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.   

What She Means To Me

"Write it down in a blog so I know how you feel".  I've often heard this from Nikki.  She says it when she's frustrated and wants me to elaborate on something.  She's right, too.  The fact is, I'm not great at expressing myself verbally, I tend to be much better doing it in word form.  I'm not sure why. Perhaps its because talking about things takes so much energy.  Many times the details seem so unimportant.  If I've spent 6 hours with a friend and she asks me how he's doing, "Fine" is about all I can muster.  That's the truth.  He is doing fine.  Now, he may have told me many things about his life and kids and work, but talking about it will require at least 45 minutes of conversation and I don't see the point in re-hashing what I just got done experiencing.  I figure the details will come out in due time.

 However, some things are much more important.  On the  occasion of Nikki's  40th birthday, the details and the small things that need to be said are crucial.  They are the foundation of our marriage.  It's appropriate, then,  that I write about them in a blog so she knows how I feel.

I vividly remember the first time we crossed paths.  She walked directly in front of Jay's car in the school parking lot, looked at me, and smiled.  I still see that smile in these photos.  I was hooked.  18 years old and I'm ruined.  I immediately began the search to get her number.    I remember the excitement of preparing for the first date because she was the hot chick and I didn't know what to expect.  If she's horrible, at least I had a date with the hot chick.  If she's kind, life will be a state of nirvana:  A hot chick that you can take home to meet the parents!  As it turned out, my parents liked her too.  That was 1989.   We've been together 23 years.

Trying to encapsulate all the time, all the memories, all the meaningful experiences we've had together is virtually impossible.  Saying somebody means "everything" to you  is trite, unoriginal, and lazy.  It's the easy thing to say when you don't  want to think.  It's like saying "I love you this much" while spreading your arms as wide as you can.  I can't describe what she means to me in any measurable way because that doesn't do her justice.   I suppose the best way to describe her is to say she's irreplaceable.  I can't find another like her, and I can't function without her.  There's nobody else that will ever understand me the way she does, and love me in spite of it.  She's the most caring, generous, kind, and loving person I have ever known.

When my mother died, Nikki laid by me all night long and never left my side.  I was 21 and Nikki was 19.   The kindess of that act is monumental.   When you're 19 years old there are a lot of other things you would rather do than what she did that night.  It would have been easier to leave and come back the next day. But, she loved my mom, and she loved me as well.  Nothing was too overwhelming for her.  She laid by me and held my hand all night, I don't think we spoke much, there wasn't anything to say.  It was love in its purest and most kind form.  That is irreplaceable.

When I started the Air Force Academy, Nikki was 18.  We saw each other sporadically, a random weekend here or there was the norm.  I wouldn't have blamed her if she decided to do other things and see other people.  I know it was difficult for her because she was still in high school.  I managed to attend proms and homecomings, but I had a flat-top.  What high school girl wants to date a dude with a flat-top in 1991? There were a lot of other things she could have been doing.  Yet she waited.  She gave me her time when she could have chosen other friends and other people.  That is irreplaceable.

When I graduated from the Air Force Academy we were sent to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.    For three long years we were there.  It was freezing cold, or it was hot and humid.   There was nothing to do.  We met some great people, though in many ways it was miserable, but she made the most of it.  She supported my career, and she fit in.  I was gone a lot for training and for Air Force Soccer.  She forged ahead, alone.  She could have complained and made life difficult.  I wouldn't have blamed her.  She didn't.  That is irreplaceable.

When I got out of the Air Force I floundered around a bit trying to decide what I wanted to do.  I lost the first career when the tech bubble exploded, then had a steady one for 5 years, decided I wanted a new career, stayed in that career field for 18 months, then went back to the old one, then got laid off after another 5 years.  And she's still with me.  You see, she's the foundation of all that we do.  She's the solid, steady one that allows me to explore and is always there when I falter.  She's been completely supportive of all that I've done in my careers, although it surely hasn't been easy.  That is irreplaceable.

When our dogs got sick, I mean really sick, Nikki attended to them daily.  She hand washed their sores and made sure they were as comfortable as they could be.  I helped, but I wasn't in charge.  I watched her cry as she attended to them, knowing the inevitability of their death.  But she didn't falter.  She made sure they were taken care of and never wavered in her commitment to them. I saw the same gentle kindness she showed me years ago when I needed her.  Irreplaceable.

I tore my achilles tendon about 5 months ago and became nearly incapacitated (shortly after losing my job).  I was completely vulnerable and in a lot of pain, and there she was by my side, making sure I had what I needed and that I was comfortable.  In many ways I was like a child again, but she never complained or made me feel useless, which is how I felt.   Irreplaceable.

I'm healed now and we're plugging along.  She's still the foundation, the link to the past, and the road to the future.  I hope I've given her happiness along the way and although I'm nowhere near perfect, I hope I'm adequate and give her what she needs.  I've been fortunate to have her in my life and I know I wouldn't be the same person without her.  I'm more grounded, more mature, loving, caring, and kind because of her.  She's taught me so much about being a good person.  I hope she knows she's irreplaceable.  That's what I feel.  That's what I know.

Thankful

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Like everybody else over the weekend, I took stock of what I'm thankful for and resolved to be less petty about the mundane things, the things that don't matter in life.  I eat on a regular schedule, I have a roof over my head, and I have all the basic necessities one requires to be generally fulfilled.  Sure, I complain and I say things are a pain in the ass, and I have a few laughs about it.  After spending some time thinking about all the things I'm thankful for, I still didn't feel like I had it nailed down, like I was missing something very basic that still wasn't articulated.   Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks as Nikki and I were enjoying a walk with Bella, and I knew exactly what I was thankful for.

We often go for walk in Sorich park in San Anselmo on the weekends when we want to do something different.   The air is always cool and it has the heavenly smell of damp eucalyptus trees most days.  It must be pure sensual ecstasy for a dog to sniff the area, and Bella did so with urgency.   You can choose an easy path or you can choose to head straight uphill for a more difficult climb and workout.  We climbed first and got some nice shots from up high, then headed back down to the footpath for some easier walking.  We've been to the park several times so we knew that we would eventually run into Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery if we followed the path far enough.  

Cemeteries always give me pause because I inherently know that's where we all end up.  Whether it's now or a year or 50 years, that's the end game, and our time on earth is so inconsequential in geological time.  Regardless of your religious beliefs about the after life, I would venture to say we all feel that claustrophobic feeling when we look at burial plots.  If there is the smallest black hole of doubt that may exist in your universe of faith and in the after life, it will certainly rush to the forefront in these moments of reflection and mock you, call you names, and laugh in your face.  In fact, I can imagine that this very moment of reflection and claustrophobia is exactly why religion exists in the first place.  We can't fathom nothing.  Despite all that deep thinking, I still couldn't help but notice the small concrete mausoleum nearby and that it would make a nice, gritty background, so I got a shot of Bella by it.  Also, the deciduous trees are strikingly similar in color to the Colorado aspen trees in the fall, something that always surprises me just a bit.

Nikki pointed out a particular headstone as we were walking back out of the park that caused me to reflect again.  The sun coming through the trees was beautiful and the headstone seemed to be isolated from the others.  I looked at the date and noticed this person was buried in 1956.  That's 55 years ago, in the ground longer than I've been alive.

And then it hit me.  The thing I'm thankful for, the thing I couldn't quite articulate earlier is this:  I'm thankful to be alive, today,now, smelling the eucalyptus, walking, thinking, writing.  I may be gone tomorrow, but right now, I'm breathing.  I'm of this world. And that's what matters.