I received the news that my friend, John Kenny, has been moved from ICU to a regular hospital room. He’s in room 479 at Davies Medical Center. 415-600-6000 is the number for the hospital switchboard.

Cards may be sent to:

John Kenny
564 Fell ST
San Francisco, CA 94102

David and I will make sure that he receives any cards.

So, Nicholas and I drove to San Francisco yesterday to see John Kenny in the ICU of Davies Medical Center. We stopped off to pick up Steve Huggins before the three of us headed there. We spent two and a half hours with him in the morning, then went to Steve’s to take a nap, and then Nicky and I picked up David Perkins and headed back to the hospital to check in on John again.

John was square dancing on Monday evening with Foggy City Dancers in the final tip of the evening when he felt something go wrong. “everything felt like… whoa,” was how he put it haltingly when I asked him what he remembered. So he excused himself from the tip and went to sit down, where he fainted in the chair. When he awoke, Joe Iser, a physician and treasurer of FCD, was there to ask him some basic questions, and his confusion and inability to communicate prompted a call to 911. Paramedics were on the scene almost immediately, and they transported him to the hospital. He was administered TPA, an anti-clotting agent that they give to stroke victims. It wasn’t until around 2am that he was able to sleep, in bed 5 of the ICU.

John has motor control over his limbs, but as of yesterday, didn’t have any sensation on the right side of his body. He is tired, has a moderate amount of pain, but his personality is there. His ability to speak is disrupted. If you ask him a question, he has a difficult time processing and formulating an answer. If he wants to express a thought of his own, he is more able to do so. Certain words didn’t exist for him to be able to say, like water and other simple words, but if you said them to him, he knew what they meant.

He is going to remain in the ICU for a couple more days. Visitors are discouraged for right now – family members (who are in New York and Rhode Island), and the Sunday Dinner gang (you know who you are), and the other oldest and closest friends (again, you know who you are) are welcome for short visits. I cannot stress enough how fragile John is right now – he needs to concentrate on resting and healing right now, and social calls are very taxing to him. If you want to visit him, please telephone me before doing so at 415-424-9570.

Nicky picked me up from work Friday night, and we met Will and Bruin in the Castro for dinner.  We ended up going to the Lower Haight to dine at the utterly incredibly Chili Cha Cha Thai Restaurant.  We ordered a whole bunch of food and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  From there, we headed to Le Video so I could get a copy of John Waters’ Crybaby.  It was my responsibility to put together the slide show to project onto the screen at Saturday night’s Trash Film Orgy, and I planned on rehearsing it that night, too.

But when we were having our coffee at Wicked Grounds, we found out about Sam Storick’s death, and Will became very upset.  You see, he and Sam had been partners for a few years back in Arizona, and the suddenness of both Sam’s illness and death had us all unbalanced.  So, Will asked me if I could take them home immediately, and I acceded, driving them over to Portola and Woodside.  Nicky and I got home but I just couldn’t focus on the task at hand, so I canceled my appointments for Saturday – both because I was upset at Sam’s death, but also so I could rehearse the slide-show synchronization with the movie.  Nicky was a real comfort to me.

Saturday, I put the finishing touches on the slideshow and hopped in the Zipcar, arriving in Sacramento around 6pm.  I had a quick nap and dinner, then headed to the theater, where I acquired some molasses magic cookies, and ate one.  Probably I should have asked how strong the cookies were, but I figured that I’m a big guy and have enough tolerance to handle whatever it throws my way.

The show went well, and the lighting looked really grand during the opening number.  I rushed downstairs to take my place at the laptop and projector down by the DJ booth, so I could project the lyrics onto the screen while the movie played.  The cookie was really working.

During intermission, I bought two bottles of water, and started drinking water because my mouth was feeling dry.  Did some socializing with random folks at the show, and headed back to my laptop to finish the job.  I was growing increasingly thirsty during the second half of the movie, but I couldn’t find my water bottles.

