What a weekend?... What weekend?... Where did it go?

I knew going in to this weekend that it was going to be a tough one; "but in a good way" as we like to say.

I signed up as a volunteer to help a friend who was organizing a benefit concert for the non-profit she works for. Music for Minors trains and places music docents in classrooms to bring some music education to the school-children, who would otherwise have none because of budget limitations. (Sorry, I'm on the marketing commitee and totally incorrigable about plugging away).

Co-incidentally the generous couple who agreed to host 300 people at their sumptuous home were previous clients of mine so I knew my way around. I was designated volunteer co-ordinator; making sure there were warm bodies to do whatever needed to be done. It involved trying to appease the rather stressed out event production staff, not reacting to "Bitch on Wheels" auction item display know-it-all, who really deserved a smack, and making sure the media were hooked up with our volunteer spokesperson/liason who is not only the best and most charming professional media consultant, but we have known each other since high-school in England so when someone asked what is different about her after twenty five years stateside the best I could come up with is that she no longer uses her pony's moniker as her middle name. She laughed and revealed that she uses it as her password, then I laughed because I too have a horse from my past as my secret code word.

The headliner for the show was Sara Bareilles. Karmina opened and cute Irish Eoin (pronounced Owen and pictured above) Harrington, not only sang and played but sold himself for something during the auction bidding. I missed the details as I was roving security around the house. He was very charismatic and a lot of fun. I might have bid on him myself. Oh well.

After the concert, once the general admissions crowd had departed, the VIP's moved to a reception that was set up in the "Kasbah"; a two story pool-house, bar, exercise area and full theatre with moroccan tiles, dark rich fabrics and trickling fountains and hidden courtyards. The musicians continued to play and entertain and food and wine flowed freely. I left at 11 pm, having been on my feet for ten hours. Everything ran pretty smoothly, although we had managed to chill and serve one of the auction items; they shouldn't have left it in the garage!

Sunday was all planned out too. We picked up a French friend and drove to Yountville, in Napa Valley, for the Bastille Day celebrations there. Hmm? Just dressing your employees in "French" costumes does not a Bastille Day make, and whilst there were a few Napoleonic-looking servers and some lovely can-can get-ups, I'm not sure they had French Maids, in frilly aprons, back then.

We sat outdoors and had a champagne tasting medley to open our appetites and then went to Bistro Jeanty for lunch. Rilletes de canard, salade de lettues, ham and leek quiche, petite friture, which is called smelt and I think is the same as whitebait, but I could be wrong. Skinny, crispy French fries in a paper cornet and crepe suzette and a calvados with coffee to close. I love that place.

We were regaled by our guest and friend, who is the most colorful and dynamic 89 year old you can imagine. She has bright orange hair and wears strikingly colorful silk pant suits. Yesterday was cobalt blue and matched her ring and necklace. One of her past careers was as jewelry designer for Pierre Cardin, she later helped Salvador Dali with his jewelry display in New York and also modelled for his Medusa painting.

Yesterday's tale was about her youth in war-time Paris. Her father was a Resistance fighter who was killed when Georgette was sixteen. Her mother was a socialite and journalist. Georgette met and wed an American GI when she was translating military papers into English towards the end of the war.

We went back to Domaine Chandon to see if the promised festivities had materialized. There were a lot more people milling about but nothing worth staying for, so we hit the road home.

For those of you who follow my stories and are asking yourselves "What about the dogs?" All scheduled events this weekend were preceded and followed by my dog-walking duties. The hardest thing is when they all know I'm home and I have to choose whether to take my swirling tornado collies out for a "my-feet-don't-touch-the-ground" pounce and bounce or Ms. Slow, Stop and Sniff out first. There are complaints from whomever gets left behind.

