Author: sychela

Categories
Awesome Books Fiction

The Last 5 Books I’ve Read

You were wondering, right?

Watership Down by Richard Adams

I wanted to show the cover of my copy so that you would know why I’ve never gotten around to reading this book before.  It just looks so…Dune.  My dad gave me this book (his copy?) when I was younger and I just never tackled it.  So I decided to go for it, and Erin and I read it as part of our bicoastal book club…and I could not put it down.  Love love loved it.  The balance of epic hero tale (a la Lord of the Rings) and rabbits (a la Animal Farm) just really worked for me.  I love a good protagonist who gets put down and fights back and comes through it.  I love a happy ending.  I love a story that moves, and keeps me turning pages.  I sat backstage every night for a week reading this furiously with a flashlight, despite how the light bulbs kept burning out and the angle of sitting hurt my back and I should have been working.  So good.

A text conversation with Erin as she neared the last third of the book:
Erin: OMG why didn’t they kill the patrol??
Me: Good guys never kill the bad guys if they have a choice.
Erin: But now there has to be a big battle.
Me: [LOL] What did you think the last 100 pages was for??

Recommend recommend recommend.

Thin is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel

I know the title is kind of a turn-off because it sounds like she’s advocating losing weight as the only thing to make you happy.  But actually the point of this memoir (by a woman who’s written something like 14 fiction novels) is that after 30 years of on-and-off dieting, she needs to fix whatever is under the surface and causing her to treat herself this way.  While reading about her struggles with her mother and how screwed up her body image is, I realized that while I too had to deal with occasional comments from my mom growing up, I didn’t have it nearly as bad.  Nor did I, apparently, get as screwed up.  Also, some of her boyfriends say things to her that I can’t imagine hearing from Drew…so maybe I’ve just gotten really, really lucky.

I just picked this up at Target because of the bright colors, but I found it to be really thought-provoking.  Several people asked me about it based on the title, looking ready to rip apart the statement “Thin is the New Happy,” and I found myself waxing athletic on the actual message of the book and what I was taking away from it.

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

I should really figure out how to pronounce his last name.  This was a birthday present from Drew, who dutifully noted that I’ve been working my way through Mr. Bohjalian’s oeuvre.  This was one I hadn’t picked up yet because every time I read the back, I got intimated by the setting – WWII, Holocaust, and all that.  But I got sucked in by this book, the way I have by all of CB’s books, and I wasn’t really surprised.

The 3 main characters are: an 18-year-old German girl and her good-people farming family, who are being squeezed between the Russians and the Germans as the war crescendoes; her 20-year-old British POW lover; and a young Jewish man who has managed to stay alive by killing bad guys indiscriminately and impersonating soldiers whenever necessary. 

It’s a love story and a war story and a morality tale and an adventure story all in one.  They’re Germans, but they’re not bad guys, but Anna has to figure out where she stands and how she can stand up for what she believes in.  (If she can stop having crazy sex with her hottie Brit for one second.) 

I tore through it and enjoyed it immensely, although often got all cringey at descriptions of war crimes. [Shudder.]

The Catsitters by James Wolcott

I just grabbed this up at the library because I liked the cover.  It’s about a bachelor living in New York City, and when he catches his girlfriend cheating on him (worse yet, she forgot to feed his cat while he was away for the weekend), his best friend who lives in Georgia coaches him over the phone on how to A) manipulate and torture her until she’s ruined for other men, and then B) be the perfect guy, no longer a “bachelor,” now an “unmarried man.”

He’s an actor, so I got little glimpses of the actor living in New York City, which was fun, but not as in-your-face as Christopher Bram’s Lives of the Circus Animals.  I didn’t have to tiptoe my way through constant theatre in-jokes or “show business” remarks.  I really empathized with the main character, and I adored his cat Slinky.  I sort of thought I might cry at the end of this book.

One thing I wasn’t expecting – it’s from 2000 or 2001, so there is mention of “email” and “cell phones” as things that not everyone automatically has. That made me check the copyright date.

Time of my Life by Allison Winn Scotch

Jen Lancaster told me to read books by Jennifer Weiner, Beth Harbison, and Allison Winn Scotch, so when I trooped off to the library, I dutifully picked up books by the latter two (I have read a lot of Jennifer Weiner, and for me, it’s kinda hit-or-miss).

