Brunch...and Sunday Stealing

What do people in a group called "Picture A Day" talk about when they get together?  Cameras, and pictures, and camera phones, and software.  Susan and I wre remembering back to the days of GeoCities when, if you wanted a web site, you "traveled" along a graphic road and chose the "house" where you wanted to settle (yes there were graphics of houses in various styles, and neighborhoods which supposedly matched your interests).  That's how Funny the World Started.  Then GeoCities was bought out by Yahoo and then Yahoo hosted my domain.  Seems like forever since I traveled a GeoCities road!

The six of us who were able to make it to Monticello restaurant in Davis had a great time discussing those and other topics, which incuded Jennifer's progressing pregnancy, SPCA foster dogs, and politics!

Then it was time to leave. Jennifer and Susan both had flights back home today.  It was a short, but very fun weekend.

Today I had the "afternoon off."  My cousin, along with her sister and niece, was going to be going to see my mother, give her a pedicure and take her out to lunch, so I figured I'd just take the day off from Covell...two days in a row!

And, it being Sunday, and all, of course I had to do a Sunday Stealing.

Have you ever clicked on an ad on the side of your screen by accident?:
Oh sure.  Lots of times.  Sometimes it's actually a good thing, but usually not

When was the last time you were disappointed?:
Were were all disappointed today when Bam had a pony with colic and was not able to join us at the brunch.

Do you like the smell of rain?:
Absolutely LOVE it.  Love the smell of the wet air, the wet ground, even the wet clothing. 

What was the last thing you took a picture of?:
I tried to take a picture of some poppies at the beach.  Very disappointing  Must read the instruction book about close up photograhy with my new camera. 

When you go to McDonald's, what drink do you usually get?:
I rarely get a drink at McDonald's (though get food often), unless I'm trying to stay awake, when I have discovered that their iced mocha is the best picker-upper ever.

What were you doing today at 2:15 in the afternoon?:
Well, it's not 2:15 yet, but yesterday at 2:15, we were eating fish and chips at a cafe overlooking the ocean. 

What's the nickname of your home state?:
The Golden State, of course.

What's the worst type of weather in your opinion?:
Hot is bad.  Hot and humid is worse. 

Do you have a Kindle, Nook, iPad or none?:
Kindle.  Love it.

Would you rather read or write?:
Tough call.  I love doing both.  Reading probably has the slight edge, since that's a passive activity, but writing can be a very fulfilling thing. 

When was the last time someone took a picture of you?:
The waitress at the restaurant where we were having brunch took a picture of the group of us.

Do you own a pair of slippers?:
Not any more.  I used to have some wonderful rabbit-lined slippers that I loved (so did the teething puppies).  Now I wear fluffy sox.

Name something negative that you hate about yourself:
My weight...and the fact that I really don't want to do anything about it.  I just want it to all go away on its own.

Is your house currently hot, cold or just right?:
Just right...and if it's a bit too warm, there are fans.

Is there a Dead End road near where you live?:
Yes.

Do you roll your eyes often?:
No.  At least not that I am aware.

Growing up, did you see your cousins often?:
I have 32 cousins, but only saw a handful of them, some occasionally, some regularly.   Peach and I spent big chunks of summers together, and I loved that.

Where was your first job at?:
Medical Arts Laboratory near my grammar school.  I washed bloody test tubes, poop petri dishes, and held the arms of terrified patients who were having blood drawn
.
When's your birthday?:
February 17

Is life a party to you?:
Along with Mame Dennis Burnside, I think "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

Who are you tired of seeing in the news a lot?:
The Zimmerman trial, though I think the discussions following the verdict have become more interesting than the trial itself.

When was the last time you flew a kite?:
I don't know that I ever have.

How long have you had a blog?:
I have made a blog entry on this blog almost daily since March of 2000. This is entry #4866.

Have you ever had to call and complain about a product you bought?:
Yes. I try to be polite but sometimes....

Name something positive you love about yourself:
I love that I have been faithful to this journal for 13+ years.  I also love that when I look back over it, I can see an improvement in my writing (sometimes).

