My Travel Partner

This was taken at the (insert SF neighborhood) place where we ate the truffle pasta

Most of the places we go are Nikki's idea.  If I made the decisions we would only see the inside of the local Irish pub.  Sometimes on my birthday we spend the whole time going from one Irish pub to another, and it's great.  For me.  Nikki has broader ambitions than to smell farts and eat dirt encrusted peanuts in various locales (coupled with a Guinness!).  I don't get it, but I indulge her suggestions.

Typically when she suggests a place, I roll my eyes and ask, "Really?"  "Are you sure?"  There's never a reason for this other than to post the opening protest like a flag in the ground.  The negotiation now has a starting point.  This way, when I later concede, I will be perceived as the compromiser.  I don't think she reads these things, so she'll never know.

She's a little more sophisticated in her choices than I am.  She like wineries and fine food with a touch of class.  She does a lot of research and thinking about where we should go.  It's never last moment.  It's nice because the choices are 90% good (a 10%er is the Rock Wall Winery in Alameda where the wine tasted like wet dish sponge).  The bad part is that her choices involve intricate ties to past events which means I get asked about them in the course of trying to decide where to go this weekend.  Example:

Nikki:  I was thinking about going to Rock Wall this weekend.

Me:  Really?  Are you sure? (see above).

Nikki: Yes, don't you remember the time when we ate at that pizza place in Half Moon Bay and they served us the Rock Wall, it was the last bottle they had and we loved it?

Me:  (mind furiously racing, trying to recall something, anything, resembling what she just described.  Nothing!)  Of course, that was great time.  We should definitely go to Rock Wall.

I'm sure I got the details above wrong.

We've rarely had a downright terrible experience, though.  The closest we've come to "bad" is having over-saturated truffle pasta while sitting next to a table full of spoiled kids, the kind who demand their parents do something, and the parents acquiesce.  Of course, I can't remember the name of the place, but I know it was in some small sub-section of a San Francisco neighborhood.

* It seems there are at least 1,500 different neighborhoods in the SF area.  Asking me if I remember the time we ate the delicious meal in Noe Valley is not effective.  Ask me about a cheeseburger, though, and it's highly likely I can tell you the street name.

Sometimes we bicker in the car, but it's never serious.  It's usually some variation of me planting the flag and asking "Are You Sure, there's an Irish Pub right down the street?"  

The fact of the matter is that she makes excellent choices.  We always have fun, and I always get to shoot a few photos.  Despite all of my complaints there's nobody else I would rather have these experiences with.  She's my travel partner.

Etude Winery in Napa. I made her take a break from wine tasting to go to this back area for a quick photo.

Dragon Rouge in Alameda.  Excellent Vietnamese food.

Beef wrapped mango at the Dragon Rouge.  Really, truly awesome.

Spring Rolls at Dragon Rouge

Rocker at Squaw Valley. Can you tell who's choice this was?

Achadinha cheese company in Petaluma.  This is the Donna Pacheco (no relation).  Here I confirmed my last name is pronounced PAW-SHAY-KO.  The name of the company is pronounced AW-SHUH-DEEN-YA

Achadinha cheese maker.  There are 600 head of goats right there on the farm.  We got to sample cheese with an aroma of goat shit lingering in the air.   

Landon Is Drunk Brian

I've heard Brian and Amy say their youngest son Landon is like drunk Brian.  Apparently he's pretty mischievous and displays behaviors you might expect to see from a drunk 40 year old at a winery.  I've never witnessed the kid acting like that, but I've seen his dad do it a couple times and it's always good for a laugh.

Over the weekend we all headed up North to Coppola Winery for a tour and dinner.  We're members there and have occasion to eat and taste wine several times. The food and wine are excellent but the best part may be the resort atmosphere.  On the grounds is a large pool where reservations must be made in advance.  It's the only winery in the valley with a pool.  Now, I don't really care about that, but apparently some people like to swim.  What I do like, however, are the two full service bars, one located outside in a tikki hut style surrounding, and the other indoors for when it gets too hot.   Having a full service bar is unusual for a winery, let alone two.  I enjoy wine tasting, but I'm usually good after about 15 minutes, which makes the bar even more enticing.  While Nikki and Amy set about trying to taste all 15 varietals, I took Brian over to the bar to explore the differences and subtle nuances of bourbon/whiskey/scotch.

Brian is still in the infantile stages of bourbon tasting, so he corrupted a perfectly good Jameson with ginger ale.  On the second one, though, he got the soda on the side and actually tried it straight.  His face puckered up immediately.  He still needs some work.  I had a couple of Blanton's, which has become my favorite, recently surpassing Woodford Reserve at the top of my list.  I'm no expert, but I'm trying to learn and experience more.

As such, we got into a conversation about the differences between Kentucky Straight Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey.  There are legal definitions for all three and we were researching the differences when the Bro next to us at the bar chimed in (unsolicited), "It has to be aged in Oak, that's about all I know".   Thank god we got that information out of him.  Useful.

Which leads me down another road.  Bars used to be a place where you could go to brag and tell tall tales about any manner of things and not be found out, at least not while you were there.  The advent of smart phones, however, has eliminated that aspect of the communal gathering.  I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but I'm leaning towards bad.  It's generally fun to listen to people who are full of shit, which this guy definitely was.  Another point:  Why do people feel the need to chime in about things they know absolutely nothing about?  I've always been fascinated by that.

Unbeknownst to me, Brian was slowly transforming into Landon.  The bourbon began to take it's toll and by the end of dinner, Brian was off and running.  Literally.  He ran down into the vineyard clearing, ready to show himself in his most childlike state, which he did eventually.  Out of respect, I have agreed not to show the final act, but you might imagine what came next.   It was good for a laugh.

