Martini Glasses

Berkeley, CA, 2003

This is a set of racing car martini glasses (how cool is that?) created for me by Berkeley artist Stephanie Lesh.

I met Stephanie and her then-lover Les while trekking in Nepal’s Annapurna range. It was November, and we were staying in a rustic tea house in the village of Hinko, sleeping on wooden platforms and eating chapatis with peanut butter and jam. That was more or less the standard of comfort on Nepal’s treks in 1983.

The day after meeting around the open cooking hearth, four of us—Stef, Les, me, and my girlfriend T—took a day hike to the Annapurna Sanctuary. The magnificent granite walls and razor white peaks of the world’s tenth-highest mountain soon rose around us. We spied a small, sheltered cave along the trail, and had an inspiration: Why not return to Hinko, retrieve our gear, and spend the night in the glorious Sanctuary itself? We embraced in gleeful agreement.

There was one problem with our plan: By the time we got back to that approximate spot, the sun was setting. We quickly lost the trail. Cold, stoned, and somewhat desperate, we decamped on the rocky ground and ate our only provisions: cold chapatis and M&M’S. Though it was still early evening, the temperature plummeted. We had no choice but to crawl into our down mummy bags, eat the Valium in my first aid kid, and try to sleep through the frigid Himalayan night, 13,000 feet above the distant sea.

That was how I spent Thanksgiving evening, 1983.

L and T are pretty much out of the picture, but Stephanie and I remain friends. Her daughter C, a few weeks from turning 30, is my goddaughter.

Stefla (as I call her) is a wonderful artist, and these glasses are cute, but I’ve switched to straight bourbon. And, as you know, I’m getting rid of things I love. But we’ll always have Hinko.