Three-day Weekend

I had a three-day weekend. Actually, I have them fairly regularly on my schedule at work...then I come in and see that I'm scheduled to work two days out of the three. So I've gotten smart and started making appointments in the Bay Area whenever they come up.

The day before we left: Greg working on Pendragon under the watchful editorial gaze of Orange Gina. Little do the Gatitas Holas know that soon their servants will disappear. Who will open the door?

Greg and Charm* on the streets of Berkeley. Bodywork out of the way, the next agenda item is food, and lots of it. The big problem with Humboldt isn't that there are no minorities or foreign-born Americans, it's that there aren't enough of any one ethnicity for them to cook for each other. They just cook for all the good ol' boys and girls coming in from the sticks. Ugh. First up: Ethopian food at Cafe Colucci! (We tried again to go to Kirala, but they were closed. Someday.)

*Charm is the 74 Volkswagen Bug we bought during my last three-day weekend. Thanks, Craigslist!

Despite the epic feed of the previous evening, here we are, wolfing down breakfast at Bette's Oceanfront Diner. Light on the Oceanfront, heavy on the goodness. I do not like hash—early exposure to canned hash, courtesy of Greg, saw to that—but the hash at Bette's is dynamite. Still, I got the pancakes. And lots of coffee.

We did a lot of this. Probably because we've done so little of it lately. I always underestimate the luxury of just eating and sleeping. And not a cat-hair in sight!

One night in Berkeley, one night in San Francisco. What did we do in The City? Dude! We slept and ate. We hit El Castillo for carnitas tacos (I could not have forced down an entire burrito at that point, sad to say) and Lers Ros Thai where we had pad thai (we were tired) and spicy Thai-style sausage. We tried to get into Mama's for breakfast the next day, because I was down for some french toast, but the line was down the block! Just like Vik's in Berkeley, where we fled in dismay: not only does Vik's now have TWO parking lots, they have a brand spanking-new (and nice) building. Wow. It used to be a warehouse with an attached market, where you had to eat on the curb because the two tables were always occupied. (How did I find out about Vik's? I polled all the engineers taking the Capitol Corridor down to Silicon Valley—Vik's was the No. 1 recommended, hands down. And damn but those engineers were right.)

I didn't want to drive all over creation looking for breakfast, so we headed to dim sum earlier than we'd anticipated: two places within a block of each other, right by Green Apple Books in the Richmond: Good Luck Dim Sum and Wing Lee Bakery. Good Luck had the shorter line (and tables) so we went there. Small selection, but apparently MSG-free! We ate breakfast and got two boxes of dim sum to go: har gow, su mai, char su bau (baked and steamed), chicken feet, those little chive-and-shrimp dumplings. Most of it got eaten in Charm on the ride home, though it also made an excellent lunch and (not too long ago) dinner.

Heading over the Golden Gate bridge north toward home, the Wishfrog swinging by the windshield, leading the way. Goodbye, Bay Area restaurants! So many choices, so little time.

The cats were very happy to see us.

"Hello! I makes all your underwear orange! No need to thank me—I do it for love. Purr!"