I think the winery will still have us back unless there is videotape of the general area, in which case it might all be over.  Although, in reality, he showed much less skin that what I saw at the pool.  And less offensive in many cases.

Cheers!

Brian in a moment of repose, imbibing his first Bourbon.  He has not yet become Landon.

Nikki and Amy.  Brian is running, behind them, down to the clearing.

The inside bar.  The bro with the shades on his head provided us with invaluable information.

The bartender actually knew what he was talking about in regards to bourbon.  That's a Blanton's on the left.  Note to self: Try "Hooker's House" bourbon, a Sonoma County spirit.

Brian in the clearing, waiting for the right moment to unleash the albino moon.

I believe this is a neoclassical Roman pose.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road...

"It's a fragile thing, This life we lead,
If I think too much I can get overwhelmed by the grace by which we live our lives with death over our shoulders" - Eddie Vedder "Sirens"


"I never thought it would get to this point", Ron said as we hugged in the reception line after Amanda's service.  I nodded my head in a vain effort to acknowledge the pain and loss.  I didn't have the words.  Almost 9 months to the day had passed since we gathered in the park to take photos.  Amanda's quarterly scans a week prior found a spot on her tibia, a relapse of the neuroblastoma that was in remission for two years.  When I first heard the news from Michelle I experienced the same sense of vertigo I felt 22 years ago.  Diagnosis. Treatment/surgery. Remission. Relapse. Experimental treatment. Devastation.  My mother lost her battle with cancer at the age of 43.  As with Amanda, it was much too soon.

When I received the phone call from Michelle to do the photos I immediately felt a weight I haven't felt before when shooting.  I'm typically a bit nervous and anxious prior to taking photos because in my mind I'm convinced nothing will work and I'll disappoint those involved.  This was different, though.  I understood what the stakes were and the whole experience took on a completely different level of importance.

I've often pondered the importance of taking photos and I've run through the gamut of what it means to take "important" or "significant" or "artistic" shots and I've never come to any sort of conclusion about the end result and what makes it worthwhile.  In the end I suppose my only criteria is that I hope to strip away all of the pretense and capture the essence of the person and/or the moment.  The camera is simply a passport, an invitation into the most intimate moments in a person's life.  If you allow it to happen, it's a way to tell a person's story.

I didn't know much of Amanda's story prior to that day last September.  I knew about it peripherally because Nikki and Michelle were in the same book club for a time, but I had never spent any time with her.  In short, her clinical story goes like this:  She was originally diagnosed at 16 months and underwent surgery and chemotherapy, was in remission for about 2 years and then relapsed in August of 2013, and succumbed to the disease in May 2014.  However, no clinical summary can encapsulate any of us, and it certainly didn't encapsulate Amanda.

As I sat through her beautiful service a picture of the real person emerged and I learned so many things about this sweet spirit.  She loved animals, she loved to dance, she loved to play, she called Ron her hero, and she loved Elton John.  I heard many stories about these and other things, and I heard a lot of stories about her strength.

Three of her caregivers (therapists) got up to speak and related stories of her strength and her spirit and how she pushed forward despite the pain she surely must have felt day in and day out.  Due to the disease, she was developmentally delayed and she often communicated via sign language and gestures.  When she accepted a caregiver as worthy, she grabbed their hands and pulled them to her heart, or wrapped them around herself, signaling she wanted a hug. I received similar acceptance the day we took photos.

In the photo at the top of the page, Amanda gave me true photographic access, the kind all photographers strive for during the process.   Prior to this shot she smiled and did her best to be interested, but that was mainly because her parents were involved and giving her guidance.  She could see the nearby playground and naturally that was what she focused on.  Upon seeing this, I recommended we go spend some time there to let her play.  After 20 or so minutes at the playground we moved over to the grass and without prompting, she sat down in the pose you see.  There's no way I could have posed her better, nor could I have coaxed a better gesture out of her.  I like to think she was thanking me (and us) for going to the playground, but who knows.  Once thing is certain, though, the pose was her choice.  She let me in.

In addition to being verbally delayed, the disease made learning to walk a big challenge as well.  The therapists related stories of her determination to walk, spurred on by the reward of toys and the desire to walk down the hall where the other kids were playing.   On the day we took photos I could see it wasn't easy for her to walk, but she was determined to do it, especially with her parents holding her hand.

Ron and Michelle held her hand literally and metaphorically through the entire process of her treatment.  Their background in biology made a huge impact in providing input and feedback to her doctors and making sure she had the best treatment available.  I was awed by their strength as they each stood up at the memorial service and told all of us what Amanda meant to them.  They were eloquent, funny, touching, and strong.  They talked about her personal quirks and they talked about her treatment and how they plan to raise funds for neuroblastoma research moving forward.  In doing so, they plan on continuing to tell her story in the hopes it will help others.

In the end, I suppose that's what I try to do with the camera.  I try to tell other people's stories and I hope to gain insight in the process.  Although I'm overwhelmed with a tremendous amount of sadness at her passing, I'm also honored to have been just a small part of her story.  She'll never know it, but she taught me some things, she gave me insights I wouldn't have had before, and she gave me clear focus as to what matters.  As I continue to walk along in this fragile existence, I'll take those things with me and I'll tell her story to anybody who will listen.


A fund has been set up in Amanda's name at the St. Baldrick's foundation for Pediatric Cancer Research.

http://www.stbaldricks.org/hero-funds/amandarozman/