The Great Pumpkin Pie Saga

My father doesn't like pumpkin pie, so if he's responsible for dessert at Thanksgiving, there won't be any pumpkin pie. For some reason, I really like having pumpkin pie and, of course, I know my father's opinion of same.

Somehow, I managed to think that with so many people coming to Thanksgiving at my parents' place this year there would be someone else bringing dessert, and that odds were at least one of those desserts would be pumpkin pie.

Two people brought appetizers, Charles (who even more than my parents could be a gourmet chef if he wanted) brought the turkey (I think) and stuffing, and I brought the cranberry sauce. My parents made everything else. Which means no pumpkin pie.

After dinner, on the way home, I decided I had to see if I could come up with some pie. I knew, of course, the odds were pretty low, but there are 6 grocery stores within 2 miles of my house. I knew one of them hadn't been open at all on Thanksgiving, but figured at least the 24-hour Safeway would be open. No joy.

Friday, Dick and Darryl walked to a nearby pet store and before they left, I told Darryl it was necessary that they get some pumpkin pie on the way back. They could also get pecan pie if they wanted. Despite Dawn's claims, I did not say they would ot be allowed back into the house without it. It's hardly my fault if they chose to infer anything sinister!

I did, in fact, have a piece of the pie on Friday evening, and it was good. It came from Whole Paycheck and was both better AND cheaper than one of the other stores near us.

Cut to Saturday night. We had a nice simple dinner of some of our favorite ravioli, from The Pasta Shop. Dick's friend Linda arrived from Sacramento as we were finishing, and joined us for dessert.

But wait... Is that MOLD on the pumpkin pie??

Uh-Oh

A few minutes ago, Dawn attacked me as I sat innocently on the sofa with Rachel and Zachary. She started, completely without warning, to throw various stuffed toys at me. Despite the fact that not one of her first salvo scored a direct hit, I could let the assault go unanswered.

Several minutes of stuffed toy warfare ensued, with Dawn even hitting the children on occasion, until she surrendered (she called it a "truce") when I started tickling her.

At one point, as I started to throw one of Zachary's toys, it said....

Uh-oh!

How 'bout that?

I've long thought it strange that MUNI's automated announcements sounded more human than BART's. It seems BART may have upgraded their speech software... Both the voices (for some reason one direction is announced by a female voice and one by a male) seem to sound a lot better today. Still a little mechanical, especially on the word 'platform'.

Wanna Get Away?

I do, and I am. Work has been very hard for a while, and having a baby at home doesn't exactly reduce my average stress level (although it is often very nice to get to play with the kids when I get home). So I'm headed to So Cal to spend the weekend with Dan.

Theoretically, we're going camping in Joshua Tree, but since all the other people we invited have bailed at this point, we are going to play it by ear and do whatever the two of us feel like. No wrangling multiple cars or keeping everyone happy.

I'm sitting at gate 30 in the Oakland airport. My flight leaves for Burbank at 7:45. I haven't been flying as much lately. Haven't been on the road for work since February, or on a plane at all (as far as I can remember at the moment) since 7 months ago today, when we came home from Florida. Zachary was 6 days old and Dawn flew across the country with him by herself, while I brought Rachel home later in the day.

The security line is almost invariably shorter at terminal 1 (14 gates) then terminal 2 (18, all Southwest), so I had Dawn drop me there. There's NO ONE HERE. I walked right up to security where there were TWO people ahead of me. I'm not sure I've ever gone through security so fast.

Although a lot of the major changes to the airport we finished the last time I was here, it remains almost unrecognizable by comparison to what I'm used to. There are 32 gates now, instead of 25, and most of the airport is in pretty good shape, neither drab not run down.

There are at least 4 Starbucks and a Peet's where there used to be mostly nameless unknowns. And now they have not only the one decent place (360 Buritto) but also Fenton's, Max's, CPK, and a Pyramid! If I had more time and weren't figuring we'll get something to eat in So Cal, I'd probably try Pyramid.

I'm flying Southwest, which occupies the majority of the airport and all of terminal 2. Owing to poor timing, I was at the gate by 6;20, in time to contemplate the idea of hopping one of TWO earlier flights. I am on a very early fare, and would have to upgrade for $80 to take either one. Now, I understand that those are the terms of the ticket, but I'm surprised at Southwest. Each of the earlier flights left half full and it would have been an easy opportunity for Southwest to do something nice for me. Certainly, if I'd called ahead, even earlier this afternoon, it would make sense to charge me, not knowing how full the flight might get, but it would have cost them NOTHING to do it and would have pleased the customer. As it is, I am disappointed with them.

7 Years

Dear Rachel,

We've been celebrating your birthday lately. Reasonable, as your birthday is this week. Seven whole years. I can hardly believe it's gone so fast.

Don made this cake, a Ren de Saba (Queen of Sheba), for your family dinner party tonight. You had some trouble waiting to know what was for dessert, and it probably wasn't fair of us to make you wait for the coffee to brew. Carol suggested that we could follow the French method and have coffee after dessert, which lead to much discussion of their attempts to wait out the French waiters in order to have coffee with dessert. It never worked.

You loved the cake and you got such a great expression on your face when Mommy brought it out. I love the pictures I got; they're great and captured your wonderful smile, except that I also got reflections of the candle flames that mess them up. I am going to see if I can figure out how to get rid of them. Maybe I'll ask Uncle Max to tackle it; he has the patience for that, unlike yours truly.

Tomorrow is the big party at Trapeze Arts, where I'm not sure whether you (jumping, flying, playing & learning) or I (watching & photographing) will have more fun. I know you'll have a wonderful time, and I can't wait.

I love you,
Daddy

How 'bout that?

Well, they haven't taken it out (I'd have noticed that!) but after blogging about our street-tree earlier today, I noticed that they finally came by and trimmed it. Our neighbor actually saw them doing it, either Wednesday or Thursday, but I only noticed tonight. This is a new picture of it. They did a good job, and it looks a lot better. Perhaps it will perk up a bit, but most of the leaves look pretty droopy and not really the right color.

They're doing it wrong!

Why isn't the Dodgers' player Hu playing FIRST?

The Lookout

Although I want the City to take it out, I will be sorry to see our (dying) street-tree go for one reason: this hummingbird loves to hang out in it. I wish I'd gotten this shot at f/10 instead of f/6.3. I could have sacrificed a bunch of shutter speed (this is 1/320) since it was just sitting there, and then the beak would have been in focus as well. I have another from a few minutes later in much better focus...

Not quite there...

This did not come out quite the way I had in mind... Maybe the rose is more overblown than I remembered, but I really wanted the bit of purple that's right up against the bottom of the rose to be fully in focus and the other two both out of focus. Of course, I could also have used a lensbaby.

Evening Glory?

Rachel and I went on a walk around the block one evening and took this at a neighbor's house. I meant for the flower on the right to be slightly more out of focus, but the flower on the left & the droplets on it look better in this one.