Dr. Zivago and I shook hand again as he ducked into an on-campus Chinese foodery down from the psych. building. I walked back to Mom, who was still working out the back pay that her boyfriend Scott owes her for financial management/renovation work. She ranted about that in the car for awhile as we pulled out onto Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, which predictably runs along the pacific coast. After she got things out of her system, I told her about the job offers and how he and his grad. student seemed genuinely interested in me on several levels. She was as ecstatic as I was. I mean, sure the good doctor has only one grad. student and needs all the help he can get, but we both got the feeling he genuinely thought I was hot stuff.

We decided to celebrate over at Gladstone's, this incredible (wait for it) foodery that's halfway between Santa Monica and Topanga Canyon. Shameless plug that it is, we didn't see any of the Hermit crab bermuda shorts gnomes out on their usual detail. During lunch there was a blonde young 20-something waitress who kept making eye contact with me. She was cute. Very cute. I figured if I get two part-time jobs at Mt. University, I could have lunch there occasionally and talk to her. Besides casual flirting, though, I ate one of the best seafood dishes I've ever had: this baby lobster/alaskan crab pasta with lobster sauce and basil. I was too excited to eat, though, so I just sucked at my pina colada and had the chow wrapped for later.

Mom and I descended back through Topanga Canyon down into the valley and got shit done. All of it. Mailing off bills, depositing checks, returning things, making phone calls. Boom. Two hours and it was still around 3:30pm. While we had passed by one of those rolling hilly meadows on the lip of the canyon, I'd made a comment about how nice it'd be to hike; Mom then asked if I wanted to pick sage with her. Sure enough after all the errands were done, we climbed into the Ford Expedition and went back out into Topanga Canyon.

It was just us again having quality time, cruising by the ash and oak trees while dirt shoulders shrugged off cars and bubbling creek beds murmured. The Canyon always feels new to me. After all these years you still see the same home-grown intimacy of rural America without the shotguns or red Ford pick-ups. We'd pass by a metal sculpture of a robot holding up a peace sign, or the old weathered sign for the Shakespeare grove theatre tucked in against the stream. The whole canyon has this totally overgrown and wild, but inviting atmosphere. All the southern California hippies moved here as a last stand back in the 70's and 80's..and by gum, they've managed to keep it from being overdeveloped; that and the long dead natives if you take stock in burial grounds (which the government thankfully does).

So eventually we pulled in left from the main two-lane 'highway' up along a winding hill. We wound around the blind turns, drifting along narrow hips of the road, like old men dragging donkeys in wagon carts. We'd lived up here once. Mom told me the famous story about how I'd tricked her into preparing lunch, then popped down underneath a crevice in the neighbor's fence to pet the goats they had there. I was a crafty 2 year old.

Finally we parked next to the edge of the huge park that spans the hills out there. We got out our backpack and this squishy plastic cooler thing and set off. We're both fairly out of shape, so hiking up the half mile road (.75 km)-- to where the land levelled off into trackless meadows--was a pain. I remembered the road being dirt. Besides that, though, all the sage brush, stalky weeds and low-lying brambles and conifers all seemed the same.

Our main mission was to commit a misdemeanor. That is, we were collecting regular sage and the more rare crimson sage that grew out here, all for a shaman that mom and I know. Even if it was technically park property, mom felt like she was entitled. I couldn't blame her. She'd planted crimson sage along here a dozen years earlier and made friends with the leader of the local mountain lion pride (I shit you not; the woman is fae that way).

The sunlight was still vibrant, hazy as we walked along the narrow bee-line track through the heather and tall grass. The huge oak groves shadowed a dappled ceiling of murky illumination along the gully dips, rocky outcroppings casually holding dried-up streams and rivulets. Off into the distance all around were deep green hills. They were terraced like the belly folds of fat grandmothers, mouths perked up and sprouting talk while mixing something with a wooden spoon. The light just rolled around and off those hills and the trees like silk cellophane, the sheets of sparkling dust sifting through angled holes in the canopies, like dashes of golden nutmeg and cinnamon.

Mom kept nostalgically mentioning how she went out here all the time ("it was my office!") when I was a baby, sometimes taking me up with my deadbeat sperm dono- er, father. It always seems so sad to me when she gets that distant look in her eye and talks about the times in my infancy or early childhood like that. She regrets alot of things in her life. I guess she looks back to the past for comfort sometimes. I can empathize, though. We all have periods of time where, in retrospect, everything seemed right; that our cause was just; where we were free, clear, ready for everything, a time when and where we really lived. Then the wave broke and the tide washed out ('Ballerina, you should have seen her, dancing in the sand...').

After a few more gulleys and groves, we stopped at a spot, stooped low and mumbled out divine names in Hebrew, picking at her sage plantings with respect. It wasn't until we started to go back, though, that we found the motherload. She was absolutely amazed, more that she hadn't noticed it at first. The crimson sage patch was monstrous! The plants belonged on Harleys if ever I saw 'em. A ranger helicopter flew overhead once, but the pilot didn't see us beneath the oak canopy.

We finished our pickings there and went back up to the meadows. As the sunlight faded off and deep twilight set in, we picked at the regular sage stalks. It was exhilirating, trying to outrun twilight before we'd be lost in darkness. But we made it--5 minutes to spare. So, booty in tow, we headed back over to Scott's place.

I've been chilling and waiting for Dr. Zivago to get his funding/contacts in line ever since. Haven't felt like writing recently, except up until now. I did start a story (read: write a paragraph) last night about a nature/city hybrid of Manhattan being powered by witchy Oak groves, though; my attempt at an alternate Earth first person detective piece.

To move back a bit, though, I'm glad Mom and I can have wonderful days like that still. I wonder if someday I'll find someone else to share times like that with.

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