Monday, May 15, 2006

Another Unbeatable Weekend

Ah yes, another weekend distinguished by intense experiences and memorialized by intense visuals.  Not including Saturday, I mean.  That’s not to say that we had a bad time with the Paiges when they came over for pizza on Saturday - quite the opposite, it was a very pleasant evening altogether and I really needed the “down time” with good friends.  But we were gearing up for Sunday - Mother’s Day - Kel’s first official one - and after a heavy breakfast of:

* French toast (made with stale bread so it soaks up more custard, and special coconut-milk custard for up-soaking, and then you bake the slices after they’re fried to turn the interior of the toast into ambrosia, and garnish them with banana slices simmered in rum and maple syrup) and
* Bacon (lots of it, which it turns out is okay with Zach), plus
* The obligatory mango-lemonade-seltzer-rum spritzers,

- we (awoke from a semi-intentional nap and) took a drive out to Point Bonita to see the scenery. 

Here’s Kel cruising up that first big headlands hill.  It was, as they say, a “nice day.”

Here’s what it looks like heading down the other side of the hill.  It’s a pretty impressive drop to the ocean; it still kind of freaks me out every time.

Out at Pt Bonita, we strolled over to the edge of the continent, where rocks form a promentory. 

At the end of the promentory is a lighthouse, but it was closed.  It’s reached, when it’s open, through this neighborly iron gate in the face of the cliff. 

Near the lighthouse is a small cluster of buildings.  Two have been restored, but one is still interesting.  Here’s some of what I mean:

Zachary had a delightful time with all of this, but since I was wearing him on my back there are not many photos of him out there.  However, here’s one of him in the kitchen, showing you what it’s like to get facemashed by an euphoric munchkin.  (it’s fun.)

Supper on Mother’s Day was a couple platters of hot steaming cheesesteak sandwiches with home-grilled top round steak and provelone cheese and grilled onions and pickled jalepenos, tater tots with gravy, and cupcakes for dessert.  But, after all that family togetherness, we were really just getting started.

Mother’s day officially culminated on Monday, a day Kel and I both spent at home instead of at work.  Well, “home” is a figure of speech.  We started at Dept 405 of the Unified Family Court at 8:45 a.m., where Judge Hitchens fixed a teensy problemette we’d been having vis-a-vis living in sin.  Yes, even though Kel and I formalized our relationship all legal-like back in the 1980s, we’d been cohabitating without official sanction in a three-person household since Zach came into our lives last August.  But now we sin no more, as this photo amply demonstrates - we’ve completed the adoption process and this family is now 100% legal, like various beagles or eagles one might mention.  Zach was appropriately cute during the brief ceremony and he scored a teddy bear from the bailiff.  Afterwards we took him home and he napped, and then we went out for a celebratory lunch at Delessio Cafe and Market, where I ordered so much food that the proprietor came over and made a comment to me about “eating for two.” It wasn’t funny, so I ate him.  And then I had two desserts - tres leches (best I’ve ever had) and brazilian french toast (which is so unutterably good that I am not even going to mess with trying to describe it to you). 

Once we got back home I took a nap (or it took me, more like it) and the rest of my day was calm and relaxing.  That should give me a nice head of steam for the remainder of this work week.  I’ll be back in a day or so with an essay or something.  Right now it’s probably time to finish my beer, load some more old live dead into the ‘pod, and get my bearings.  For a weekend with a lot of down time, I sure feel like a lot has happened.