After the film, I found my bottles, but I couldn’t figure out how to make my arm lift the bottle to my mouth.  Then I fell off my chair onto the floor of the theater, and started to panic.  People were gathered around me but I couldn’t make my arms work right at all.  Finally, I was able to make my arms move again, and Darin sat with me for a few minutes until I was able to get up and move around again.  That was a very strange experience.

I got to Darin and Christy’s house for a little visit, then drove back at my motel around 04:00, and promptly fell asleep.  Woke up at 10:30 on Sunday morning, and decided that instead of going back to San Francisco right away for Dore Alley, I would spend a couple of hours visiting my dad and younger sister and brother-in-law at their place, so I called my dad and let him know I’d be there in about an hour.  Vel called me a few minutes later, and I suggested that we might want to get breakfast.  So we had a plan.

Vel and Paco on the River

A quick shower, then a short drive to their place, and I had a lovely visit with them.  A couple of their friends showed up, too, and we had a good afternoon hanging out.  Jim suggested that we go out on the river in their new boat, and I thought that was a splendid idea, so we got up and headed out to Discovery Park for the boat launch ramp, and spend a couple of hours cruising up and down the Sacramento River.

Headed back to San Francisco somewhere around 21:30 and called Nicky up to see where he was.  We met at Nation’s Giant Burger in El Cerrito for a quick dinner of wild salmon burgers, fries, and pie.  Since I was feeling both good and unsettled I decided to stay with him in El Cerrito for the night and return the car in the morning.  My noon appointment had already asked to reschedule, so I wasn’t worried about having to get up too early to drive in the morning commute traffic, and had a pleasant night’s sleep and good morning with Nicholas.

The zipcar was returned with a few minutes to spare, and I walked back home, did some laundry, and napped in preparation for my afternoon clients.

Nicky was at work on Saturday, so I texted Bruin to see what he and Will were doing. Turns out Will had the day off and was still sleeping, but I asked if they wanted to go to Sloat Gardens and Target for a little bit of shopping. Bruin invited me over while he started to rouse Will, and I drove from the Ferry Building where I had dropped Nicky off up over to Portola and Woodside where Will and Bruin live.

Found an empty parking meter and fed it coins, then crossed the street and went inside. Will’s latest painting, which I am entitling for the sake of this post “Sir, Yes Sir!” was sitting on the easel drying. Oil paint, especially in the very thick way he uses it, takes quite a while to dry. I told Will that I would help him get a show when he had enough paintings to be able to curate.

Bruin and I chit-chatted while we used the French Press to make Will some coffee, which he mixed with a protein drink and took upstairs to Will. He offered me some cherries, and I noshed on cherries while we waited for Will to come downstairs. A little while later, Will came downstairs and the three of us got into the car and headed to Sloat Garden Center out by the zoo. I want to find some plants to fill the concrete planter box that’s right outside my front door. And I’d like to try growing orchids in my massage office, too. So, I did a little window shopping, asked the staff some questions about various plants, but didn’t end up buying anything. I will go back, though. They staff was knowledgeable and for the most part helpful. The orchid lady seemed a bit harried and distracted.

From there, we headed to Tanforan Mall in San Bruno to the Target and Sears. I needed to pick up some household items, and Bruin wanted to look at the vacuum cleaners at Sears. A particular Kenmore model is rated very highly on some consumer websites, and it had been on sale. But when we got there, we found that the sale was over, so they didn’t buy the vacuum.

I drove us back, taking a meandering route up El Camino Real to Mission to Valencia to 21st to Castro to 18th to Market and then to their place. It was nice to be able to just talk and stuff.

Once we got back to their place, Bruin started preparing a maple-glazed pork loin, and I ate a little bok choi and rice that he had made as the side dishes, just to be polite. It was time to pick Nicky up from the Ferry Building again, so I drove back across town to pick him up, and we went home and had supper together, cuddled on the sofa for a while, and went to bed.

