Were I a less verbose fellow, that subject line might be all you got of the weekend update. As it is, Ive got more to say. Strap yourself in.
The weekend was excellent. I drove all the way there and all the way back (speeding much of the trip) without getting pulled over or even coming heart-poundingly close, despite a relatively high density of officers of the california law on the roads. Good things. It was great to see Klee in her own enviornment, and what an enviornment it is! Smack dab in the middle of the Haight, two blocks from Haight/Ashbury (of Grateful Dead fame, I guess) across the street from a great bar, Klees natural habitat was super-excellent. I equate it (for my east-coasters) with someone whose family has owned a building in Greenwich Village for years, or maybe South Street in Philly. Theres not a concentrated space quite like the Haight in New York, I dont think – maybe 5th Avenue in Park Slope or something, only with much less hippie history. Cool stuff.
Napa was a great way to spend Saturday, too. Despite the fact that Klee spent most of the car trip reading (highlighting a stark contrast in something in our personalities that I have yet to really compartmentalize), the drive wasnt unpleasant, and took only an hour from the dead center of San Francisco. We tasted maybe 25-30 wines, from various vinyards, and I bought a couple bottles of the stuff I found exceptional. Exciting. Im really going to have to consider buying a wine fridge, I think, esp. if Im going to make more than one trip every two years.
I saw Katie and part of her family this weekend, too, which was cool. Katie was out west visiting her family for her cousins Bat Mitzvah and I figured itd be silly not to at least stop by while I was there. So we went to lunch. They also gave me a lemon, sort of against my will, so it ended up in my cupholder on the way to lunch, to be rediscovered at the beginning of the drive home a couple hours later. A cupholder is a weird place for a lemon, if you ask me, so I picked it up to consider it and somehow ended up smelling it. It smelled good. I smelled it for the next 40 minutes or so before I realized how strange that was, so I pulled away from my nose and then proceeded to play with the lemon for the rest of the trip, sniffing it liberally. I know this is a weird story, and that some of you will just think its weird, but the absurdity of my holding a lemon, mostly absentmindedly, for five and a half hours, strikes me as funny. I already know that Drew finds it funny, too, and I have an idea of a few others that might get a bit of amusement out of my absentminded obsessiveness (Hammonds, Im looking straight at you on this one, for some reason). Anyway, lemons are great to hold, just for the record. They smell great and their size and general heft are pretty much perfect. Even though ive put it down now to type, I think I might sleep with my lemon tonight. Well see.
Ill put up some pics when I develop my current roll, and/or when Klee klee-mails me the ones she shot. There should be some pretty good ones, even though I didnt take that many. Anyway, Memorial Day weekend was good.
