Category: uncategorized

Just to quickly recap a trio of recent outings:

Monday, Sept. 4 (Labor Day): We had lunch at Burger Joint (great burgers and fries!) on Valencia St. in San Francisco and then met up with Julie, one of Thom’s co-workers, at Dolores Park to watch the San Francisco Mime Troupe perform its current show, Godfellas, a really wonderful piece of political satire. It is now touring through California, and they hope to take it across the country next year. The photo here is of Thom waiting for the show to start; he has more about the day on his blog.

Saturday, Sept. 9: Thom, my mom, and I met up with my aunt in Concord, and the four of us went to the Pittsburg Seafood Festival. There were a lot of food booths; Thom and I had calamari, crab cakes, and garlic fries. Earlier that morning, Thom was looking at the festival’s website and said to me, “Oh, now I know why you want to go. Joey Altman will be there!” And indeed, KRON 4’s Bay Cafe host (and my mini-crush) was there, giving a cooking demonstration. He made salmon sandwiches, and shrimp and andouille corn cakes, which we sampled. Yum! And wouldn’t you know, Thom has got the scoop on his blog, too. (Ah, partner in life and in blog.)

Sunday, Sept. 10: Rajani and I went to Opera in the Park, presented annually by San Francisco Opera and held at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park. They performed several arias mostly from their current season, and the concert ended as it always does with the drinking song “Libiamo” from La Traviata, in which everyone is invited to sing along. Afterwards Thom picked us up and we drove along the Great Highway; we stopped for a bit near the south end of Ocean Beach for a look out at the Pacific.

I was looking through the business section of last Sunday’s New York Times, and found these two things next to each other: an ad for all-business class Eos Airlines, featuring a photo of sleeper seats; and an article about the latest in final-resting-place design, featuring a photo of avant-garde coffins called the Cocoon.

Heh, that’s an unfortunate juxtaposition. (Or someone in layout has a sense of humor.)

The best line of the Emmy Awards last Sunday came from the wonderful Helen Mirren, as she accepted her award for Elizabeth I. The first thing she said when she reached the stage: “My great triumph is not falling arse over tit as I came up those stairs.” Love her.

Another fine Mirren moment: she and Hugh Laurie presenting an award together. “Poof! Cinq.”

The other day I was in the kitchen and decided to take some photos of our phone. Hear me out. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that we recently moved into the house that I had grown up in. So lately, every now and then I come to appreciate little things around this house that I took for granted as a kid, like, yes, the rotary phone on the kitchen wall.

After we moved in and finally got our phone line activated, I called our home number using my cell phone, and the kitchen phone just made a clicking noise. So I took off the cover, fiddled with its bells (ahem), and tried again. Brrring! The old-fashioned sound of a real telephone ring! I want to answer it and be all, “BUtterfield 8, how may I direct your call?”

(Speaking of our retro kitchen, Thom has been collecting items to match the yellow tile and chrome in there, and his latest find is a snazzy breadbox and canister set in exactly those colors. Yes, I said snazzy.)

There’s a niche in the hallway that used to house a rotary desk phone matching the one in the kitchen. What’s in the niche now? Our DSL modem/router and cordless phone, of course. Ah, the leaps and bounds of technology.

On Monday night at the Palace of Fine Arts, we caught the San Francisco stop of the Revenge of the Book Eaters tour, a series of events benefiting 826 Valencia and its fellow centers founded by Dave Eggers, all of which provide free writing workshops and tutoring for elementary and high school students. The highlights of the night for me were Aimee Mann, Jonathan Richman, and of course Sarah Vowell (who, with Patton Oswalt, read a funny story about Charles Preuss, a cartographer who accompanied John Fremont on expeditions out West and according to his diaries did not seem to enjoy it one bit).

Eggers and Vowell seem like a good segue to the Sedarises, so I’ll mention that David Sedaris will be at the War Memorial Opera House on Oct. 30. I can’t wait. What a great venue; do you suppose he’ll humor a request for his Billie Holiday impression?

As part of the annual Literary Events series, which benefits 826 Valencia’s scholarship program, Amy Sedaris will be at the Herbst Theatre on Oct. 23, but dang, it’s sold out.

Last Christmas I almost bought a Bratz Boyz doll (or several). Don’t laugh, but I guess my doll-playing gene, dormant all these years, suddenly kicked in. Over the holidays I almost couldn’t resist the “Winter Wonderland” dolls with their cute little wintry outfits. (The main line of Bratz dolls are girls, but we all know that girls have cooties.)

Thom and I were at Target recently, and as we looked through the toy section, I came across a new Bratz Boy named Prince Iden. (I swear, they all have Sean Cody names.) When I saw his T-shirt, I had to laugh. It says “rebel.” He’s a rebel prince!

On Saturday night we saw Little Miss Sunshine at the Balboa Theatre. Other than very basic information about the characters, I didn’t know much about the movie going in, and so it was kind of nice to be carried along by the story. Basically it’s about a dysfunctional family on a road trip to California, where the seven-year-old daughter is to compete in a beauty pageant called Little Miss Sunshine. Everything that could go wrong, of course, goes wrong. I laughed, I (almost) cried. It’s really well written and well acted (with a good soundtrack too), and I highly recommend it.

Hmm. Safeway Select isn’t exactly “premium quality” in the first place, but an inexplicably missing letter does undermine the cause. Exhibit A: the box of frozen lasagna we had the other night.

I’ll check the refrigerator. Maybe the missing T is on a milk carton.