Take Me Out To The Ballgame!

The San Francisco Giants were swept today by the LA Dodgers.

This was not a good thing. But any day you can go to the ballpark is a good day anyway. In San Francisco, you are not limited to hot dogs and beer. Oh no!

You can opt for sushi and sake. You also have weird fans who sit and talk on their cell phones or text during the entire game. I saw two men trying to pick up two ladies across the aisle from us. Most people arrive "fashionably late' and or leave "fashionably early". Strange crowd.

People get up and down all the time too. If they have to go to get something to eat or drink, or to use the restrooms, they do it about 10 times per person. I never get up at a ballgame till I'm ready to leave.

Years ago, I had a boss who loved the Giants. I could almost always get him to leave work and take me out to an afternoon game. Damn! That was fun! Just sitting in the sun and watching the game and eating peanuts and drinking watery beer was a blast! That was when the Giants used to play at Candlestick (the stadium of the 49ers now).

The new stadium is fabulous. Really upscale and it's hard to get a bad seat. Alex gets season tickets for the field club level which is nice and has great views.

We dropped my watch off at Cartier before the game. (It quit a couple of nights ago.) I wanted to get it back before the store closed and since the Giants were losing 8 to 1, I figured it wouldn't hurt to miss an inning or two. Plus, beer in the afternoon makes me sleepy.

DOG - It's What's For Dinner

I get so tired of trying to figure out what to have for dinner. I'm a good cook, but doing it day after day is sort of uninspiring.

Actually, we have been going out a lot, but we usually do lunch out if Alex is home. We went to Jack London Square last weekend and it was really nice.

We had oysters on the half shell to start and a magnificent Chardonnay at a great restaurant called Il Pescatore. The fish was wonderful and fresh and we got to people watch for a couple of hours.

We were seated across from the "Last Chance Saloon" where Jack London did a lot of his writing. The place is basically a log cabin affair with a totally slanted floor. Lots of people outside sipping refreshments in the shade of the umbrellas.

We were served by a charming and handsome man named Marcello! He was such a delight and shared with us that he had his own catering firm as well. Whether the catering is wonderful or not, you'll have to admit, Marcello would look good doing it!

Alex was less pleased than I was with Marcello because he flirted with me. (I was not offended!)

It was a hot day and the square was packed! I adore the diversity of Oakland. You see everybody at Jack London Square! Such a nice "vibe".

A girl and her boyfriend walked past us and I had to ask her if I could take her photo because she had the most beautiful legs I had ever seen.

She was happy to let me capture her and then we emailed the shot to her. I was a little intimidated because she had a big old expensive camera and all I had was my iphone camera.

Still, the picture came out great! Of course, the people were so good looking that it would be hard if not impossible to take a bad picture of them! The woman had to be six foot tall, so her boyfriend is even bigger. Wow! They are hot!

The Square had a "pet psychic" working and I wanted to take Harry to see her but Alex said no because it was all fake anyway.

I disagree. I would love to know what goes on in his little brain. He has so many issues, (fear of trees, fear of noises, fear of laying down in a car ride even if it's for 17 hours) and maybe this woman could have helped him. For that matter, maybe he and I have some of the same issues.

Cows In The Mist

On Saturday, we piled into the wagon and drove from Alameda over to Marin County and began the drive up Highway 1 along the coast, our quest being a place called "Dogtown".

Now that is a wild ride! Beautiful, scenic, curvy curly roads, cliffs (not my favorite) and peeks at the magnificent Pacific Ocean. It's a slow drive with a lot of hairpin twists and turns that slow you to 10 mph.


Marin County is gorgeous. Lots and lots of trees, beautiful people, gorgeous homes, expensive cars, and green attitudes! I love going there, but it's a little too "wheat germ oil" a place for me to consider becoming a resident. There are tons of "retreats" tucked away in the greenery, as well as a plethora of massage studios. In fact, in the early 1980's, it was common for these massage studios to offer a service whereby they would stroke your body with a peacock feather for an hour as one of the "treatments".

