Friday, June 30, 2023
Medium bowl of oatmeal with milk, flax meal, cacao nibs, toasted sliced almonds, toasted shaved coconut, diced half banana; hot water. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Answered a person page question from Erika C. Siteimprove linkchecking and policy work. Continued HEAL-Rx Video project work. Lunch: leftover shrimp fried rice. CPCS Candy or Medicine? project work: insertion begins. Rode Muni N and 49 to meet Patrick for dinner at Hoi An: we shared a mango salad and shaking beef with garlic noodles. The mango salad was mistakenly delivered to us spicy. When ordering, we had asked if it was spicy and was told either no or it could be made not spicy. (I'm now not sure which, but I think it was the former.) We reported the issue, and a non-spicy version was promptly delivered. Patrick had a Vietnamese coffee. I had a glass of red wine. All food and drink were delicious. Patrick preferred the spicy over the non-spicy mango salad, saying that the spiciness helped with the flavors. The beef melts in the mouth. We sat at a shaded table on the sidewalk with no heat lamp, and I, with my usual one hand warmer, was not too cold. Service was provided via opening and closing a window between visits. Patrick revealed that he had decided to walk Polk Street from his Muni ride arriving at Van Ness and Market, and I immediately said, "I'm so sorry," and I wasn't wrong. He described various unpleasantnesses including people openly using drugs. Afterwards we still had some time to kill, so we stopped for a drink at Bell Tower, a bar and restaurant that was quite busy. There was some delay in receiving service, but there were apologies when it arrived. Patrick had an IPA; I had another glass of red wine. We visited the opening of a showing of paintings by artist Matt Pipes at Hot Cookie. We learned about the event via Hot Cookie co-owner Ryan who is also a co-manager of the Kick Ass gay men's group on MeetUp. We met Raoul and Bala then the artist Matt then Tim, chatting briefly in turn with each, and enjoying free cookies including a newly tweaked raspberry recipe, before riding Uber Green home. We loved the gold backgrounds, ghosted images, and paint drips in Matt's work.