Live from Aptos

Today I'm liveblogging from the Aptos Coffee Roasting Company off State Park Drive. I think this place is an offshoot of the Pacific Roasting Company on the Pacific Garden Mall. This is a terrific place to write if the barista isn't cranking up annoying music. There's wireless that actually works, good lighting, a good selection of coffee drinks, and standard coffeehouse food, bagels and pastries, and some odd burrito things. The largest drawback to this place is that it closes at eight--but then, the place in which it's located isn't exactly the most swinging part of town.

It's been interesting to have devolved to a dial-up connection, since Mr. Strega works in high-tech (though when I met him, he did not have an Internet connection at home, preferring to keep it at work). I have to remember to unplug the dial-up and plug it back into the phone line, or everything goes to voice mail. Brings me right back to the "olden days," when I had to ask the kids to sign off the Internet so I could use the phone.

Easter was decent at the Ponderosa, though my elder daughter Prada was not with us, for she's overwhelmed with work at school. Still, the ham was wonderful and the torta pasqualina a work of art, if rustic art, if I do say so myself (actually, Mr. Strega made most of the torta pasqualina). We have so much ham left over that I could make ham sandwiches for most of the folks on our street and still have some left over. I always liked the entry in the Joy of Cooking which says, "Someone once defined eternity as two people and a ham."

So, we're nearly done with our tasks out here in gray, foggy Aptos. This was one of the first places in Santa Cruz I visited when I first moved here twenty-six years ago, and I fell in love with it. And I'm still here.

I will be plugging away at the book tonight, more and more--seeing my new set of family pictures has been both marvelous and sad for me. I had an astounding moment when, looking at one photo, I noticed a portrait on the wall behind the subjects, of a woman in a Victorian dress and hairstyle, and realized it was my strega great-grandmother when she was young--and looks formidable and fierce, like a roosting hawk. Her eyebrows are exactly like mine, the right one quirking up into a point at the center, higher than the left. When I am able to scan this picture, I'll post it (it's just a matter of getting to the store for the scanner). It's weird to see one's genetic inheritance in all these photos of long-lost relatives.