Um, hello, is this not essentially the “novel” I was writing when I was in high school, which is me waking up as a 20-something with the perfect life?  Here are the differences between my untitled novel and Time of my Life:

-AWS actually wrote her book, and mine consisted of a compelling opening, and then mostly just outlines of how my perfect life would be.
-TOML is about a woman going to sleep in 2007 and waking up in 2000, the person she used to be, and how she uses this opportunity to explore the road not traveled.  My book was just me wishing my perfect future life.
-This book is really good and people seem to really enjoy it.  Whereas mine was really only enjoyed by me.

It was a little predictable and a little too neatly wrapped up, but I liked this story and read it in an evening and then a morning.  Fun read, and I am definitely going to pick up more of her stuff.

I kind of fudged this “5 books” thing because I wanted a range.  Other books recently read include: John Irving’s The Fourth Hand and Beth Harbison’s Shoe Addicts Anonymous.  Books currently being read include Kristin Chenoweth’s A Little Bit Wicked and Aimee Bender’s The Girl with the Flammable Skirt (short stories of the super artistic type, like nothing I could ever write but I enjoy reading them now and then).

Enough talk, I’m a-wasting my reading time.

Categories
Beginnings Endings Exercise

Working out isn’t working out

Over the last few months I have thought about and formulated (but never quite typed up and posted) blog entries about the Mill Valley Health Club, including such subjects as:

“Congratulate Me, O Friends, For I Have Been to the Gym and Then Gone Back Again and Again”
“I Can Run 10-Minute Miles on the Elliptical, Does That Still Count?”
and my personal favorite, 
“Steam Rooms and the Women Who Love Them Even Though I Think They’re Sort of Scary” (that one still may be in the works).

The Mill Valley Health Club was one of the perks of working at Marin Theatre Company – every one of their staff, cast and crew gets free use of the health club.  After one and a half shows, I finally went, thinking I was being idiotic to not take advantage of such a great opportunity.  Well, let me tell you, the MVHC is wonderful.  It’s mellow and has lots of big windows, high ceilings with fans everywhere, enough equipment that I almost always got to use my favored machines, and it even has lavender-scented sanitizing wipes.  The locker rooms and clean and sweet and the showers were clean and provided shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and even shaving gel.  The steam room was fine too, although that’s another story.

Well, I don’t work for MTC anymore (sad face) so I can’t go to the health club anymore (sad face) unless I wanted to pay for it, and I bet it doesn’t come cheap, and pay bridge toll every time I go.  So today I decided to look into some gyms around here.  Bally has a lot of commercials on TV, and they have that deal where you get a week-long free guest pass, and then they are doing this other deal where they waive the initiation fee and you get the first 3 months for $27 each.  If you go on their website, you’ll see that it expires on [today’s date] but I’ve been checking back and it’s consistently expiring on [today’s date] so I think that’s a sale point.

So I signed up for my guest pass today, printed it out, and was all set to go this evening.  Then I get a call from “John” at Bally, wanting to know when I’m coming in, and I remember this from the time I was going to use a guest pass at Bally in New York – they want to try to pitch to you.  I’m like, I can hold him off.  And I don’t want to be all slinking around or anything, so I decide to roll with it.

I go in this evening around 5:00 and ask for “John” like he told me to.  He comes over and takes me around to show me the gym, and also asks all the same questions he’d asked on the phone, about my fitness goals, what I’ve been doing, what I’m interested in doing here, what time of day I’ll be coming in, etc.  Now, all I really want right now is a place I can go and use an elliptical, maybe a treadmill sometimes, and just do cardio.  I have Jillian Michaels for the Shred stuff, and maybe I’ll start incorporating more of that someday, but right now I’m fulfilling a need for cardio in my life.  He’s not really interested in hearing about that though.  He tells me that since I’ve never worked out with a trainer, he’s going to give me a special training session today.  I’m like, Okayyyy…not what I signed up for, but again, I decide to roll with it and see what I can take away.