Sunday, I meant to finish folding laundry and putting it away, but I got sucked into a WoW-hole, which ended in frustration and sadness. Nicholas takes the ferry to and from work in Vallejo a few days per week, so I go down and pick him up in the evenings so he doesn’t have to be on transit any more than necessary. After I picked him up, we went to Safeway and got some stuff for supper, and we ate dinner and talked and cuddled, and went to bed.

Trying to stay busy, or at least distracted. When I don’t have anything to do, I sit here and do nothing. I wish friends would call and invite me out to places to see how I am doing.

Saturday morning, Nicky and I woke up and headed to Kensington for breakfast at the Inn Kensington Cafe, and then to his father’s house in the El Cerrito hills to clean out the roof gutters in anticipation of this week’s mega-rain. The house overlooks the eastern side of the hills, into Tilden Park, and is a lovely flat-roofed structure. His father is an architect and designed the house and several other of the homes in that neighborhood.

After we finished the gutters, it was time to get Nicky to work, so I drove him to downtown Oakland and the restaurant. I had to go to Berkeley to Bodywork Central to pick up some massage lubricants. The store is going out of business after 15 years, and they were fairly steeply discounting their remaining stock, so I got a nice price on the various lotions and gels and creams I purchased. Score!

I gassed up the vehicle and still had a few hours to kill before Nicky got off work, so after making a visit to Sacred Rose Tattoo to see my tattooist and make an appointment for mid-May, I headed over to the restaurant and hung out with the customers and staff there. There was fun and lively conversation, and they make such yummy oysters!

Nicholas closed the restaurant down and we headed back to UGH for our evening’s activities.

Sunday morning, I headed over to my friend P. A. Cooley’s place to be photographed for the upcoming Facebook | Bearlesque Talent Search this coming Saturday at Edge Bar in the Castro. It’s a fundraiser for the Lemonade Fund, which raises money for critically ill theater workers.  Also Sunday, I did some work on the membership renewal letter for Foggy City Dancers.

Later that evening, bigjohnsf and I met albadger at the Emery Bay Public Market for supper, then headed to the Trader Joe’s nearby for a bit of grocery shopping.  Nicky came by after he got off work and we played video games and cuddled, finally falling asleep on the giant couch together.

A couple of weeks ago, Gord R Reece and his partner, Scott, “hired” me to drive them in a giant RV for four days, from San Jose to Lake Tahoe to Mono Lake to Death Valley to Palm Springs. I thought this would be a fun way to spend a few days, as I don’t get to indulge my passion for long road trips very often these days.

So, last Wednesday they (and their two Chihuahuas, Bruiser and Sparky) picked me up here at UGH in their heavily loaded station wagon and we headed down to San Jose to the RV rental place to pick up the Winnebago Journey, otherwise known as Caliban. We got the beast loaded up, the rental staff did a walk-through of the creature, showing us all of its monstrous features, and we hit the road.

Our first stop was Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where Scott had a date with the Harrah’s casino. We drove up 680 to 80 to 50 to the casino, and I drove that beast on US 50′s crazy curves at night! That was a real test of driving and nerve, that’s certain. But Gord slept through it all in the way back of the rig, so it must have been a successful quiz with a passing grade.

We dined at the Harrah’s buffet, and not long after, I crashed out and went to bed. Next morning, I woke up before the dawn and watched its rosy fingers caress the mountain tops, did some good stretching, took a nice shower, and waited for Scott and Gord to wake up and get ready to go. I texted Gord and he said Scott would be waking up at 10:30, so I chilled out in the room, watched some TV, updated my facebook, and relaxed, knowing that Thursday’s drive would be another long one.

After they got up and about, we went down to the VIP lounge, where their friend, Mary, hung out with us and chatted for a while. She works there in some aspect of marketing, and was a delightful lady. I mostly just sat there and listened to them all talk, but it was illuminating to do so. Listening is the best way to learn about people, I find.

