9.11.2005

Restaurants and Retreats

The powers that be have finally placed a good ph0 restaurant near my house! Yeah! It used to be a fried chicken establishment, so the new owners--in a creative act of resourcefulness--decided to add a bunch of crackly-skinned fowl goodies to their set menu items. The place in question is Happy Day on W00dside.

Once we get Korean and Ethiopian restaurants, I'll never again need to cross city limits. I might as well be on rails, so circumscribed are my ways and paths, so well does our beloved Deadwood provide for my needs.

We almost didn't go out for dinner, as I was a grumpyfuck. However Seymour had been looking forward to ph0 all day and I couldn't say no--more than two or three times. I am glad he talked me into going as the food was both wonderful and wonderfully soothing. I look forward to sucking down big local steaming bowls of broth as the days get shorter, colder, and grayer.

Not with Leelo, though. At 4 1/2 and 45+ lbs, he's really too big for a restaurant high chair. Once released from the calming confines that have made him a dining-out sweetheart for years, and allowed to sit on a booth seat with Mommy blocking his escape, he was a wild man who had no interest in eating. He spent the entire meal flailing and shrieking and otherwise making our meal unpleasant. Big sigh. We will confine ourselves to large loud family-friendly places at off hours until such time as he can control himself a bit better.

We will also keep taking him to the Heritage Gr0ve near La H0nda. I drag our whole brood out there any time I can--no matter what time of year, it is always almost deserted, and I am instantly filled with calmness the moment I step from the car. Kids love the short 1/4 mile path with its creek, two clonkity-clonk semi-elastic wooden bridges, and some of the world's tallest trees. See if you can spot Iz in the photo below.



Also I never did do a post about our restful, lovely anniversary trip to P0int Reyes. With Mali. Who was the bestest baby in the whole world and didn't make a peep through our entire eight mile round trip hike to T0males Point. Here is what she did most of the time:



She never even woke up or complained on account of our forgetting to change her out of her overnighter diaper, which got so pee-saturated that it soaked right through her clothes by the hike's end. The parents of the year strike again.

And here is what we saw, about three miles in. Elk elk elk! The males were whistling and posturing and strutting around with racks so large that even I felt under-endowed. Seymour and I particularly liked it when the biggest male decided that streamers of pond scum made his headgear look even more menacing.



I must also put in a good word for the P0int Reyes bird observatory, just north of Bolinas (a town whose charm I failed to fathom. Perhaps it helps to know someone who lives there). The observatory has lovely little exhibits, plus the researchers let you follow them around as they gather birds from their mist nets for banding and recording. The researchers we met were patient and kind with endless kid questions. They take down the nets at noon, so go before then.

Next time we are in a restaurant with Leelo, I will mentally transport myself to La H0nda, T0males Point, or the observatory.

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