Happy Healers

Dear World,

I am honored to present to you ten remarkable, gifted healers who yesterday completed the final step in what for most was a five-year course of study and dedicated practice. They are the first to become certified by the newly formed Chartres Healing Institute as Sacred Healing/Sacred Touch Practitioners.

First row, left to right: Judy, Sandie, Wilma, Ginny
Second row: Nancy, Ava
Third row: Ronda, Sue, Sally, Eva, Judy (co-facilitator)

How blessed we are!

Love,
Sharon

Trick or Treat

A Room of Her Own

When Judy, Nancy and I moved into the house on B Street, Judy chose the lovely bedroom with pearl-grey walls and white trim off the living room. Nancy wanted the attic with its cute coves and crannies. We all agreed she should also have the room below the attic for her art room.

I pulled the short straw -- the oddly shaped room next to the refrigerator whose walls are covered, floor to ceiling, in big bunches of bright purple pansies and yellow daffodils tied together in ribbon-laced nosegays. THOUSANDS of ribbon-laced nosegays. Who even knows what a nosegay is anymore?! We are only leasing the house so ripping the wallpaper off or painting over it is not an option.

"But your room comes with a bathroom," says Judy every time I complain about the pansies. And she's right, it does. Complete with bidet. (I'll save the bidet story for another day.) But, alas, Judy decided early on that she would take her morning shower in the bathroom off my bedroom instead of in the bathroom that is exactly next to her bedroom and connected to it by a door two inches from her bed.

Judy, as you will recall, is an intensive care nurse. She works 12-hour shifts that start at 7 a.m., but for some reason require that she be at the hospital at 6:30. So every morning at 5:30, she opens my bedroom door, clatterbangs it shut and jiggles the handle about a hundred times, walks through my room in the dark crashing into any number of things. Same story on her way out, except -- it's now 5:50 a.m. -- she occasionally says something in a really loud voice like, "ARE YOU AWAKE?" Or, "I HOPE I DIDN'T WAKE YOU." Which, of course, wakes me and makes me want to hit her.

But I digress.

I am a writer with a large and looming project that requires more space to spread out files and papers than I have where I usually work, which is the entry space between the front porch and the living room that we lovingly call The Library. I needed to find a quiet, untrafficked retreat for three months with plenty of space where I would not be disturbed.

Judy and Nancy suggested the Peace Chapel in our backyard where we, and some of the 62 practitioners Judy and I have trained, provide free healing touch treatments each Thursday for people in the community. A perfect space, to be sure. When Sue Harmon offered to provide a temporary home for the Thursday clinic it all came together.

I bought a put-it-together-yourself desk, and a put-it-together-yourself bookcase, and a put-it-together yourself armoire affair which Judy offered to put together herself -- with help from Nancy -- and ultimately from Ron Little, the construction genius, cheered on by his wife Claudia and family friend Paul.

I moved the massage table to the garage, along with the altar and the woowoo music and the art and the candles and the throw pillows that said "Peace." I moved in my books and research notes and inspirational ephemera (don't you love the word ephemera?!) and my big, beautiful black leather desk chair, and my trusty eight-year-old HP laptop.

Whereupon my laptop stopped functioning. Not completely, mind you, just enough to make me TOTALLY CRAZY. My 15-year-old desktop in the library was in even more precarious shape.

Clearly, I needed a new computer before I could begin work in my new office on my looming project.

Nancy and I spent two hours at Connecting Point in Medford yesterday talking to a lovely chap named Justin about the merits of the Macbook Pro. And another hour at Staples talking to a revved up version of Justin about the merits of the new Windows 7.

Nancy, Judy and I spent another two hours in Medford today reprising yesterday's conversation with the Staples guy who speaks at approximately 10,000 words a minute. I returned home with a raging headache but no new computer. I am writing this blog on my half-functional laptop that kicks me off the internet every four minutes. I am not happy. I am not working on my huge project. And, let it be known, that at 3:27 p.m., I am drinking wine.

Teachers

I'm sitting in front of a log fire (well, okay, gas-log fire) in a beautiful little chalet nestled among cedar, Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine and giant live oak trees at Mount Shasta.  Barely 20 yards from my deck is Lake Siskiyou, sparkling green and blue and gold on this exquisite fall afternoon. I come here as often as I can -- it's my place for pondering. At this very moment the focus of my pondering is a couple I met last weekend. 

Judy and I taught full-day, back-to-back, energy healing classes on Saturday and Sunday.  The couple I want to tell you about borrowed a car and drove two days from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Ashland in order to take the classes.  

