Rand Paul has evidently decided to run for President in 2012. Yippee. A Republican ticket with him, and either Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann, does give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
We spent nearly a week in San Francisco. Aside from our initial experience at the airport, and the weather, it was a LOT of fun.
To the experience at the airport, we (I) had checked two suitcases, mine and Martin's. Mine arrived, and Martin's for some obscure reason didn't. It evidently went to Minneapolis instead of Detroit. Go figure. So we had to go discuss this with some woman about my age, who looked like a San Francisco style 1960's 70's style hippie who never got over it. So she found the suitcase in her computer. She then asked whether we wanted to come collect it (NO!) or whether we wanted it delivered...so where to? We gave her Sarah's address and our phone numbers. It then emerges that since it will be after 8:00 p.m. when the suitcase arrives, they can't (!) deliver it that evening, have to do it tomorrow, and it will be sometime between 10:00 and 4:00. Right, which means we have to hang around the apartment until it arrives. Sarah (on the phone) tells us to get it delivered to her office, we tell the bimbo this and she sorta can't cope with the address. I try to give her the phone with Sarah on the other end, and she says she can't use a cell phone because of the radiation(!). I would suggest that her brain has already been well and truly fried by all the drugs she took in the 60's.
The good news is that we eventually did get the suitcase.
Phil, Martin and I went to the Natural History Museum in Golden Gate Park (a HUGE park) to see Claude, the albino alligator. We did have some quality time with Claude, and I would suggest that he waved to us when we were about to leave. People might argue about that, though, although Claude (who evidently spends virtually all his time lounging on this rock in the "swamp") did raise his left claw and move it down to his side, with a movement reminiscent of the British royal wave. We took some photos. We also visited the rain forest, a multi-level thing that was really interesting, although it was hell on my sinuses (too much humidity, too much mold, etc.).
Sarah and Aaron have a legitimate French bistro called Chez Papa down on the corner, about half a block away. And across the street from that there's a serious independent bookstore. Good thing I don't live there (it's on Portrero Hill), as I'd spend buckets of money at that bookstore.
The next day (we actually had TWO days of reasonably good weather) the three of us went down to Fisherman's Wharf and took a boat tour around the bay, which was a lot more fun than I expected, what with the birds (don't know what they are) following the boat, the difference in the water when you went under the Golden Gate Bridge and out of the bay into the ocean...Alcatraz. It was all really neat.
We had some great meals, one in the Mission district called Delfina's or something, serious Italian food. On Friday we went up to Point Reyes (villages that look like they are straight out of a Western, something or other Dairy, where they have lots of GREAT cheese), up to some wide place in the road called Marshall with a really great oyster shack. We had lunch there. We ended up in Sonoma, which is picturesque with an old mission, court house square, and a restaurant called "A Girl and a Fig". Lots of fun. Saturday we didn't do much except watch basketball (UK) and sorta hang out and be tired.
On Sunday Joan and David had a brunch for us at their house, which was LOTS of fun, and then we met up with Andy Sih, Loric and Andy's new wife Cait at her (what do you call it?) job site which is like an old-fashioned fun fair...pin ball machines, a miniature circus, magic shows, and a serious reconstruction in miniature of the Dickens books. Topped off by a Mexican dinner at Juan's, evidently a Berkeley institution, very good, although no margaritas (only beer and wine). ALSO there was this old geezer sitting in the back watching everything; turned out it's Juan, almost certainly in his late 80's or 90's. We took photos with him...
Trip back was (thankfully) uneventful...all of us are tired. And I'm sick, and Martin is having trouble with one of his wretched teeth...
So there...
Cheers, Lillie
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