Allyson Johnson

Pieces of my Mind

Archive for the month “August, 2023”

29 Aug 2023

Freeway Free in California: Along the River in SLO

 This morning we went to downtown San Luis Obispo, magically stripped of its food stalls, produce, and acrobats from last night’s farmer’s market, and checked out the mission – lovely, quiet, full of apologetic acknowledgement of the mistreatment of Indigenous People’s.  We left W, who had seen plenty of missions, outside on a bench by the creek, and returned to find her having befriended Adrian, a very well-spoken and tidy vagrant who welcomed us all to SLO. 

We wandered along thecreek to the SLO Art museum, a very small but attractive venue with three local artists exhibiting (loved Anila Agha’s India-inspired lanterns), plus a colorful abstract mural which wrapped completely around the outside of the museum.

On our way back to the car we couldn’t pass up the old Carnegie Library, now the home of the SLO History Museum.  The exhibits and the docent who talked about them were unexpectedly fascinating – I had to go out for extra time on our (very expensive) parking meter. The docent was a Viet Nam vet who knew a lot about the Dust Bowl and the Japanese internment, and is doing research on WR Hearst.  He explained and enhanced a lot about the old photos which were displayed, and recommended The Habit for a light hamburger lunch just a block away.

The Habit is a fast food place a cut or several above McDonalds – I had a fancy burger with mushrooms and garlic aioli and tempura string beans instead of fries for about $12 including tax.  The most unusual aspect is the ordering, all done at touch-screen kiosks at the front of the store, with a buzz to your cell phone when your order is ready.

When we left the mission in the morning, we had seen people setting up already for the free Friday concert in the Plaza in the evening. (People were already reserving their spaces at 11AM). We thought about attending, but decided instead to reserve a riverside table at Novo just down San Luis Obispo Creek from the mission and the Plaza.

 Our dinner at Novo was a triumph – all participants raised a toast to D for having suggested and reserved the place.  We were outside next to the creek, but far enough down the creek and across so that the noise of “The Molly Ringwald Experience” rock band going in in the Plaza was just incidental background noise.  

We feasted on four appetizer plates:  calamari with 2 kinds of sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts, warm Chèvre (goat cheese) with olives and sourdough toast, and minced chicken in lettuce cups.  We finished off with a shared chocolate decadence fudge thing, all deliciously accompanied by a generous pour of the house Merlot. 

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22 Aug 2023

Catching up with FOX SPIRIT – Episodes 1-50

Did you mean to follow my on-line novel Fox Spirit but fell behind? Here’s a quick synopsis to catch you up to the first 50 episodes (they’re short, but still, 50 is a daunting number!)

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Sara Miller needs a fresh start after the death of her husband John, so when China opens up to the West in August of 1997, she accepts an offer to work at a startup video game company in Beijing. But things don’t go smoothly: she finds she has been hired only to provide an American Face for the company as it seeks investors, she must repel unwanted advances from Chinese  executives, and she meets with suspicion and jealousy from some of her coworkers—especially the accountant, Trueheart Zhang, and the much younger, volatile sales manager, Storm Cheng.

Sara had quarreled with her daughter-in-law Rennie shortly before coming to Beijing, she does not want to make life difficult for her son Mark, but she longs to see her grandson Richie, and returns home at Christmas to make an uneasy peace with Rennie, although by flirting with Rennie’s father at Christmas dinner she makes an enemy of Inez Cavallo, Rennie’s mother.

Returning to Beijing, Sara continues to play the role of American Face for investors, and does her best to win over her co-workers.  She finds additional rewarding work helping to teach English at the local Children’s Palace, a pre-school. Storm Cheng offers to help with some of the translations and a friendship begins.

On a rainy evening Storm saves Sara from being hit by a speeding car, and the friendship sparks to a passionate affair. Storm introduces Sara to his friend Bright Liu, an easy-going Buddhist. Storm, Bright, and  Trueheart Zhang had met as student activists and survived the government crackdown of Tiananmen Square, and are now close friends. As Sara and Storm learn more about each other, their passion grows into love.

But history moves on, and culture gaps widen.  A visit to Beijing by US President Clinton sparks an argument about free speech. Sara is invited to dinner with Storm’s family, and she is insulted by Mrs. Cheng’s treatment of her as a courtesan. Storm tells Sara of his childhood, raised by peasants in the countryside when his parents left him to go to university in Beijing. He was reclaimed by his parents when they were established in Beijing, and he never saw his foster parents again. Sara is appalled by the story.

Sara has weekly phone calls with her son Mark, and senses trouble in his marriage. She is unsure of a welcome at Christmas, but a quarrel with Storm makes her eager for a change from Beijing. The visit goes smoothly and on her return Storm meets Sara at the airport and they reconcile. But their life is disturbed when Bright Liu is caught up in a Falun Gong demonstration, and even more when anti-American riots roil Beijing after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo.  The differences between American and Chinese points of view threaten the love between Sara and Storm.

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Once you’ve read the synopsis, you can pick up Sara Miller’s story here:

You can follow the story from then on by scrolling to the very bottom and clicking on the little blue bar “Follow Chinese Puzzle Box”. New episodes appear every Monday and Thursday.