Janett and Jerry have lived on a deserted stretch of Vancouver Island coast at the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait for the last thirty years.  Jerry is with the Canadian Coast Guard (non-military in Canada).  Janett is an astronomer.  There are three houses in their little "community" -- the one they live in, one occupied by a single man who tends the lighthouse, and a mostly unoccupied guest house for Coast Guard visitors. 

Groceries are brought in once a month by helicopter.  Mail is delivered once a week, weather permitting.  In the summer the way out (or in) is by boat or hiking the Pacific Coast Trail for three days.  In winter there's no way in or out at all except by helicopter. 

"But what if you forget to put something really important on your grocery list?" I asked.

"We wait a month," Jerry said.

"But what if you get sick or have an accident?" I asked.

"They try hard to get the helicopter to you before you die," Janett said.

THIRTY YEARS!  They've been there for THIRTY YEARS!!  They raised and home-schooled two children there.  And it was only two years ago that they got hooked up to satellite TV and internet.

Just thinking about living so far from civilization with the same person for thirty years made me twitch and blink and muffle a scream.  No friends, no movie theaters, no restaurants or wine bars.  No Safeway or Albertsons or Rite-Aid or Ace Hardware.  No Starbucks or Macy's or Shakespeare Festival or Halloween parade or football games.  No New York Times. No Co-op. No car!

In short, NO DIVERSIONS.

"We have the ocean," they said.  "And the whales and the trees and the clouds and the stars and the creatures.  We have our books and the labyrinth we made with paths of grass. . . and we have each other."

That, I learned, was the key.  These two remarkable people who were friends before they were lovers, have something I've certainly never known in my life.  They have such an enormous appreciation and respect for nature and such an enormous appreciation and respect for each other that their egos seem to have melted away. 

"Janett sees and hears only truth," Jerry said. 

"Jerry is so gentle and patient," Janett said. 

They came to Ashland to learn, not teach.  But teach they did.  And I, for one, will never be the same.       

Alley-oop

Ashland is a town with lots of alleys. Not dark, scarey alleys full of junkies and pimps like in the movies. Charming alleys full of sweet, colorful surprises. I was thinking about Ashland's alleys when I was strolling down one yesterday on my way to watch Nancy and Kim hang the new show at Illahe Gallery (Nancy's part of which has been covering the floor of our library and every surface of our kitchen for days.)

This morning I got an email from my friend Elin Babcock. All about alleys. I didn't ask if I could put her message in my blog so I may be in big trouble. But I love it and I think you will too.

When I was walking down the alleyway past your house, I thought of the life of an alley. Of the fact that the alley goes past the Peerless Hotel (where there is a story of a red-haired female ghost). I smelled the delightful scent of concord grapes hanging from neglected vines and apples on the ground good enough for Tarte Tatin. On the way back from 8th Street, I took another alley where a man was practicing Frisbee golf. Then before 4th street, I saw the barred window that used to be the jail in the building that now is a bookstore. The alley between B and C Streets is a delight with morning glories in the deepest color purple. Somewhere there is a backyard full of bamboo with stalks thick enough to block the house completely. I met a lot of alley walkers who choose to take the road less traveled. I think of the Ashland in your blog and it has changed the way I look at my Ashland.

Note: In case you've never made -- or even heard of -- Tarte Tatin, there's a recipe on page 638 of our new kitchen bible -- Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. DOUBLE YUM!! A story about how the tarte came into being is in the Food & Wine section of this month's Living France, which I happened to be reading moments before opening Elin's email. One version of the story is that there were two sisters, Carolina and Stephanie Tatin, who owned and ran a hotel in the town of Lamotte-Beuvron in the Loire Valley. One day while in a hurry, Stephanie forgot to line the tarte tin with pastry before putting in the sugar, butter and apples. When she discovered her faux pas, she plunked the pastry on top and put the whole thing in the oven anyway, resulting in the delectible upsidedown apple tart that you'll see in the window of nearly every patisserie in France.

Do Brussels Sprouts Come From Brussels?

There are only two vegetables I really, REALLY don't like: brussels sprouts and okra.  With okra it's the slime factor, but on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning Leann Hansen read a letter from a listener who said if you don't like okra slime, just eat it raw. I never would have thought of that.

And a few hours later when I stopped by KIXX Boutique on Main Street, Laura (the very stylish stylist) told me -- pretty much out of the blue -- that if you saute half a cup of pancetta or prosciutto or turkey bacon and chop up a bunch of raw brussels sprouts and dump them into the pan with the sauteed whatever and cook it until the sprouts turn bright green, and then add some slivered almonds and pepper, even snickity-pickity-eater children will scarf it up. 

It sounded so oddly tasty that I dashed right over to the Co-op to buy brussels sprouts and pancetta, neither of which they had (let it be known that I will never in this life or any other voluntarily purchase okra).  So I improvised and bought prosciutto and chard.