We left Harrah’s and made a quick stop in the Safeway, broke our fast, then hit the road. In order to get onto US 395 from Tahoe, we had to surmount the Kingsbury Grade. Check out the map here.  It’s a devious and treacherous stretch of highway that leads to Minden, Nevada and 395.  Truly, it was a joy to drive it, even with Caliban’s behemothishness.

Our next stop was a quick fueling stop, then on to Mono Lake, and it’s otherworldly atmosphere.  We took a lot of photos there, but the Visitor’s Center was closed, so we didn’t tarry too long.   Our stop for the night in Lone Pine, CA and the Boulder Creek RV Park awaited. And here’s where our tale, gentle readers, goes horribly awry.

I got us situated in our stall, and Gord lowered the leveling jacks, electric-powered hydraulic jacks, which keep the RV stable for sleeping and cooking and what-not.  Once that was done, we had supper and hung out for a while before we all went to sleep.  Next morning, after coffee and breakfast were had, I started to get us underway, started up the engine, turned on the jack system, and hit the “retract” button.  No response.  I tried various other things, but didn’t get anything to happen, so I turned it back over to Gord, and let him try.  Nothing, so we called the RV rental place, and spoke to someone there who walked us through essentially the same stuff we had already tried.

Failing that, the maintenance guy found a mechanic back in Bishop, California, roughly 40 miles back up the road.  He wasn’t available until around 3pm, so we were essentially stuck in Lone Pine, hoist on our own… well, I wouldn’t say petard, since that’s nasty, but certainly we had hung ourselves up and there we stayed.

Our mechanic arrived pretty much when he said he would, a nine-fingered Cajun Katrina refugee named Monte.  He quickly figured out the problem, and had us back on the ground in around 15 minutes.

But with all that time wasted, our itinerary was way off schedule, so we re-grouped, and decided to head to our next destination anyway, the ghost town,  Rhyolite, Nevada (map).  We didn’t want to see it in the dark, though, so we tried to get a space in Beatty, Nevada, the nearest town.  But it was Amargosa Valley Pioneer Days, and all the RV Parks were full up, so we hit our alternative plan and went to the Longstreet Casino and RV Park in Amargosa Valley at stateline.  It’s a fortunate thing we did, else we’d never have seen the tallest steer I’d ever encountered.  It was as tall at the shoulders as I am.  Freakishly huge!

Rhyolite was a real highlight of the journey.  The empty concrete shells of this boom-bust mining town stood as eerie reminders of the transience of civilizations.  I mean golly-gee willickers, some of those building weren’t even 100 years old!  And, more to the point, but Beatty was only four miles away, so it’s not as if Rhyolite was such a poor location that it couldn’t have been sustained.  Gord took tons of pictures of the town, I took a bunch which I’ll be posting soon, and Scott took a bunch of video, so hopefully we’ll get to see it again.

Once again, we hit the road, and headed back, past Longstreet and stateline, the Amargose Opera House at Death Valley Junction, and on CA-127 toward Baker.  A few miles from Shoshone (map), we started to notice a loud hissing of air, and I saw that the air pressure gauges were going down.  When we got to town, I pulled into an unpaved parking lot next to the Post Office and market.  It seems the brakes developed a leak somewhere in their system, so once again we called the RV rental place back in San Jose.  This time, though, the nearest mechanic was over in Las Vegas, around 90 miles away, and he wasn’t available until 6:30pm.  Well, that meant I wouldn’t make my 5:30pm flight back to San Francisco, so we all decided to make the best of it.  Luckily we were in an actual town, and the town was holding a craft fair with live music and yummy foodstuffs.

The mechanic turned out to be a Shoshone native who fled the tiny town (population 52 at the 2000 census) back in the early 1970s for the glamour of Las Vegas.  When he arrived, he was able to quickly diagnose the problem, had the part in his service vehicle already, and after about an hour, he had me start the engine and check to see that the air pressure was increasing, which it did fairly quickly.  Back on the road!

