The Beach

I went to the beach this morning.  I went to the beach in bare feet.  Crossed the street from my hotel to the beach.  Stepped onto the hard pavement.  Took jarring steps down to the corner, across the warm asphalt.  Stepped onto the rough curb.  Walked through the prickly parking lot with its tiny stones that poke your heels.  And stepped into the warm sand of the beach.

I wriggled my toes, grains sneaking into the crevices.  Warm grains from the top of the beach, hot from basking in the rising sun.  Cold grains from below, hiding in the damp darkness of the beach’s underlayer.  Temperatures and textures mingling around my digits, coaxing me into feeling again.

I stepped.  I walked.  Each pace a new sensation of rough and smooth, grains of sand, grains of warm, grains of cold.  Advancing towards the water.  I picked my way through the seaweed line at the edge of the last tide’s waves.  Rushing through little swarms of tiny flitting bugs.  Aiming to avoid mushy green splurting between my toes.  Across the washed-up branches.  And onto the cold, wet, smooth spance of sand.  The sand that sinks under your heels and leans you backwards as if saying, “stay, sit, do not go, be one with us, be another grain, a piece of the wide expanse, a tiny morsel of the world.”

And down, down the sight slant towards the water.  I stood there.  Quietly.  My long dress bunched into my hands just above my knees.  The sun warming my calves, my shoulders and my face.  I stood.  I watched.

The waves cresting, peaking, rolling over themselves into tubes, tunnels, caresses.  Silky smooth panels crashing into frothy, bubbly white.  Running onto the beach.  Rushing forwards, up the slant, onto the dark cool sand.

I stood.  I listened.  Roars as the waves built, rushing up, cresting into screams, dying down into licks, falling back as whispers.  Birds overhead, birds in the distance.  Birds peeping quick, high-pitched little cheeps.  Birds honking, loud, long snaps.  Swooping, diving, floating.  Riding the swells far out on the sea, far from the beach, beyond the sand to which I clung tight.

I stood.  The waves rose and fell.  Cresting with anger, receding in resignation.

I stood.  Wave edges lapping in front of me.  Coming.  Going.  Coming.  Going.  This one near.  This one far.

I stood.  Large waves roaring down the beach.  Splashing against the sand.  Edging closer.  Coming.  Coming towards me.  Rushing around my legs, froth nipping at my knees, swirling past me and back out to sea, sand scurrying out from under my feet.

I stood in the ocean.  Rough, beautiful, powerful, peaceful cold ocean.

And without moving, I stood again on the beach.

Disney’s so Magical, Even Twitter Comes to Life

More from the Schultzsters Adventure.  And what is an adventure without friends?  Anaheim happens to be the old stomping grounds of our fabulous friend, Tromboneforhire.  His new stomping grounds aren’t terribly far away, so we arranged an afternoon of adventures.

None of us had yet met Tromboneforhire in person, so it was very exciting.  “Does he know what he’s getting himself into?” Munchkinhead asked about his meeting the three of us at once.  I looked at her.  “Yes, he does,” we said together and laughed.  Twitter with our family is, if anything, a true representation of what it’s like to hang out with us.  “Was it weird meeting someone off Twitter?”  Mr. Trizzle asked later.  This is the fourth or fifth friend I’ve first met on Twitter and then hung out with, the first being Short Fabulous, so I had only excitement and extremely high expectations.  Tromboneforhire lived up to them.

Munchkinhead, Alfred and I were hanging out in the Lego store – the meeting point Tromboneforhire had designated – playing with the Lego people display.  I was digging through a tub of Legos when Munchkinhead looked at me and nodded behind me.  I turned around and there was Tromboneforhire, just chillin, watching us getting giddy over Legos.  I shrieked and threw my arms around him.  Sneaky man.

Greetings all around and we were off on our adventure around Downtown Disney.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant where Munchkinhead had a birthday margarita bigger than her head.  We did lots of window shopping and playing in the many toy stores and the ESPN store, including some dress up.  This may be my most favorite picture of Alfred, ever.

We wandered all over Downtown Disney and into one of the nearby resorts.  We finished off the afternoon at a Tiki bar where Munchkinhead drank brains out of a skull.  Alfred bought her the mug to take home with her, except they gave Munchkinhead the wrong, which wasn’t discovered until weeks after we were back home.  Sadness.  Or something.  That mug was incredibly scary so I’m not too sure it’s a bad thing she got the wrong one.

Alfred and I had fancy drinks, too, but we didn’t opt for keepsake mugs.  My drink set off a tidal wave or something in the bar.  The lights went dim, a boat in a glass display went all topsy turvy and the bartender sprayed patrons with a water gun.

It was a great afternoon spent strolling, chatting and being utterly silly.  What more could the Schultzsters want in an adventure?

The Four of Us Chillin with Lego Hulk

M-I-C. K-E-Y. M-O-U-S-

I’m sorry, you’re going to have to buy that last vowel.  That’s the standard impression of Disneyland anyway.  “How much did the mouse fleece you for?” was one of my friends’ first question when he learned we’d been there for the day.  Whatever the reputation, we still had fun.

