Recent Events
May. 12th, 2007 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanMostly it's book, book, book, like a chicken.
However, I did make an unexpected trip to California. Sun launched David's project, and he was invited to bring his spouse. There was some last-minute dithering about whether it could really happen after all and then about exactly when the company picnic to celebrate the event was going to be. But I flew into San Francisco on Friday, May 4, and was met by Eric. We took BART, which I had never ridden before, into the city and stayed at a tiny peculiar hotel with a diner on the first floor, the hotel desk crammed into a corner amid the tables. The neighborhood was Union Square, more or less. It was quite noisy. The cable car ran right under our window, filled with happy drunken people until the wee hours. This was oddly soothing, for some reason. The room was pleasantly furnished, but missing one light bulb. We thought another was burned out, but in fact the lamp was merely unplugged. The hinges of the bathroom door needed oiling. But it was fine enough refuge for one night. It had one wall of exposed bricks, with an extremely businesslike steel beam cutting right cross the room. I assumed carelessly that the building had originally been industrial, but Eric remarked that the beam was a later addition and was earthquake-proofing, so that the masonry would not be unsupported. That was rather sobering.
We walked around the neighborhood for a while. The emphasis on shopping was boring, but it was fun to look at the crowds. We got into Chinatown, which was more interesting. We marvelled at the front of the Ritz-Carleton, which looks like a temple, and smiled at the statues of owls dotted here and there to scare the pigeons. We scouted around for restaurants to have lunch with David in on the following day. Finally we got on BART again and went to Borderlands, which Eric had only recently been introduced to by Shweta and a friend of hers. It's a beautiful bookstore with space and light, and all my books; people I know were well represented too. The cat was not In, unfortunately. I found a copy of Heat of Fusion, which both pleased me and made me sad. David and I had bought a copy when it came out, though we couldn't afford it. Then we needed a present for his sister, so we gave it to her and never replaced it. So I'm glad to have it, but I think it's the only book of Mike's we have that isn't autographed to us, and that makes me sad. I wonder what he would have written. Oh, indeed I do, altogether, not just there.
Then we went to The Herbivore, and ordered things we didn't like as much as other things we'd had there, but we were well enough nourished. A gentleman in a white hat with a guitar came and sang songs in Spanish right beside our table very loudly. He had to sing that loudly, as Eric pointed out later, in order to be heard in the back of the long narrow restaurant, but he did not endear himself to us. I hate live music, or any music, during dinner. Dinner is for conversation. The fact that Eric and I were both so tired that I ended up observing that, after all, we could only really be silent together in person, did not change my basic opinion of live music during dinner.
We went back to the hotel and exchanged news and reading material. In the morning we checked out, leaving my luggage with the hotel, and went looking for a Peet's for coffee. The one we found was so close to the old ferry building that Eric suggested we walk on over, so we went through it briefly, looked at the slice of bay and bridge available for perusal, and wandered happily amidst the market stalls until it was time to meet David. David called while we were waiting for a bus, but said he had a camera, and so he was perfectly well occupied. The Muni bus we took was on the F line, which Eric described as a working museum; our particular bus originated in Philadelphia in 1948. So I got to take two forms of transportation I had not taken before. I liked BART; it's roomier than anything in Minneapolis. We found David easily, and we went through Union Square and back to Chinatown, with David taking such pictures as seemed good to him. Having rejected a number of restaurants on the grounds that dim sum is not Pamela-friendly, we found a basic restaurant full of Chinese people, and went in for some very nice food. I had shrimps with greens, which was just what I wanted. The dehydration of the whole plane trip caught up with me at that point and I got quite dizzy, but a glass or two of water and some food settled it.
We walked back to the hotel, and I retrieved my stuff and said goodbye to Eric, getting rather choked up but not actually bursting into tears. David and went to the garage where he'd put the rental car and we had a pleasant drive to Santa Rosa, where we were magnificently entertained by his cousin Cynthia, whom I had not met before but took to right away. David's cousin John and his significant other arrived for dinner, with a beautiful dog rescued from a Mexican street fourteen years ago. I was still awfully tired from travelling, but hope I managed to be sociable enough. We drove back to Palo Alto despite all the wine we had been plied with, arriving at David's usual hotel around midnight and collapsing fairly quickly. In the morning we went to the Sun picnic, where I am only a little sorry to say that I spent most of my time talking to Mark, who lives in Minneapolis, and to Gordon, whom David and I have both known for years. I was pleased to meet Gordon's wife and also to make the acquaintance of their dog. I did get to meet some local Sun people and exchanged small talk with them.
Our flight out of SFO was delayed enough that we would have missed our connection in Las Vegas if we'd taken it, so David called the emergency number for the travel agency Sun uses, and we ended up flying out of San Jose through Phoenix instead. We got exit row seats. The extra leg room in addition to the fact that I was sitting next to somebody I am attached to made the flights home much pleasanter than the ones out there. We had some nice conversation on the way home.
Then I spent the week cleaning the house and cooking for the Romance Exchange, which was today and seems to have gone off pretty well. I was very glad to see everybody, since I had had to miss the last one. In case inspiration fails me next time, I list the dishes: hazelnut mushroome pate, mushrooms with garlic, ginger, and cashews in puff pastry shells, asparagus-goat cheese tart, spanakopita, smoked salmon, various crudites, bread and crackers, medallions of goat cheese; gingerbread, and chocolate tofu pie. And tea, of course. A merry time was had by all, including many particularly egregious puns by carbonel, and David and Lydy joined us near the end for some conversation.
Now it's back to the book again. Because Pat is catching up with me. I'm sure she'll finish hers before I finish mine.
