Thursday, July 17, 2003
When I woke up this morning, I immediately began worrying about money and our future. I suppose everyone does this to some extent. Oatmeal for breakfast. When I got on the bus, several riders were chatting with the driver about another driver who (I think yesterday) took a 45 minute break and just left his bus at 9th and Judah the whole time. This morning's driver is an older Asian man—he's been on the 66 route the longest, and I think he's among the very best drivers because he does his job well. Went to the Asian Art Museum for the first time since it moved to its new location at 200 Larkin. Thursdays you can get in for $5 after 5:00 PM. Patrick has already been twice. The museum reminded me of Ikea because of the layout: They have a recommended path but if you know your way around you can take a shortcut. It was not crowded at all. We started out with Indonesian puppets, which didn't impress us much because to us puppetry is more about the show than the puppet. They had a flat screen TV on the wall showing some behind-the-scenes interviews, but the portions we saw didn't show the actual puppet shows. We then sat for a special performance in Samsung Hall of Tibetan music and dance with Chaksam-pa, a highly acclaimed performance group. After 3 or 4 pieces, we left because I was getting sleepy and probably couldn't make it through the whole performance, and we came to see the museum, too. My favorite part is the alcove with the fountain. Patrick's favorite part is the room with the Japanese samurai armor and the Japanese sedan. Ate the Seven Course Beef meal at Anh Hong Phu-Nhuan (415-885-5180, 808 Geary Street at Hyde). First was a beef salad. Second we didn't remember the name but they brought thin strips of beef cooking in a broth along with bean sprouts, mint, basil, parsley, hot sauce, and rice wrappers. The next 4 courses arrived on a single plate: beef pate and 3 kinds of beef sausages. Seventh was a brothy soup with chopped rice, julienned beef, onions, and black pepper. I liked 4 of the 7 courses. The sausage and pate plate was a bit rich for me. Patrick loved it all. I wouldn't go back for the same meal, but it was worth doing once. I kept wanting peanut sauce for dipping but since they didn't serve it with the meal I figured it would be like asking for soy sauce to pour over rice at a Chinese restaurant so I didn't. Got home lateish. Stayed up some to play a turn of e-Scrabble and to install Eudora, then configure PopTray and YahooPOPs. Couldn't get any combination of those to work—it would receive properly but I couldn't send messages. Tried my ISP, my own mail server, localhost—nothing worked. Uninstalled Eudora, PopTray, and YahooPOPs. Moved the car because of street cleaning tomorrow. When I got out of the car, I thought I heard sprinklers nearby but it was my front right tire leaking badly! I watched as it sadly deflated, but thankful at least that I was able to move it before street cleaning. Inspection of the previous parking spot revealed nothing unusual. Patrick and I suspect that I must have picked up a puncture while driving, as the last time we were in the car we remember hearing a weird noise related to the wheels but didn't know what it was. I bet it turns out to be a really big nail.