiecoleis@gmail.com) again. He charged about half as much as other artisans (about $4.50/sq. ft.), which is still very expensive. This charge includes materials, but does not include color matching. Honestly, I can see why this process is so expensive. Jamie said he nearly got carpal tunnel syndrome when he first started out. The mixing of the American Clay, and the troweling looked like it required more muscle power than I have, and I'm no slacker in the strength department. Also, the rocklike burnishing looked like it required quite a lot of experience and skill. However, if I had to do it again, and if we weren't buried in other house projects, I think I might give the troweling a try.

Below is a picture of the colorant being added to the American Clay "Luma" mix.
The picture below does not do our wall justice as the wall is still drying, explaining the dark black spots on the wall. But note the sparkles and the rock like burnishing.

Christmas in Seattle 2007

This Christmas was spent in Mukilteo at my fiance's parent's house. Mukilteo is a suburb just North of Seattle. This is perhaps the fourth time I've visited the Seattle area, and as usual, the time has been extremely pleasant and enjoyable.

Christmas in my fiance's household comprises of 3 things: (1) Christmas decorations up the wazoo, (2) lots of movies, and (3) sitting on the couch. Above is the magnificient Christmas Tree that Mark's mom decorated this year. Mark's mom is famous for her Christmas decorations. This year's Christmas tree is the best I've ever beheld. Note the Christmas ornaments inlaid deep within the tree itself, and note also the tree's perfectly symmetrical tiers.

Below is a typical scene of watching Christmas movies in the comfortable den.
Finally, our nephew, "Toss". The only grandchild yet to grace my fiance's family.

Christmas Dance Performances

This Christmas, I've been unusually blessed by attending two moving, and artistic dance performances:

Nuestra Navidad

Nuestra Navidad is a collection of Christmas inspired Mexican folkloric dances that my friend, Coco, performed in. Coco has been taking Mexican folkloric dance lessons all year, and she has really been enjoying them. She really stressed to me how serious the dances were, and how each individual region in Mexico had their own dance nuances.

First of all, I really appreciated the multicultural audience that surrounded me at the Montgomery Theater, in San Jose. There were Spanish speaking families around me, but also Asians, blacks and whites, as well. My own friend, Coco, who danced, is Chinese, but with the makeup, she was indifferentiable from the other performers on stage. This was so typical of California: anything and anyone goes.

What I had envisioned before the performance was what most people think of Mexican dance: blaring horn music, and joyful and festive twirling of colorful skirts. In actuality, the performance was very reverent of tradition, and solemn in nature. One particular dance stood out in my mind. The women were dressed in cowboy hats and gorgeous skirts. The music was haunting and sad, reminiscent of bluegrass music. The beginning of the dance had a peasant girl slowly being dressed up as the Virgin Mary. It was very moving in its ritual slowness as the peasant girl slowly took on the role of the Virgin Mary. Later on in the long, 10 minute+ dance I was moved virtually to tears by the rustic singing combined with the simple ritual dances, speaking volumes about the hard life these simple Mexican peasants must have led.

Coco was particularly humorous as an old man in a long chain of old men with walking sticks. As the women danced at the forefront of the stage, the old men would topple, and would get dragged off the stage by their fellow geriatrics. All in all, a very worthwhile performance that I was glad to have attended.

Nutcracker Ballet

I wanted to feel Christmasy this year, inspite of all the renovation that is going on in our house, and I thought that inviting friends to the Nutcracker Ballet would infuse us with the right amount of Christmas spirit. I certainly wasn't disappointed.

My coworker, M, came with her husband all the way from the Concord region. Her rationale for attending: "I've never seen a ballet performance before, and I may never will when I retire and move up to Oregon, so here's my chance." My friends, J and E, newly announced that they are getting married and are going to have a child, also attended.