Pamela
However, I did make an unexpected trip to California. Sun launched David's project, and he was invited to bring his spouse. There was some last-minute dithering about whether it could really happen after all and then about exactly when the company picnic to celebrate the event was going to be. But I flew into San Francisco on Friday, May 4, and was met by Eric. We took BART, which I had never ridden before, into the city and stayed at a tiny peculiar hotel with a diner on the first floor, the hotel desk crammed into a corner amid the tables. The neighborhood was Union Square, more or less. It was quite noisy. The cable car ran right under our window, filled with happy drunken people until the wee hours. This was oddly soothing, for some reason. The room was pleasantly furnished, but missing one light bulb. We thought another was burned out, but in fact the lamp was merely unplugged. The hinges of the bathroom door needed oiling. But it was fine enough refuge for one night. It had one wall of exposed bricks, with an extremely businesslike steel beam cutting right cross the room. I assumed carelessly that the building had originally been industrial, but Eric remarked that the beam was a later addition and was earthquake-proofing, so that the masonry would not be unsupported. That was rather sobering.
We walked around the neighborhood for a while. The emphasis on shopping was boring, but it was fun to look at the crowds. We got into Chinatown, which was more interesting. We marvelled at the front of the Ritz-Carleton, which looks like a temple, and smiled at the statues of owls dotted here and there to scare the pigeons. We scouted around for restaurants to have lunch with David in on the following day. Finally we got on BART again and went to Borderlands, which Eric had only recently been introduced to by Shweta and a friend of hers. It's a beautiful bookstore with space and light, and all my books; people I know were well represented too. The cat was not In, unfortunately. I found a copy of Heat of Fusion, which both pleased me and made me sad. David and I had bought a copy when it came out, though we couldn't afford it. Then we needed a present for his sister, so we gave it to her and never replaced it. So I'm glad to have it, but I think it's the only book of Mike's we have that isn't autographed to us, and that makes me sad. I wonder what he would have written. Oh, indeed I do, altogether, not just there.
Then we went to The Herbivore, and ordered things we didn't like as much as other things we'd had there, but we were well enough nourished. A gentleman in a white hat with a guitar came and sang songs in Spanish right beside our table very loudly. He had to sing that loudly, as Eric pointed out later, in order to be heard in the back of the long narrow restaurant, but he did not endear himself to us. I hate live music, or any music, during dinner. Dinner is for conversation. The fact that Eric and I were both so tired that I ended up observing that, after all, we could only really be silent together in person, did not change my basic opinion of live music during dinner.
We went back to the hotel and exchanged news and reading material. In the morning we checked out, leaving my luggage with the hotel, and went looking for a Peet's for coffee. The one we found was so close to the old ferry building that Eric suggested we walk on over, so we went through it briefly, looked at the slice of bay and bridge available for perusal, and wandered happily amidst the market stalls until it was time to meet David. David called while we were waiting for a bus, but said he had a camera, and so he was perfectly well occupied. The Muni bus we took was on the F line, which Eric described as a working museum; our particular bus originated in Philadelphia in 1948. So I got to take two forms of transportation I had not taken before. I liked BART; it's roomier than anything in Minneapolis. We found David easily, and we went through Union Square and back to Chinatown, with David taking such pictures as seemed good to him. Having rejected a number of restaurants on the grounds that dim sum is not Pamela-friendly, we found a basic restaurant full of Chinese people, and went in for some very nice food. I had shrimps with greens, which was just what I wanted. The dehydration of the whole plane trip caught up with me at that point and I got quite dizzy, but a glass or two of water and some food settled it.
We walked back to the hotel, and I retrieved my stuff and said goodbye to Eric, getting rather choked up but not actually bursting into tears. David and went to the garage where he'd put the rental car and we had a pleasant drive to Santa Rosa, where we were magnificently entertained by his cousin Cynthia, whom I had not met before but took to right away. David's cousin John and his significant other arrived for dinner, with a beautiful dog rescued from a Mexican street fourteen years ago. I was still awfully tired from travelling, but hope I managed to be sociable enough. We drove back to Palo Alto despite all the wine we had been plied with, arriving at David's usual hotel around midnight and collapsing fairly quickly. In the morning we went to the Sun picnic, where I am only a little sorry to say that I spent most of my time talking to Mark, who lives in Minneapolis, and to Gordon, whom David and I have both known for years. I was pleased to meet Gordon's wife and also to make the acquaintance of their dog. I did get to meet some local Sun people and exchanged small talk with them.
Our flight out of SFO was delayed enough that we would have missed our connection in Las Vegas if we'd taken it, so David called the emergency number for the travel agency Sun uses, and we ended up flying out of San Jose through Phoenix instead. We got exit row seats. The extra leg room in addition to the fact that I was sitting next to somebody I am attached to made the flights home much pleasanter than the ones out there. We had some nice conversation on the way home.
Then I spent the week cleaning the house and cooking for the Romance Exchange, which was today and seems to have gone off pretty well. I was very glad to see everybody, since I had had to miss the last one. In case inspiration fails me next time, I list the dishes: hazelnut mushroome pate, mushrooms with garlic, ginger, and cashews in puff pastry shells, asparagus-goat cheese tart, spanakopita, smoked salmon, various crudites, bread and crackers, medallions of goat cheese; gingerbread, and chocolate tofu pie. And tea, of course. A merry time was had by all, including many particularly egregious puns by carbonel, and David and Lydy joined us near the end for some conversation.
Now it's back to the book again. Because Pat is catching up with me. I'm sure she'll finish hers before I finish mine.
Pamela