Bunny Good - Rocket Scientist

I don't know if it's because of the connotations of Easter or because I may get an emergency foster dog tomorrow (foreclosure foster) but I was thinking about the animal shelter and my last experience there; so enhanced by a real, if eccentric, person named Bunny Good - Rocket Scientist.
Years ago we expanded our business into a large outdoor yard by the train tracks. 50,000 sqft of not much but grass and hard-packed dirt and a light industrial zoning. We import antique roof-tiles and limestone and custom carve fireplaces and such, none of which has to be stored indoors. My main office was at home and I would meet clients by appointment at our stone yard.
The yard came to us with the added attraction of a couple of roving rabbits. There had been an old man living in a trailer and I always supposed that they were his. Somehow over the years word must have gotten out that this was some kind of bunny heaven. New rabbits would be glimpsed amongst the palettes nibbling grass or hopping around trying to hump one another. I was always surprised we didn't have a sudden explosion of bunnies, but we never had babies.
One day there was a lady with a large net wandering around. Her rabbit had escaped from her home on the other side of the railroad and she had tracked him to us. She tried several times to catch him and then brought me a bag of food and "passed the bunny", so to speak.
Now, our business was not big enough to use up all the space and so we also rented parking spaces for trucks, boats an old school bus and, for a while a caravan/trailer. The caravan became inhabited by the druggie-pimp son of the vehicle's owner and there was far too much "activity" there for a while. You don't learn anything for free, as we say.
Back to the rabbits. Quite a few of our renters would bring carrots and such to feed the rabbits. One of our most bohemian people who cared about the rabbits was a scrawny, semi-homeless woman who's hands were twisted with arthritis and who stored all her worldly goods in a green van that never moved. For a long time I thought her name was Bonny, but she corrected me and later showed me a letter that she had written signed Bunny Good-Rocket Scientist.
Bunny would show up on foot, clutching multiple brown grocery bags of who knew what. She would root around in her green van for hours and leave again with a large number of paper bags. She always brought something veggie for the rabbits and gave each new one a name.
Over time I learned that Bunny lived not too far from us; just across the freeway from our home. I always offered her a lift if I was headed home because her version of the five mile trip took hours of walking and changing buses several times. She lived behind an office building, by the Palo Alto Municipal Airport, under a blue-tarp construction in a corner of the parking lot.
So Bunny and I would chat as I kept the car windows discreetly lowered. (No good deed goes unpunished). She really was a Rocket Scientist, had worked at NASA, had been married too, although that's not a sure sign of a sane person. She was a little quirky, bordering on conspiracy theories and such, but harmless enough. The letter she showed me was to some local government agency, in defense of an iris plant that was blooming in the Baylands and scheduled for removal as a non-native species. She took me to see it one day. Her letter included a poem she had written and you just know she was a true thorn in the side of all bureaucracy.
As the four-footed bunnies in our lives grew older and diminished in number we got down to only one. Janeau was very striking, white with black spots. He became friendly as he matured and would eat from our hands. He also peed on my foot one day as I was showing some important clients around. Not just wet and squishy but stinky-boy pee. A sign of affection I am told.
Janeau had been with us for a decade and I didn't want him to be lonely. The local newspaper had run an article about a female rabbit and babies that had been abandoned at the Baylands and rescued by the Park Rangers and brought to the animal shelter. The babies were easy to rehome but Mummy-Bunny didn't have a bright future. Of course I went to see her and found out that Bunny Good was a regular visitor at the shelter too and was very keen to participate in matching me up with this rabbit.
Anyone who has ever adopted an animal knows that there is paper-work involved. In this case I was asked to fill out a description of my home and family as well as a full page explaining every minute of the proposed adoptee's daily routine.
I thought I knew how to work the system so I began with: early morning greeting, cleaning the cage, fresh feed, time for some affection, grooming and requisite ammounts of exercise and rest followed by more affection. I lied about where the bunny was to be in residence and did not disclore that she was destined to be a free-range rabbit.
I told the tale of my family of one husband, one daughter; realized that the dog was no-one's business but my own and made an appointment to collect Mummy-Bunny, after my "Screening Interview" the next day.
Bunny Good had someone lined up to lend me a temporary cage until everyone got acclimated and she gleefully met up with me at our appointed time outside the shelter the next day.
Oh My! The volunteer shelter-person was shocked that my husband was not with me to fetch Mummy-Bunny. She could not conceive of handing over an animal without also screening the new "Father Figure" entering into it's life.
I appoligize. I was unladylike. I reminded her that I could easily have gone to the local feed store and purchased a brand new bunny for less than they were charging me for "I left my Uterus in Palo Alto, Microchipped Miss Floppy Ears" and I believe I suggested she could have her bunny stuffed and mounted wherever she so wished. I was going to say "Bunniless, I departed", which is incorrect as I did leave with Bunny, just not the one I had planned on.
As this story drags on, I promise we are close to the punch line. Ms. Good had me drop her off in town and later that afternoon I received a phone call from the Shelter Director begging me to please accept both their appologies and Mummy-Bunny.
Ms. Good had demanded to see the Chief of Police, who I now know, has oversight of the shelter. She worked her relentless magic and he sorted out the officious officials at the animal shelter. Mummy-Bunny came to live with us and her new friend Janneau.
Footnote: Janneau outlived all the other bunnies. At the age of fourteen he was partially disabled and I researched the local vets to find one who knew rabbits. Late one warm Friday afternoon in August, after a full examination and much amazement at the over-all health and advanced age of my polka-dot rabbit, we decided that putting him to sleep was the most humane solution.
I carried the cardboard pet-carrier back to our workshop with the intention of laying him to rest where he had lived long and free. It was just me and Janneau as everyone had gone home for the day. I was composed, even stoic as I opened up the box to see that the vet had covered him with Marguerite Daisies. I bawled my eyes out over that crazy rabbit.