So he starts me on an elliptical, but it’s only for 20 minutes (psshh) and it’s the “fat burn” mode, in which you’re supposed to keep your heart rate down to like 126.  I’m trying to do that but I’m going like under 3 miles an hour and this is soooo laaaaaaaaaaame and boooooooring.  So I give it up and just start running like usual, but it’s just flat and level 1 and easy even though it keeps beeping at me to lower my heart rate.  Whatevs.  After 20 minutes he comes back over and we go do “some exercises,” and he puts me through squats and lunges using a bar, and then some arm and ab stuff on a ball, and then right before he starts whatever’s next, I say, “Is that the time?  I actually have to get going.”  It’s 6:00 on the dot.

“So soon?” he says.  “Yeah, I have to get home and shower, I’m supposed to be somewhere at 6:30.”  Lies, all lies.  “Okay, well, you have a minute so I can go over some stuff with you?”   “Sure,” I say.  We go into a little cubicle where he lays the hard sell on me, and I keep repeating, “It sounds great, yeah, that’s a huge discount, but I don’t want to sign up for anything today.”  Then he goes over how little it is per day if you pay for 3 years up front ($499 for 3 years – about 45 cents a day!).  I say, “Yeah, wow, but I don’t want to sign up today.”  Then he leans in and tells me he’s going to add his personal discount on top of the other discounts.  How’s that?  “That’s really great.  I don’t want to sign up for anything today.”  Then he says he has to go check something, and comes back with the manager (or something) of the center, who proceeds to give me the harder sell.

You may ask why I just didn’t get up and take off.  Because they take your driver’s license away from you at the front desk and hold on to it.  Which is skeezy.

The manager (or something) hard sells me, leans in and tells me he’s going to authorize a discount that John here isn’t allowed to, then offers the same discount that John here just offered me.  I thought about calling them on it but didn’t.  The manager will not listen to my repeated “I’m not signing up for anything today,” plus, he keeps saying things like “if you want to lose the weight” or “lose that weight” and I”m like, can you please not essentially point at me like that?  Let’s talk in euphemisms a little here.  They kept me in that cubicle for 30 minutes, hard selling at me, and not listening to me at all.  Finally I started saying things like, “But you guys offer this free week guest pass so people can try the gym out, why won’t you let me use the full week?”  The manager (or something) just keeps talking about how I have to commit to this, and how only I am holding me back.  I don’t want to hold me back.  I just want to come in for a free week, run on the machines, and then next weekend, sign up for membership.

Also, the way the manager (or something) kept talking about how you can’t make changes without a gym, or how you can’t make changes in a week, was really starting to offend me.  I mean, he’s looking at me sitting there, and I know I look like a hot mess because I’ve just been exercising, I forgot to bring a bobby pin so my hair is all over the place and I can feel how sweaty I am…but he doesn’t know me.  He doesn’t know that I have actually made a difference over the last few months.  He just knows the number he wrote down when I entered my weight into the machine, he doesn’t know how that’s changed recently.  I know you don’t need a gym, especially not Bally Fitness, in order to make changes in your life, and I resent the implication that I’m just going to founder around out there without John the personal trainer to keep me on track.

Speaking of John, he’s supposed to call me tonight so I can say whether I’ve decided to keep my guest pass for a week (it’s their promotion!! why won’t they let me use it??) or trade it in for my super discounted awesome amazing fun cool bust out style membership.  Yeah…I’m pretty sure I’ll be letting that call roll to voicemail.  And then deleting it.

The funny thing is, this is why I was bad at sales.  Because the first time someone said to me, “That’s great, you know, I’m really not interested now, but I think in a week I will be,” I would say, “Awesome!  Here’s my card.  Lemme know.”  I think pushing someone like that when she is CLEARLY NOT GOING TO CHANGE HER MIND is stupid and waste of time.  A waste of time!  Did I mention I didn’t get out of there until 6:30?

The messed up part (for them) is that I was totally ready to pay them money for the privilege of using their facilities.  And now?  I’m not going back AT ALL.  There are other gyms in the area (which he readily told me about in order to talk them down and Bally up) and if all else fails, there’s the treadmill and machines in our apartment’s fitness room, and there’s outdoors!  There’s always outdoors!