Munchkinhead, Alfred and I were there for Munchkinhead’s 26th birthday.  Well, sort of .  I mean, we were at Disneyland for her birthday, but the being in Anaheim that facilitated going to Disneyland was the State Bar of California’s IP Institute.  If I just had to be in Anaheim the day after Munchkinhead’s birthday, we might as well go to Disneyland on her birthday, right?  Right.  So we took that train ride and went for a mouse-fleecing.

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Munchkinhead had gotten special birthday ears and we were each given a pin to show that we were celebrating her birthday.  We got all dolled up in our Disney paraphernalia, including Alfred in her “Hans Shot First” t-shirt and headed out for some Schultzsters adventure!

Our Super 8 was only a few blocks from the theme parks, so we walked over.  First stop, those funny pass things for Space Mountain, which Munchkinhead and Alfred both wanted to go on.  But before we went on any rides, we had a very special breakfast (2nd breakfast as Super 8 had breakfast included and we like to have about 2 of every meal.)  Breakfast with Minnie and friends!

We all got our pictures taken with a bunch of Disney characters.  Captain Hook tried to steal Alfred, who went rather willingly with a big smile on her face.  I was super excited to see that Minnie and I had on matching pantoloons.  And Munchkinhead got lots of autographs, which are still in my work notebook in my purse.  The Fairly Godmother was quite surprised that Munchkinhead’s Fairy Godmother doesn’t have a magic wand.

We had lots of great adventures throughout the day.  Almost everyone got to go on their favorite rides, except poor Munchkinhead.  And on her birthday!  It’s a Small World was closed.  Alfred took us on the Star Wars adventure ride, which my tummy wasn’t too happy about, even with medicine.  We hit my favorite, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride pretty early.  We also went on the Peter Pan ride and somehow I survived the Teacups.  We took turns riding solo on the 2-people rides.

Alfred and I made light sabers.  Hers was a Darth Vader replica for her husband.  Mine was me picking out the things I thought were pretty.  My lightsaber’s purple!  Like Samuel L. Jackson’s.  Oooh.  They guy helping us asked if we knew why is was purple.  Alfred started going on this long shpiel about Mace Windu and the dude’s like “cuz Samuel L. Jackson said he wanted it that way.”  Alfred was quite miffed, “I was answering in cannon.”  Shrug.  I like purple and Samuel L. Jackson, that was good enough for my light saber.

We went to the Tiki room, and Abraham Lincoln’s speech and watched a bit of Jedi training, and all sorts of fun stuff!  We also blew through the New Orleans section where Munchkinhead tried to knock over some lamp poles.  That’s pretty much on par with Captain Hook trying to steal Alfred.

All day long, everyone kept saying “Happy Birthday” to Munkchinhead.  Even the characters in the parade!  Tromboneforhire helped us out throughout the day, providing tips and tricks via Twitter and text.  He helped us get a great spot for the parade and navigate the park.  It was a very long and fun day.

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Which Country am I in?

A Cali trip a month keeps the… oh, I don’t know what, probably keeps me insane.

In August, I flew down to San Diego to attend and present at the State Bar of California’s Annual Meeting.  As a speaker, I could get one complimentary room at the conference hotel, the beautiful downtown expensive fancy hotel on the water.  Not really wanting to stay there for the other 3 nights and feeling the State Bar keeping the couple hundred bucks was better than me moving back and forth during the week, I booked a room for myself at a nearby, less fancy hotel.

I knew it was fairly bare bones.  The room I booked was billed as “twin bed, no tv.”  But hey, I lived in a mud hut, I don’t need much.  Plus, all 4 nights at this place were the same as one night at the conference hotel.  I figured it’d be good enough.

And it was, for me.  But see the thing is, I had told Mr. Trizzle, “hey, if you want to come to this conference too, I already have a room.  Just let me know and I’ll change my reservation to a room for two people instead of one.”  Mr. Trizzle took me up on the offer and I upgraded to a room with a full size bed.

Thanks to some Southwest malarkey in Vegas, my flight was delayed.  Thank goodness it was!  Mr. Trizzle got to the hotel an hour before me and had some time to calm down before I got there.

You see this “hotel,” which was billed as “the oldest hotel in San Diego,” used to be a YMCA.  Basically, a homeless shelter.  We were on the fourth floor, up a beautiful grand staircase and then some extra flights of fire stairs.  Only one of the two elevators was working and it was so slow that I generally opted for the stairs.  There was a delightful patio area on the first floor and a full service kitchen severely lacking in any sort of cookware or dishes.

The room was about the size of a single dorm room.  The full size bed, which was pushed as far into the corner as it could with the radiator pipes sticking out under the window, left about 3 feet of room on one side and 3 feet at the foot.  There was no headboard or footboard.  On the side of the bed, most of the space was taken up by a large wooden wardrobe.  At the foot of the bed, most of the space was taken up by a small desk.  There was no chair.  There was no room for a chair.  There was free wifi. :)

The walls were cement, with an accent wall painted a sort of faded lime green.  The floors were covered in dark carpeting.  There was no air conditioning, but the large wooden window opened wide to reveal a screen-less bastion of airflow.  A ceiling fan hung above the bed.

