Julian pies and the brutalism within UC San Diego

I always get excited when it comes to traveling for food, in this case desserts. but in US this quest never brought the real food one would feel truly motivated to travel for within Europe: to Italy for pasta, pizza, to France for croissants, wine, cheeses etc, to Germany for sausages, beer... and so on. we have Julian shy of 3 hours from Los Angeles, a destination for pies, specifically apple pies. They're famous for apple orchards and the derivates, pies in this case, which pies are something thick and unrefined, something that doesn't require much work and a specific science (like a croissant, spaghetti carbonara, Bavarian sausage etc.) but what the hell, if this is all we can get here at least hope was the pies would be fresh. And indeed they would. The drive there would be agreeable, a bit long tho, yet passing thru little towns, little hills, with little traffic and perhaps little expectations too. would their apples be GMO free, I asked myself? Unlikely. would there be something else to do in Julian in case the pies were horrible? probably not. but the town had a mining past and proof was the Pioneer Museum that sadly closed early that day. Next day, honoring the exceptionalism of Brutalist Architecture we checked UC San Diego because there are some pretty remarkable pieces: Salk Institute and Geisel Library. Although money is not an issue with the profit conscious US educational institutions, most campuses are ugly, built around economic and efficient, beauty seemed unknown reason to build.

seeking fall where fall doesn't live

first day we sought for it in Mount Baldy. there was nothing there, almost nothing. a few yellow leaves that put together couldn't dress up a tree. it felt like running for chimeras, even tho the scenery was breathtaking. one aspect noted: the amazing thing about Los Angeles is that without a transition between the flats and the heights, in a heartbeat you're up in stratosphere. similarly, the temperature, blazing hot at the mountain base into the 3 digits, drops 20 degrees just 15 min later. so it was very pleasurable in Baldy, and the silence sublime. and there were trees. green. The Fall - that specific fall that I've been missing since moving to Los Angeles some 11 years ago - I found not much of it and disappointment grew when I realized that there might not even be one(fall). how come I didn't realize this all these years? well, all these years I was able to do back East where Fall lives. this year I didn't go. Driving up meaning to higher altitude, the road ends and from there there's a 10 min walk, on a paved alley, to a tiny waterfall that you might miss if not looking closely.
a day later I did the same but on my own. I chose to go toward Big Bear. I found a little more of what looked like leftovers of fall. it felt very good, it felt I could stop and listen to the surrounding - I would be calm enough to do that. took a new route, CA18, to reach Crestline and the Lake Gregory. this little town is charming by how it built its relationship with the lake - it's all a park around it, peaceful and safe, still open to everyone, money didn't interfere yet. Blue Jay and Lake Arrowhead, a little richer and fuller in shopping, with no opening to the lake itself - because it's taken - confirmed that money interfered dramatically here. but I still liked it, even strangely declared that I could live there. higher up was Big Bear Lake. I arrived there in the same time with the night. I wasn't upset because I had seen Big Bear before, and because it is a lot higher, foliage doesn't appear but briefly, a lot earlier than this time, when you don't feel the need for fall yet. Big Bear Lake feels remote, highest, at some end which is true as there's nothing beyond that except the ski resort and bear territory. there's is also a sense of serenity around, a peace that you cannot find at lower altitudes which are denser in population, traffic. one common thing all-around is the wooden bear statues. I eve found a dedicated yard full with statues of standing bears ready for sale. the village is charming - how could not that be - without Starbucks or other corporate businesses and pretty original in its self. during the week is a much better time to stop by if you're not so fond of crowds; you can literally listen to the nature which doesn't speak in some way and that is what makes it so lovable.

the lifeless body

daddy's. isn't it crazy how now you're live and now you're dead? and the roles cannot be reversed? once dead, it's forever? maybe I'm crazy, stupid to not understand life, stupid to not accept the cycle - we come and go, man, we're nothing, NOTHING, we live as a whole, we, the human race are all the same, one single body, you have to look at it this way to understand. understand what? that I'm nothing? we are nothing? and that we are something only as a whole? what is that going to do for me? and if I think this way it's called selfish? daddy left, his lifeless body - or I should say his lifeless self if the body is all that it is because it kind of sounds that only the body is lifeless and he, daddy, has just gone somewhere else, which I think it'd be awesome if…- was so different than with just a couple of days prior when he put on a show on the riverbank of Danube, barefoot, standing on shallow water having one of his favorite speeches about how much he loved the river, the city, his life as a carpenter and so on. I had heard it before a thousand times but how could I be bothered? believe me each time I heard the speech it made me happy, in fact I hoped he would have the speech again and again, it never sounded as a repetition, it was just daddy's cuteness talking to me, to a lucky son. this year I went again across the river Danube from my hometown to approximately the same spot where last year I stood listening and he stood the showman. Needless to say how sad this re-enactment was. I'm no showman, in his company I mostly listened, and now I did the same. The wind was low and didn't bring any outside sound. The water was calm and no wave was arriving. I thought about being barefoot but had never been so quick to act like daddy, so I dropped that mind. Barefoot are the showmen, standing on the calm, shallow water talking to a listener. That wasn't me. So I just sat there and remembered the whole thing, his cuteness overwhelming me. It was beautiful but painful also, he would never come back, he will never come back, I'd be without him until my death, I will be without daddy until my death.

first half of '17

my coffee, her coffee, and cereals. together we began again and it's wonderful, I seem to not realize it at times, but it's a miracle when I look at it later. I managed to combine my self with her self. I managed to unite two bodies. I managed. Then it rained in LA, a rare thing so rare the plants don't know what to do, thus they spring everywhere and look wild in the city, I meant in an organized place. The snail couldn't believe his eyes, he finally had purpose for the huge roof he carries allover. He can finally stay under the "cover" but why, why not checking out the wet. At The Imperial Dunes I built a distance between me and her to see how her beauty overpowers the sand dunes, and then we reunited again celebrating 3 years of the successful chemistry of combining two bodies and minds into ONE. That Pink Door is from the future as the entire Palm Springs looks to me a city from the Future - I was telling her that, one night heading for a stroll in triple digits temperature, in the city of Future. And then it was Dan who said GoodBye when nobody wanted to hear it from him, but Dan was set for another adventure, and we could only get together to miss him.