A Weekend Away

Yes, friends, it's been a while.  Two weeks, I believe.  And a lot has happened, so much that we hardly had time to take pictures. 

Let's start with the home front.  Mimi still demands a book at bedtime, but for the first time she's found an every-night favorite.  Sure, there have been other books that she's liked in the rotation (books by Taro Gomi, in particular), but nothing has held her attention like Mike Mulligan and his dear steam shovel Mary Anne. 

For at least the last ten days Mimi has pulled this monumentally heavy book off the shelf and toddled it over to me just before bedtime.  I don't mind.  It's kind of endearing, actually, as it was one of my favorite books as a kid, too.   I also think it's helping Mimi develop the idea of story.  Because the pictures are so familiar now, she's starting to focus more on the words I'm saying and the words on the page.  Her attention span is growing, too.  I've a feeling that in a few months Mimi will start insisting that she read some of her books to me and, just like she does now with the alphabet, she'll start yelling "No Papa!" when I try to chime in. 

Though we've been doing a lot of book reading, that's not what kept me from posting.  This past weekend I left the family behind and joined four friends from college at a campground in Salt Point, about 150 miles north of San Francisco on the amazingly blue Pacific Ocean. 

It was a fantastic boys-only weekend, which means that 98% of what occurred and was discussed cannot be relayed on this family blog.  I can, however, share one of the highlights of the trip.  It was, I have to admit, a little bit of a dream come true.

Readers of this blog know I'm a car nut and that I love driving.  Having Highway 1 basically in our backyard has been a tremendous tease.  I've been out on it a few times, but never have I been able to fully exploit it.  Invariably I'd be with the family, and toddlers (their moms too, if I'm honest) don't like driving fast on twisty roads.  This past weekend, however, the stars aligned for some serious fun on that most famous of coastal roads.  On Friday morning, the day I was to go up to Salt Point, I purchased a brand new and very sticky set of Sumitomo tires.  With new rubber correctly balance and aligned all the way around, the BMW Wagon was feeling frisky.  It was just me and that white, unassuming 325 Wagon heading up a very dry Highway 1, under unseasonably blue skies, at speeds that were - hmm, how shall I put this - invigorating.  I can honestly say that it wasn't crazy or dangerous (I'm no longer 18 years old), but it was the first time I really experienced what that little wagon can do.  Let's just say it completely reaffirmed my conviction to never buy a minivan. 

While I was off tearing up the coast, Sumie and Mimi made the most of my absence by spending the weekend with family in the East Bay.  Nana, Lilly, and Mimi hit Super Franks, a kid-friendly theme restaurant with endless amounts of plastic food stuffs that Mimi insisted on putting in her mouth.

There were also plenty of rides.  Here's Mimi in a Jeep with a chimpanzee (nothing odd about that).  Sumie, of course, didn't put any money into the ride.  Why?  Well, our brave little girl tends to scream bloody murder whenever one of these wild rides starts gently undulating.  I'm really worried about her first roller coaster ride.  

After the excitement of Super Franks, Mimi relaxed with her baby cousin Harukun.  I think she wants a little brother or sister.  

Of course, the past two weeks have been filled with work for both Sumie and me.  This has given me the opportunity to catalog a few more SF Muni bus fails.  They're really not all that hard to come by.  The other day, while heading to lunch with a co-worker, we came across the following abandoned Muni bus straddling one of the busiest intersections in the city.  

As we walked by we passed a Muni official walking toward the bus - confidently, I might add - with a big orange cone.  That was the Muni solution.  Cone that bus.

My friend and I figured that the bus would still be stuck in the intersection 20 minutes later as we headed back with our burgers,  but we were wrong.  We'd underestimated the genius of SF Muni.  Apparently unsatisfied with the coning, Muni officials had moved the bus out of the intersection.  But clearing streets is not the Muni way.  No.  They moved the misplaced bus several hundred yards down Mission street and then parked 5 more abandoned buses directly behind it, completely shutting down the traffic flow on Mission.  And what about the intersection?  Well, that was still partially blocked because the Muni official directing the complete and utter shutdown of Mission had decided to park his Ford Focus in the middle of the intersection rather than on the side of the road.  That, my friends, is the SF Muni way.

Will do my best to share more pictures, and more often, in the future.  Hope all the Papa in SF readers out there are doing well!