Dreams

A couple of dreams lately...

In the first one, dad has come with me for lunch, along with my colleagues from work, maybe? In any case, we were a larger group than just 2. Dad asks me for suggestions off the lunch menu, and I say that the fish & chips with beer sounds good. It's $12. He says it's too expensive. But come time to order, the waiter skips over me. Again. This is a recurring theme. I'm left there with menu-in-hand.

I got a parking ticket from a cop. I don't know why. I'm arguing it, and he gives me another ticket! In fact, he gives me a ticket for each slice of meat on my plate. I don't know how this connection came to be. I'm angry. I get up to argue, and the cop shoots me with his gun. I take him to court, and the judge gives me jail time for attempted assault of a police officer. Much later, I'm released from jail. I've invited a friend over for dinner, but I then find out he's a cop. I uninvite him, vowing that all cops abuse their power. They don't enforce the law. They are the law. And then I wake up...

So, what do these mean?

Count Tarantula de Diablo

I have no photos of tarantulas to post :(

Based on this article, I thought I'd see the ground crawling with them, but nooo... was I too late in the season? September and October, right? According to this article...

It was still a nice hike, though. Falls & Middle Trail up, refill water at summit, then Eagle Peak Trail back down. I was thinking... that I have a really good guardian angel watching over me. I do lots of stuff alone, with no back-up people. I figured it's like a collaboration. They're watching over mom, but they need me to do stuff down here, so they're watching over me too. Y'know... kind of like how the mob protects Tom Cruise at the end of The Firm.

Spice of Life

Mom & I took BART to this festival in Berkeley. The main attraction for us is the chef stage, and maybe there will be some food vendor that catches her fancy. We arrived at the chef stage as they were handing out sauteed shrimp, so I walked right up and grabbed a few. Tasty, but... too salty! I think that's true for most non-homecooked food for us now. Certainly for me.

Next up was the blackened ahi. Pretty easy to do... just buy some K-paul blackening seasoning. Oh, and the butter goes on the fish, not in the pan. The pan is hot-hot-hot dry. You can blacken other fish, but you might have to finish it in the oven to be safe. Sushi-grade salmon would be good, too.

We walked around, and came back for the chocolate smoothie. We didn't get a taste, but their booth was handing out samples of their organic ice cream, which was incredibly good. I don't know what % of the current generation of kids can't eat there. They use nuts in everything. The chocolate smoothie has "nut milk" instead of dairy milk.

We tried the flacos.com which was pretty good. And we were nostalgic for the funnel cake, so we had one of that, too. Not as good as we remember it from the Pennsylvanian Dutch folks, but recall memory is known to be faulty.

Fleet Week

I was wishy-washy about going. I was just in SF the previous weekend. Am I up for more crowds? I've seen the Blue Angels several times before, up-close, at Moffett Naval Air Field -- now that was a real experience. Ah, the smell of the after-burners... you don't get that when they're way out over the water, and there's a constant wind.

But I'm glad I went. They come but once-a-year, and in other ways it seemed important for me to get my fat ass out there doing stuff. I started in the usual way - stairs up to Coit Tower. It's a reliable bathroom stop. Then the Canadian Snowbirds were starting, so I rushed down to the waterfront, somewhere behind the restaurants at Fisherman's Wharf. I settled in on the edge of the Herbst Pavillion pier, just outside of the railing. With my vietnamese #6 sandwich in-hand, I was ready to enjoy the airshow.

You know those movies like Top Gun, where the instructor is demonstrating with a model airplane? That's what it was like, watching these stunt pilots. Toy planes that they can make it do anything. It is amazing, like how one can suspend a plane vertically and spin it like a weather vane. All around me were photographers with big glass. I saw a shot, I hear shutters click. I remembered to bring binoculars this time. I always forget...

There were other stuff going on. Open studios at Fort Mason. I had some wine & cheese, because you're supposed to have that with art. And this at Chrissy Field:

I am full of...

anti-oxidants! I saved seeds from last year's meals. Any heirloom tomatoes that were tasty had their seeds saved.

Next season is going to be even more. If mom doesn't get her act together and plant other vegetables, my tomatoes are going to take over the yard!

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

I took Dave and Murielle to this one year, when they still lived in the Bay Area. It was smaller then, and you could walk around and get close to the artists, except for the featured stage. It has gotten way bigger now. I heard some estimate of 400k people for sunday. That's a lot of bodies. The banjo stage field was a solid sea of humanity. I managed to find a spot in the "friends & family" section, next to a nice Swedish lady, married to a Brooklyn man, now living in SF near their daughter who plays the cello, and 6-yr old grand-daughter. The arrow stage attendance was not much smaller. The star stage was a younger hippie druggie crowd. The porch stage more folksy. That's my sweeping generalizations for today...

I took BART to civic center, and walked the 4.2 mi (according to google) each way. I figured it'd be good to get some exercise, if I'm going to sit and listen to music for hours. I ate a danish, a croissant, and a box of grapes. That's it. Almost healthy? And water, no soda.

Here's what I saw that I liked (I won't mention what I didn't like, cuz that's not nice) :

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=ALISON_BROWN_JOE_CRAVEN

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=BILL_EVANS_STRING_SUMMIT_MEGAN_LYNCH

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=EARL_SCRUGGS

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=RICKY_SKAGGS