Nancy was in her art room off the kitchen while I was whipping up my KIXX Boutique lunch. "Hmmmmmmmm," she called out (she has a keen sense of smell). I ignored her.  "HMMMMMMMMM," she said again. Finally, she came in the kitchen and stood over the stove. "What's that in the pan?" she asked.

"Prosciutto and onions."

"Hmmmmmmm," she said. "What are you chopping up?"

"Chard."

"So what would you call this dish?" she asked.

"Chard with proscuitto and onions."

"Hmmmmmmm," she said, drooling into the pan and looking for all the world like Oliver Twist.

Laura the stylish stylist was right.  Even snickety-pickety-eater kids will love this dish! Improvised or not.

Our Sturdy Golden Bears

I grew up in Berkeley at a time when Cal football was a really big deal. Every home-game Saturday my father would buy my mother a giant yellow chrysanthemum corsage with a navy blue "C" in the center made out of a fuzzy pipe-cleaner. She'd pin it to her suit jacket, put on her white gloves, and the two of them would walk, arm in arm, from Shattuck Avenue up the hill to Memorial Stadium.

When I got a bit older my father would sometimes take me to watch the team practice. It was the only thing we ever did together and even though he rarely said a word, I coveted the time. And the sport. And the team that made it all possible.

This morning I put on my navy blue t-shirt with CALIFORNIA BERKELEY in big yellow letters and the official university seal dated 1868. And I drove over Siskiyou Summit to Mount Shasta, California. My destination was the sports bar with giant-screen TV at the Mount Shasta Golf Resort. The Cal Bears were number six in the nation. Number six! Ahead of USC and UCLA and Washington and Stanford and everybody! They were playing the University of Oregon in Eugene and I wanted to watch the game with compatriots -- Californians who understood the significance of a ranking not seen since Pappy Waldorf coached the team in the early 50s.

Cal lost by 40-something to 3. It was a baffling and humiliating defeat at the hands of the Ducks. But you know what, for a little while there was hope. And excitement. And yelling and clapping and commaraderie with a bunch of strangers. And memories. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Apples and Oil

Guess who I had a cappuccino with this morning in the cafe upstairs over Bloomsbury Books? You're right! An adorable woman named Helgard and her famous mechanical-engineering-professor-consultant husband Roland from the town of Eckental, a bit south of Kleinsendelbach and not too far from Oberschollenbach and Kalchreuth.

And guess what I learned? Yep, right again! I learned that their family car runs on grapeseed oil -- the kind you buy at the grocery store. And that all cars could run on grapeseed oil or sunflower oil. And that researchers in the department Roland chaired at a technical university in Munich created a drug-free way to cure allergies. He explained it but, alas, all I can remember is that it has to do with bombarding the molecules in apples. He didn't actually use the word "bombarding," but that was the gist. He said the auto industry isn't interested in grapeseed oil for fuel and the pharmaceutical industry certainly isn't interested in a drug-free way to cure allergies.

"That's SO what's wrong with our world," said Nancy.

Love 'em or Leaf 'em

There's an enormously gigantic tree in our neighbor's back yard whose ancient branches grow over one whole side of our house. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is -- but it sheds mountains of little pod-like things in the spring. And in the fall it drops 47 billion trillion leaves in our front yard and side yard and back yard and patio and on the roof of the peace chapel and the roof the garage and the roof of the house. The leaves get all clogged up in a wet soppy mess in the rain gutters and they're slippery and dangerous on the front path.

Last year the three of us spent most of November raking up those 47 billion trillion leaves.  And that is because I live with two women who go berserk at the mention of a leaf blower.  "I HATE leaf blowers!!" Nancy yells every time I suggest buying one or renting one or finding a kid whose dad has one and hiring him.

"I HATE leaf blowers!!" Judy parrots.  Nancy and Judy are sisters from a different mother.  I'm sure of it.

"How can you hate a piece of machinery?" I counter.  "It has a function and it does it well and quickly.  Leaf blowers are our FRIEND."

"We HATE leaf blowers!!" Judy and Nancy bellow.  "They're evil," Nancy hisses.  "Evil," Judy snorts.

And so, in approximately six weeks, the three of us will once again be spending five hours every day in the freezy-blowy cold raking up leaves from the neighbor's tree because ours is a democratic household -- two against one -- and leaf blowers are evil.

My New Favorite Place

My friend Elin Babcock invited me to tea this afternoon. Turns out it was WAY so much more than tea! If you haven't been to Chozu bath and tea gardens on A Street and Seventh in Ashland, you simply MUST go.

