78-93

It was 78 degrees when we left the lovely picnic in Berkeley and was 93 degrees when we returned to Davis, which is one of the reasons we went to the picnic in the first place.  I actually almost-sorta-kinda wished for a jacket on our walk back to the car, but I didn't really need one.

Today was the annual Paul Picnic, which Paul's friend Kag started the year after Paul died and, with only a few exceptions, continues to date, though today may have been one of the smaller groups.  It's been fun to watch the offspring of the Lawsuit group grow up.  The oldest of the group (who was not born when Paul died) is 6'3" now.

The picnic is held in a park in Berkeley and Kag and his family always get there early to grab the favorite picnic spot.  It's a slight schlep from the street where you park, but the park has a guy with a golf cart who sits at the gate and drives people to their location all day long.

(The most popular guy in the park!)

He took me up to the picnic spot while Walt went and parked the car.  While I waited for Walt to come I realized that I did not have my fanny pack...which held my phone, my camera, and my iPod.  My life!  I couldn't believe that I'd left it in the car and when the cart guy arrived with Walt I asked if he could go back to the car and get it.  When he returned, he said it was not there.  I couldn't believe I had lost it between the car and the picnic spot and the guy was going to drive us both back to the street so we could check together, when I found it--it had fallen on the ground under a wagon.  Whew.

So we were free to get to cooking our chicken, which I had been marinating for more than 24 hours.  I had seen a tea-based recipe that sounded interesting and decided to make that, but I had none of the key ingredients.  It was black tea and star anise primarily, and then you add cinnamon and sesame oil and soy sauce.  I used orange tea and 5 spice powder (which has cinnamon in it) and it turned out delicious.  And juicy!

One of the younger kids had brought a unicycle and Ned decided to see if he could still ride one, which he had learned to do many years ago.

Not so much!  His 49 year old muscle memory had atrophied. He did finally get it going and was able to ride a few feet.

Then Henry took his unicycle back and rode up the hill without any problem at all.

One thing I love about these picnics is that there is always music.

Pretty much all of them are now or have been professional or semi-professional musicians and song writers and it's always so much fun listening to them jam together.

I guess it was about 3:30 when we left, catching our friend the golf cart driver for a ride to the entrance to the park.  The only bad part about returning home was that it was like stepping into a sauna when we got out of the car. We were both so full when we got home, that we just picked at leftovers for dinner.  A really lovely day.