Second Day

The next day, I woke up early because the sun was early. I hadn't yet noticed that the window had blinds that could be shut (Laura showed me that night.) I got up, and padded my way into the kitchen. I knew we weren't planning to leave for the Stanford Library until about ten, so I had plenty of time to wake up and have breakfast, etc. I had been given frig. privileges the night before, so I looked into the cabinet and into the fridge. Most of a three tiered cabinet was filled with organic this and that. Mmmm. Might have better luck in the frig. Looked in the frig. Things were pretty similar, most things had labels that said organic or soy and well, to be frank, things I had never seen before. Oh, no, not in that way, I meant food that I had never heard of before. I took a deep breath and repeated to myself -- when in California...

I took another look and found some organic, vegetarian cheddar cheese. Ah, something I had heard of before. Organic shouldn't be too bad, and vegetarian just meant, that no animals had been harmed in the making of the item. I could live with that. So I cut off a small piece of the cheese, looked for crackers, found something that looked sorta like crackers, and located an apple. Ah, a feast for the gods. I brought everything to the table, and took a nice bite out of the cheese. And spit it promptly out. It had a rubbery texture and a taste that resembled the texture. Honestly. It was horrible. I settled for the apple, and that was my breakfast.

After breakfast, and well, because I wanted to be a good guest, I went ahead and tidied up the living room and the dining room. Then unloaded the dishwasher (noting that the soap had not dispersed) and reloaded it up. Laura woke up a bit later and asked me if I had tidied up. I beamed as I nodded. She said it was nice to have someone to help her with the housework as her husband rarely thought to help. I eagerly planned to repeat my activities every day I was there.

We got dressed and headed to Stanford. It was a beautiful campus, and I kept stopping to look at building details. Finally, we got to the library, and had to sign in on a computer just to enter the library. I got Laura to type the information in because I still had on my fancy nails that I had put on for airline flight--they were beautiful but too long to type with. That's what I told her, but the truth was actually that when I changed to the Dvorak keyboard I l0st my ability to type on a Qwerty keyboard-weird, huh. Then go down some corridors and up some stairs to get to the Green Library where the special collection was held. The Shafter papers had to be ordered up the day before in order to be available. There we had to show ID, sign into the computer again, and then we were given a key to a locker where we had to put our purses, pouches, coats, etc. Nothing personal was allowed to be present with the historical documents. They even supplied us with pencils and paper. On the ceiling were cameras and I am sure someone was watching us the whole time as we and one other man were the only ones in the library.

We had from 10:30 to 2:30 that day to get the research done. Laura had set me up to have a massage from a co-worker at work. So we got to work and I had to restrain myself to keep the noise down as I kept getting excited about what we were finding in the boxes of material...but I am getting ahead of myself. The papers were in folders inside boxes. The actual documents. I ran across McKinley's signature on one of the letters in the box. Other names I recognized from history kept flashing before me as we were looking in the folders for the Astor name. Pretty heady stuff! The plan was made for us to find the Astor stuff (Eight or ten items out of the whole set. Each folder had about 50 items, and each box had about 20 folders, and there were 6 boxes) and then look back for interesting articles or background material. Laura helped a great deal by filling out the two slips of paper for each article I requested to be copied, and also by looking herself in the folders. I realized that a whole another fascinating story was in those folders, eager to be teased out...hints of problems- with the men, from higher ups, with the weather, from reporters, with prisoners and survivors. America was not ready for this war, so it was a good thing that the Spanish weren't really interested in fighting--at least not in Cuba. Ah, but that's another story. I could have spent my whole time there just reading in the folders but I chose not to, so I could spend time with Laura and seeing California and getting a taste, um, look at the California lifestyle. We managed to find all the Astor references just in time for us to leave, so there was no need to come back unless I just wanted to. I was skipping by the time I got out! So very cool to see history that close. To see real telegrams and even their secret codes, and the letters and ...to know, really know that these people were real, and alive once, just like me.

Laura then took me to her work-an upscale spa--where I was not comfortable at all. Too much money floating around, and a lot of naked women. However, it was interesting to see where she worked and the environment. Her friend came out, greeted me and took me back for a Cranial-Sacral massage. Basically, it is not a touching massage but one where energy work is done. Using energy (not electrical but like universal energy) to help the client's energy to work better. I can't explain it better than that. It's a California thing. I really wasn't expecting anything much. Some waving of the hands, some closed eyes, I'd get a nap...but that's not what happened. As soon as she put her hands on my feet, yes, feet, I felt a charge of electricity from her hands that made me jump. My massager actually apologized for having her energy up too high--saying that her teacher said she was supposed to be in neutral when she 'read' the body. That she wasn't always good at doing that. Staying neutral that is. I have a very strong inhibition about strangers touching me and visa-versa, and wasn't even sure if I could stand a traditional massage (and that's why Laura got this one for me instead since you remain clothed during it.) But I trusted this woman, I could feel the healer in her, and the obvious some-thing, some-thing going on. I am very practical and pragmatic. I don't have to believe in something to use it. If it works, it works, even if I can't explain it. Nor am I going to pretend that I feel something just to make the person doing the waving of hands feel good. So this went on for about 1/2 hour to an hour. I felt heat coming from her hands like a heating pad, my own energy moving around, some pain, some shifting, some things I can't describe. Before the massage was even over, I knew that I needed to see her again before I left California. She agreed with me. But not at the spa. We arranged with Laura to meet another time at her home, later in the week. I got up from the table feeling like I do when I get up from the dentist chair with full gas an novocaine--I was shaken all the way down to my toes. Pretty amazing for some waving of the hands, uh?

Laura offered me other services of the spa but I turned them down because of how shaken I was. And this feeling took about twenty minutes to pass.

That night, I offered to buy pizza for everyone -- and ordered extra so that there would be plenty. We brought the pizza home, and started to share it around, when Trent went to the kitchen to get some dishes for the pizza. And noticed that the dishes weren't clean. The ones that I had put up. It seems that they have an old dish washer that you absolutely must pre-wash everything before sending through the cycle. I have a new one and no-prewashing is necessary. I had forgotten that the old ones needed that to wash well. The dishes I had put up had not been washed yet. I had looked at them, and they had seemed clean, except for one or two more obvious items that I repacked into the load I had washed. I apol0gized multible times, as I heard Trent and Laura going through all the dishes to fish out the ones I had put away. I offered to wash everything up tomorrow but since I was the guest and perhaps not wanting a repeat of the same disaster wouldn't allow me to help.

At least Laci liked the pizza.