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On a bit of a whim we took Auntie P to pick cherries on her
last day in the
U.S.
When I was a child, I remember my parents driving us to
Brentwood
to pick fruit, that it seemed like hundreds of
miles away, and that it was unbearably hot. I can still picture my normally rather proper mom holding some
farmer’s garden hose over her head to cool off. Back then we lived in Daly city-infamous for impenetrable fog 300 days of
the year, when I only owned 1 pair of shorts in my entire wardrobe, and it
was a happy occasion to visit my Godmother in
Sunnyvale
when we could don the one pair of
shorts.
Mom is wearing a blouse made of blousy material, semi sheer,
with a collar and buttons up the front. Yet it’s in military camouflage print. Hmm. Kinda chic, I think to
myself. A little hip edge to a
traditional style.
“Camouflage!”, P says when he sees her, “nice.”
Mom laughs, “I had a green sun hat on earlier with this, and
my sister said I looked like a Communist, so I changed to a sun visor.”
So we hit the road with the Communist and Aunt P, they plied
us with unhealthy driving fodder like green tea cream cake and apple turnover
crusted with sugar. Good Lord. I am wondering if my arteries will survive this day.
I’m stunned by what we find on the branches -cherries so luscious and bizarrely perfect
that my mind spouts the term “food porn”. Certainly I did not invent that phrase, but feeling up these fat, juicy,
glossy orbs (you have to feel them up carefully with your fingertips prior to
picking to make sure it’s unblemished by bird/insect attack) it seemed
fitting.
One can eat all you want in the
orchards and only pay for the pounds you haul out, so we gleefully stuffed
ourselves as we foraged, munching on the deep burgundy, firm cherry flesh.
“Isn’t it miraculous?” I asked P.
He glances over…”what are you talking about?”
“That trees can make something so amazing out of…practically
nothing at all. Dirt, and water.”
A hour later: 4 fools swingin’ 4 plastic pails of cherry
perfection, we take pictures, eat more cherries, and finally walk over to the
nice young lads in their dayglo yellow “Nunn Better Cherries” tees. (these cherries were so damned perfect that when I brought them to work, I fielded endless inquiries from colleagues who needed to know which farm we had bee to so that they could go too.) Nunn better indeed.
The damage? Twenty four lbs. of fruit - $48.
We meet up with my sweetheart (the Georgia Peach) & her
hombre, and head over to Mike’s Peach orchard. K mentions an article she read about how the cold snap killed most other crops but was a boon to our cherries.
I’ve always thought peaches look suspiciously like luscious little butts…downy fuzz, blush, bi-sected, and all. Or maybe I’m projecting.
Mom starts to look swoony, feeling sick from the heat, the long, meandering drive, and "probably too much excitement & cherries off of the tree!"
We dash quickly into the peach orchard and let her and Aunt P rest in the car with the AC & our water cooler.
Returning with the peach bag, I see Mom has emerged from the car.
"Are you feeling better?"
She smiles oddly. "Yeah….but I actually threw up."
"What! Are you OK?! I didn’t know you really felt that bad!"
Then she and Aunt P start to laugh. "OMG, you should have seen it…hao shiang too shwua."
Then she pauses and says in english "look like a blood."
She shakes her head at the horror of mom’s exorcist moment
"Are you serious? Did you drink some water? Where is it?"
At this point they are both cracking up. "I feel fine now. I buried it with the rocks and sand."
She hold up her wrists "I only found these in my purse afterwards." NOW she has on the two anti-motion sickness seabands on.
I gazed around at the loose dirt, kitty litter texture across the parking area and it starts to seem kind of funny to me too.
"You buried it? What are you - a CAt!?"
sigh. Ah well, we headed homeward with our fruit bounty (what my friend Molly once pointed out as "we’re eating the sex organs of a tree.)" Sure enough we spread those fruits (and seed) far and wide among family, friends, & colleagues.
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