Destination Barbara Father’s Day celebration at Pat and Terry’s was as usual, a last minute, random affair. I always prefer a casual, last minute invitation, rather than carefully planned and executed affair. No pressure of what to wear, what to take, no e-vites, no RSVP, verbal invitation, “come, if you are free” Pat said. “Anytime in the evening is fine” she went on, “Terry is throwing some pork loin on the grill”. But, I am vegetarian, I reminded her again. “Oh! don’t worry, there will be plenty of vegetarian food” she said. Wanting to be polite, I asked her, what should I bring? “Oh! don’t worry, we will figure something out when we go to the Farmer’s Market”, she said. Now I was worried, sure enough, Pat talked me into buying an unknown squash, which was huge, beautifully yellow orange in color; no, it was not a pumpkin. We got the recipe from the same 20 year old squash vendor. Easy, cut it in half, hollow it out, stuff it with vegetables, little salt and pepper, bake it in oven at 400 degree F. and Walla, it is ready to be served. Our adventurous nature, more Pat’s than mine, forced us into choosing many more vegetables than vendor suggested potatoes and tomatoes. To be on the safe side, I bought 3 bottles of everybody’s favorite wine, hoping to get everyone drunk enough so they won’t pay attention to the taste of the unknown dish. Day turned out to be perfect to enjoy outdoors, but then again, no surprise, it is California. There were eight of us, only 2 fathers and rest of us were women. That was good enough to celebrate the Father’s Day. Every one was dressed in casual clothes, and then there was Erin, Casey’s girlfriend, dressed in beautiful, backless, green, silk, evening gown, full makeup and stilettos. No one thought it was odd, and I suppressed my desire to ask her, if she was going to or coming from a wedding. While enjoying the food and wine, we admired the beautiful Shady Canyon, the wildlife we encounter, and felt very lucky to have such a natural beauty lying in our backyard. Conversation turned to our, Pat and mine, long walks, our daily walk of 8-10 miles has raised our status to a high level of admiration. Barbara, one of the guests, insisted that we visit her the following day, see her newly renovated Japanese Garden and enjoy the sunset from her backyard. Pat and I both accepted the invitation without any hesitation, get our long walk, see Barbara’s garden, watch the sunset on the lake behind her house, and definitely drink a glass or two of chilled wine while getting lost in the beauty of the Sunset. Like, killing many birds, with one stone, Though I know Barbara for a couple of years, this was my first visit to her house. She is a very sweet, soft spoken, older woman, but always complains about her neighbors and the community conspiring against her. Pat always laughs off Barbara’s allegations, Terry outright ignores them, and for me, I have been carefully trying to decide where does reality ends and paranoia begins? Next evening, we took a long scenic route through Mason Park, around South Lake over to Barbara’s house. On our way, I pointed out Meenal’s house on the other side of the South Lake. Pat insisted on visiting Meenal in the near future, though she has met Meenal total of one time. She figured since Meenal is my close friend, it is a sufficient invitation for her. We finally reached North Lake, just in time to admire the garden and enjoy the sunset. Barbara lives in a gated community. Although, Pat has known Barbara for 29 years and has visited her house innumerable times, Barbara had sent a detailed, underlined, e-mail, with multiple phone numbers and gate codes, for us to get to her house. I saved the e-mail and Pat ignored it. I fantasized about being a spy, trying to enter some communist country, to steal top secrets. Pat was as usual, nonchalant; she did not wait for me to open the e mail or read the codes, and pulled me through open gate, behind another resident of the community. With guilty look on my face, not going to work well for a spy, I walked behind her. Well there was yet another gate to Barbara’s courtyard. This was different, not only it was firmly locked with key thrown away, no chance of us sneaking in. After us ringing the bell and Barbara, unsuccessfully attempting to remotely open the gate, she finally came out with a big bunch of keys. After complaining about the lock, the conspiracy of the locksmith, while searching for the right key, she finally opened the gate. I keenly looked around to see, if I could jump over the 5 feet tall gate. While the gate saga was going on, I was able to see the garden through the gate, but was very worried about missing the sunset. Pat, though looked very calm, badly wanted a glass of wine. I brushed off the unpleasant thought of emergency personnel being stuck outside the gate while Barbara is waiting for them inside, and prayed that there won’t be any emergency. Garden was small but pleasant. Barbara described the grandeur of the original garden and her attempt to duplicate it, followed by the details of how the original garden was destroyed by the association’s painter, mind you, it was 25 years ago, when Barbara wasn’t even at home, and of course, it was a conspiracy. I acted to intently listen to her conspiracy theory while Pat just ignored her and went inside in search of a bottle of wine. After promising me a walkthrough the house, Barbara took me to her lovely backyard. It was beautiful, beyond imagination; wide wooden deck with multiple groups of comfortable sitting covered the entire back of the house. Small patch of white sand beach led to large crystal blue lake. In the distance, we could see few people were walking their dogs, little kids were feeding a family of ducks and one little boy was trying to fish. Sun was just setting on the lake, Water though calm, had enough waves to shiver the reflections of the lights from the houses on the other side, air had enough chill to make me pull my sweat shirt tight around my shoulders and sit on the chair, with my legs curled up under me. Pat openly, and I politely ignored Barbara’s complaints about neighbors, home owners’ association and even the people taking a stroll on the trail. Barbara did not enjoy even a minute of silence or the beauty around us which had completely consumed me, and that chilled glass of wine, seemed to have completely consumed Pat. In my mind, the reality of Barbara’s conspiracy theory slowly started to melt away and initial doubts about her paranoia started to get firm. Barbara spent entire evening telling us, more to me rather than Pat, about all the mischief her young neighbor was up to, not even once, we saw this mischievous home owner. Barbara being somewhere in her 70’s, I wondered about this “young” neighbor’s interest in her. Epitome of the conspiracy came, when, Barbara in details, described his attempts to peek through, tightly shut curtains of her bedroom window. Now I knew why the curtains of the whole house were tightly shut, and doors, firmly locked. With so much beauty, right outside her door, Barbara was a prisoner in her own home. Rather than enjoying the wine, company and the sunset, Barbara complained about the trees she didn’t like, bushes she thought didn’t look right, neither I nor Pat noticed those. I couldn’t help but think how the perception of what we see, differs from individual to individual. I truly felt sorry for Barbara, who is surrounded by the beauty of the nature, has all the money in the world, all the comforts anyone can afford and yet no happiness. I admire Pat and Terry, who have tolerated/ignored Barbara’s paranoia, as long as they have known her and have remained friends with her. For me, I am just an acquaintance, who feels sorry for her and wish I could help her appreciate what she has while ignoring what she does not like. While returning home, Pat commented on Americans and their discomfort about their own body image. Neither Pat nor I are shy or very concerned about our bodies, no, we are not exhibitionists. She said, there are no perfect bodies, even the models with perfect bodies, don’t have perfect bodies, they are air brushed. Pat also believes Europeans are quite comfortable with their bodies. As she described, on one of her trips to a beach in South of France, she and Terry saw a “Big Mercedes” pulling in a crowded parking lot, two elderly gentlemen got out, got completely naked, and took their time getting into the swim trunks. Oh! And one of them had an artificial leg, no one around on that crowded beach cared or looked, she left out the fact that it was a topless beach and people had enough beauties to admire. Pat drew a conclusion that, those men must have been German because, they were driving Mercedes, and how could I dispute? I wasn’t there.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 03:33:19 +0000
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