First off, it's elegant and Zen-like and peaceful and other-worldly and gorgeous and, well, Japanese. Ilene, the owner, is Jewish from New York. I have no explanation.

There's a tea house/restaurant that serves lunch and dinner -- everything so far as I can tell, homemade and handmade by Natty, the adorable restaurant goddess. Raise your hand if you knew that! If you're not in the mood for any of the five exotic green teas or one of the four speciality teas, you can have. . . sake! Or Japanese beer! Or French Wine!! For dinner try red and yellow miso soup, seaweed salad, prawn shumai and green tea ice cream.

Afterward or before or presumably during dinner, you can soak in an outdoor salt-water pool fed by a waterfall, or in a private garden hot tub. You can steam yourself into a noodlie blob in the wet sauna or the dry sauna. You can have your choice of seven different massages and body treatments. You can even rent a cottage for the weekend! This place is HEAVEN. It is also clothing optional.

Want more information? Call cute, friendly, incredibly helpful Joanna at 541-552-0202. Or check out www.ChozuGardens.com. (Note: No one paid me to write this, or offered me anything in return, or even knows who the heck I am. Go there. You'll love it.)

Never Doubt the Power of a Dream

The night before Mother's Day in 2007, a small group of women waited until darkest dark and then in silent, stealthy procession, unloaded scores of huge canvas panels from the trunks of cars and backs of pick-ups and lugged them to the base of a long chain-link fence.  The long private chain-link fence owned by the railroad which separates the tracks (and an embarrassing bit of toxic land along the tracks) from Ashland's town center.  

By flashlight, and amidst intermittent outbursts of giggles, the women threaded twisty-ties through grommets on the panels and secured them to the fence. 

The leader of this midnight insurrection was a tiny, white-haired woman with a dream, an iron will, and a British accent.  "Come on, luv, let's hurry it up!" she barked in a hoarse whisper as she patrolled the installation.

The next morning, the town awoke to the splendor of a blocks-long display of colorful handmade panels created by local artists and artisans, school children, families, individuals, and veterans.  In a time of war, the panels all carried the same theme.  Peace.  In a time of heartbreak, they offered hope.

On Monday, September 21, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. there will be a gathering in front of the Ashland Public Library on the corner of Siskiyou Boulevard and Gresham Street.  You are invited.  That's the day a magnificent permanent installation along the wall in front of our beloved library will be dedicated.  An installation of the more than 200 original peace panels, photographed and reproduced on ceramic tiles and set into an exquisite metalwork sculpture.  A work of art and conscience that began in the mind of one woman, will be on display in our community for generations to come.

To see photos and read the whole story, go to www.peacefence.org.

The Rhythm of Each

I was at a fascinating all-day workshop yesterday about dreams and the messages they hold -- a fundraiser for the organization that has won my heart and soul. It's called Bread for the Journey and if you're lucky enough to live in a town like Ashland that has a chapter, you are blessed indeed. Bread for the Journey is a neighborhood philanthropy. They raise money from local townsfolk and give it back -- every single penny of it -- in the form of micro-grants to people who have a passion, a dream, a something that will benefit or heal or bring joy to the greater community.

Wayne Muller, an ordained minister, therapist and author founded the organization 20 years ago. "The success or failure of any single project is far less important than the offering of the gift," he said. "The project can always be altered, revamped, resurrected. But a gift not offered dies in the heart."

I was the recipient of a Bread for the Journey grant several years ago when I was invited to speak about peace at an international conference but didn't have the money for airfare and hotels. I didn't apply for the grant, but somehow Bread for the Journey heard about my plight, invited me to lunch, and handed me a check for the exact amount of the airfare.

At yesterday's event, my housemate Nancy, who's now on the board of directors, read the following poem. It was written by Mark Nepo, the poet laureate of Bread for the Journey. It comes to you with love.

THE RHYTHM OF EACH

I think each comfort we manage—
each holding in the night, each opening
of a wound, each closing of a wound, each
pulling of a splinter or razored word, each
fever sponged, each clear thing given
to someone in greater need—each
passes on the kindness we’ve known.

For the human sea is made of waves
that mount and merge till the way a
nurse rocks a child is the way that child
all grown rocks the wounded, and how
the wounded, allowed to go on, rock
strangers who in their pain
don’t seem so strange.

Eventually, the rhythm of kindness
is how we pray and suffer by turns,
and if someone were to watch us
from inside the lake of time, they
wouldn’t be able to tell if we are
dying or being born.

