Party In 209
Friday, November 3rd, 2:30pm. Dorine picks me up at Dan’s. She has Liza in tow. I’m making spindles on a shaving horse. We’re headed to an “opening”. Our friend Steve has been shaping and finishing large redwood trunks, root balls and burls for the last twenty years. Tonight he is the lead artist at a nice gallery in Healdsberg. On the way we stop at Roderer and pick up a magnum. Current thinking is that magnums of Champaign are qualitively better than 5ths.
MEETING UP
We check into the Cloverdale Best Western. Heidi & Falcon, Steve & Pam, Homer & Melinda, Pete & Lois, and Johnny & Margaret, whom we may not have met or if we did it was several years ago at Lake Faucherie. We all traipse down to the Erickson Gallery in Healdsberg.
THE PIECES
The gallery is packed. The entry courtyard displays two of Steve’s larger pieces. One, a sculpted sixteen-foot section of gnarly trunk with a lounging surface on top. The other is an eight-foot tall section of trunk shaped to look like flames shooting up from the underground. I’m impressed. Inside, Steve has placed groupings of knee high redwood tongues.
FOOD
Dorine, Liza and I are really hungry. Dinner is at 8:15. It’s 6:30. We’re still in the courtyard chatting with Dean & Nice and David C & Andrea. The hors d’overs are in the back through a thick crowd. Later, I don’t remember how, I find myself in the hors d’oeuvres room. I’m with Dean. I think. The spread, which was not yet accessible had artesian sausages with artesian mustard, crudités, cheeses, bickies and fruit. We had bypassed the wine in our lust for sustenance. I look over at the table and I see Liza! And she has wine! On the drive down we bonded in hunger and took a vow of solidarity. Means nothing to Liza evidently. Excuse me…nudge, bend, slither … I’m there. … Bliss. Dean and I eat and retreat. We find ourselves in a room behind the incredibly interiored hors d’oeuvres room. There are two pieces in this room. One, a stone torso recumbent on a pedestal. The other a winged torso upright on a pedestal. Also a large decommissioned fountain in a shell motif. This and a brick wall give the space the air of a garden room. The one window, however, looks into the men’s room. The wall between the garden room and the appetizer room is a floor to ceiling grid of glass panes separating us from the sausages. How did it come to this?
PATIENCE FURTHERS
A huge herd of hungry gallery hoppers fill the appetizer room. We’re trapped. Our garden room takes on some attendees. We make small talk. Ultimately, the crowd thins and I’m back with the sausages. Dorine attends with red wine. I ply her with sausages; she ply’s me with wine. Late arrivals Harvey & Lari show up. Then we’re back in the entry court. Steve is out on the street with his brothers. He looks like the gifted artist that he is.
A TURN ABOUT THE PLAZA
Appetite satisfied, I turn consumer. Shops are open on the plaza. I separate and visit: a candy store that did not have dried tart cherries; a jewelry shop that did not have a piece sign ear stud; a bookstore where I look up John Ash’s recipe for thin sliced barbeque tri tip with sissy sauce.
THE GALLERY NEXT DOOR
I’m back at the opening. Liza wants Dorine & I to accompany her to the gallery next door and stop her from buying a print. Liza runs Gallery This and is always on the lookout for art. At the gallery next door I wander into David N. We chat up the art. Brightly colored pet portraits, some with floating pet associated objects. Large lumenist landscape paintings. A sculpture that looks like a freighter but is really a Labrador (dog). David C shows up. The Davids repair to the street where they smoke a smokeless pipe. Smokeless until you exhale that is. They make the appropriate snorty sounds trying to hold it in but ultimately laugh it out. Everyone stares.
DINNER
As we exit the restaurant I invite all to our room for Champaign.
THE DRIVE BACK
As we leave the plaza I fire up a joint. I am so ready. Liza compliments me on the puffability of said j. (My joints can sometimes be inexplicably untokably tight.)
PARTY IN 209
I’m flat on my back on the bed when Johnny and Margaret arrive. Reclining, I welcome them. Heidi shows up. Falcon shows up. Homer and Melinda arrive. Falcon outdraws Homer with the ready joint. The room is nonsmoking. The guests look to me for guidance. I start to nix the smoking but it’s too out of character. I send them into the bathroom, which has a hellacious exhaust fan. They kavetch and comply. Smoke billows from the bathroom as participants come and go. I’ve created a Cheech & Chong moment. Generous, stoned, friends liken the situation to John and Yoko’s interview at the Dakota. I visit the bathroom. Through the haze I can make out David C, Homer and Liza. The exhaust fan roars. I return to the bed. I’m between Dorine, my love, and the lovely Andrea, clad in pjs. Everybody’s talking. Sparkling wine, pot, conversation. For a long moment everything is absolutely perfect.
FOOT MASSAGE
Margaret, who is really cute, wants to give foot rubs. She starts with Nice on the port side of the bed. Then she does Dorine. Then she’s next to me and Dorine is doing her feet, which are pretty large for one so cute. The room remains awash in lilting conversation punctuated by hysterical laughter.
FINI
Around midnight everyone goes back to their room. What a trip! It takes forty minutes to calm down. Dorine reads until 1:15 then turns out the light. We have fantastic sex and sleep in.