My new gym
Categories
Awesome Beauty Nature Sentiment Tomato

High School Me, You’re Welcome

Blue sky, sun, warm breeze – I’ve had the balcony door open all day enjoying being able to hang out barefoot, in a tank top – this is like exactly what I needed.  I went out on the balcony to enjoy the sun along with my tomato plant and the flowers that the ProFlowers guy just showed up with – I thought the sun might help them “perk up” more, which I’m supposed to let them do for the next 8-12 hours – and I step outside there, admire my little plants, and then look up toward the ocean – which is when I see the fogbank rolling toward me, like something from a Stephen King movie – I can actually see the horizon and then the trees and the houses disappear as it gets closer.

I grabbed a camera to try to capture this on film, because it’s actually sort of creepy but beautiful – but the camera had a hard time focusing on the rolling fog.  I got a couple shots off.  It’s still warm(ish) and still sunny(ish).  This would never happen in Lakeport, no matter how much High School Me would have freaking loved it, haha.

Tomato plant is really flourishing. I really hope we get at least one good red tomato!
Categories
"Other people" Awesome Theatre Work

WGAS closing; end of contract

I want to talk about closing night while it’s still fresh in my mind – also, I’m putting off doing Shred.

We had two performances yesterday – the matinee a rehearsal for closing, is how I think of it.  My San Francisco friends L. and J. came to see it and they said they enjoyed it but that they had some problems with it, which I’m fine with.  As long as they clapped along with This Land Is Your Land (which they did).  In the matinee, a woman sat in the front row (which is in the stage lights for most of the show) and ate an entire meal: Tupperware, fork, she had at least 2 bananas, a couple beverages.  Pretty brassy.  At intermission the house staff told her to stop, but then right before we sent the actors out for Act 2, this crazy opens up her laptop.  Headset conversation went something like:

Syche [hiding how frantic I am]: “Um…um…Heath…do you see her…with the laptop?”
Heath: “Oh. Yup. Let’s see, what’s she doing.”
Syche: “The actors are going to freak out.”
Heath: “She’s shutting it down.”
[Minutes pass.]
Heath: “Windows takes a long time to shut down.”

Finally, Crazy closed her petite, pink, bedazzled laptop and seemed to behave for the rest of the show.

Also in the first act of the first show, we had a guitar problem, so I had to go out onstage in a blackout with a backup guitar and trade off with the actor, without him knowing this was coming.  This worried me because I know it’s really distracting to lose a prop with no idea what’s wrong, but he was fine with it and later said he could hear that the mic on the guitar wasn’t working.  Anyway, lots of excitement during the first show.

For the second show, the audience flipped their lids starting from the very top, applauding and cheering and going crazy, which is the perfect audience to go out on.  We had another mic problem at intermission but everything was fixed by the wizard sound designer who was also mixing, and I guess it was fine in the second act.  After the show, the actors came off in a huddled heaving mass and cried – not teared up, but cried.  I will never forget that.

We went out after and I’m VERY glad I went, and it was all around a good time.  So to Lisa, Megan, Sam, Berwick, Matt, Tony, Chuck, and Harry – I am really really glad I had the opportunity to work on this show.  I remember applying for this job last August, and looking at the shows I’d be working on, and not really having anything to say about a show called Woody Guthrie’s American Song.  But it’s really been much more than I could have imagined.  And to Doug, Ted, and Myles – thanks for letting me tag along.

But life goes on.  And today is Day 1 of unemployment and I am going to get stuff done and take names.  Then Drew and I are going to see Toy Story 3 and have dinner at Moss Beach Distillery, which I am very excited for.  They have a ghost who steals earrings, so I’m debating if I shouldn’t wear the nice ones.

Categories
"Other people" Awesome Theatre

Musicians and theatre people are…not the same.

This was just funny and I have never mentioned it, which is a shame, because it happened nigh on a month ago.

One of my Production Assistant duties is collecting valuables.  The first three nights I trekked upstairs to the musicians’ dressing room (they’re not technically sequestered but maybe it is for the best), and knocked on their door to collect any valuables.  Two of them declined politely, but the third had something to say.

Day 1
Syche: “Do you guys have valuables?”
“Harry”: “Yeah, here.” [Hands me valuables bag.] “It’s just full of weed.”

Day 2
Syche: “Hey, do you guys have valuables?
“Harry”: [Handing over bag] “Well, I had things in my pockets.”