The bathrooms were down the hall aways.  Quite a good number of them for the number of rooms on the floor.  And they weren’t shared bathrooms like at a hostel.  They were individual self-contained rooms with shower and toilet facilities, and there was soap, body wash and toilet paper provided in them.

I loved it!  With the hot humid air heaving in through the open window, the sounds of traffic below and the general surroundings, I felt like I was back in Africa.  And I was impressed that walking around on the carpeting barefoot didn’t turn my feet black.

Mr. Trizzle was less impressed, but he impressed me further by managing it alright for the full 4 nights, despite pining for a lotion bar and a hot in-room shower that did not have flies hanging out on the shower walls.  We went to CVS the first afternoon there and picked up some almost-fitting flip flops off the end of summer clearance rack for the showers.  That helped a lot.  And I put myself in charge of quietly killing any cockroaches I saw.  That would have been more helpful if he hadn’t seen one or two on his own.  They were so tiny compared to the ones in a Zambian pit latrine.

We were pretty well located, a beautiful walk to the conference hotel and an easy walk to the gaslight district restaurants.  I would definitely stay there again if I were to go back to San Diego.  Mr. Trizzle, probably less likely.

Where in the World is… oh, San Diego

This month, I’ve been impersonating Carmen San Diego.  And this time, my where in the world is – fittingly – San Diego.  Except, I keep forgetting I’m in America and keep feeling like I’m in Africa.

The weather is amazing and is probably the main reason I feel like I’m back on the continent.  It’s deliciously hot, but with a wonderful breeze.  There’s something in the air (probably humidity) that feels cozily familiar.  Plus, there’s palm trees all over the darn place.

The other reason that’s a potential contributor to my feelings of Africa may be the hotel I’m staying at.  You see, I’m in San Diego for the State Bar of California Annual Meeting, which is at the Hyatt.  As a speaker at the meeting, my travel and one night at the conference hotel could be covered by the Bar.  This is a wonderful bonus, and I’m very thankful.  However, I’m also a tad too poor for the rather pricey Hyatt the rest of the nights.  So, I got myself a simple room about a half-mile from the Hyatt.

I didn’t know how simple.  I think Mr. Trizzle – who also came for the conference – felt tricked.  We’re at a place called 500 West, supposedly the oldest hotel in San Diego.  It’s atop a YMCA and I believe it was part of the YMCA back when people could actually stay at the Y – like the Village People sing about doing.

Personally, I like the accommodations.  The bed is comfortable and there’s free wi-fi.  That’s all I need.  I love that there’s no air conditioning but instead a giant window that opens.  It doesn’t have a screen, which feels very African.  There’s a ceiling fan in the room.  I keep expecting the power to go out and am pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t, because I keep forgetting I’m not in Africa. 

The bathrooms are down the hall and are kept stocked with toilet paper, soap, shampoo and shower gel.  All things that also continue to pleasantly surprise me, and the toilet paper’s free!  There’s little flies in the shower that kind of look like botflies, but as far as I’m aware aren’t, because I’m not really in Africa.  Mr. Trizzle and I went to get flip flops our first night here.  I pretty much never wear flip flops in America, so my feet think they’re in Africa.  Somehow, I forgot to pack a citenge.  The hotel has towels though!  That was a nice surprise, as was discovering that my feet don’t turn black if I walk around the room barefoot.

There’s also a mini fridge, that actually works, and an ice bucket for the ice machine down on the second floor.  Mr. Trizzle and I have each killed a bug in the room (one of us far more calmly than the other; I’ll let you guess which), but I haven’t seen more than that.  And as far as I know, none of the bugs we have seen, in the room, shower or outside, are potentially lethal, so that’s always nice.  Lots of the other guests here speak languages other than English, perhaps foreign tourists.  That also adds to the feel of being in Africa.

I think I’d rather be in Africa, but that’s often the case, no hard feelings to San Diego.  Love the weather, and the conference has been pretty great, too.

Most of the room.  There’s about 3 feet to the side of the bed, including the wardrobe, and about 4 feet at the end of the bed, where there’s a desk w/o a chair, the mini-fridge and a very tiny television.

Farewell Football

This past Saturday was my last day at football out here in the Yay.  I’ve loved, absolutely loved going to football each week.

The Legend brought me along about 10 months ago or so.  He knew I’d been wanting to play.  I’d never actually played football before, other than middle school gym class – which was incredibly intimidating as a future NFL quarterback was in my gym class.  - But I’d really wanted to try playing because I was having such a hard time finding football fans out here.  I figured people who play football were likely to be fans.

Not only did I find football fans, I found an amazing group of people who were welcoming to anyone who showed up.  As long as you were willing to get on that field and try, you could play.  No one asked “so, where are you from?” or “what do you do?”  like they did at every other Bay Area meeting, group or event I’d been to (aside from church).  I felt so happy; I didn’t feel like an outsider.

The group changes every week.  It’s whoever shows up for some amount of time between 1pm and sundown, even though we rarely actually start playing until well after 2pm.  Some weeks, we have one game at a time with teams of 5 or 6.  Other weeks, we have two games at the same time with teams of 7 and several subs.  Often, the number of games and sizes of teams fluctuates through-out the afternoon as people come and go.  That only adds to the welcoming atmosphere.  Come for as long as you can, even if it’s only 30 minutes.