Saturday Matinee

This blogging thing really is a one-way street. I've heard there are people from all over the world who are reading it -- I mean like in England and France and the Netherlands (do we no longer call it Holland?), and even New Zealand forheavenssake! But the only one who ever writes a comment is my friend Darrelle who lives right down the street. Actually, truth be told, I'm not sure where she lives, but Ashland is small so it can't be far. She's a poet and a calligrapher and a former drama teacher and I like her a lot, but pretty much the only time I run into her is in the darkened auditorium of the Varsity Theater where she and I and a nice man who writes reviews for the Daily Tidings go obsessively and excessively.

My filmaholicness is genetic. My father ran movie theaters. The only other person I've ever met whose father ran movie theaters is Nancy's best California friend, Louise. What, do you suppose, are the chances of having two close friends whose fathers both ran movie theaters?

Well, gotta run. I'm off to the movies.

The Beginning

So here's how it started.  Our living arrangement.  I know you're curious -- don't deny it.

I was driving down B Street early one spring morning and saw the magic sign: FOR RENT.  I pulled over and phoned Nancy.  "There's a house for rent on the corner of First and B -- wanna see it?"  Neither Nancy nor I were looking for a house to rent.  I had an adorable bungalow at the top of Wimer and she had my former cottage on Coolidge.  We just liked looking.

At 4 o'clock that afternoon we, and half the town, arrived for the only showing. 

"Ohmygod," Nancy said, "it's so cute!"

"Ohmygod," I said, "I know!"

"Have you seen the cottage in back?" a lovely person asked.  "It comes with the house."

"Ohmygod!" we said in unison.  I had always wanted a peace chapel in my backyard.  Or a writer's retreat. We grabbed an application and hightailed it to Liquid Assets, the local wine bar where, on Wednesday evenings, a bunch of artists and writers and filmmakers gathered to commiserate.

"We just saw the cutest house for rent on the corner of First and B," Nancy said to Tom Doty, a writer and storyteller whose aunt Agnes is one of the 13 indiginous grandmothers and the oldest living member of the Takelma tribe that used to inhabit the land that is now Ashland.

"I know that house," Tom said.  "It's built over sacred healing waters."

"SACRED HEALING WATERS!" we shreiked and dashed for the door.

For, you see, in addition to always wanting a peace chapel in my backyard, I am a Healing Touch practitioner and a Reiki Master.  I had helped train 40 practitioners since coming to Ashland, and we were looking for a place where we could offer free treatments to people in the community. Where better than a cottage built over sacred healing waters!

Only one little problem.  Neither Nancy nor I, nor Nancy and I together could afford the place.  "We need a third person," I said.  "We need Judy."

Judy had moved to Ashland five months earlier with her very large, very old, very deaf and often very shedding Samoyed dog, and the two of them were sleeping in my dining room. It was VERY not ideal. Judy worked 12-hour shifts at the hospital.  She was already asleep when I got home.  "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" I shook her shoulders.  "Nancy and I found a three-bedroom house in town with a cottage for Healing Touch treatments and we need a third person.  Are you in?"

"Okay," she mumbled, her eyes still closed.  And that was that. Two weeks later we moved. 

Oh, and Tom Doty's aunt, Agnes Baker Pilgrim, blessed our house with sage and an eagle feather and sprinkled water collected from rivers on all the continents. She blessed the land and the peace chapel and the healing touch treatment room and the work we would do. She blessed the friends who had gathered for the ceremony. And then she blessed us. Amen.
  

A Few Favorite Things About Ashland

September roses.  I don't know if it's the weather or what, but the most heart-stoppingly gorgeous roses of the season seem to bloom in September.  At least in our yard. 

Bloomsbury Books.  And the book sellers who work there.  And the hundreds of heartful townsfolk who expressed their condolences when Orlando, the beloved store cat, died last year.

The day-after-Thanksgiving Santa Claus parade. I LOVE this parade!! -- at the end of which Santa and Mrs. Claus climb the stairs to the balcony of Alex's Restaurant overlooking the Plaza, and after leading a couple thousand freezing-to-death onlookers in a rousing "Ten!...Nine!...Eight!..." countdown, flip the switch that turns the whole town into a twinkling fairyland. I cry every single year.

The U.S. Post Office on First Street and the amazing postal clerks and letter carriers.  For instance:  A few years ago I published a little book that sort of caught on around the country.  Several people wrote me letters addressed simply to Sharon Mehdi, Ashland, Oregon. The Post Office found me.  But before that, right after I moved here in fact, a postal clerk looked up my number in the phone book and called to say someone had sent me a package with the wrong address.  She wanted to know my correct address so she wouldn't have to send it back.  "Who knows," she said, "it could be a birthday present."  I mean, who does that?!

Chilled borscht decorated with a sour-cream swirl in the shape of a flower at Pangea's on Main Street. The window table at Liquid Assets. The garden patio at Dragonfly. And everything about Pasta Piatti , especially sweet Tom Beam, the owner.