Day 3
Syche: “Valuables?”
“Harry”: “Nah, I couldn’t think of anything funny to say.”

LOL.  LOL indeed.

Categories
Not awesome

A Bit of Science. Maybe.

So Fastrak seems like a good idea, and maybe it is, really.  But lemme tell you something, when I got the darned thing, the “replenish amount” (what they charged your credit card at a time) was $X, and the “replenish threshold” (the lowest amount it would get to before it would charge your credit card – with no warning, mind you) was $Y.  Okay.  So then I’m crossing the Golden Gate Bridge every day and man, does that thing add up.  $6 without a Fastrak, $5 with.  Yikes.  So I’m using it every day and then the replenish threshold goes up to like $1.5Y and the amount to like $2.5X.  (This is kind of vague, I know.)  Also, there were several phone calls early on in the Fastrak usage about trying to get a credit card saved onto the account, because they weren’t saving it, and then they were charging fees for not saving it…lots of phone calls.  We got it all worked out though, and I paid my $2.5X whenever it would drop to $1.5Y.  Not that I had a choice because they just charged the card.  Fun! 

One day the replenish threshold went up to something like $2.2Y and the amount to $3.2X.  Wow.  But okay, I can handle this.  I mean I am using it 6 times a week and that’s just me.  Then I spend all this time counting the tolls and the days and checking the account online and making sure I can make it until the next payday – and before I know it, a few weeks ago, Fastrak ups the amount randomly, ups the replenish threshold to $4Y, and charges my credit card $5.2X, putting it over the limit, BTW.  WTF?

Well, I was incensed.  Well, I was annoyed.  And I felt like there should have been some kind of warning.  Especially since my usage hadn’t changed and I’m thisclose to being done with the MTC job and not going over the bridge 6 times a week.  Oh well.  I guess it’s all fine now.  And I’ve been watching the account online very closely and leaving large amounts of space between the current balance and the current replenish threshold (so scientific-y), just in case.  And I only have 4 more days of work up there in Mill Valley.  And so the last few days I’ve been just paying cash because even though you save a dollar using Fastrak, I save $5.2X when it doesn’t charge my credit card.

The point of this story is to say that the people who work in the tollbooths on the Golden Gate Bridge are extraordinarily and surprisingly nice.  They are just pleasant nice people who I could really get into a conversation with if it wasn’t foggy and drizzly outside and there weren’t cars behind me.  And that is refreshing, because I’m pretty sure that tollbooth workers in New York would be bitches.  Except I don’t remember any tolls on bridges in New York.  So maybe New York wins this round.  But the nice people will always win in the end.  At least that’s what I’m told.

Categories
Being a girl Sentiment

The real difference between men and women

I remember reading a column in the Cal Aggie (UC Davis’ school newspaper) about the difference between the way guys and girls treated their birthdays: guys are like, “Oh yeah, my birthday’s this weekend – I’ll invite some people over and buy some beer.”  Then they’re done.  And girls spend all this time obsessing about what it will be like and what they’ll do and what they’ll wear.  Then they spend the whole day thinking, “This is my birthday breakfast!  This is my birthday bus ride to school!  This is my birthday coffee!” and so on and so forth.

I basically embody this principle, with the minor twist that I let myself off a lot of hooks because it happens to be the anniversary of the day I was born.  So it’s all about, “It’s okay if I don’t exercise today” (of course, it helps that I have been in rehearsal all day and we have a show tonight too).  Or, “I can eat a plate of tater tots for lunch,” or “Sorry I’m texting while in line at the bank, but I’ll still just finish up this text while I walk to the next open teller and send it even though normally I would hate when people do that…because it’s my birthday!”  Somehow I assume everyone around me can tell and is also letting me off the hook for my behavior.

I also thought I should get something “nice” for dinner break.  “Nice” meaning a little out of the ordinary, maybe more expensive than usual, maybe just something I wouldn’t usually pick up.  Maybe something Drew doesn’t like that I do!  I went to the grocery store to just look around and see what struck my fancy.  I walked out of the grocery store with a cache of Smart Ones frozen dinners, and one seedless watermelon (which, when I opened it up, turned out to be just okay…not great).  Like, the only food I can think of right now is “sandwiches.”  I can’t even think of what “something nice” would be exactly.  Maybe I should go stroll around Whole Foods and see if there’s anything there, because right now all I’ve got is a frozen ziti marinara and a Tupperware of watermelon chunks.