This week was extra special.  I arrived shortly after 1 and stayed all afternoon until we didn’t have enough people remaining to keep playing.  It was after 8pm by the time I walked off the Berkeley high school campus.  Several of the other players declared that since it was my last day, I didn’t have to rotate out if I didn’t want to, so I played most of the day.  (People sometimes argue about rotating out, so I usually volunteer to go to the sidelines so others can play.)

My team insisted I try quarterbacking.  “This is ridiculous,” I insisted back.  Our team of 8 players had 4 or 5 decent quarterbacks.  The other team had one, The Legend, who’s usually only a fill-in QB.  They kept urging me to give it a try.  “I can’t throw.”  “Just one drive.”  That one drive turned out to be one play.  We scored!

- I better not try playing QB ever again; I’ll ruin my 100% completion record. ;)  -

There was also more extra fun.  One of our usual quarterbacks brought her camera and herded everyone together for a group photo so that I could have a picture of everyone.  That was quite the task!  And, in addition to the photo, I got the sweetest present ever.  Another one of the usual quarterbacks got a small autograph football; everyone wrote little messages and signed it.  Absolutely perfect present.  I felt so special.

I am really going to miss this group, and playing football.

Sing for Your Supper, or at Least for Your Friends

Isn’t it amazing how you can be friends with someone for years and have no idea about how their special talents?  Then they blow you away, suddenly shining and astounding you with their awesomeness.

That happened to me this week when I went to hear Short Fabulous do an open mic night in the City.  I knew she did open mics, but I’d never been to one.  I sort of pictured her sitting on a stool, strumming a guitar and moping aloud in the way all devastated open mic performers of my imagination do.  But, boy did I have that wrong.

Short Fabulous strolled nonchalantly up to the stage, positioned the mic and introduced herself.  Then, she launched into singing.  A cappella style!  The song was upbeat and it didn’t take long before the crowd was stomping and clapping along.  She had fairly similar participation in her following 3 songs.

I enjoyed the fairly witty lines and her use of technically incorrect grammar, i.e. “more strong,” as we were earlier having a conversation about how people can get away with that in songs.

The open mic night did have several of those standard guitar-playing singers, including one young gentleman who sounded astonishingly like Tracy Chapman.  I liked his set.  The first performer was an elderly piano player who was absolutely amazing. 

Later, there was also a violinist, a balding man in a baggy sweater, likely in his 60s, who then accompanied a young spoken-word artist.  The comedian was a bit odd.  First he explained that lesbians are all angry because there are no – erm, todgers, in their relationship.  Gay men, however, are very, very happy because they have two.  He then proceeded to tell very insulting jokes about his wife, after introducing her in the audience!  Very interesting evening.

Open Door is Open for Worship!

History was made in Richmond this past Sunday.  It was the first service for Open Door United Methodist Church.  Open Door is a new church with very old roots, born of the merger between El Cerrito United Methodist Church (where I’ve been attending mostly since I moved here) and Good Shepherd United Methodist Church.

El Cerrito UMC was founded with the City of El Cerrito as the home of the first Sunday school in the area.  I don’t know much about the history of Good Shepherd UMC other than that its old letterhead proclaims it to be an Inter-racial community of faith.  That makes me think it was founded sometime in the 60s. 

The Good Shepherd church building, which is now the building for Open Door, is beautiful and was built by the people of Good Shepherd.  It’s two floors, upstairs being the sanctuary and a small office and downstairs being the fellowship hall, kitchen and a small playroom.  It’s a peaceful, rustic wood with stone accents and lots of stained glass windows depicting church stuff and the history of Richmond.  Each side of the sanctuary is floor-to-ceiling clear windows.  To the right, a view overlooking the Bay; to the left, an indoor garden with trees and lots of greenery.

The first service was wonderful; the pews were very full.  The two churches had been worshiping together for awhile already so the faces were all already familiar.  The service began with praising and ended with dancing.

There was one new element introduced today, pew sign-in books.  They’re red books were each person in the pew puts their name, address and email and then checks the appropriate “member,”  “visitor,” etc. box.  My mommy’s church has red pew sign-in books very similar to these.  I was excited.  Munchkinhead and I always enjoy drawing little pictures in the check boxes.  I drew a kitty face today.

The sign-in books will take some adjustment for the congregation.  Lots of people tried to hand the books off to the row behind them instead of passing them back down their own pew.  We’re not used to having things only go down one pew.  Usually, what we’re passing around are clipboards with sign-up sheets for church events and volunteer opportunities.  They start at the front of the church and are passed from there, arriving at the back pews already full. 

I think people will get the hang of the new books soon.  It’s a pretty small adjustment for such a big occasion.

La Cerrito aux Folles

I’m sure there was a time and are some places where 20 Methodist going to see a production of La Cage Aux Folles as a church outing would be quite scandalous.  But, the San Francisco Bay Area in 2013 is not that time or place.  And what a fabulous outing it was!

The churches music director is the music director for Contra Costa Civic Theater’s production of La Cage Aux Folles, which runs through July 21.  Of course we had to go.  We were very excited to find that the band, including the music director on keyboards, is visible through the entire performance on a nice ledge perched over the center back of the stage.

