Alameda

I'll bet Patty Mersman's mother didn't like her child prodigy hanging around with the likes of us. Her mom was a prissy snob. Her father was a snob, too. Once I was over there and he was playing the piano. He said "this is Beethoven's opus [x], number [x], known to the masses as the Moonlight Sonata." Thanks for reducing me to the masses, Patty's dad, for of course I recognized the music. He was a math professor at Stanford.

Nice recipe, Suze. I'll try it when I get home. We read FBoFW in the Chronicle yesterday, and it was printed so small that I didn't see that in the background -- I have gotten into the habit of always looking at her backgrounds, thanks to you, Suzy.

The weather is still beautiful today. I am wildly excited by our rental car, a brand new red PT Cruiser! It is so cool; drives nice, too, and despite the way it looks from the outside, one has really quite a good view of the road. There's one blind spot on the back right side, but it's covered by the mirror. The side view mirrors are a little small, but I'm used to truck mirrors. Big fun!

It was really nice to go to the coast. We didn't get as far as Bean Hollow, but we were there a year ago. Nice surf yesterday, and beautiful weather. It's still nice today, too, though a big storm is supposed to come in tonight. That'll be fun, too.

I've discovered that there's a whole network of walking paths here; one can easily walk to the shopping center on them. Alas I did not stop there for coffee and a paper, counting on the little deli to be open. It wasn't; they must open at seven, and it was twenty till. No cappuccino today, and we'll have to get the paper when we go out.

We came to Oakland yesterday via the San Mateo bridge, a straight shot from HMBay. Then up the dreaded Nimitz, which was not bad at all. Came onto Alameda on Park Street (main downtown part, considerably south of MV Inn), over a bridge rather than through the tube. I always feel a bit of homecoming when I get onto the island. It's peaceful here.

Neither of us is taking many photos from the motel balcony; we both have stacks of views of Oakland and the sailboats, in all lights, all weathers.

Crabfest today; tomorrow it's Alice Waters!