26 feels exactly like 25, only closer to 30.

Categories
Awesome Exercise

My spirit guide totally threw me over for a mate

Today I went for a “run” out at Crystal Springs Reservoir.  When I was almost back to the car, I was getting pretty tired and had decided to stop jogging and walk when I got to “that line of shadow up ahead.”  Right before I got to the shadow, a butterfly appeared beside me and flew on at my jogging pace next to me.  I thought, “This butterfly wants to see me succeed!  He wants me to keep running!  Thank you, butterfly, thank you!”  Just then, he darted up and I saw him fluttering away with another butterfly, clearly going to make a butterfly love nest. 

Well, it kept me going for a little while anyway.

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl Endings Not awesome

Sunday Night Adventures and Heroes

So Sunday night, the end of an 8-show week, I’m worn out and over it and my attitude is souring fast.  Everyone still keeps asking for things, right up to the end of the second show (“The bathroom in the boys dressing room is out of soap.” “Okay, use the other bathroom, it’s like 20 minutes until the end of the show.”) (Although then I totally did refill the soap for them.) (I can’t exactly figure out whose job that is, which makes me think it might fall under the “production assistant” umbrella).  Anyway, it’s been a long week.

I finally get out of the building, get in the car, start digging for my iPod, Himself has been off work and I just want to get home and sit around and watch TV with him…and I remember that I left my food in the fridge, and I was going to eat it tonight.  I debate for about 3 seconds, then get out of the car, slam the door, and start striding back toward the building.  Feel for keys in my hoodie pocket, and…nothing there.  Keys in purse, which is actually in my hand?  Nope.  Keys in the ignition of the locked car?  Check.

I call Himself because I’ve heard you can use a remote fob thingie and unlock a car from far away, through your cell phones.  He’s not at home but heads back there.  There may be a little bit of crying as I explain what happened, because this is just embarrassing.  I locked my keys in the car like an idiot because I had to go back inside to get my food?  Come on now.

I climb up onto the trunk to sit there and mope, with maybe a few more tears.  Suddenly Ted the sound designer/mixer calls from behind me to ask if I’m okay.  Instead of responding how I’ve been responding to any personal inquiries all week – “I’m fine” – I let it out.  He pulls his car around and parks next to me, asking questions like “Power windows or manual?” and “Have you ever broken into your car before?”  Which, funnily enough, I haven’t.  At some point, Himself calls back and we try the remote-unlocking, which of course totally doesn’t work.  So he and the two friends he was out to dinner with start the drive to Marin.

Ted works diligently using a heavy-duty coat hanger we steal from the costume shop (I also shamelessly pick up the oh-so-important food), while I hold the flashlight and make helpful comments like “Seriously, thank you so much.”  At some point the stage manager comes out of the building and stands near us, but I get rid of him pretty quick.  About 5 minutes in I get the brilliant idea to see if the passenger side window is down any further, which it is, and even better, I can wrench it down another inch or so.  So we’ve got about 2 1/2 inches of room to work with, and luckily Ted has little girl wrists.  He sticks with it though, and it’s 15 minutes later, maybe 20 minutes tops, that he pops the door lock with the coat hanger.

I call Himself and tell him to turn around (luckily he hadn’t made it very far) and tell Ted about ten times that he’s awesome.  I’m home by 11:00, which is only maybe half an hour after I’d planned to be home.  Not exactly the relaxing Sunday night I had envisioned but it could have been a lot worse.  So I’m bringing Ted a 6-pack of Stella today, which will come in extra-handy, since they had a 5-hour music/sound rehearsal today at which I wasn’t needed.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Friends

Alcatraz

When you haven’t seen your bestie in 6 months, and she schedules a trip home with her boyfriend so he can meet her family and see California for the first time, and she makes plans to be in your zip code for a night and a day, what else can you do but agree to go with her and her boyfriend wherever they want?  Even if “wherever they want” turns out to be Alcatraz.