56 miles down the road, we arrived in Baker, home of the world’s tallest thermometer (and a state prison, but that’s not important to this story).  I recommended that we have dinner at the Mad Greek Cafe, as I had been to Baker probably a dozen times with my friend Frank on our trips through the desert.  Gord and Scott were agreeable to this, and I pulled into the parking lot and we dined.

While we were eating, we discussed how we should proceed to get most quickly to Palm Springs.  My original intention was to take the Kel-Amboy road through the Mojave National Monument, get us to Twenty-Nine Palms, and from there to Palm Springs.  This was geographically the shortest and most beautiful route, but also the most mountainous.  Since it was well into night at this point, it didn’t make any sense to do so, and with Caliban having had two mechanical failures, I didn’t trust it to make it safely through the mountains.  So, instead I advised us to head west on I-15 back to San Bernadino and I-10 east to Palm Springs.  It was a longer route, but at least we’d be on a major roadway if something else did happen.  With our plan in place, we finished our meal companionably, and prepared to get underway again.

O Gentle Readers, you know where this is going, right?  Three miles on I-15, and I noticed what looked like a firefly shooting across the screen of the rear-view camera system.  Zing!  I thought to myself, that’s odd, I didn’t think fireflies lived in the desert. And I was right, because immediately after that, several more sparks flew from the screen, followed by more, and more, and more, until it looked like someone had lit one of those cone fireworks that you can buy at a July fireworks stand.

“Something’s wrong,” I exclaimed to Gord and Scott as I started look for a way off the road.  An exit came upon us and I got off at Zzyzx Road exit, pulled over, and they rushed out of the RV, fire extinguisher and flashlight in hand.  There didn’t seem to be any fire, but they did notice that it had gotten quite warm back in the bedroom.

I found us a “safe” place to park, but it was on the eastbound on-ramp for the freeway, and I didn’t feel safe there, so I told the guys that I didn’t feel safe, and we limped back to Baker, where Scott found us a tiny RV park attached to a mobile home park.  I backed us into the stall, and we all just stared at each other, trying to fathom just how crazy this trip had become.  Finally, there wasn’t anything to do but go to bed, and we did, dispirited.

In the morning, after we got a decent amount of sleep, and breakfast at the Bob’s Big Boy across Baker’s main street, there wasn’t much to do except wait for the mechanic to come back out from Vegas.  Scott was on the phone with the RV place, rather upset at all of these developments, yet I felt strangely happy.  Even with three breakdowns, we were safe, and each time we were near civilization.  It was a grand adventure.

When the hot mechanic arrived (I neglected to mention his startlingly blue eyes and thick chest before), I was sitting in the pilot’s chair, and Scott and Gord had taken the mattress off of the bed, exposing the bonnet covering the engine compartment.  They opened the compartment and he got to work.

“Oh.”

…

…

…

“Wow.”

This can’t be good, I thought.

He came back out and told us that some part of the turbo’s exhaust system had fallen off.  But wait, there’s more! Not just that, but he didn’t have the part with him, his shop didn’t have one in stock, and no shop would likely have this in stock and it would have to come from the manufacturer.  He thought he could get one same-day shipped on Monday, be back out here that evening, and we would be in Palm Spring that night.

I could feel insane laughter threaten, but I stayed quiet and started thinking about my escape plans. A couple of telephone calls exchanged with Frank and I had gotten him to agree to a rental car and drive from Monrovia to Baker.  Scott bought me a flight from LAX to SFO for Monday evening, and Gord had bought a small grill at the corner mercantile a block away, and he grilled three big steaks.  By the time Frank arrived, we were tired but still in good spirits.

Frank got to Baker at 9:30pm, and after a short visit, I bade Gord and Scott and Bruiser and Sparky farewell.  Frank was hungry, so we went across the street to the Mad Greek again, then headed back into the desert and Tecopa, where we soaked under the stars in a hot springs for an hour, then made our way back to Baker and the 15 and pointed our way to Los Angeles.

