Someone at Hetch Hetchy

On March first I wrote that I left work at 5 for the 535 train.  I passed someone at Hetch Hetchy and had someone behind me most of the way.  I took Center but took a short cut and made it fine to the train.  I had to figure out the four person seat in the bike car but had it all to myself for most of the trip and read the paper to 4th and King.  I stopped by the Bike Station.  I put money on my Clipper and made some mistakes as I rode away.

I met my friend and her sister at Homestead and my artist buddy was there—he told me about his upcoming gallery show.  I got to meet all of my friend's current and old coworkers for the going away.  I bought pitchers and saw a good friend and spoke to her man.  I talked to the machinists and when her sister left, my friend and I said bye the host and rode to Chihuahua.  I got a bit to eat there but she had already eaten.  I decided to leave after that but we talked a bit later too.  I am always open to discussion.

I noted that the next day, Saturday, I was up at 9 and I had slept alright.  I went to the grocery store with a friend to have donuts and go shopping.  We then brought and our bag of food to BART for a brunch in Oakland.  While she did have motion sickness on the ride, the birds and the flowers on the walk through Berkeley made up for it.

When we arrived fashionably late, I discovered that the brunch crowd was mostly the same as at the Snow Cabin.  I and sat out back with a cup of tea and a plate of food while people were prepping fruit.  The dogs were trying to get outside but they weren’t allowed.  Later we sat in the living room and ate and talked to people.  We paged through a stitching encyclopedia and I finally got to meet some people I had been hearing about.  I helped my friend’s coworker to do the dishes.  The coworker drove us to the city just as it began to lightly sprinkle.  When I said bye to them I asked a fellow blogger to dinner.

I met him on the N Line at Van Ness and we rode to 31st and Judah where we tried to get a table at Terra Cotta Warrior.  In the meantime I told him a bit about wanting to make a postcard of the Highway 101 crossing at 18^th street.  We ordered the Bian Bian Mien noodles, which became oddly familiar as we ate—I had lived in Xi’an for a year.  We ended up waiting for an N train back on 23^rd for a while.  I made plans with my cycling friend and the blogger suggested we go to Blackbird on Market.  I ended up in bed late that night.

In the morning of the day that I wrote this I got up at 11.  I went to the grocery store to get coffee and my buddy she met me there with her neighbor and her son.  The four of us went to Duboce Park.  We hung out for a half hour and walked to her house where we had a meal and organized.  Then we rode to the Ferry Building and took a ferry to the Alameda flea market.

We parked next to a bamboo bike owned by a girl from the boat and walked around for a while.  My buddy looked at jewelry and hats and we discussed strategies but the best one was when I simply walked away from her.  I found some bikes and we people watched.  I got tired.  When we got to the end the fair was about over.  She went looking for stuff she had missed and ended up buying gloves and a compact.

We went to St George's and had a lot of trouble with the locks.  My buddy could tell I was cross and tried to make me feel better with words and water.  We did the tour and learned about the stills, condenser, bottling, blending and aging from a guide that was a bit too gregarious.  She showed us a bunch of stuff about absinthe.

We did the tasting and learned that it was only possible to sample 1.5 oz.  We sat for a bit and then bought two bottles.  Then we rushed to the ferry and then went to Thirsty Bear.  There were hundreds of gamers there for a programming convention.  A couple sat next to us but got no service so left.  We had tapas and a burger.  There was live flamenco.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.