Adventures With Patti

Dragons! On the way to SF on BART. On the spur of the moment, Gauss and I decided to hop on BART and head into the city with our friends Orchid and Jason to see the Chinatown New Year Parade. It was billed as the largest new year parade outside of Asia. Hey—we’re living in San Francisco, why not take advantage of free opportunities to be tourists? The weather was cool and foggy, but mostly dry. It was a noisy, fun affair with dragons, marching bands, and local celebrities. Kids with colorful parasols from a local Chinese school Walking rice bowls, parade entry from local grocery store

Gauss and I finally took a day trip to the Sierras to ski last weekend. We brought the food, and our buddy KJ drove us in his 4 WD truck—good thing, since it was raining when we left, and snowing once we got above 3000 feet. It snowed steadily the whole day. There were up to two feet of new powder at the top of the mountain, and with my artificial knees, it was hard to ski in places where skiers and boarders had cut up the deep snow. After lunch, I stuck to the groomed bunny slopes. My strategy next time will be to head up to the mountain after several dry days so I can ski on groomed snow. KJ carried a flask of cognac in his parka. When Gauss and I brought individual cans of spicy V-8 out of the cooler, KJ got creative and whipped up mountain Bloody Marys by pouring some cognac into the vegetable juice and then spiking it with Tabasco. The ski lodge has hot sauce along with the little envelopes of ketchup and mustard at the condiment station. Minnesota ski areas do not offer this seas

I haven’t posted in quite awhile. Reason: Gauss lost his job in December. After tearing up our life by the roots in May, I just couldn’t write about it. Gauss’s last day was December 15. Luca and Emilio showed up for a visit December 23. They were here for a week, and that week just flew by. It was so sweet having them here. We thought about going up to the Sierras to go skiing, but after the brutal winter the kids have had in Minnesota, they were more interested in things they could do in shirt sleeves: seeing Chinatown and the ocean. We drove to Monterey and ate dinner at a restaurant on the ocean near Pebble Beach.After lunch, we walked down to the water. There were big waves, but the tide was low. We watched an otter playing in the tide pools. There were big tubular seaweeds that were sort of disgusting but also amusing. Besides the Monterey excursion, we had lots of get togethers with friends who wanted to meet Luca and Emilio: noodles at Sam Wo with Ted and Frances, Christmas day