L u n a t a l k

Guess the gender:

1. Chocolate? Yeah, it’s fine. But it’s just another flavor.
2. Mmmmmm…. oooohhhh… ohmygod….

What is it about chocolate and gender? I hardly know anyone who doesn’t like it, but a mouthful of rich, dark chocolate can create the kind of response in a woman most men wait a lifetime to cause.

Here’s a possible piece of the puzzle: A good friend of mine started life as a man but is now a woman (my song, Switcheroo is dedicated to her). She told me that her reaction to chocolate changed significantly when she began gender reassignment hormone therapy:

“Well, it used to be that chocolate was a very nice treat. It satisfied the sweet tooth. But now it’s considerably more. And the difference between kinds of chocolate have become significant.”

Could it be hormonal?

Most of us can only try to imagine life from the other side. I am happily and undeniably female, but I would jump at the chance to inhabit a man’s body for a few hours. And I’d lay odds most men would be curious to know what if feels like to be a woman (as long as they’re absolutely guaranteed to get their junk back at the end of the evening).

An actual body switch is not a viable option for most of us, but in the area of chocolate, I came across an interesting recipe - a kind of trick chocolate that would mimic for men the appeal of chocolate for women: Chocolate covered bacon.

It sounds vaguely repellent to me, though I’d try a bite out of curiosity. But I ran a test by my husband. At the words “chocolate covered bacon” his face went all soft and his eyes got this misty, far-away look. He murmured the words… chocolate… covered… bacon… yeaaaaahhhhh… Score!

What would be an equivalent reverse recipe? Something guys adore that leaves women scratching their heads wondering what the big deal is? Maybe I’m missing the real lesson here. Perhaps I should start a line of bacon clothing. This could have solved my underwear problem last week.

What do you think I could get for a bacon thong?

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• Critters are eating all my chocolate
• Chocolate or Garlic?
• Girlfriend from Hell Walks Again
• ChILF

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You wouldn’t think you could find the Ends of the Earth in California, but I think it may be there. Is that a good thing or not?

When I arrived at the Sea Ranch for a week’s escape and opened my suitcase I discovered I’d neglected to pack a single pair of undies. There’s a sleepy little tourist town nearby - Gualala. Gualala has not one, but two markets, a gas station, art galleries and several cafes, so it’s no ghost town. But when I asked one of the locals where one might purchase panties, she thought for a looooong while and then ventured, “Did you check at the bait and tackle shop?”

It turned out not to be a bad thing at all.

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See more like that one:

• The Earth Moved
• Sky Lights
• Drunks on a Plane
• Epilogue, with pictures
• There and back again

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Tokyo was rocked by a 6.8 earthquake followed by a 5.3 aftershock this week. No major damage or injuries were reported, but my attention was riveted anyway, since my son Alan is there now, studying (twister, karaoke and probably some Japanese as well).

Things are a tad different from when I was a 20-year-old student getting into trouble in Europe and the USSR (alone!). I’m sure my parents would have preferred I go with a nice safe group or at least with a girlfriend or two. If I had a lick of sense, I would have given myself a good shake and a firm talking to as well, but I’ve always leapt off cliffs and assumed I’d sprout wings before I hit the ground. I think I called home (with great difficulty and expense) twice over the course of three months. They have no idea to this day some of the, ahem, adventures I had. And it’s probably just as well, though now that it’s in the blog I may get interrogated.

But that was then. Alan blogs regularly and is in my IM window almost daily, so I didn’t have to wait too long to know he was OK. Not that I was worried, mind you - the news reports put even a mom’s mind at rest - but I grew up in earthquake country and there’s always the post-quake entertainment where you contact everyone you know and trade “how was it for you” stories. It’s part of the fun.

It reminded me that we’re still in earthquake country. We looked it up and the San Andreas Fault runs UNDER our vacation house. The San Andreas Fault is the longest and most active earthquake fault in the world. There’s a lovely interpretive trail just down the street. The fault moved 13 feet laterally and 10 feet vertically along 300 miles of its length during the 1906 7.8 quake. If you know what to look for you can sill see the effects.

We walked by, across and inside the fault. At one point i looked up the jumbled slope from the trough of the fault and about fifty yards straight up was a house. On stilts. I couldn’t quite see for sure, but I think it’s named “Hubris House.”

They’ll have a great ride one day.

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• Epilogue, with pictures
• There and back again

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The Sea Ranch is a lovely, private community on the rocky, seal-scattered shores of the northern California coast in Sonoma County just south of the Mendocino County line. My in-laws live here and we visit at least once a year. I highly recommend getting yourself some in-laws who live in a place like this rather than, say, Myanmar.

It’s only taken us a quarter of a century to figure out how to do it up right though.

In the beginning, we’d strap the kids into their carseats after dinner, red-eye the 10 hour drive up from L.A. and collapse on the hilly sofabed in the studio downstairs.

This time we rented our own little Sea Ranch house for the week (called, appropriately, “Moonscape”). The best thing about it, aside from absolute privacy, is the hot tub on the deck. I know I’m probably going to Carbon Footprint Hell, but damn, 105-degree water, bare skin and open sky… Turn the jets up, honey.

There was a waxing crescent moon this week with plenty of earthshine on the dark side. We renamed the constellations. The new ones are: The Mousepad in the north. Straight overhead there is The Pencil, though one of the stars in that one moved over the course of the week, so it was a more like a pencil than we knew when we named it, getting stubbier each day. Just to the south of the Pencil lies the three stars of the Aeron Chair.

I think if we had another week the names would change to happier subjects. The Wineglass? The Hot Tub? The Silk Scarf?

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See more like that one:

• Commando Week
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• Drunks on a Plane
• Epilogue, with pictures
• There and back again

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Just back from a week at the Sea Ranch, California - a lovely and much-needed escape.

There are a number of points where I tell myself “NOW I feel like I’m on vacation.” The first is the ride to the airport, but that’s not really it. The second is after running the security gauntlet, repacking, dressing and finding my gate, but that’s not really it. The third is treating myself to an extra-dark mocha from Dilettante (a latte from Starbucks will do). Closer, but still not really it. Getting on the plane? Wheels off the ground?

We flew down from Seattle to Santa Rosa on a small turbo-prop plane run by Horizon Air. A friend commented to me once that a boarding pass is an interesting device. One moment it’s the single most important piece of paper in the world and in an instant it’s useless. I assert it’s not entirely useless. Boarding passes make the best bookmarks.

One nice surprise from Horizon: Free local wine and microbrew beer in coach. They give refills too.

NOW I’m on vacation.

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See more like that one:

• Commando Week
• The Earth Moved
• Sky Lights
• Epilogue, with pictures
• There and back again

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