We have visited U-Pick style cherry farms since Tim was very
small and the tradition stayed. Every Memorial weekend, we'd
drive about one hour inland to Brentwood, find a farm, and
collect our fill. (Cherry-picking can be addictive while one's
at it, we sometimes end up with more than we could eat and
have to give some away.) Today, while mom was still in bed,
Tim and I set off in my little beat-up Honda, and in 30 min
left behind the chilly and miserable morning in the valley.
After a brief stay for coffee at the Vasco Plaza off the
freeway, we continued north and entered the hills. The vales
and dales were under a thick blanket of bright yellow grass
with cattle. Against white slow-moving clouds and a blue
sky, giant white wind turbines loomed over us, spinning
lazily, as we meandered through.
This land is my land,
and it ain't your land.
I have a shotgun,
and you ain't got one.
I am gonna shoot you,
if you don't get off.
This land is private property.
Tim was in good spirit and sang a slightly modified folk
song. Closer to town, grass turned into vinyards which in
turn gave in to fruit farms and we arrived.
The trees had been picked recently (likely even yesterday)
but there were many dark juicy ones at the top. Tim took a
ladder and started to work. With hard-earned strength and
flexibility, I enjoyed climbing up two trees and had a great
time finding good footing and stretching my limbs to reach
those plump and deliciously looking fruits. We must have
worked over half an hour before new pickers arrived. One
dad explained to the toddler: "The trees are no good here.
Let's move on." while I was having the best cherries above
them. It reminded me of the monkey king (as in Journey To
The West) in the queen's peach garden.
As we headed back with 10 lbs of cherries, in-bound traffic
started to build up. Cars (mostly from the valley) trying to get
to the farms lined up for miles and growing. The more cars
we saw, the more relieved we felt now that our job was done.
Before the second big event of the day, Tim directed me to a
mall (The San Francisco Premium Outlets) which he said was
popular and good for a walk and, sure enough, we had to park
far away from the shops. It was amazing to see the long lines
of mostly Asian people in front of the Coach and Gucci stores.
(I should've kept investing in them.) The choices of shoes at
Nike were mind-boggling but it was hard to find a fit customer.
It reminded me of what Taleb said, 'The alpha person at a
gathering of "high status" persons is often, detectably, the
waiter.' In the three stores we entered, the Ghirardelli, Nike,
and UnderArmor, the best-looking people were invariably the
store attendants.
Before 12:00pm, we went back to the In-and-Out Burger in
Livermore for lunch. This was exciting simply because it was
again a yearly event. Each ordered a double-double burger
and one french fries. The burgers were murdered before 10
more orders were announced at the counter and the fries were
gone in another three. Overall, the battle of In-and-Out was
over in 15 min.
To punish mom, who bought cherries at Target and didn't join
the party today, she had to finish what she had before touching
what we picked. There were no comparison.