We arrived in Monrovia at 6:00am, and after visiting with Frank’s housemate, Long Hair Bear, I promptly crashed out.

Frank and I had lunch at Pie N Burger in Pasadena, where I had the garden burger, fries, and a tremendously good piece of Coconut Meringue pie.  After some more running around randomly, he deposited me at LAX, where I printed out my boarding pass and made my way to the gate.  The flight home was uneventful, and David and John met me at SFO and we came home.

Gord and Scott finally got to Palm Springs on Tuesday evening, as the part wasn’t available until then, but from what I have seen so far, they have been enjoying the remainder of their vacation.

Even with all the craziness of the drive, this was a trip to remember for a long, long time.

I was supposed to go with my buddy, Jason, to see Sunny Day Real Estate, but he had to cancel at the last minute, and I couldn’t get rid of the tickets.  So, I am bummed out, because the tickets were given to me from a friend.

Instead, I went to dinner with TeeLo, Howie, Paul G., John A. and his partner, Greg.  I went to dinner two weeks ago with Thilo, but I hadn’t seen John and Greg in almost two years, and Howie in at least as long, so it was nice to see them.

Thilo came and picked me up, and we drove to the Castro, where we found a parking space right by Firewood, where we met the rest of them for dinner.  The rest of our dinner companions arrived a few minutes later.   We all had a good time, the conversation flowed, and the salad I ordered was tasty!

After dinner, Thilo, Howie, Paul, and I said goodnight to John and Greg, and wandered up to Hot Cookie and had a small dessert.  We wandered back to Thilo’s car and he ferried us all home: me to Hayes Valley, Paul to the Mission, and Howie and him back down to San Jose.  Thilo is staying with Howie while he’s up here this week for work…

Wednesday night, I got a text message from my friend and ALC tentmate, TeeLo, letting me know that he was in the bay area and did I want to have dinner. Since I am in a state of pretty extreme poverty, I begged off, but he was insistent and offered to take me to dinner, so who could refuse generosity? He suggested Walzwerk, and I agreed, and an hour later he was arriving to pick me up.

The restaurant was crowded, so we had a beer while we waited the approximately 30 minutes before we could be seated. Meanwhile we had a delightful conversation about work, the ALC, Thilo’s growing up in Germany, mimicking accents, learning another language, musical instruments and how musical talent often grants one ease of learning other languages, the local food movement, that creepy video of the male chicks being tossed into the grinder for the crime of being male, among other things.

Dinner was pretty decent – since German food reminds me of my growing up (my mother is of German ancestry), I decided to grant myself a dispensation to my pescetarianism for the night, and had the pea soup (which had small pieces of ham in it) and the jaeger schnitzel. Thilo had the potato pancakes and the jaeger schnitzel, too.

After dinner, we kept the conversation going, even as he drove me back home. It was a lovely two and a half hour conversation, yummy dinner, and delightful company. Now that I know that Thilo is up here a couple days a week for work from LA, I am happy to know that we get to hang out more!

Oh, yeah, and I think I decided that I’m going to do the ALC again next year.

Today, I had traffic court – back in March I got a ticket for (not) driving in the bus-only lane on O’Farrell.  Since I didn’t actually do this, I decided to fight the ticket.  In June, I had the arraignment, where I plead not guilty, and had the court date set for today.

The actual violation is a city transportation code violation, and wouldn’t add any points to my driving record, but something the officer said to me while he was giving me the ticket pissed me off – he said “you know, they’re really cracking down on this.”   He said this to me before he even told me what it was that I supposedly had done – I had to ask him what he was talking about and what he thought I had done.  When he told me that I had driven in the bus lane, I was boggled, because that’s just not something I do when I drive.  It actually makes me upset when I see other people driving in that lane, because I’m a big supporter of public transit and think we should have more of it and at a lower cost.