In Search of Fog

When the temps creep toward 100 in the valley, the wise people head for the coast and hope for fog.  Fortunately for us, Susan had come to town, hoping to escape the heat of Texas, and she was as eager as we were to head for fog

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Susan is a member of our Photo a Day group on Facebook (a group with which I have been quite lax of late and promise to do better in the future!).  She came to town about this time last year and we had a great time riding a dinner train and taking pictures in Davis.   It was so much fun we decided to repeat the adventure.

She flew in to Sacramento, but is actually staying with Dawn, another member of the group, in Modesto, south of Sacramento.  The two of them, myself, and Anne, who lives in Davis, were the only members of the group who were free to go exploring today, so we set off for Pt. Reyes Station, about an hour and a half from Davis.   Anne and I drove in my car, while Susan and Dawn drove in Susan's rented car.   We had cell phones to find each other once all four of us had arrived.

Pt. Reyes Station is a familiar place to me.  My grandparents lived in nearby Inverness and many of my cousins spent a lot of their growing up years there, living in houses built on our grandparents' acre of land.  There is where Peach and I forged a friendship in a big tree, eating apples and baring our souls to one another.  It is where, in her later years, my cousin Shirley lived, so that when she died several years ago, they closed down the Pt. Reyes Farmers Market so that we could have a memorial service inside, complete with the services of a medicine woman, as Shirley felt very close to the Native American culture.

Anne and I arrived first, hoping to go through the small book store in town, but it was closed until 10 a.m., so we went to the little bakery next door.   It appeared to be popular.

We each bought a sweet and I got coffee, while Anne had juice and we sat outside next to a very chatty guy, who looked like an aging hippie type, who said he was 77 and had lived in Inverness in the 70s and 80s, then had moved to Canada, a country he loves, but can't become a Canadian citizen because of his checkered past. 

Eventually the book store opened and we enjoyed looking at all the books.  If it hadn't been a new boook store, I would have felt I was on a busman's holiday!

Susan and Dawn arrived not very long after the book store opened and we started walking around the tiny town of Point Reyes Station.  We started at a foot court where they sold artisan cheeses and we checked out some special cream cheese that was aging in the cheese making area.

There's not much to see in Pt. Reyes Station, so we decided to head out to the ocean.  It was a bit too soon after the sweets Anne and I had eaten, so we figured we would see about eating at the cafe on the beach.  But first we wanted to see the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse.

The parking lot is half a mile to the ranger's station, which is another distance to the light house overlook, but fortunately Anne has a handicap placard, so we were able to drive quite a ways in and save ourselves the walk.

It was very, very foggy.  I loved it, though Susan, not dressed for cold, was silently cursing her lack of a jacket.

When we stopped to investigate some orange lichen on the rock face, this guy happened along.

Susan asked him if he would take our picture and he did (see Photo of the Day).  He then gave us his card and invited us to look at his pictures. Susan commented that everywhere she travels, she meets interesting people.

 We continued on toward the lighthouse, having very little hope of actually seeing it, given the weather conditions.  When we got to the overlook, this was our view.

If you really wanted to see the lighthouse, you could walk down to it, but, having experienced stairs in Italy, I wasn't interested, nor was anybody else.

Instead, we headed back to the car and decided to go to Drake's Beach, where there were crowds, but not too bad.

We went to the Drakes Beach cafe, where we had lunch.  Anne and I had some of the best fish and chips I have tasted in a long time.

Thom Buras, the photographer who had taken our photo was there finishing his lunch.  We chatted with him and Anne asked about the address on his card, which is near where one of her sons lives.  He said that actually the town got "too big" for him, so now he lives in a "town of one" -- he drives a small mobile home around and lives in that.  He had told us he was a "photo journalist" so I gave him my card, with the web address of this web site, though now that I've checked his out, I see that we do entirely different things and I'm sure he will have no interest in this journal.

Finally we drove back to Pt. Reyes Station, where we dropped Susan and Dawn at their car and we all returned to our respective homes.  Our new car has a thermometer on the dashboard so I was able to keep track of the temps.  It was in the high 60s when we were out at Drake's Bay and 70 when we left Pt. Reyes Station.  As we drove north, Anne and I watched the temperatures creep up one degree every 5-10 miles or so.  I finally stopped watching.  Too depressing.  But by the time I dropped Anne off at her house, it was 97.  

All the dogs (and Walt) were happy to see me home again, though I was ready to head out into the fog again right away.