CCCT has outdone itself with two fantastic musicals in a row.  After how amazing Next to Normal was, I was holding my breath a bit, half-expecting La Cage to fall back to the theater’s usual level of so-so musicals.  Instead, I was blown away.  The singing was grand, and the dancing – my goodness, the dancing was absolutely amazing.  All we could talk about after the show (other than the music director, of course) was “where did they find so many amazing male dancers for community theater?!” 

The 5 or 6 gentlemen that played Les Cagettes spent most of the three-hour show leaping, kicking, twirling and tapping in high-heeled mary janes.  The splits, the cheer-leading jumps, the pirouettes, were all jaw-droppingly impressive. 

The show was excellent, and the cast, crew and musicians should all be very proud of themselves.  If I had to give one piece of criticism on the performance it would only be that the woodwind player could use some more practice time with his clarinet.

The story part of the musical was ok.  The plot felt a bit hidden, sort of stuffed into the end as a reason to have all that spectacular dancing.  But I suppose it’s such a classic now, that hardly matters.  If you’re in the East Bay area and can make room in your weekend schedules this month, I’d recommend checking it out.

Side note: My favorite part was Sunday morning when everyone was settling in at church and the music director began playing tunes from the show for the “get ready for church to start” music.

Stop the World! Someone’s crossing the street

There’s this thing Californians do – well at least Bay Area Californians – that absolutely drives me nuts.  They love their pedestrians and are all about letting them cross the street safely.  I’m all about pedestrians safely crossing streets, too.  But, I’m also about sense and logic and efficiency.  Californians are not about any of those things.

Pedestrian’s standing at corner of intersection, waiting to cross street.  All good.  See the little diagram below.  Person is waiting to cross from the north east corner to the north west corner.  North-south traffic has the right away.  East-west traffic has stop signs (yes, I know they don’t have enough sides. Paint doesn’t have an octagon tool.)  Although honestly, the scenario I’m about to show you would also happen if it were a four-way stop.

Traffic comes along on the roads.  Say someone comes along going west.  They stop at the stop sign and wait a bit because there’s a car coming north on the cross street.

Now, 1 time out of ten, that green, north-bound car is going to keep going, and after it passes, the pedestrian and the blue, west-bound car will cross the main street.  The other 9 times, here’s what’s going to happen.  That green car’s driver is going to see that there’s a pedestrian waiting to cross the street.  So the green car is going to stop for the pedestrian.  Is the green car going to pull up to the intersection and stop, which allows the pedestrian and the blue car to cross?  No.  The green car is going to do this.

The green car is going to pull into the intersection and then stop.  And sit in the middle of the intersection until the pedestrian has fully crossed the street.  Meanwhile, more cars come along….

And the streets are needlessly jammed because there’s a car just sitting in the middle of the intersection.

As a pedestrian, this drives me nuts because it often appears the car isn’t going to stop until it’s right in front of the cross walk.  If it had started slowing down sooner, I could have been half-way across the street before it got to the crosswalk.  Plus, now if I cross, I hold up the whole intersection.

As a driver, this drives me crazy because you’re zipping along at 30 and the car in front of you fairly suddenly stops in an unexpected place and you can’t see why because they’re so close to the crosswalk they’re blocking the pedestrian from view.  I’ve heard stories about people getting rear-ended in exactly this way, yet stopping in the middle of intersections is still very common.

I asked a local police officer about this once, at their annual fundraising dinner.  His response was along the lines of, “well if I saw a pretty girl waiting to cross the street, I’d try to get as close as I could to get a good view, too.”   Not only was it inappropriate, it was also entirely unhelpful.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 9

No fun without Munchkinhead.  Munchkinhead left today.  In fact, as I’m typing this, she should be getting off her plane in Milwaukee.

Before she left, we squeezed in one last trip to the plaza.  We got matching shoes.  Munchkinhead had to repack to fit the shoes in, but she did it.  She only bought 3 pairs of shoes on the trip.  Not bad for such a long visit.

Munchkinhead trying on shoes.
The one on her right foot are the ones we got.

Munchkinhead also repotted my plant for me.  It’s a small yellow rose plant that Mzzzzz Jones got for me about two  years to cheer me up when I was sad.  It’s badly needed repotting, but I’m terrible at that sort of stuff.  Munchkinhead, on the other hand, is very good with plants. 

We picked up a slightly larger and very nice pot at Ross the other day.  It even matches my kitchen curtains!  We got a small bag of potting soil from the local hardware store.  Munchkinhead laid some newspaper out on the kitchen floor and went to work.  My plant looks happier already.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 8

Today was so low key, we don’t even have any pictures.  Munchkinhead spent a good portion of the day packing.  In the afternoon, we went to see Gatsby at the Cerrito Cinema.  What better place to see Gatsby than in an art deco, speakeasy theater?

We sat on couches with a little table and ordered a pizza for dinner that was brought out during the film.  The film itself was quite good and full of lots of surprises, mostly in the soundtrack.  Both Munchkinhead and I had read The Great Gatsby in high school and found the movie to make far more sense than the book.  Though I will say, to the extent I remember, the movie seems to track the book pretty well.

