Anaranjado

An ode to orange.

For no particular reason, I've been really into it for the last year or so. It started with a shirt I've had forever but only recently discovered, if you know what I mean. Then it branched out into a new sweater, running shoes, a gargantuan spatula from the kitchen store at COPIA (specifically for flipping quesadillas, FYI), and now a stripey summer bedspread.

Even my business card for the literary magazine I'm helping a friend launch—more on that soon—will be the right shade of orange, and I didn't even have to ask. Our designer randomly assigned it to me. Sometimes things just work out.

One of my necklaces stolen in June was a beautiful oval carnelian that I found on my last trip to the homestead. I'm on a semi-vigilant quest to replace it.

Orange!

When I worked at UC Press, we published an elegant book of Pablo Neruda's odes. He didn't write one for orange, sadly, but he did manage to honor pretty much everything else you can think up. By way of sendoff, here's an excerpt from one of my favorites, Neruda's "Ode to My Socks":

Audacious socks,
my feet became
two woolen
fish,
two long sharks
of lapis blue
shot
with a golden thread,
two mammoth blackbirds,
two cannons,
thus honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks.

Quick on the uptake

It was a lucky thrift store weekend. The planets were aligned, etc. It's fun when that happens, and blissfully cheap.

My best finds were a pair of comfy brown cords and a gym shirt that says: L.A. Face with an Oakland Booty. I know it'll help me run faster.

Told a clever gent I know about my new getup, and he shot back: "On the back in small print, it should say 'And New England manners.' "

I guess one t-shirt doesn't really have the power to transform a half-British, academic, smalltown upbringing into urban street cred. But you can't blame a girl for trying.

if you know what i'm sayin'. and i think you do.

For shame

Once I read something I like by a particular author, my usual pattern is to go pick up everything else he's written/edited/contributed to/spat on/sat near. Since I almost never buy new books, the process of slowly finding the right edition of each title by each writer is a pleasure in itself.

Acquiring the complete works of contemporary authors is a little easier, since they haven't had as much time to churn out manuscripts (notable exceptions: Philip Roth and John Updike, who apparently run on equal parts Red Bull and blood). The old guard, like Austen and James and Nabokov, take more patience and luck.

For the most part, this turns out fine. Even when I don't love everything by a given writer, I tend to like enough of it to make the effort worthwhile. But every so often, I find myself collecting novels I consistently dislike by a writer who only interested me moderately in the first place.

Annie Ernaux is one of the few in that category. On a friend's recommendation a few years ago, I picked up A Man's Place and A Woman's Story, and they were meaningful enough for me to appreciate what she enjoyed about them. Then I read Simple Passion, and it had a few powerful moments. Ernaux's pieces are very short, so by the time I realized I wasn't especially moved by her style, the book was over.

Even so, I kept her name on my mental short list. It stuck around for one of those inexplicable, aren't-brains-the-darnedest-things? reasons. So, when I came across "I Remain in Darkness," I bought it. The superfluous quote marks should have tipped me off. I don't remember a thing about it except it was depressing as all get-out and I was glad when it ended.

Then, the other day, I came across a copy of Shame, Ernaux's autobiographical tale of a traumatic moment in her childhood. It was five bucks, so I added it to the pile.

It's precious, rambling, and self-indulgent. She employs a heavy-handed italicizing technique when she simply must show you that something right here is extremely important—and despite clocking in at barely 111 pages, the book needs a good edit.

Anyway, I'm writing this down so the next time her name pops up on the shelf, I'll remember that owning an author's complete works is only worth it if the goods are solid platinum. None of that mixed copper shite that turns your eyes green.

House of mirrors

So, I've been spending kind of an unhealthy amount of time playing with the Photo Booth program on my new Mac. Trust me, it's addictive.

There's a little camera built into the top of the screen border. The images are decent quality and come in a handy compact file size, ideal for uploading and emailing. But the best part—by leaps and bounds—is the special effects.

How special? This special:

whoooooooooa

That's the "Light Tunnel" option. Here's "Mirror Image":

i wish i had an evil twin

Here's the blindingly attractive "Swirl" option:

what you lookin' at, punk?

For all you Warholics, here's some "Pop Art":

eat your heart out, liz.

Behold! The lovely and mysterious "Glow" option, with "Colored Pencil" and "Thermal" nipping at its heels:

the ghost of macintosh future

in case you missed my senior-year portrait

this one is kind of creepy, actually

Too prettified for your taste? Okay, try these ("Bulge," "Dent," and "Stretch"):

bwahahahahahaha!

when i'm not editing, i moonlight as jay leno's 400-pound aunt

or yul brenner's aunt. whichever.