It's all about yoga. It's fun and kind of crazy! Stinson Beach is one of the prettier beaches around. And the little towns you pass are all pretty much like a flashback to the 70's. Surf shops, surfer girls and boys, everybody calls each other "dude" in this area regardless of age or gender.

We pulled into Dogtown about 1 PM. I was starving by this time, but wanted Harry and Honey to see a place named Dogtown. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see. I think the population of Dogtown is 30. We did pull into a private ranch to turn around. When I saw 3 gorgeous Arabian horses, I told Alex I had to get a photo.

He told me, "No, there's a woman coming over here to tell us to leave." I said, "Oh calm down, Alex!" The woman approached us with a smile and I told her we had actually pulled in to turn around but that I had taken a photo of her horses and hoped she didn't mind. (Now, these horses are her babies, don't you know!) Anne, my new pal, is a tiny gorgeous silver haired woman with a big smile, a welcoming attitude, and a gorgeous tan. She and her husband run the ranch and have a B&B there called "The Loft At Woodville Ranch" and she gave us a brochure. The loft is a build out over the barn and from the photos, it looks amazing.

I took a photo of Anne with her youngest horse who was a really beautiful girl! Anne is an endurance rider and had taken this horse up to Utah for a 200 mile ride two days before. Neither Anne nor the pony looked any worse for the wear!

This is a gorgeous area of California, and you really might think about trying "The Loft" if you get out this way.

If we continued on up to the next town, there were restaurants, shopping and all services and it was only 5 miles away.

We picked up sandwiches and drinks for us and wanted to look for a place to eat our lunch. Alex missed the turn off for the "visitor center" and we continued driving. Pretty soon we saw a sign for Inverness, and then Point Reyes National Seashore. Oh heck, why not just keep going, right? We finally got on a little road leading somewhere (as all roads do), and decided to take it. At a fork in the road, it offered us the option of going to the Lighthouse or the Beach. Hooray for Lighthouses! Let's go to the Lighthouse!

This little (narrow) road was very strange. We climbed and twisted for about an hour and went from summer at 72 degrees to about 40 degrees and so foggy it was hard to see your hand in front of your face. By this time, I think we both realized we had made a goofy choice but continued on anyway.

Harry was very unnerved by the cows that appeared in the mist. I was a little unnerved by all that green and nature and stuff all around me.

We finally got to the Lighthouse parking lot and ate our lunch in the car. It was freezing outside and I was fresh out of parkas so while Harry and Honey took a little walk with Alex, I stayed in the car.

I know it's scenic, but it also looks kind of like the perfect place for zombies or the hills have eyes type stuff if you ask me.

On the way back, we cut through a forest and I got very edgy because of all the trees. I don't do forests because of trees. I find them threatening and somewhat ominous. One tree is fine, but damn! When there are trees every place you look, I know that no good can come of that. What is lurking in there? What if they fall on us? Why are there so many of them if they aren't trying to intimidate us?

A lot of people disagree with me about this, but I don't care. Trees just scare the bejesus out of me. Harry feels the same way.

Squirrels, Plums, Wine, and Dawg Tour

There is a squirrel in my plum tree. You can see his tail right opposite the juicy red plum.

The squirrel eats half a plum and tosses it on to the ground. How rude is that? I have about 100 pretty red plums in that tree and this little bastard is thinking it's for him. They are not for him.

Harry is trying to do his job and keep the squirrel out of the yard, but the temptation is just too great. This is annoying me to no end. Alex! Where is the 22 rifle?

I wouldn't really mind as much if the squirrel was eating the whole plum. But he's a wasteful little vermin.

He also goes after the flowers on the trumpet vines. I don't really care about those flowers because there are so many of them and you can't eat them anyway. There are hundreds and hundreds of flowers. It really pisses me off that the squirrel has decided to throw flowers at Harry, but not nearly as mad as I am about my plums! Those plums are sweet and juicy and beautiful and I can even make plum jam out of them for heaven sake! Or I could try my hand at some plum wine!