There are certain things about a live performance that a superior televised performance can't beat. The San Jose Ballet is nothing to speak of in terms of prestige, or even size, but I can say that I was completely transported by the story, the byproduct of an innocent young girl's fantastical imagination. And the performance of the lead ballerina, the role of the young girl, as well as the performance by the Tsarina, were particularly impressive, not necessarily by their technique, but by their individual style.

Maria was played by a Japanese ballerina, Mira Noda who played the role with particular verve, and spunk. As she danced with the Nutcracker doll, I sensed a tenderness and vulnerability that I've never sensed from the televised performances. And when she danced with the prince, she flitted about like a hummingbird.

I forget the name of the African American women who played the role of the Tsarina (or Sugar Plum Fairy) but she was also set apart by her style. She danced with a combination of athleticism and haughtiness that I really enjoyed. I'm sure noone has ever seen a televised performance of the Sugar Plum Fairy performed with the same sort of arrogance and muscularity.

Outer Pinnacles on Dave's Boat

My goal for this dive was to get wet after 3 months off with no diving. Therefore, when Dave M. said he was diving on his boat on Saturday, I jumped on the opportunity. (I'm trying out my new philosophy of having fun for fun's sake.)

This time I came prepared for the cold, bringing an entire garbage back full of two layering fleeces, hats, ski jacket and ski gloves. I will tell you now that it didn't work. I was still rendered incapacitated by the cold of the 50 degree F Carmel waters, made much much worse by the heaving of the ocean on Dave's boat. I can't wait for my drysuit, which is coming in the middle of December, I can tell you. Also, the next time I go, I will be medicated with Scopalamine, for sure.

Details of the dive:

Dive #148
Depth: 78 ft
Time: 29 minutes
Visibility: 40-50 feet
Surgey: 6 feet

As we descended along the anchor line, my view was initially met by a school of 60 strong blue fish. I lingered in the school for a moment before fighting the current to the anchor line.

The next thing that came to view as we descended was bull kelp being thrashed about by the surge. Imagine three foot long green ribbons on a mound of rock headbanging in the waves. It was kind of amusing to see Dan trying to take pictures with the surge pushing him 3 feet in each direction.

When the bull kelp wasn't being flung into our faces, I was able to see wonderful colors and wildlife. Imagine a myriad of pink, purple and yellow hydrocorals (up north, California Purple Hydrocoral isn't just purple, I was told, but come in a variety of colors). Sculpins, kelp greenlings, strawberry anemones and sponges completed the tableau. A cabezon rested on a sponge. There was a glimpse of an enormous ling cod tail as it flitted into a cavern.

On the safety stop, we encountered a group of gorgeous sea nettles (see pic of sea nettles above). I think Dan took a picture of me getting close to a watermelon sized sea nettle before I finally backed off.

Afterthoughts

1. I am overweighted at 14 lbs. I plummeted like a stone at 60 feet. Also, the safety stop was hard to maintain and I ranged from 12 feet to 30 feet. I guess all that working out is paying off pound for pound in muscle.

2. At London Bridge Pub, where we had lunch and coffee afterwards, a bunch of instructors/old salts gave Dave a hard time about bringing people out on his boat. The subtopic was why had Dave let his dive instructor's insurance lapse. The undercurrent of the conversation, however, was that Dave M. was really running a charter boat rather than bringing "friends" along for a weekend's worth of diving.

For a fee less than the amount that professional charters charge, friends and acquaintances of Dave's can go diving on his boat for the weekend. Not only will he go to the normal Monterey dive sites, but will cross over to the Carmel side for the awesome, more challenging dive sites. The professional charters, on the other hand, will tend to cater to the least common denominator on the boat and stick to the less gas consuming, safer dive sites in the bay.

Apparently, the professional charters have given Dave a hard time regarding this issue, I was told. I do know, however, that the people who do go diving with Dave are not complete newbies, such as the type you might see on Monterey charter boats, and on the most part have quite a bit of experience.

All in all, I chalk it up to PADI professionals' tendency to bash others with less experience than they, and their tendency to be overly paranoid about litigation from newbie divers who get themselves into trouble.