During the arraignment, I asked the judge where the officer’s report was, and she said that he hadn’t submitted one.  If that was the case, I argued, isn’t that analagous to him not showing up in court, and I moved that the charge be dismissed.  She said no, that he hadn’t submitted a report, but that I would have a chance to defend myself at the trial.

Today, I sat on the bench outside the courttoom looking to see if the officer showed up.  I remember what he looks like, and I didn’t see him, so that was hopeful.  I had prepared by having the text of the code printed out, a google map and six pages of satellite images of O’Farrell Street so I could look quickly at where the officer said I was in violation, and I indexed the images to the map.

When my name was called, I had already turned on my movie trailer voice, and said “here” so commandingly that every single head turned toward where I was sitting in the back of the room.  But the officer’s name went unanswered, and the clerk said “case dismissed.”  I got the little slip of paper from the other clerk and exited the courttoom, exulting in my victory!  That’s $159 ($60 fine plus administrative fees) I couldn’t have figured out how to pay, so I’ll take a default victory anyday.

The absence of the officer is something you should all take away from this – in just the 20-ish names that were called before mine, in almost all of the cases, the officer was not present and the case was dismissed.  Why San Francisco lets itself lose so much money is a mystery, but there it is.

After court, I came home, napped a bit, then hopped back on the bus to work.

Frank aborted his trip to Burning Man and came to San Francisco instead, so we traipsed about town looking for the best Frozen Yogurt (referred to as froyo).  First stop was Joe’s Ice Cream on Geary at 18th Avenue, but they no longer had froyo on the menu, alas.  The peanut butter chocolate and blueberry cheesecake flavors were very good, though, creamy and delightful on the tongue.  The peanut butter chocolate flavor was perfectly balanced, with neither flavor outdoing the other, but the blueberry cheesecake was just a bit too much blueberry, and drowned out the cream cheese.  The waffle cone was crispy and not too sweet, and served as a wonderful background for the creams.

Next up was Lilly’s Yogurt, on Octavia at Union Streets.  The former site of a Yogurt Bar, the new store had the typical Taylor yogurt machines pumping out frozen yogurt.  We each got a medium: Frank’s Cable Car Chocolate with blue berries and kiwi chunks atop it, and I got Vanilla Bean with strawberries and walnuts.  These yogurts were pretty bland and boring, with a chalky mouth feel.

After that, we headed back home to UGH because John had made carnitas and burrito fixings, so we all had burritos – I had a burrito filled with rice and beans, guacamole, onions, salsa, etc, while everyone else had carnitas burritos.

Sunday, our froyo quest took us to Chinatown to the small chain tuttimelon.  I ordered the yogurt crepe: a fresh made crepe filled with coconut yogurt, and topped with pineapple chunks, crushed almonds, and strawberry sauce.  Frank got some other flavor.  The yogurt was quite tart and yogurty tasting, and the coconut flakes in the yogurt worked really well with the pineapple chunks, although not so well with the almonds.  The crepe was fresh, but slightly rubbery, and I ate it like enjera bread after an Ethiopian meal, as it had soaked up the flavors of the toppings.  This was our favorite place.

From there, we headed to get some food, and we had Chinese brocolli in oyster sauce, bok choi in garlic, steamed fish balls, and prawn egg foo young.  Finally, we wandered around North Beach and had a cafe au lait at Cafe Triete’s original location before heading home.

Monday, our last yogurt destination was Icebee on Mission at 4th Street.  This is a self-serve place that sells by the ounce, much like a salad bar.  They have the same Cielo and YoCream flavors as the rest of the places, so I tried the cookies and cream flavor and capuccino in a swirl, topped with a bunch of weird stuff like peanut butter cups, maraschino cherries, flaked coconut.  The yogurt was ok, and because I could control the portion size better, this was a better value than the other places.

From there, we headed to Golden Boy Pizza back in North Beach, on Green at Grant Streets, which we had wanted to patronize the night before, but the streets were too crowded and parking too scarce.  This night, though, was much less crowded and we easily found nearby parking.  We each had a slice of the Veggie Pesto pizza.  They serve their pizza in square slices, and the crust is a medium-deep-dish with a slightly Chicago-like texture, but much more crispy on the bottom, which was really good.  Not too much bread that way, and it held up well to the pesto and wet veggies like tomatoes and zucchini.