Munchkinhead got to listen to a whole bunch of music again, including some pieces she heard at the orchestra concert yesterday.  I had band rehearsal for our next concert, which is in only a few weeks.  She sat in the back and worked on her knitting.  She was also very helpful, packing up the snacks after break-time.

We rounded out the evening with a game of dominos and one of our favorite films for quoting, Lost in Austen.  One peacock is probably sufficient.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 7

Concert day!  Lots of music today.  My band concert was today.  I was super, duper excited about it because we sounded good, we were playing one of my favorite songs that I had picked out and a whole bunch of friends said they were going to come watch.  We did sound great, and that favorite song, "Nothing Else Matters,” sounded excellent.  Munchkinhead came to watch and took some pictures and even a short video.

We also went to the Community Woman’s Orchestra concert in the evening.  My band’s Artistic Director is one of the finalists for the Artistic Director position of the orchestra and she was conducting this concert.  The theme was dance music and the repertoire included orchestral versions of a number of pieces we’d played in band.  Several of the pieces have also been successfully used by products such that hearing them immediately made Munchkinhead and me start laughing and tossing out slogans.  Bounty, cheese, beef and spaghetti sauce were all covered.

Even the morning was music-filled with a rollicking service at church.  It was the first combined service for the two churches that will be merging, and it was Pentecost Sunday.  Much of the service was focused on working together, moving forwards, and building the new church as one.  The sermon had a slogan, “Flame On!” and although it did follow the theme of building a new, wonderful, out-reaching church, it sounded to me like something people might say to each other in the Castro the way people in the Mission say “stay brown.”

After Service, Munchkinhead found the playground.  And the kids found Munchinkhead.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 6

Saturday is football day.  So, I took Munchkinhead along and she joined in the fun.

Every Saturday, people gather at Berkeley High to play flag football.  Having grown up in football-focused Cudahy, I’m still amazed the public is allowed on Berkeley’s football field.  It’s a nice field, too, turf.  Whoever shows up gets to play.  It’s never exactly the same group, though there’s certainly regulars who show up nearly every week.   The Facebook group is huge, and usually about 30-some people come out.

This week was a little odd – the normal equipment guy was out of town and the people who had the equipment were a bit late, and there was an extra amount of aggression than usual.  Perhaps it was the heat.  We still had lots of fun though.

Munchkinhead and I were never on the same team, and we didn’t even play in the same game until the end.  For most of the afternoon, there were enough players to have 2 games going at once, six players per team.  The winners of the first set of games played each other and the losers played each other.  After that, enough people had to leave that we switched to one game with seven players on each team. By the last game, we were playing with teams of 5, the smallest number that works.

Munchkinhead did well.  The Legend told me she got a few flag pulls.  And a bunch of us saw her break up a pass, which was awesome.  I started out doing not so well, but then got better as the day went on (and everyone else got tired).  I even got a touchdown!

Between yesterday’s nearly-11 miles of walking and today’s over-4 hours of football, we’re both sore and pooped, but happy.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 5

ohmygoodnesswhatacrazybusyday.  We had fun!

Munchkinhead and I took a day trip up to Sacramento today.  We took the choo choo train up, went to the Zoo, the Railroad Museum, the Historical Museum and the Capitol and met Mr. Trizzle for dinner.  According to Munchkinhead’s pedometer, we walked nearly 11 miles today.

Munchkinhead on the Capitol Cooridor with her train ticket, headed to Sacramento.

The Sacramento Zoo was pretty nice.  It felt fairly small, although it was much bigger than the Oakland Zoo, which Munchkinhead and I visited last time she was here.  Maybe the Milwaukee Zoo is just an outlier and we never realized it.  The Zoo had lots of African animals, which made me happy.  I love seeing Zebras (pronounced zed-bras) and giraffes.  And much to Munchkinhead’s delight, the Zoo had white-handed gibbons, just like her Gibby! 

The white-handed gibbon.

Much to Munchkinhead’s chagrin, the zoo also had its share of unenlightened parents.  There was the school group chaperone who, standing at the gibbon exhibit, told the school children to “look at the monkey.”  That sent Munchkinhead into quite a mumble for a good five minutes.  And there was the mother who failed to correct the small group of four-year olds who insisted the black and white lemurs were pandas.  After all this, and attempting to avoid stepping on the massive amounts of little people, Munchkinhead was so annoyed, she wouldn’t even play in the stick-your-head-here things with me.

Me as a butterfly.  This one would be great if the zoo map weren’t in the picture.

After the zoo, we got on the bus and headed back towards downtown to visit the State Railroad Museum.  It was awesome.  There was a huge display about the building of the transcontinental railroad, including letters, artifacts and dioramas reproducing some of the original equipment like snowsheds. 

It also had a large number of engines and cars on display, several of them open for walk-through.  I especially liked the displays about how the long-distance cars have changed over the years.  One exhibit features seats from different eras that guests can try out.   Munchkinhead also got to sit in the engineer’s seat of one of the last engines built by Rosie the Riveters.  The docent was such a sweetie (or off his rocker), telling us it may have been built by one of our great-grandmothers.

Munchkinhead and me in front of one of the display engines.