More another day.

Scourge of the Tunnel People

There is an open grate that connects the ceiling over the stove and the floor in the attic where Nancy lives.  Before I go any farther with this, let me say that I am not allowed to go into the attic because Nancy has a syndrome whereby unless something is in plain sight, she will forget it ever existed.  Consequently, every possession, every scrap of paper, everything she reads and wears and uses or will ever read or wear or use unto the end of time is displayed in plain sight on a chest or a bookcase or draped over a chair or on the bed or on the floor next to the bed or hanging from something or propped in the corner or on one of the 13 steps leading up to the attic, and Nancy fears for my emotional and physical well-being should I ever encounter this sight. (I am a minimalist born on the cusp of Virgo, goddess of the obsessively tidy.)

So we communicate back and forth through the grate.  Me hanging over the stove and yelling upward.  Nancy on her hands and knees yelling downward.  It's odd, but it works.

What I am faced with every day, however, is Nancy's art room which is just off the kitchen and must be traversed if one is to get the garbage from under the sink to the garbage can in the garage without carrying said sack of garbage through the living room and the library and out the front door and down the steps and around the side of the house and through the gate and past the grape arbor and patio table and down more steps and around the Peace Chapel to the garbage can in the garage.

The first couple of months we lived here I had to squint my eyes till they were almost-almost shut and sprint through the art room lest I catch a glimpse of the chaotic clutter in piles and piles and piles and PILES on every surface.  No one reading this who has never seen Nancy's art room can even begin to imagine what it's like.  AND YET, the woman knows if the teeniest scrap of anything has been moved even a speck's worth.

Lately the art room has become more of a challenge.  Nancy has a gallery show coming up in October and she's creating new art -- new art that requires more mats and more frames and more large bits of this and that which are now propped up against the already existing PILES.

"Ohmygod, what if I'm turning into one of those tunnel people?" Nancy wailed last evening when Judy said there's so much stuff in the art room she has to walk sideways to get through to the back porch.  Nancy was referring to stories we've all read about old people who die in their homes and when someone finally discovers them they find 50 years' worth of newspapers stacked so high and so deep all that's left is a tunnel from room to room.

A distinct and scarey possibility.

Coq au Vin -- Part Deux

THEY DID IT! Judy and Nancy's Coq au Vin was spectacular. And not in a bad way (there was that potential). It took them the whole day, and well into the night if you count the clean-up, but the outcome was mouth-wateringly scrumptious and EVER-SO buttery. The cognac-lighting episode produced no singed eyebrows, no kitchen fires and no video for YouTube. Julia, they did you proud!

Countdown to Coq au Vin

You may remember from an earlier post that Judy and Nancy gave me a certificate on my birthday for a dinner of Coq au Vin that they would prepare using the recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Tomorrow's the day. The menu has been selected. The guests have been invited (Cantrell Maryott and her beloved David), and the countdown has begun.

Judy bought flowers at the Saturday growers' market this morning, and the search is on for a four-ounce chunk of lean bacon. The only bacon we've ever seen is shrink-wrapped in neat little strips, not chunks. I suggested they pile up a bunch of strips and call it a chunk, but these are purists. If Julia says "chunk," by god it'll be a chunk.

The part of the recipe that has me fairly bounding off the walls with anticipation (and no little anxiety), is when a quarter cup of cognac is to be poured over the chicken stew. "Averting your face," Julia writes, "ignite the cognac with a lighted match. Shake the casserole back and forth for several seconds until the flames subside."

Nancy says she's going to film the event and put it on YouTube so I can then link it to this blog. Don't hold your breath. If Nancy is filming, that means Judy will be the one who has to set the stew ablaze, while averting her face, and shake that 30-pound French enamal casserole in the process. Lord have mercy.

More to come.

Good Intentions

When three independent women of a certain age move in together, the potential for disaster is great.

"Rules," I said. "We must have rules."

"Can we have a dog?" Judy asked. "I love dogs."

"And weekly meetings," said Nancy. "We must talk about our deepest feelings in weekly meetings."

"A cat would be nice," Judy said. "I love cats."

"Maybe we should write an intention statement," I suggested.

"Rabbits. Rabbits can be toilet trained. Can I have a rabbit?"

That was a year and a half ago. We've had one weekly meeting -- it was so awful Judy cried and I stomped out and Nancy slunk away to play her ukulele. Somewhere along the line we all wrote intention statements and put a red stick-on dot under the kitchen table because a friend who knows about Feng Shui said it would be an eternal reminder of our good thoughts. As I recall, the dot fell off the second day; none of us can remember our intentions; and we got a new kitchen table.

