Girls Gone Wild on the Bay Bridge

We were driving over the Bay Bridge from Oakland into SF a couple of months ago when what do we see but the Girls Gone Wild bus!

It took all my strength not to run it off the road, plunging into the Bay and thus sacrificing myself for the good of all humankind.

I Wouldn't Recommend Sitting Still in Oakland For Too Long

I'm not a big fan of taggers--prefer images to ego tripping--but I had to take a picture of this one. Something about the stripes on that couch and the angle that it was propped that caught my fancy.

Another Cupcake

This cupcake appeared next to Lake Merritt. Love to see it reappear.

Delicious!

p.s. Someone asked if I knew of any others. I have no clue beyond these two.

Sara Likes Cupcakes

We saw these beautiful, simple grafitti cupcakes as we were coming back from the awesome Grand Lake Farmers Market near our house a few weeks ago.

I love silly shit like this. It makes me wish I could live in a real-life Mario Brothers game.

P.S. Doesn't preggo Sara look cute? You should see her stomach now--the alien is soon emerging!

Garrobo in Gelatin

Sara and I went to LA over the long weekend to show her belly off to my family and friends there. It would have been much nicer had it not been a fricken inferno every day we were there. Over 105 degrees every day! Madness. Meanwhile, back in good ol' Oakland it barely broke 80.

Anyway, we had a barbecue with carne asada--my favorite kind of BBQ--and went to a new carniceria. There, I saw these choice items available for purchase. The top is soup made from brown iguanas. The brown ones, as the black dogs in parts of Asia, are the best tasting, I assume. Follow that up with flavored gelatin dessert and you are set on a summer day.

LA is delicious.

Strike Ends!

I might want to explain the lack of posts for the past month on some sort of solidarity with Oakland Waste Management strikers, who just settled their contracts and are finally back on the job. In any other city if there were a garbage strike--even a partial one like this one--for nearly a month people would have gone batshit. But here it just seemed to be something to be tolerated.

ANYHOO...my excuse is far more mundane. I've been really busy getting ready for the upcoming appearance of Desmond Riley, the chip off the old robot block. Lots of classes, purchases, showers, obssessing, and planning have made my time a little short.

The good news is everything is moving along swimmingly--he was karate kicking me through Sara's stomach last night. Gotta find a dojo for him toute suite!

Taming the Fairies

Last weekend we had Sara's oldest friend over. She has a pair of very cute kids who were in serious need of entertainment. This was our ticket into the fabled Fairy Land, just down the street from us. You see, you can't get into Fairy Land without a kid (pedophiles need not apply).

Inside, it promised a land of wonder with storybooks sprinkled throughout that could be accessed with little keys purchased at the entrance. The first sign of what we would experience was illustrated in the warning at the ticket booth that about half of the storybooks weren't working. Oh well, all good fun.

The park itself is a total throwback. Very '70s with its bright houses made for kids to explore and slides for a bit of excitement. There were a couple of rides, most of which the jaded youth of today might find a little tame. Overall, though it was pretty amazing to see. I wonder how long a place like this will be able to stay open.

Recycled Art

Saturday we went to drop off our boxes at a recycle dump in Oakland. Scary indeed. This is where all the shopping cart recyclers come to get money for the cans and bottles taken from recycle bins at the curb. Good on them for doing it, but it was a little crazy there with conveyer belts growling and bottles screeching as they go to their certain doom.

Outside the chaos were two sentinels that I had to take a picture of. C-3PO and his orangutan friend were stationed outside, observing the fun. Some genius took parts from the recycling and fashioned these pretty sophisticated replicas.

Hurray for recycling!

Hello Oakland!

Finally back on the radar. After moving Sara from Houston with our little alien inside her belly, we have settled in picturesque Oakland, CA. I love Oakland. When you walk around San Francisco with this sense of entitlement. "I own this place. I pay enough rent, so I own this place."

In Oakland the feeling is a little different. After the fourth police car passes you in full-on code 3 (that's with sirens, speeding down the street for you non-cop sluts) your sense of entitlement kind of ebbs. In fact, you kind of wonder, "If this is the pretty nice part of Oakland, what the fuck is going on in the bad parts? Reinforced Hummers with National Guardspeople?"

Remember, when SF was all hippie and shit with peace and love, Oakland gave birth to the Black Panthers. There is a long history of resistance and activism here. I wonder how the current gentrification is going to happen.

Of course I am exaggerating. I love Oakland because it is so different from SF. When I describe it to people it's something about how it is like Brooklyn before Brooklyn became NYC, Jr. A little rough around the edges in a good way, a lot of interesting people and things happening, unexpected things around corners. For example, this little bird. Mr. Heron lives in the bird sanctuary in Lake Merritt and decided he wanted to go for a ride kind of like that guy in the wheelchair who got pushed down the highway by a big rig. He's a Pepper! Love it!

Anyway, love Oakland, love the new apartment, love the Pepper. Someone kill me now.

Goodbye Mission

Next Wednesday I move out of my lovely pad in the Mission and into Oakland. While I am supa excited to move into my new place--mostly because Sara will be there and not in Houston--I will definitely miss the food from the neighborhood.

Case in point is the tostada/tamale van. Now, usually vans like this kind of creep me out...looks like something a serial killer would drive. This van only has ki--I can't say it--excellent food. It never moves from its spot right on the corner across the street from me. The tostadas are amazing and it also has elote the way I learned to love it in Texas--a cup full of corn with sour cream, mayo, grated cheese, and chili on top. Delicioso. I will miss you, Dona Tere van.

Stuck in the Middle, Screw You

As I am getting ready to move to Oakland with my loverly wife, I had a good reminder of what it is like to move anything in San Francisco. My friends, the M&Ms, bought what everyone considered to be a small couch. Getting that couch upstairs proved to be a bit more work that we anticipated.

First, it got stuck (as seen here). We left it there for a bit and sought out the correct screwdriver to remove one leg. Looking at it, it was a strange screw--inset square. So of course nothing fit. Upon calling the shop, the informed M that the couch was Canadian, as was that special screw. Blame Canada. We had to go to the shop and borrow their drill bit, bring it home, and perform surgery on one of the legs to get it upstairs.

It's a beautiful couch, but I dread moving our normal-sized furniture into our new apartment in four weeks. The only thing keeping me going is the thought that our back door looks out onto the parking lot, so we should have minimal problems getting things in. Should have. You can never count on any move going easy in this town.