First day in Cali was dedicated to the ER in Vallejo [“first thing that you learn is you always got to wait” as Lou Reed said] where after a barrage of tests* it was determined that the damage was confined to “chest contusion”, nothing broken, nothing permanently damaged.

Sorely relieved, still sore, we caught the climax of Benicia’s Christmas Parade in low winter light;

tractors, Star Wars Troopers, the Band and finally la famille Claus…

then the industrial luncheonette, anticipating another one of those Storms of the Century

which delayed and delayed until the wee hours, rained steadily well into a dark and stormy Monday and disappointingly failed to deliver, to Benicia anyway, though we nonetheless

wisely postponed a voyage into Richmond until the next morning which was fortuitously

clear albeit [for here] cold…lunch in, an afternoon lying about with the heating pad, Rebecca 

West and a diminishing pile of Diabolically Dangerous Cookies from Lee and Sharon Saloutos.

Meanwhile three nights running we were watching Peter Jackson’s hypnotically heroic resurrection of Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s historic 1969 footage of the Beatles’ last sessions and

final rooftop performance.*  Thus encouraged I overzealously ventured out the next day not

only to the carwash but Target as well…which turned out to be just a wee bit much.

More anon…

*The trailer’s good but the whole thing holds up pretty mesmerizingly across the entire eight hours, really…revelatory. A lost world [fortunately subtitled].

 

 

*EKG, CT scan, blood work, blood pressures…Observation; between each process of course…a Wait.