I'm really sorry, but I think he needs to die. Okay, maybe not die, but have the fear of Harry put into him. I should have taken photos of Harry with his dead squirrel and posted them out in the yard.

I wouldn't even care so much if the damned squirrel took to eating our lemons. We get hundreds every year out of our two lemon trees. I actually thought about throwing a lemon at the squirrel up in the plum tree to give him a concussion (I mean, a chance to taste those yummy lemons).

Actually, Alex said to be careful what I wished for because squirrel is using the plums as hand grenades and if he used the lemons, he could actually do some damage.

We continued our Dawg Tour 2010 today by taking Honey and Harry to Livermore to the wineries. What a nice trip for them. It's about a 45 minute drive to one of our favorite wineries. They lollygagged while Alex and I tasted a few nice reds and bought a case for future consumption.

Here Harry is getting ready for wine tasting while Honey is enjoying the sun and the grass. Looks nice, huh?
They are both pretty happy with wineries and because Alex and I are wino's they get a lot of chances to hang out in them.


We only stayed at the Winery for about an hour, but it was much warmer than it is at home. Honey loves the green lawn and sun on her joints!

And Alex and I love going on short trips!

Livermore has a huge number of small wineries and while it's not as varied as the Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino wine country, it's not bad! (And it's a whole lot closer.) Napa is about an hour and a half to two hours from where we live, but if we don't hit traffic, Livermore is only about 40 minutes and it's a nice ride through vineyards, farm country, and charming small towns.

I think we are going to Bodega Bay this weekend. That's where the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds" was filmed. Harry is very enthusiastic about the trip. He saw the film with us and found it to be unrealistic. We'll see.

Camping, Anyone?

When I was 30, I fell in love, which of course meant I was going to get married.

The object of my affection was an avid outdoorsman, a camper, a cowboy, and loved all things having to do with nature.

I envisioned us taking lovely nature walks along the shore, kissing beneath the seas, with my long blond hair (which I didn't have) ruffling in the breeze. Oh it was a pretty picture! When we went to the High Sierra's to camp for the first time, I packed the cutest clothes and all of my toiletries and cosmetics. You know, with true love you just want everything perfect.

The first day of camping was kind of an eye opener. We were someplace out in the wilderness next to a stream. There were no bathrooms! There were no showers! There was no picnic table. Excuse me, how is this going to work again?

During the day, my soon to be husband (and soon to be ex husband too) set up the tent, set up the camp stools and a camp table, pulled out the sleeping bags, started a fire, hung a tarp thing around what he called the "potty" after digging a hole in the ground. Dear God! This was beginning to look like romance at its best!

I sat on one of the camp stools and watched him, wondering if I had lost my mind. All this flurry of activity in this dirty dusty place. Oh and that stream! How perfect! We could bathe in it. Uh huh. If you can heat it up I'll bathe in it. I'm not going into ice water thank you. I'd rather be dirty.

I will admit he did all of the cooking, the clean up, and such after setting up camp, but I was too traumatized to even think about helping. And worst of all, I was ruining my Italian leather boots with the 3 inch heel I had purchased just for this occasion.

If the daytime was bad, I was soon to find out the night was worse. Howls, noises, funny lights, creepy crawlies, ghosts, vampires, zombies as well as these guys made it impossible for me to sleep.







The second night of camping I relied on a drink (or five) around the campfire before I climbed into the sleeping bag that my beloved had thoughtfully zipped into one large sleeping bag for both of us. Any thoughts of romance probably left his head when he heard my drunken snores. It's hard to believe I lasted for three long nights.

By the end of the trip, this woman looks almost exactly how I was feeling.

Bills, Spills, and Chills

The bad news is that I had to pay a lot of money for medical tests for Honey this week. The good news is Honey's tests all came back fine.

