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Sunday 29 August 2004
	Pamela: Look what I brought for you: a dress! Lila: For me or for Isaac? Pamela: For you; only girls wear dresses. Lila: Do you know what boys wear? kilt. Okay, we return to Central Park in San Mateo for the birthday party. Excellent BBQ and a wonderful cake. Isaac and Lila swung all over the rings in the playground.
Saturday 28 August 2004
	Today we drove down to San Mateo to celebrate a birthday. After about a half-hour of walking around without finding our friends I pulled the invitation from our car. Turns out Rose got us here twenty-four hours early :-/ So we head over to La Cumbre, for some tasty Mexican food. Lila really, really, really, really wanted dessert at Mitchell's Ice Cream, San Jose @ 27th Street. Here's Isaac eating his favorite, ube (a Filipino purple yam). We plan on spending some time at our usual Saturday evening haunt, but they're inexplicably closed. No note on the door. So we head out to Ocean Beach, where I'm amazed to see over twenty bonfires. It is the last weekend of the summer, but still... Isaac loved it as much as I did. He remembered when we came to this spot to remember Half Dome.
Friday 27 August 2004
	James "Scotty" Doohan, 84, battling Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and diabetes, will attend a farewell from the fan convention circuit. A three-day event, including a roast, benefiting Alzheimer's research, and featuring an appearance by Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, is set for Saturday night. And in a show of intergalactic unity, so are his sometimes-fractious crew mates: William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (news) (Mr. Spock), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Walter Koenig (Ensign Chekov), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand) and Majel Barrett Roddenberry (Nurse Chapel, as well as creator Gene Roddenberry's widow). The only original cast member to miss the reunion, scheduled for Sunday, is DeForest Kelley, Starfleet's esteemed Dr. McCoy, who died in 1999. At right you see James Doohan with his wife, Wende, at the 2003 TV Land Awards. I like the kilt but I'm not sure what plaid that is. Hmmmm. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI believes Israel has a spy at the very highest level of the Pentagon who may have sought to influence U.S. policy on Iran and Iraq, CBS News reported on Friday. The Israeli embassy immediately denied the report. Attorney Dennis L. Wilson, a founder of Keats McFarland & Wilson (Beverly Hills, California), sent a DCMA complaint to a Swedish BitTorrent web site. Their response, edited for brevity: As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe. Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here. For your information, no Swedish law is being violated. Please be assured that any further contact with us, regardless of medium, will result in a) a suit being filed for harassment b) a formal complaint lodged with the bar of your legal counsel, for sending frivolous legal threats. It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons.
Sunday 22 August 2004
	Uncle Jerry and Aunt Marilyn are visiting from Toronto. The kids have a runny-nose cold sans fever. It's the last day of their stay before everyone is hale enough to sup together. Here we are at Buca di Beppo, near the Moscone Center. The food is good, but the spaghetti dissapoints. (Especially as they describe themselves as southern Italian immigrant cuisine.) Yes, that's Aunt Pamela at right. We continue Lila's third birthday celebration with gifts from the relatives. Here you see Isaac giving advice on the way to open the tie-dye wrapping paper. Bubbe is caught in the middle.
Saturday 21 August 2004
	Once again we join Ed's Huckleberry Hike (1998 and 2000 merit mention). "Dziadziu" - who attended seven years ago - and Sofia join us, but because the kids are still coming off their cold we pass on the daylong hike and go for the potlatch buffet later in the afternoon. Here Ed is passing along the finer points of ice cream making to Rose and Isaac. Just to the left are a half-dozen people cleaning and separating stems from the huckleberries. There must be something about Rose and managers: here Dad jumps in to supervise. I have the best job of all. In the right place at the right time I get to clean off the first of the four ice cream makers. Mmmmm. Oh, nothing like that just-made fresh huckleberry ice cream! Felicia and Adam and Ziggy wanted to celebrate Lila's birthday too. They came in from Alameda to join us at the Kaleo Café. There was some great music, and an elderly couple who did a guest hula. The man's gravelly voice and good humor made for an amazing rendition.
Friday 20 August 2004
	Just below the Randall Museum is a playground, tennis courts, a dog-walking area, and community gardens. Here you see my god-child Natalie, Lila, and Isaac in an action shot of some sort. God-child Kaeli was too fast for me.
Thursday 19 August 2004
	Today's update: just kids playing at home. Lila has been herding her plastic farm and safari animals along the windowsill, making up long and complicated narratives. Isaac has been doing a great job of tidying up. Here he's playing with his HESS gasoline trick / prospecting airplane set. In the foreground are his clay rolling and cutting tools. Then he really bakes.
Saturday 14 August 2004
	We never let the kids use our cell phones (mostly because [a] we're not sure what long-term effect it has and [b] it's not really necessary). But this morning, while we were celebrating at May's Coffee Shop, Omi Marga called. Great-grandmother rank hath its privileges. We continue Lila's birthday celebration in the avenues, at the Kaleo Café. Many Saturday evenings see Hawai'ian ensembles serenading us with song, ukelele, and hula. Here Lila poses in front of Rommel, at the counter. She's chowing down on a brownie he's given to her. I don't really think that's a thumbs-up.
Friday 13 August 2004
	Happy third birthday, Lila!!! We have a birthday celebration for her at the preschool. Her favorite teacher, Juggy, presides. She jumps from the land of two into the land of three. She's proud to tell folks she's three, even prouder than when she announced she was "two and three-quarters." Here she is at our kitchen nook table, opening a few toys. The kids have sniffles, and lots of friends are away at summer vacation, so we'll hold her big party in a few weeks, when all can attend.
Tuesday 10 August 2004
	Á propos nothing at all Isaac's preschool is having a costume parade around the block today. So I finish up my work and head out. Here are the three of us; Rose is taking the photo, of course. Isaac was der fledermaus, since he hasn't heard a thing about the Batman. Lila is wearing Isaac's Thomas the Tank Engine costume of years past, something she's long coveted. Back at the school we pick up Isaac's art. Today he's treating us to a self-portrait. I'm tickled by this drawing. It reminds me of The Yellow Kid, in some fashion.
Wednesday 3 August 2004
	From a sermon in 1910 by Henry Scott Holland, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral and Divinity Professor at Oxford: Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Sunday 1 August 2004
	It's a cool, misty, foggy start to the month of August. We head to Japantown - Nihonmachi - to celebrate the Obon festival by dancing the day away. They gave us scarves and fans, and tee-shirts afterwards. Here are Isaac and Rose, dancing "the baseball song" (I think). Here's a panorama of the Peace Plaza. In the wee platform at left are two dancers who lead the paces. I think most of us just watch the more experienced inner circle of dancers, who are much easier to follow. After a lot of dancing, and a snack of amaguri (roasted chestnut), we head into Mifune for soba and unagi donburi (barbequed eel over rice). The kids get theirs served upon a shinkansen (bullet train), over which Isaac goes gaga. Lila is pleased with the nori tempura (deep-friend seaweed).