He may have been off about our great-grandmother’s building  trains.  But, the museum did have an artifact just like something our grandpa had.  In the model train display, there was a little man in a little shed with a little red door.  Grandpa had the same little man on his special train set that he’d put around the tree at Christmas.  We were very excited.

We discovered another museum next to the Railroad Museum, the Sacramento Historical Museum.  Admission was only $6, so we had to check that out, too.  It was about the founding of Sacramento, which was pretty much all about the gold rush.

When we finished up in Old Sacramento, we walked into the main downtown area to visit the State Capitol.  It’s a very beautiful and impressive building.  Munchkinhead loved the architectural and design details and kept taking pictures of banisters and lamps and such.

Munchkinhead in front of the Capitol. 

Behind the Capitol is an extensive garden area with a lot of memorials.  There’s a memorial garden that was started in the late 1800s to honor the Civil War soldiers.  Many of the trees in that grove were brought to California as saplings from Civil War battlefields.  There was memorial to all the firefighters from across the state who have died in the line of duty.  A memorial for Vietnam casualties.  A memorial for the first priest in the area.  And many, many more.  We took in our fill of memorials and monuments and then met Mr. Trizzle for our fill of food.

It was a wonderful and fun-filled day.  And now, we both dearly need some sleep. ;)

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 4

We started off the day with several games of bowling.  Albany Bowl has a great low price special on Thursday and Friday days.  I  won all the games, but that hardly mattered since Munchkinhead explained she doesn’t care how many pins she knocks down, she likes bowling because she likes throwing things.  O_o

Somehow, after bowling and a nice lunch at home, our day turned into a sort of accidental let’s-be-rich-people day.  We spent the afternoon at the race track and then went for dinner at the yacht club with our uncle.

I’ve driven past Golden Gate Fields well over a 100 times and had never been in it.  Munchkinhead’s visit seemed like a great excuse to finally check it out.  It was lots of fun, especially since it was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon with bright sun and not too much wind.  We watched 7 races and bet on a total of 11 horses from those races.  Munchkinhead had been to races in Kentucky before (she went to college in Kentucky), so she knew how to place the bets.

Overall, we won half our money back.  We started off picking horses based on the horses’ names.  That didn’t work too well.  By the end, we were picking based on jockeys and their rankings and the horses’ names.  That worked better.  In the 7th race, we picked 2 of the top 3 horses.

Here’s a fabulous picture of the two of us in the stands, in between races.  Munchkinhead borrowed my hat.  (Well, I put it on her head and she made a face.  But her faces are always so much better than mine.)

We almost got a picture of the two of us in front of the track when a gentleman offered to take a picture for us.  However, he turned out to be totally inept.  Couldn’t understand the concept of “no, you have to look through the viewfinder,” no matter how many times or ways Munchkinhead explained it.  Then he couldn’t find the shutter button.  Then the camera turned off, after which, in trying to turn it to find the power button, he dropped it 5 feet onto the hard concrete and said, “good thing it’s electronic!” 

Munchkinhead was horrified, especially when she discovered the fall had broken the camera.  Part of the retractable lens had come out, the lens couldn’t close and the camera screen would only give us “lens error. reset lens.”  Needless to say, by the end of this, we didn’t get our picture.  Though I did get Munchkinhead’s camera to work again after some minutes of futzing with it.

So instead of both of us in front of the field, here’s Munchkinhead in front of the field, and me in front of a tree in the parking lot.

 

Our Uncle had invited us for dinner at his yacht club, so we headed directly over to Sausalito after our day in Albany.  The yacht club is at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and it happened to be very clear and sunny when we got there.  The fog rolled in while were having dinner.  Munchkinhead was thrilled and super excited about the fog.  Until we went outside and she learned what the fog meant. Brrrr.

She got some great pictures of the bridge, and got a nice picture with it.

 

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 3

Several years ago, Alfred got me a very sweet Christmas present: 2 passes to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  Dorian and I hadn’t used them because we’d only been able to go to the Cal Academy at night, for its Thursday night Night Life program, which has different tickets.  So, I thought it’d be fabulous to finally use them with Munchkinhead.

We set out on BART, transferred to Muni and walked into Golden Gate Park where the Cal Academy is.  As we approached the building, we pulled out the tickets, still carefully wrapped in their plastic sleeve.  It wasn’t until we opened them that I learned they weren’t heavy-duty tickets mailed from the Academy but a single sheet of paper with the tickets printed out, carefully folded to show only the tickets.  Alfred’s printer is so good, I couldn’t even tell they were home printed.  At the bottom of the page was fine print.  The tickets were only good for a year.

Munchkinhead and I went to the ticket window.  The lady there was super nice and went to talk to her manager.  She allowed us to still use the tickets, we just had to pay the difference in admission price from when the tickets were purchased and the current price.  We were very happy.  If we’d had to pay full admission price, we probably wouldn’t have gone; they’re $30 each!

We had lots of fun at the Academy, dodging little grade schoolers and squinching up our noses when their screeching voices hurt our ears.  We saw live penguins in the African Hall, stuffed zebra, a Lucy skeleton copy and lots of taxidermed antelope of various kinds.

