Oh. Hello there.

I have had a wonderful couple of weeks, which I hope explains/excuses the extended silence.

So. In a strange and wonderful manifestation of the internet age, I have met "Never A Dull Moment" IN REAL LIFE. How would we ever have even KNOWN each other without googling Dandy Walker Syndrome? We became intimate friends through electronic media- e-mail and blogging- and had never even heard each other's voices. And now we have met! I have no photographs yet (see above) but please go visit her blog to see pics of our time together. I encourage you to poke around at other posts.
She's very witty, contemplative and candid. I LOVE YOU ANGELA!

Observe the Golden Gate Bridge. A couple of days later, we sent Rose to a family friend, Andy to tkd camp, and Rex to doggy camp. We were off to our anniversary trip to San Francisco. Words fail me; let me just say that I continued to marvel for five days that it was actually happening, and that we never once had to stop ourselves from buying something, selecting a restaurant or anything on any menu, or taking a tour. I LOVED the public transportation, history, fog, hills, art, food, hotel, and my husband.

1. 

We did pretty much everything you'd ever want to do there:
rode the cable cars,
ate fish and chips at Fisherman's Wharf, drank Anchor Steam beer, toured Alcatraz, rode the ferry, saw the sea lions off Pier 39, rode a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge, found 100 year old chains rusted into solid masses along the waterfront at Angel Island, photographed a jellyfish caught in the shallows, ate anniversary dinner on a 7th floor patio restaurant overlooking Union square, went to a fortune cookie factory in a hole-in-the-wall alley in Chinatown, saw the giant redwoods at Muir Woods, climbed hundreds of steps from the wharves up to Coit Tower, visited the original mission which gave San Francisco its name (first services were held on the site a week before the signing of the Declaration of Independence), went to Haight-Ashbury, shopped in funky Sausalito boutiques, wrote postcards, consulted Frommer's and our maps, rode the BART to and from the airport, asked strangers to take our picture, offered to take their pictures, fought off panhandlers, ate fresh orange brioche for breakfast every day, and consulted our memories periodically to reminisce, "What were we doing twenty years ago?"