Jane Janey's Dream House

Speaking of outdoor showers reminds me of Jane Janey's house. I don't have photos of Jane Janey's house, so I will just have to describe it from memory.

Well, Jane's last name is not Janey, but everyone calls her Jane Janey. She is this very warm, generous, kind woman Dear Daniel and I met via some other friends a few years ago. Somehow we ended up visiting her house in Ojai, California, when we still lived in L.A. I can't remember why we went there, really. Jane was renting this house. She was some kind of semi-retired semi-wealthy semi-older person. By semi-older I mean older than me. Maybe in her late 40's or early 50's. She's masculine and kind of sexy in that gruff Daddy way. I think she was some kind of computer person who was part of the Northern California dotcom phenomenon, but I was never really sure. Anyway, she was taking a break from the hustle and bustle and renting this house in Ojai.
The house was modest from the outside, built on a hillside. The inside of the house wasn't huge or palatial, but it was beautiful and everything was the best - beautiful Corian countertops in the state-of-the-art kitchen, pot lighting in the ceilings, a gorgeous bathroom, a warm tile floor (I think it was heated), a nice guest bedroom with a soft bed and awesome sheets and towels. She was a great host...


The house was sort of U-shaped, with a center portion and two wings, and an incredible back area; a wood deck, huge - a hot tub, outdoor shower, native plants, an incredible mature oak tree. There was a steep drop off down to a canyon out back. She had a homemade wood-and-rope swing tied to a branch of the tree, and if you swung, you swung over a cliff and out above the canyon; nothing below you but a thousand feet of air. It was hella scary, but I went swinging anyway. Jane Janey and Dear Daniel were drinking beer and talking on the deck and the sun went down. I was swinging in the darkness and the sky looked deep purple and dark blue and coyotes were howling out there somewhere, and the air smelled like sage and woodsmoke and grasses. After swinging for a long time, I went into the kitchen and cooked some salmon Jane Janey had, and we ate it for dinner, outside on this thick plank table she had out there. Later, Jane Janey took off her clothes and got into the hot tub. Dear Daniel isn't one to get naked in front of people very easily, but we took off our clothes and got in the hot tub too. Jane Janey laughed about how young DD and I were; she said my skin reminded her of butterscotch, of a lover she had once. (She had a way of giving a woman a compliment that made you feel sexy and admired without feeling uncomfortable. There aren't many people who have that ability.) It was amazing sitting in the hot water out there in the wild. I felt like I was in some kind of Western film. Or some movie about California that's nothing like anyone's real life. But I guess it is some people's real life!

Afterward, I showered under Jane Janey's outdoor shower. It was one of those wide shower heads that looks about as big as a dinner plate, and the water rains down on you. The floor was the wood of the deck - wood feels really good compared to shower tile or cheap porcelain bathtub, let me tell you. The air was kind of cold outside, it was hot under the water, and I used Jane Janey's Dr Bronner's liquid peppermint soap to wash with, which delivers quite a tingle. Just that one day and night at Jane Janey's house was the best, most restful vacation I've ever had. When I imagine owning a house one day, I always imagine living in a house like that; simple, with a lot of glass, no clutter, the best of everything but not too much of anything, in the middle of nature, with an outdoor shower and a swing that lets you swing into the sky.