We explored the four-story rainforest with its beautiful butterflies, the aquarium and the living roof .  Here we are on the living roof in our matching dresses – we just happened to both pick out the same vintage pattern at different points, so we have similar dresses – and our matching shoes – we bought those together last time Munchkinhead came to visit.

But my favorite two parts of the Academy were the stuffed giraffes and the walrus statue thingy.  I love giraffes.  I think they’re my favorite animal.  The Academy has a baby giraffe that is shorter than me!  Or would be, if we were allowed to stand on the same platform.

The walrus statue, or whatever it is – it’s some sort of wall decoration thing that reminds me of Venice, except Venice doesn’t have walruses on its canal decorations – the walrus thing sent us scrambling through our respective bags for appropriate tusk-like items.  Munchkinhead’s knitting needles would have been perfect, except for that whole having yarn and a knitted swatch on them issue.  But we found something almost as good and took a picture specially for Mommy.

“Look, Mutti!” says Munchikinhead, “I am the walrus.”

After the Academy, we took Muni to downtown San Francisco, where we had lunch at a SF classic, Katana-ya.  Mr. Trizzle recommended it as a quintessential San Francisco must.  Neither of us got the fried chicken raman, but it was still a good lunch.

Then we did a small bit of shopping, picking up matching free, or near-free, garments from Vickie’s and a few blouses from H&M.  We skipped the three-floor shoe store because, as Munchkinhead put it best, “that sounds dangerous.”

Tomorrow, we’re hitting up Albany.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 2

Today, I sent Munchkinhead off on her own so I could get some work done.  She went exploring the Marin headlands and Sausalito with our Uncle and his fabulous lady.

They looked at some neat outdoor art pieces, including one made out of trees that were being removed by the city or state government and a few metal sculptures by the guy that did the Sunburst in Milwaukee.  They also visited a special marine mammal place that helps seals.

Here’s Munchkinhead with a seal statue.

 

 

Here she is in front of Alcatraz.

 

And in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

And here’s the Golden Gate Bridge in front of the Bay Bridge.

I thought that was a really cool picture.

After she was done gallivanting around the North Bay, Munchkinhead came back to the East Bay for knitting night.  Well, first she got a little lost on BART, but she figured it out right away and got herself turned back in the correct direction.

We had lots of fun at knitting.  She learned to knit from Amy the last time she visited.  Amy remembered her and was happy to see she was still knitting.  Knitting was lots of fun; it always is.  There was a really cute new little girl there tonight, and her mother caught onto the knitting right away.

After knitting, Munchkinhead and I did a workout.  Gotta stay in shape.  She may be little, but she’s lots stronger than me.  I need to work on that.

Tomorrow, we’re off on a full day of adventures together, into San Francisco!

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 1

Today, I picked Munchkinhead up from the airport.  I had a special sign for her and a nice little welcome packet with all her necessities, or at least most of them.  She’s borrowing Daddy Bunny’s Clipper card so she can ride BART and MUNI easily.  Her packet also has a BART schedule, an Amtrak schedule, Amtrak tickets, tickets to the museum and an itinerary for the week.

She brought me cheese curds! Yay!!!! They even have Bucky Badger on the package, which is so cute.

We tried to stop at Top Dog in Berkeley on the way home from SFO, but it had just closed.  So we opted for the taco truck down the street from me.  Yummy late night snack.  I was surprised she ordered pork tacos and didn’t say anything about them not looking like the tacos we grew up with.  They weren’t very spicy this time; perhaps the lady gringo-fied them for us.

Now it’s time for bed.  Foo Foo’s come along for the visit, too.  I’m sure Daddy Bunny will be very excited to see him!

Go Team Go!

I was so excited when Jenny started working at CC.  Finally, I had someone to talk football with!  And not just any football, real NFC North football.  You see Jenny’s a Bears fan, and out here in Cali, a Bear’s fan is the next-best-thing to a Packers fan. 

Jenny ought to be a Packers fan, really.  She’s from the UP, but at 4 years old, she felt sorry for the getting-their-bums-whooped underdogs and started rooting for the Bears.  And she stayed loyal.  But her husband and most of the rest of her family.  They’re Packers fans.

When Jenny found out she was expecting, she knew her family was going to smother her daughter in Packers gear.  An idea for the perfect present popped into my head.  I love knitting blankets; I could make a baby blanket for her new daughter.  And I could make it so both parents would approve.

It was my first foray into color-work.  I knitted as usual, just switching yarns when I wanted to switch colors.  The colors didn’t go together the way I expected; there were lacy holes along the diagonal lines.  After trying a few other techniques, I decided I liked the style this method created best.  For the middle joint, where the colors changed on the same stitch every row instead of on a diagonal, I alternated the color-switching between two stitches.

Originally, I tried doing orange and yellow yarn together in the middle so that one team didn’t seem to be preferred.  But it looked awful.  I removed the orange yarn and decided I’d even things out by choosing an orange blanket binding for the edges.  Baby blankets aren’t the same without a silky edge.

Since I knew the baby was going to be a girl, I put a little bunny rabbit appliqué on one side.  On the other, a football.  I was very excited with the blanket.  Jenny loved it, and I hope little Stacy is loving it, too.