Friday, August 29, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Vacation day. Took Muni and BART (L to K to Glen Park) to SFO. Met psychobauble and Nate at the airport. Flew Alaska Airlines. Picnic pack for $5—worth it. Picked up Advantage rental car—the office where you pick up the cars is a long shuttle ride from the airport. Drove to Kingfish Cafe for lunch: bbq pork sandwich and fries for psychobauble, red beans and rice and tasso and andouille sausage for Nate, Nate and psychobauble split a garden salad, cup of seafood gumbo and shrimp po'boy and ginger beer for Patrick, grilled chicken burger with fries for me, passionfruit iced tea for psychobauble, extra side of cornbread for Nate. I realized after I had ordered that I ordered the most soulless food on the menu, but I wasn't in the mood for anything else and there was so much I couldn't eat because of spiciness. Dessert: coconut cake. Drove past Steve M's place, saw psychobauble and Nate's old house, checked in to the Westin, everyone napped except me. We all got coffee at Monorail Espresso, walked through parts of downtown. There was some gamer convention going on, so we saw lots of teengeeks wearing gamer t-shirts and carrying plastic tchotchke/convention bags on the sidewalks. Everywhere we walked, it seemed that there were a lot more smokers than on sidewalks at home in San Francisco. Missing California anti-smoking laws. We walked to Freeway Park so that Patrick could figure out where to practice tai chi in the morning. Bartell's on the way back to the hotel. Freshened. Went to Steve's party, which included Tom S, Mike, Bryn, Andy, Mike, and many others. I hadn't seen Steve in years, so it was great to see him again. We got a tour of his house. Dinner with psychobauble, Nate, and Patrick at Cafe Soleil (206-325-1126, 1400 34th Avenue, Seattle, Washington, 98122). psychobauble and Nate had introduced me to this restaurant years ago, and it was comforting to see and taste that it hadn't changed all that much. This was my favorite overall dining experience of the 4-day Seattle trip. Pretty exhausted. Hotel. Checked e-mail.