I ran into my friend Jeff McWinney when running on the mountain yesterday. When we got back to the parking lot, he showed me his new Aprilia SportCity 250 23 hp Italian bike. Jeff is very tech-savvy. He just sold his Honda VFR 750 (a big powerful bike) and got this one, which he loves. It goes up to 80.
I often pick up seaweed to use in omelets. I put this in the window to dry and the next day this is what it looked like with the afternoon sun shining through it.
I spent the night in a hotel in San Francisco last week, since I had to be at the hospital at 6 AM the next morning for wrist surgery. I had no car, so set out on foot in and around Union Square. It was unusual, since I always have my truck in the city. It was like when I go to NYC, the random discoveries of wandering. At one point I walked past a place on Jones that had the atmosphere of a café in the Middle East. There were aromatic smells from people smoking hookahs (“fruit-scented smoke…contain only a fraction of nicotine.”) I had a Turkish coffee (organic). A nice place. Unique. Nile Cafe, 544 Jones.
I spent the first 18 years of my life in San Francisco. It never occurred to me that the city had its own language until these many years later when a high school friend sent me a column by Carl Nolte, longtime SF Chronicle reporter. It’s wonderfully insightful. If you’re a native (of sanfensisco), you’ll not only be laughing, but going…that’s right, that’s right! Here’s a link to Nolte’s classic column: https://www.sfnativejamboree.com/native.html
This is our Lowell High School quartet, the Uncalled Four, in 1952. (I wish the name was original, but it wasn’t.) From left, that’s me, Bill Bixby, John Lodmell, and Don “Whitey” Schaller. I played the ukulele and we sang Coney Island Baby, Ain’t She Sweet, Five Foot Two, Jada, When You Wore A Tulip and the like. We sang at school rallies, parties and once on KPIX TV, which marked Bixby’s first TV appearance. He of course went on to fame and fortune in My Favorite Martian and The Incredible Hulk.
The Wild Magnolias have been around since the ’50s. Since I was in SF Monday night I went to see them at Yoshi’s. I wish I could say they were good, but they seemed mediocre in spite of the gorgeous feathered costumes. Ah well, you just never know what live music will be like. By the way in Yoshi’s lobby, there is a fascinating display of the Jewish roots of the Fillmore district, which predates the black culture of the Fillmore from my high school years. Yoshi’s is at 1330 Fillmore at Eddy and has almost always got great musicians.
You can never tell what it’ll be like on the beach. Last night the wind dropped and it was beautiful. Very few people. Here’s some new graffiti.
Whereas I blab about every little thing I do or run across, Lesley just very quietly goes along, creating beauty all around her. We were having tea in her greenhouse one afternoon last week and oh by the way, look at this…