Adventures With Patti

Help! Pineapple alert! The evening news was all a-twitter about the pending storm, a Pineapple Express carrying loads of moisture across the Pacific from Hawaii. San Francisco and Oakland public schools shut down in anticipation of flooding and power outages. Several friends called or emailed us to remind us to stay safe. In the middle of the night it started to rain, and the wind picked up. It rained hard; it blew. But seriously, it just wasn't that big a deal. Gauss's planned meeting with an old client was canceled because she was afraid to drive. We decided to go to SF and play tourist, so we went to the San Bruno BART station and bought tickets. Parking was a little confusing so before we entered the turnstiles we hailed the station agent, whose back was turned to us. When he turned around, we were all shocked: Eddie from the running club!! He was no longer running due to an injury so we hadn't seen him on recent trips. He had no idea we would be in the Bay ...

Snowy southern Minnesota from the plane. Frozen lakes and farm fields. Rectangles are roads separating 1-mile square sections of land. Dark patches are groves, one for each farmstead. Back to our beloved Bay Area for a visit! Once at SFO we got off to a less-than-auspicious start. The plane taxied to the gate and then we waited...and waited...and waited. Cabin attendants announced that the jetway had broken one foot from the airplane door. Wait, can't just about everyone step over a one-foot gap? If not, doesn't someone have a piece of plywood and some duct tape? Does Red Green make house calls? When Sun Country finally released us, Ted picked us up from the airport and dropped us at Hertz for our rental car. We saved $90 by renting from the San Bruno facility instead of the airport; our frugal friend Ted appreciates this. If our Vibe, George, and our Altima, Bertha/Liam Nissan (the Altima is a little conflicted) got busy, their kid would look like this. We got a Ni...