Fun Saturday

Saturday I had the chance to meet up with San and Meike for brunch in Rockridge, which is a neighborhood in Oakland that we like a lot. Turns out that San’s MIL used to live in the neighborhood, and she has a lot of fond memories.

We went to the Rockridge Cafe, which is where San used to go for breakfast with her husband and MIL when they would visit. It was fine, but she said not as good as it used to be, so we’ll take that one off of our list and go somewhere else next time.

After we ate, we wandered the neighborhood. It’s a great neighborhood, no chain stores, just locally owned businesses. Happily, it turns out that all three of us enjoy poking around a good hardware store. As always, I thought of you all. We don’t really decorate for Autumn but I know some of you do.

I thought of Jenny and Sarah and those of you who like a seasonal mug.

I thought of Nance and her love of cows and wine when I saw this Christmas ornament.

In a different store, I thought of Engie and her quest for letters that are not letters. The crown is the perfect W.

I thought of Margaret when I saw the sea salt from the San Juan Islands, because she lives near Seattle in the PNW (Pacific Northwest). I was intrigued by the Point Reyes sea salt, but not enough to spend $35 or whatever it was.

I thought this ‘Tree Juice’ maple syrup was clever, and San and I wondered what made Alaskan Sourdough starter different than standard Sourdough starter. We didn’t wonder enough to buy them, though. I love poking around little stores like this.

We came across this mural of tiles, which I had never looked closely at before. San was familiar with it, and told me the tiles were created in remembrance of the horrible fire in the Oakland / Berkeley hills in 1991. I was working at a big hotel in San Francisco at the time, and there was a lounge on the 31st floor. I went up to see, and the plume of smoke was sickening. The bay underneath was an ugly green color, and the next morning we found ash on our car. Amazingly, I don’t believe there was any loss of human life, though a lot of people lost their homes.

From there we wandered to one of my favorite bookstores, East Bay Booksellers, where we snooped around but didn’t buy any books, and a local art gallery that is always fun to peruse.

Overall it was a lovely time. I’m so glad to have gotten to meet Meike, and to see San in person again after a year and a half. Clearly we need to do more of this!