Fine Dining/Cash Only

Finding fresh seafood at a reasonable cost and on a regular basis proves challenging when one lives 1500 miles from the nearest ocean. Nearly every shipment found at local stores needs to be frozen before making its way inland. Not quite the same as enjoying it seaside.

So, when we traveled to San Fransisco last fall we were delighted to discover Barbara's Fishtrap down the coast a bit, and well worth the drive.



Fine Dining/Cash Only


Barbara's Fishtrap:
back door open to the ocean,
a lodestone drawing diners
strung like magnets out the front,
tolerating rain-gear weather
for their turn at rickety tables
and the catch of the day, savory
as any at the Ritz
a few miles south on Half Moon Bay.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Long Range Forecast

I am feeling a sense of whiplash. From 90+ degree heat and blossoming orange trees in Phoenix to freezing temps and chevrons of snow, covering a still frozen lake up north. All within a matter of 36 hours.

This week the desert Southwest continues to occupy my mind even though I just returned from spending three days in northern Wisconsin. As disparate as the two regions are, they share something in common: rising temperatures.



Long Range Forecast


Up north the old duffer talks
with a mouth gritty from hard times.
Whiskey rolls his tongue
and resurrects visions
of topsoil blowing away,
one planting season to the next.

In the Southwest whirling dervish
sandstorms swirl across the desert,
smother cities, stall traffic,
no longer make the nightly news.
The taste of the Sonora
now coating Margarita Fridays.

Records for warmth
topple across the seasons, the country,
and those with a nearsighted frame
of reference scoff at alternative energies,
press for pipelines through farm fields,
aquifers, and tribal lands.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Hertz - City Map of Phoenix

Every year I fly to Arizona as winter wanes. I travel here for a variety of reasons: 1) for an annual medical conference 2) to briefly leave behind bare trees, cold weather and snow 3) to spend time with my sister who happens to live in Phoenix, the best reason of all.

The dates of the conference vary. Sometimes it's held in February, other years in March. As you will see, I dusted off a poem I wrote about a previous journey to this area. The details may change but the sentiments remain the same.



Hertz - City Map of Phoenix


In the frostbite of February
you guide me in the Valley of the Sun
to red rock boulders scattered
like flashy dice across the flat
desert table, past anterooms filled
with rakish prickly-pears.

Take me down alleys of dusty adobe
to Southwest-woven fairs, fry bread dancing
on hot skillets, Navajo thunder rumbling
from hide-stretched drums. Later, point me
to Mariachi music and margaritas under the stars.

This year: directions to an open air
Chihuly exhibit, hand blown glass rising
between the saguaro. Upstart cacti
in poppy red and bluebell and buttercup
revel in the shallows of the Sonora.

But always at the bottom of the map
a fat green line intersects the airport,
waiting.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Change of Season

Our winter has been mild this year with even Seattle out-snowing Minneapolis during January and February. Add to that a seven day run of record warmth and spring is on the move. On last week's trek north to the cabin I spotted a pair of swans, either daring or foolish, standing in thawed wetlands. But as tulips continue to prematurely poke through the crusty earth all of us up here know not to count out old-man-winter just yet.  



Change of Seasons


In the distance a trio of cranes,
stolid metal works mired in March.

Their plumed counterparts
still wintering along the Gulf Coast.

Not for them bare-branched trees, mud
and melted snow, rather swaying grasses
and buds fat with blossoms.

But given this winter's warmth
they may hitch a ride on a tempting thermal,
land in frigid ponds still patchy with ice,
grow stiff as their fabricated namesakes.

Or maybe a "Closed for the Season" sign
scouted on the door of an ice cream store
dampens deliberations of an early journey
as they step around pilings supporting the pier.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor