Sunday, April 25, 2004
An orange for breakfast. Travis, Steve, and Wei came over. We took the L to Church Street Station. It was Wei's first Muni ride. Met up with Yan Hui and Derrick on the way, then Tony at Safevay, where everyone bought water bottles, then met up with Stephen outside of Safevay. We all hopped on the 22 Fillmore to Japantown. Fast food before the parade: Popeye's for brunch. We saw a young girl drive by us on the sidewalk in a pink plastic car (branded as Jeep). The car was completely motorized and people on the sidewalk had to dodge out of her way as she tore down the sidewalk about about 0.5 miles per hour. She crashed into a concrete wall, backed up, then took off again. Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Japantown with Travis, Steve, Wei, Yan Hui, Derrick, Tony, Stephen. The parade was fun. In some ways it was disappointing because the pacing was really slow at times and because some of the participants weren't dressed in costume at all or didn't do anything interesting or appeared tired and unenergetic. (Could have been too much sun.) We'd had a good time nonetheless. We climbed a medium-sized wall next to Benihana so we had a very good view with seats. There was a lot of bird poop in some spots, so one of us found some free magazine which was torn apart so we could sit on the pages if necessary. We were on the shady side of the street near the end of the parade, just before the grandstand seating. The bugle corps was pretty good for such young kids. The taiko dojo drummers were excellent. (I kept thinking of Mojo Jojo, though.) A lot of the city officials were in the parade: Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Police Chief Heather Fong, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Assemblymember Mark Leno, Assemblymember Leland Yee. There were a lot of floats with queens and princesses on them. Instead of riding in their cars, Fong and Newsom both walked the length of the parade, shaking as many hands as they could. Fong even handed out what looked like business cards—I don't know what they were. After the parade, we took a bathroom break in the mall restroom. At the sink, while waiting for paper towels, I said to Stephen, "Move over bacon" and was embarrassed to later realize that he was too young to know what it meant (he's 25, I'm 34) and then I was embarrassed again upon learning that no one else in our party knew what it meant, either. We walked amongst some of the booths. Yan Hui got a free sample of some green powder which he poured into his water bottle and drank. (He said it tasted good.) Some of us were tired already, so we split up in the main square of Japantown. Travis, Steve, and Wei accompanied me back home where they had parked their car. On the way, I stopped at Golden Produce to pick up a few groceries for myself. On the L train at 19th and Taraval we saw lots of people on the sidewalks all up and down 19th wearing red shirts and holding signs that said in Chinese and English that marriage was for 1 man and 1 woman. Weird! Walking back from the L train, I saw at one of the houses on my street the same guy right next to whom we'd sat at the parade. (We'd never met or talked before.) He was out in front of another house on my block talking with some other people. I realized it was him because he had the same colorfully tattooed arm I remember from the parade. I said, "Hey!" and he said "Hey!" back when he too realized how strange that was. I noticed that he wore a Freedom to Marry sticker supporting same-sex marriage. Cool! Said goodbye to the boys. Washed windows. Read the news. Showered. Dinner at home by myself: pennete with tomato basil cream sauce: canned and fresh tomatoes, heavy whipping cream, diced garlic, diced onions, fresh basil chiffonade. Could have used a dash of salt, and I added the basil in too early so it lost some color, but otherwise it turned out just the way I wanted. Side of steamed carrots and broccoli with fresh grated cheddar on top. Yum! Shopped for a balans chair online. Began reading and editing Patrick's revision of Part 1 of Second Island.