mdlbear | A pleasant weekend (Reply)

We spent a delightful, relaxing weekend with the jenkitty. She got up at some ridiculous hour to fly down from Seattle Saturday morning, and left Sunday evening. We (me, the flower_cat, and the chaoswolf -- the Y.D. wasn't interested in the kinds of things we had partially planned) piled into the van with Colleen's wheelchair and spent all day Saturday driving back from the Oakland airport (which has been extensively renovated since I was last there, and had surprisingly little traffic) by way of San Francisco.

The entire weekend was an exercise in real-time scheduling. We drove along the waterfront, passing up the food paradise of the Ferry Building because of large crowds and a lack of parking, past the tourist traps of Fisherman's Wharf, South on Van Ness, West on Geary past Japantown, and had a late breakfast at the Cliff House. Crab is a house specialty. Yum.

South on the Great Highway to Golden Gate Park, and parked under the de Young Museum. We need more museum time. The textile gallery was showing Turkmen weaving -- wow! The pace and interaction are vastly different when I'm wheeling Colleen around, but it wasn't unpleasant by any means.

After the museum we went next door to the Japanese Tea Garden. This was mostly a matter of Jen and Kat exploring widely while I tried to figure out how to get around with Colleen and the chair. On occasion I failed miserably; fortunately the Cat is still fairly mobile under her own power. No disasters.

Finally, we drove down to San Jose via Skyline Boulevard (as far as Woodside), took a turn past $WORK on Sand Hill Road, and tried to figure out where to have dinner. We'd originally identified a couple of places in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, but it was still too early and the Wolfling really didn't want her sister to be entirely left out, so we went home, let the Kitty take a nap, and headed out to Kobe, our favorite sushi boat place.

The evening was a combination of filking, conversation, and looking at the proofs of the wedding pictures, which artbeco brought over for us to sort through.

Sunday the Kitty slept in while I went out for bagels and Scottish lox, then a walk to the Rose Garden. There was time for Jen to have a bagel before going out "silly food shopping" to Cosentino's with Colleen. Colleen's been shopping there for nearly three decades; most of the staff are old friends. Dinner was huge pieces of lamb (which Colleen pan-broiled with Greek seasoning) with saffron rice and caprese (which I made). Quick, simple, and delicious.

All too soon it was time for Jen to leave. I combined the trip to the airport with dropping the kids off at their gaming session a couple of blocks down Coleman Avenue. All-in-all a delightful weekend; I just wish there was some way to do it more often.

Capped the weekend with a pleasant drive with the Cat.