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15 Aug 2023

Freeway Free in California: Cool Stays in SLO

If my posts have you thinking about a stop in San Luis Obispo, you’ll want a place to stay. Here are three very different choices:

For families: Quality Inn Suites  (qualitysuitesslo.com) – Located well off the freeway and only a few blocks from downtown. This is a great value. TQuality Suites in SLO is a beautifully laid out establishment with lots of outdoor shady sitting spots for contemplation.  One courtyard adjoins the breakfast cafe and the Lobby and contains the spacious swimming pool as well as plenty of outdoor seating for patrons of the Cafe or the evening Manager’s Reception (one generous pour of wine or one beer.) The second, quieter courtyard hat has a gazebo, a fountain, and several tiled tables with benches for sitting as well as a gazebo and a fountain.). Behind the hotel is the river with several nicely situated benches for even quieter contemplation and perfect fend shut.

The complimentary hot breakfast offers a variety of egg dishes, pastries, bagels, cereals, and the usual trimmings.   In the evening along with the complimentary wind and beer, an evening barbecue grill on the swim deck offers hamburgers, hot dogs, cheese steak sandwiches, and grilled chicken sandwiches along with help-yourself salad fixings and cole slaw. If you want something fishy, I can recommend the Splash Cafe for takeout fish tacos and wraps just down Monterey Avenue.

The rooms are large and well equipped. W, C and I rented a Suite, which has two double beds plus a comfortable sofa bed. If you are traveling with children, the pool and the barbecue are easy entertainment and eating options if you have had a long traveling day or a strenuous time getting a student settled at Cal Poly.

For couples or BFFs on a girls’ weekend who are into kitsch – The Apple Farm Inn is up the street from the Quality Inn, a little further from downtown, and offers floral decor and chintz galore, with poster beds, ruffled pillows, overstuffed chairs, and a gift shop full of china in traditional patterns and knickknacks. It’s a new establishment that is trying to be quaint, but with modern gas fireplaces in the rooms. D and I stayed here years back and remember that the breakfast, though not complimentary, was to die for (or die after from surfeit). Current pix look less ruffly and chintzy than I remember.

For couples who want genuine vintage without the kitsch and don’t mind stairs, the Garden Street Inn is a quaint and charming B&B located in a historic Victorian within easy walking distance of downtown. It has stained glass windows, a library with a ladder to help you to the top shelves, clawfoot tubs in the bathrooms, and a sunny breakfast area for enjoying a different creative breakfast every morning.

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08 Aug 2023

Freeway Free in California – SLO Farmers Festival

The San Luis Obispo “Farmers market” is justly famous, but not for farming.   I put the quotes because the actual produce-vending section occupies maybe two blocks, while the food stalls, real estate booths, craft booths, and beer dispensers made up at least five.  You might also see a balloon guy with balloons that light up in rainbow colors, an acrobat who climbs a pole held steady by four volunteers and does gymnastics thirty feet up in the air, a group of rock performers who alternate on instrument playing and K-pop style dancing, or a dancing dread-locked saxaphonist. 

The market is held every Thursday evening beginning at 6PM on SLO’s main street, Higueroa Street, which is decked in lights and lanterns and shut down to all but foot traffic. In summer, long-lasting daylight allows you to appreciate the beauty of the produce and see the performers more clearly, but there is something magical about lantern-light and sparkly garlands which will lure you to spend more time after dark.

The food-stall section offers a huge variety of walk-away food, as many of the local restaurants set up food stands and offer sample platters of their standard menu items. W and I shared a couple of platters of Indian food from the Shalimar restaurant, with mango lassi as drink/dessert, while C wolfed her way through a plate of large juicy beef BBQ ribs. Roasted corn on the cob, churros, tacos, gyros, hummus. BBQ chicken, varieties of satay,, ramen, and chowmein, ice cream, crepes, and many other exotic, vegan, and other choices were available.

W sat and people-watched (lots of summery swirly dresses, bare midriffs, ripped jeans… SLO is a college town, after all) while Cindy and I explored up and down the blocks. Market closed down at 9 and so did we, making it back to our hotel by 9:30 and everyone well-fed and snug in bed by 10. 

One word of warning: Parking in downtown SLO is expensive ($4/hour) and hard to come by on Market Night. I let W and C off a block from Higueroa and drove five blocks in the other direction before I found a parking place (at least it was beyond the range of the parking meters). Make sure to take note of where you park, and have a phone with a flashlight for your return, as the street lights of SLO are also few and far between once you are off the main drag.

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01 Aug 2023

Freeway-Free in California – Salinas is Steinbeck Country

It would be easy to breeze past Salinas on your way to the Monterey Peninsula, San Francisco, or San Jose, but that’s a mistake. Salinas is Steinbeck Country, the thinly disguised locale of “East of Eden”, “The Red Pony”, and “The Long Valley.” The National Steinbeck Center is a modern, manageably sized exhibition space right at the end of Main Street in the middle of “Old Town Salinas”, with easy access off 101, and a sizable parking garage on the same block. 

If you’ve been traveling up California’s Central Valley on 101 on a hot day, it’s worth the stop just to get out of the car and sit in the luxuriously air-conditioned theater (on the right as you enter) to watch the 15-minute documentary about Steinbeck’s life. Across the lobby space from the theater is the exhibition space, which includes displays and discussion covering each of Steinbeck’s novels, a number of movie screens showing excerpts from the movie versions of “East of Eden”, “Grapes of Wrath”, “viva Zapata”, and videos of Steinbeck’s Nobel prize winning speech and various interviews. 

And the rest rooms are lovely.

If you happen to be stopping near lunchtime, stretch your stay and your legs by walking two blocks down Central Avenue to the Steinbeck House Restaurant, run by volunteers in the renovated boyhood home of John Steinbeck. The menu features local produce and an eclectic selection of dishes, including of course “East of Eden Pasta”. During the summer you can also take a tour of the home from attic to cellar (location of the gift shop).

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