After pizza, we wandered around Grant street, window shopping and looking in all the empty storefronts, of which there were far too many.  That grew boring, and we ended up at the Hole in the Wall, where draft beer was had, then to the Eagle, where a diet coke was consumed.  A cute scruffy boy was all flirty, but he darted away before I had the chance to say hello to him.

Saturday I headed to my office to see a new client, hopped on the bus like normal, but when I got to 8th and Market, I realized that I had forgotten to grab the bag of clean sheets!   I got off the bus and crossed the street to the bus in the outbound direction.

It was around quarter to noon, so I called my client to let him know that I was going to be around 15 minutes late.  Just as I was about to tell him, he blurted out that he was going to be late, so I asked him how late he thought he was going to be.  His reply?  “Oh, around 45 minutes.”

45 minutes late to an hour long appointment.  When I told him that we wouldn’t be able to work unless he wanted to come in a little later in the afternoon, he demurred, and asked if we could reschedule for later in the week.

So, I didn’t have to tell him that I was going to be 15 minutes late after all!  Instead I am going to reschedule with him for a session this week.

OK, well, with my schedule disrupted unexpectedly, I came back home and did a load of laundry.

But backtracking a bit, while I was waiting at the bus stop to head downtown, I called my friend, Pete King, and he asked me if I’d come up to Guerneville to and be a security guy for a dance at his club, Riverspace, for a dance at the circuit party, Sundance.  Somehow I agreed to this.

So, Sunday I got a zipcar and drove up to the river.  We had dinner at Boon, the new cafe where Bob and Boy used to be, and it was delightful!  I had the radicchio salad with carmelized pears, and Pete had the cous-cous with a chicken breast, which also looked tasty!

The party ran from 6pm to 3am.  Egads, standing in front of the club while hundreds of young (and not so young), ecstacy-ridden circuit party boys traipsed and gallivanted, sashayed and swayed hither and yon was a strange experience.  Who knew that twinky boys were so attracted to big daddy bears?  I got so many hugs and smiles that the hours flew by.

When the party finally wound down, I crashed at Pete’s place at around 4am.  Woke up at 9:30, showered and dressed, wrote Pete a cute little thank you note, and drove back down to San Francisco, stopping at a Denny’s for a veggie omelet and to fuel the car in Petaluma.

Later that night, Will invited me to dine with him and Bruin at their place.  Will had just purchased a new Indian cookbook and he wanted to try out one of the dishes, and would I come and be unafraid at the result?  The vindaloo turned out really delicious!  Later, we watched an old Eddie Izzard concert and laughed until it was time to catch the bus back home.  I was really wiped out from the late night and lack of nap.

But it was a really good weekend!  Hooray!

My friend, Will, and I decided that we should go hang out and have ice cream down at Ghirardelli Square. Hot fudge sundaes, fun conversation, then we wandered around looking at the tourists and taking in the view. I had to get to my office for my work day, so we decided to ride the cable car over the hill. As it was such a perfect day, we didn’t mind waiting in line with the other folks who were also there to ride the rails.

Today, I have a client, then a photographer is coming over to take pictures of me and my fabulous massage table!

My friend, Steve, and I had originally intended on going up to Guerneville to attend a pool party up there, but it was canceled, but I noticed that my friends, Chuck and Gordon, were hosting one of their famouse parties, so I called them up and told them that I might be in Sacramento and would pop by, then quickly called Steve to see if he wanted to go to Sacramento instead.  He was agreeable to this so I asked Plumpy if he wanted to go, too, and at first he demurred, but changed his mind.

The three of us got to Sacramento early in the afternoon and enjoyed basking in the hot sun, the comfortable pool, and the sweet handsome men!