I learned a lot of things, that day, about the history of Alcatraz and its many uses and purposes.  Here are some interesting facts: 

In the 60s, Native Americans took over the defunct prison and lived there for 19 months, claiming the land for Indians.  In fact one of the first things you see when you pull up to the dock on the boat is “Indians Welcome” which I thought was some kind of prison threat, but was actually totally sincere. 

They do not sell souvenir shot glasses, which really surprises me, as they sell a wide variety of other things, including tin cups (“replicas” of the ones issued to prisoners) and Alcatraz salt and pepper shakers.  Also lots of cookbooks, including non-Alcatraz themes.

The corrections officers used to live on the island, with their families, and the kids would take the boat to school in San Francisco, and come home at the end of the day.  They basically never saw the prisoners.  But I think I would be nervous to have my family there, because if I was a bad guy, and I had a lot of anger, and I broke out of prison, I wouldn’t bother trying to swim to shore – I would just go to the families’ houses and take them all hostage or something.  I don’t know if that whole concept would fly nowadays anyway.  Do corrections officers’ families live on Rikers Island?  I just wikipediaed it, and while there is nothing about families living there, it does say Rikers Island is “the world’s largest penal colony” as it contains within it “schools, medical clinics, ball fields, chapels, gyms, drug rehab programs, grocery stores, barbershops, a bakery, a laundromat, a power plant, a track, a tailor shop, a print shop, a bus depot and even a car wash.”

But this isn’t about Rikers, this is about Alcatraz.  Alcatraz now is all about tourists, and flourishing flora and fauna.  Here’s a picture of a seagull real quick, just in case you’re getting bored.

The day was warm and overcast, not a great combination, but at least it wasn’t raining.  We pulled up to the dock, walked uphill for what seemed like a long time, and got to the main jailhouse.  We picked up our audio tour headsets in the shower room (they even had put in prop soap in the soap holders, to really drive home that this was where prisoners took showers in rows), and started off.

If you are planning a trip to Alcatraz, well, the headset audio tour fee is included in your boat fee.  But if for some reason you were thinking you’d go it alone, working out of pamphlets and handouts, and explaining to your pre-teen children what you think each new room is, let me just make a suggestion: pick up the headsets.  I cannot imagine walking through that building and not having the information from the source like that.  It is narrated (allegedly) by 4 corrections officers and 4 actual prisoners, and they have sound effects and stuff.  It’s actually really cool.  They take you all through the building (although when we got to the outside part we all paused our tours and took a little break) and it only takes like 45 minutes or something like that.

(At some point when you’re in cellblock C, slip your headphones off and listen to the faint echoes from footsteps and rustling bodies, but it will be the only sound, because no one is talking.  It’s kind of eerie.  Now, put your headset back on, you’re missing the story of how the one guy starved himself to fit through the bars and almost got out.) 

We kept being surrounded by the same people: the obnoxious guy who’s filming everything, and keeps just walking in whatever direction he wishes to go, without looking around him because he’s too busy staring in the viewfinder; the fiesty looking kid who chose to forego the “I’m stuck behind these bars!” shot and instead marched right over to the toilet and sat down, doing a Rodin’s “The Thinker” pose instead; the mom-and-daughter team wearing scrunchies and oversized t-shirts, who were buying armloads of stuff in the gift shop when I passed them last; the bored looking 12-year-old kid wearing a Donkey Balls t-shirt.  (I gather Donkey Balls is some kind of gourmet Hawaiian chocolate?)  Actually, I saw that kid (again) in the restaurant we finally landed in on Pier 39, and I thought, what a tacky shirt (again).  I kept wondering what brought those other people to Alcatraz.  Where were they from originally?  Were they bummed out that the weather was so gray?  Was that kid as bored as he looked or was he doing that 12-year-old thing, where everything is boring?

On the boat on the way back, the weather cleared up and San Francisco looked really nice with a backdrop of blue sky.  Don’t worry though because it definitely sprinkled a little later that night.  We got it, San Francisco, you’re famous for your fog, I know.

The best part of the entire day was getting to see Megan and meet Dennis (and then, to steal his pictures for this blog post, thanks Dennis!), oh, and also to eat clam chowder sourdough bread bowls.  I hope that it doesn’t take another 6 months to see them again.  Maybe NYC next time?

(That’s our guardian in the background.  You’re never alone.  You’ll never be alone.)