As for the rules -- well, that was pretty much a no-go from the start. It was at our one and only weekly meeting that we made a list of who would do what chore. Judy said she would vacuum the living room once in a while and take the garbage out on days she wasn't working if someone would remind her. Nancy said she would sweep the front porch and separate the recyling. Which left -- well, everything else in the Sharon column. Hence the stomping out.

And yet, here we are 18 months into this little experiment and somehow the house always looks great, the dishes get done, garbage makes it to the garbage can and we still have no toilet-trained rabbits. I'm not sure how that happened.

Forty-two Minutes from Home

If you follow Dead Indian Memorial Road up, up and around for about 15 miles you’ll come to a sign that says Howard Prairie with an arrow pointing right. If you turn there and meander around for another three or four miles you’ll come to a sign that says Hyatt Lake Resort with an arrow pointing left. If you turn there and drive past the office, and past the pinewood pizza restaurant with its big deck overlooking the lake (closed till the weekend), and past the orange snow plow and the tiny store and the sink where fishermen clean their catch, you’ll come to some lovely cedar cabins. Nancy and I are in #45.

We drove up two days ago to work in peace on a couple of gnatty projects, hoping beyond hope that the pre-Labor Day crowds wouldn’t be too boisterous. Turns out we and the occupants of an RV with California plates are the only ones here. We have this whole glorious pine-mountain lake to ourselves!

It’s 72 perfect degrees with the gentlest breeze and a few spun-sugar clouds. And it’s all OURS.

Nancy saw an otter in the lake just before sunset last night. There are red-tailed hawks, osprey, deer everywhere you look, and about a million chipmunks, but other than the cry of a loon that woke me this morning, there is no sound. No television. No radio. No internet (except on the front porch of the restaurant). No voices other than our own. Even my cell phone doesn’t work up here.

I was uneasy with the quiet at first. Uneasy that the computer I’m addicted to – my lifeline to the world – was rendered impotent in this mountain paradise. Uneasy that I couldn’t reach anyone and no one could reach me. The first night neither of us slept very well. Nancy hardly at all. She has the loft bedroom with steep-as-a-ladder steps, just as at home she sleeps in the attic. She says attics and lofts are magical -- something to do with Peter Pan.

But last night, for the first time in years, we both slept straight through. Ah, such gratitude!

Tomorrow we will wind our way back down to Ashland. Judy will return from Portland. And life will resume as usual for We Three on B. But today I will relish the beauty of this place, the silence and the solitude, all just 42 minutes from home.

Merci! Merci! Merci!

Nancy, Judy and I have seen Julie & Julia 10 times – collectively, not each. The film made such an impact on Judy – who NEVER cooks – that she left the Varsity Theater and walked straight to Bloomsbury Books and bought their only copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

But the jolt of all miraculous jolts came the next day when I walked into the kitchen. Every pot and pan and cooking utensil we own, every measuring device and an entire set of dangerously sharp knives was out and covered with mysterious food substances. Butter wrappers were strewn about, the floor was covered with flour, onion skins, and something brown and sticky. Judy was flushed. Nancy was standing over a brand new French enamel casserole with a glass of wine in one hand and a carrot in the other, and both were wearing APRONS. Neither had ever in her entire life worn an apron!

“We’re making Boeuf Bourguingnon,” Judy said, sweat pouring down her cheeks. Actually, what she said was more like, “We’re making Boof Bour-GIG-non.”

“Look!” Nancy chirped. “I bought a $75 French casserole at Paddington’s!” She who will not spend $1.50 to dial 411 on her cell phone was gleeful about it and quite proud.

I was dumbstruck. Who were these strangers?

I’ve known Judy for 15 years. Every time I suggested she cook something for a party or potluck tears would come to her eyes and she’d start to tremble. “Just find a recipe and follow the directions,” I’d say as she whimpered in the corner with her hands over her ears. (This is the same woman who saves lives in the intensive care unit on a daily basis.)

And Nancy, whose diet consists primarily of roasted chicken legs that come in little plastic carrying cases from the Co-op, sardines out of the can, and iceberg lettuce looked absolutely domestic in her splattered apron. “We didn’t crowd the mushrooms,” she said, referring to a line from the movie, whereupon she scooped a perfectly browned mushroom from the new enamel casserole and thrust it at me.

I have to say, as one who DOES cook, that the meal my housemates prepared was the flat-out best I have ever eaten. It was the first time in 30 years my vegetarian self had eaten beef and it was glorious!

“Nothing to it,” Judy said. “All you have to do is find a recipe and follow the directions.”