I think the money is worth the peace of mind; however, when we are pushing about $800 for diagnostics, it hurts in the wallet. Still, I'm so glad she's okay for now! (She did fall down the stairs this afternoon, and we were worried until she let us know she wasn't in pain, but she was embarrassed.) Honey is a little too fat and it's not good for her joints. The problem is that because I am with her all the time, I don't see the change.

Since it's late June, we decide to have some friends over for dinner last night and do it out in the backyard. I figured we'd have nice weather and so I dragged out tablecloths, napkins, china, silver, and wine glasses for the 8 of us. Alex threw some pork ribs on the BBQ, I made potato salad, strawberry and spinach salad, and curried corn on the cob. Along with some really wonderful crusty french bread and some lovely truffled white cheese, (Nicky where were you?), and a lemon tart for dessert, it was a really nice meal.

Ribs are not elegant food, but neither is corn on the cob. It's fun watching people eat these things! Women are inclined to try and do it delicately. Men just go for it! Because of the ribs, I did not use white napkins. Much too hard to get the stains out. I know you could do paper, and paper plates for that matter, but does anybody really like eating off of paper plates and using paper napkins? I don't.

Of course, if it had not cooled to the low 50's by 5 PM it would have been a little more comfortable. I gave the ladies warm wraps to keep them from shaking too hard from the cold. Ah! Northern Cali! Summer! Never mind, open another bottle of wine. And if it gets colder, we'll pull out the whiskey too!

After dinner, we came in so the boys could play a little poker while the girls sat in the kitchen and gossiped while I cleaned up. It was a fun little evening, particularly on a Tuesday.

Harry and Honey love it when we have outdoor events! They can always find the "weak sister" in the crowd and score some treats!

When All Else Fails, There's Ice Cream

It's been a hectic Monday. By this morning, we realized our girl, Honey, was not feeling good. She only ate about a quarter of her breakfast, and that was after not eating last night either. Honey is getting older, she's about 11.

We talked it over and decided to take her in to the vet. We dropped her off and they said they would call us in a couple of hours. The vet called and said she wanted to do some x-rays, run some lab work, and see if she could tell what was going on. Fine. She also indicated that all of the testing would add up to about $675.

I gulped and said, "well, uh, okay" because what are you going to do, right? The vet called back and said that mostly the x-rays looked okay, but there was one very small place that she wanted to have the radiologist look at tomorrow. Okay, now I am already getting a really bad feeling over this, but the vet said, "Don't worry too much, because it may be nothing." And of course, you really hope you just spent $675 for nothing!

Still, it is cheaper than flying to Tahiti isn't it? We toss Harry in the wagon and went to pick Honey up. She was very happy to see us, and we took them to the Park for a half hour or so. Then we took them to see the Encinal High School Jet Airplane here in Alameda. Harry and Honey thought that was pretty cool. I thought it was too.

Since we were on kind of a military kick, we drove over the the former Naval Air Station and looked around. (Alex's aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, had been stationed at Alameda NAS.)

We showed the kids the hanger where Alex's unit used to work, but they found that kind of boring. So we drove over to look at the USS Hornet. This sight is not in the least boring! Even Honey perked up and wanted to take a closer look.

This carrier has been turned into a museum. I've never been aboard, but Alex and his friends have all taken tours. The Hornet is haunted. That's why I'm not going on it. (Ghosts can follow you home totally and you are never sure until it's too late.)

I made Alex pull over so I could show Harry and Honey the ugliest paint I've ever seen on a house. I hope the people didn't mind me taking this picture. I don't even think they saw me. Tell the truth now, who in their right mind would paint a house "Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly?"

In the photo it looks Pepto Pink, but it's really lavender. Very strange. Pepto pink is a strange color for a house as well.

After the little sightseeing jaunt, we took Harry and Honey home to rest. We went for ice cream without them. It's all good.