I had a birthday a few days later and Judy and Nancy gave me a certificate for a home-prepared meal of Coq au Vin. Julia’s Coq au Vin. I am in heaven. Thank you thank you thank you Meryl and Amy and Nora. Thank you Julia and Julie. You’ve changed our lives.

Raccoons in the Attic

Our house was built around the time of the Civil War, hence a few cracks and crevices even though it has been masterfully restored. To wit: Several days after Judy, Nancy and I moved in -- that would be on the Ides of March 2008 -- we heard an odd scratching in the living room ceiling. And in the ceiling over the library. And over the kitchen.  And in the attic walls.

"Rats," the exterminator said. "Clearly, you have rats."

But we didn't. Then, along with the scratches in the ceiling, we heard a ruckus on the roof.  And in the morning saw little muddy footprints on the white posts that lead to the roof.

"Raccoons," the exterminator said.  "Clearly, you have raccoons." 

And we did.  Well, not raccoons in the plural -- that came later -- just one giant, fierce, wild-eyed, pregnant raccoon that had decided the darkest, quietest, warmest place to have her babies was under our roof and over our heads and NO ONE was going to stop her.

"I will lure the raccoon out through my sturdy one-way trap with delicious tidbits and she won't be able to get back in," the exterminator said.

Night after night he tried -- first with marshmallows, then fruit, then peanut butter, and finally fresh salmon that costs $15.95 a pound at the Co-op. But the raccoon wouldn't have any of it.  One night she got so fed up with the whole trap thing she banged the cage against the roof for eight straight hours until it was nothing but a tangled, mangled mess of wires.

"I will board up the hole she uses to get under the roof," the exterminator said.  He was now heavily invested in the project and suffering performance anxiety. When the raccoon returned from her nightly prowl for food to find her entrance boarded up, she ripped the roof to shreiking shreds and flung the tiles to the ground. 

It was about that time we heard little mewing sounds.  Like a basket full of kittens with their eyes still shut.  "Ohmygod," housemate Nancy said, "she's had babies!"

"Babies!" housemate Judy echoed.  "I LOVE raccoon babies!  Maybe we can raise them as pets."  Judy and Nancy watch Animal Planet and rescue strays.  Me, not so much. The idea of a house full of baby raccoons tipped me over the edge.

"Can't you just crawl in there and GET them?" I asked the exterminator.  He couldn't. Too dangerous. "Well do SOMETHING! We need them OUT!"

His sympathetic eyes lit up.  "I have an idea," he said.  "We can put a radio in the hole in the roof and play talk shows really, really loud all day and all night, and we can shine a spotlight into the hole.  Raccoons hate noise and light."  Perfect plan, except the hole was right over our living quarters which meant we'd have to listen to really really loud talk shows all day and all night.

"COYOTE PEE!!" our friends Tom and Teri said.  "Spray COYOTE PEE around the roof and she'll never come back and you can get the babies out."  Brilliant!  All we'd have to do is go to Guns-R-Us next to the adult video store in Medford and buy a quart of COYOTE PEE.

It was at that point that Judy and Nancy decided to light candles and walk the perimeter of the property chanting Kum-Bah-Yah and sending universal love to the raccoons.  And I, who do not like raccoons or think they're cute or want to adopt their babies, made Marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats for some reason I can't now remember, that Nancy flung into the hole in the roof.

Nothing worked.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  And we finally gave up.  We turned off the talk show and turned out the light and stopped bombarding the roof with sticky treats.

Two days later the mama raccoon left with her babies.Two months later Judy was walking to work when a big ole raccoon with a smirk on her face crawled out of the rain sewer and crossed the street right in front of her followed by four little raccoonlets. "She wanted to show me her babies," Judy said.  Judy lives in a magic world that others cannot enter.

"Of course she did," I said. "Of course she did."

The Nearly Perfect Town

First blogs are daunting. But here goes. According to the latest issue of Outdoor Magazine, there are 20 perfect towns in America. Ashland, Oregon is one of them. The author of the article is an actor who played opposite Catherine Zeta Jones in that sorry remake of Mostly Martha, and who knows where he got his information. But fact is, I agree. And so do most of the people I know who live here. Not that the town is perfect, but that it's about as perfect as you're gonna get. And that's what this blog is about: Ashland, Oregon USA. And the three of us -- Nancy, Judy and Sharon -- who live on B Street, two blocks from just about everything, in one of the town's original homes.

Nancy's an artist, photographer, poet, and producer of our front-porch music events. She plays the ukulele and is doting co-parent of a russet chow named Lily. Judy's an intensive care nurse and an energy healer who heads up the complementary care program at Ashland Community Hospital. She's owner of a rescued horse of unsound mind named Shasta whose antics have landed Judy in the ER twice this year.

I'm Sharon. I have stories. They'll give you hope.