But I think my two favorite options are the ever popular "Fisheye":

hello.

And, of course, good ol' black-and-white. You can't trust anything else for that unbeatable up-the-nose look:

i disdain you. and you. and you there.

Wasn't that fun? It sure was for me. Next up: Programs where you can design your own cartoon, write your own song, and star in your own movie. They all come built into this magic little machine. Macs rule!

Today's moral: Advanced photo technology feeds the narcisissm beast. Just like, you know, blogs.

Punctured

I tried acupuncture for the first time a few days ago. Not for any critical ailment, other than the usual shoulder and backaches that come along with reading all day for a living . . . just for general well-being and out of curiosity.

As a huge fan of massage, I'm familiar with the concept of pressure points and how various seemingly unconnected parts of the body (like your feet and belly) can have a deep impact on each other. But I didn't know that traditional Chinese medicine says you can feel the pulse of your liver, stomach, spleen, and both kidneys in your wrists—plus your heart, of course. Pretty cool. I also learned that acupuncture is intended to address a wider range of health issues than I imagined, like skin, digestion, and circulation problems.

Because I had no specific expectation of how it would feel or how it might affect different aspects of my health, it was easy to go into the session with an open mind. Amber, the practitioner who treated me, is a friendly and warm woman around my age. We'd met a few times through a mutual friend, and she seemed passionate but relaxed about her work. I've been meaning to give acupuncture a try for a while, since several friends swear by it, and I'm generally interested in alternative healing methods. Don't get me wrong, I love antibiotics and the painkiller aisle at Walgreens, but homeopathy and herbal remedies often serve me well instead.

It's hard to describe how it feels to have miniature needles stuck into strategic locations all over you for about 25 minutes. I expect it varies for everyone. In my case, it just felt neat. My body's reactions to it were palpable and really interesting to track.

For this first session, Amber gave me a balancing treatment, with needles in my right ear and both wrists, ankles, and calves. I couldn't feel the needles themselves—they're tiny and caused no pain—but I could feel my blood moving around in all kinds of brisk and unusual ways.

My muscles also responded by tensing and relaxing at different moments. My ears felt warm, and my feet got cold (Amber wisely pointed a heat lamp at them before the session). Toward the end, I fell asleep for a few minutes and had an intense dream. All I remember is that I was rushing toward something in my car, and I woke up with a start.

I didn't expect to feel like a whole new person afterward—any course of physical treatment takes time to show results—but I felt enough of something to decide that acupuncture is worth trying out. I'll let you know if the effects change over time.

The mortals wear asics

I saw The Devil Wears Prada last night. The whole fashion scene tends to gross me out, but this movie made me covet handbags and strappy heels.

Although I've never been able to wrap my head around the idea that anyone can justify spending $1,000 or more on a single designer accessory or shirt or whatever. I mean . . . a thousand dollars? Think of where you could travel with that money. Or how many meals it would buy. Or used cars. It's wild. Plus, if I actually owned something that expensive, I'd be completely paranoid about wearing it. But I guess it's no big deal if you do it all the time.

Different universe, man. I spent $90 on my biannual pair of running shoes (not on sale, gasp!) this afternoon and felt very decadent. Like buying my feet a daily Swedish massage.

Then I took a good long run in the old pair by way of farewell. If rank smelliness is an indicator of gratitude, they obviously appreciated the gesture.

mine are orange. hooray!

Tonight's discovery

They also took a 3/4 full bottle of Bombay Sapphire. At least they have good taste, I guess.

But I don't know whether to list the gin and the gum on my insurance claim. I suspect I'd feel a little silly.

Didn't I have four eggs left? Now there are only three . . . bastards.

4 out of 5 criminals prefer Trident

Funny postscript to yesterday's entry:

I went to get some gum from my stash in the cabinet this morning, and discovered that's the one thing last week's visitors deemed worthy of lifting from my kitchen. Five new packs of Trident.

It is the best gum ever, but still. Probably not going for much above retail value on the black market these days.

Space invaders

Hollywood has the first part down: You can sense right away that something is off.

The front door was unlocked, and the second I turned the handle, I felt weird. Even beyond knowing that I always lock the door. It opens into my living room, which looked perfectly normal—except for the air mattress case leaning up against the couch. Racked my brain to think of a reason why. My brother and a couple of friends have keys to the apartment. Did one of them stop by? They live in Seattle and on the East Coast, respectively.

"Hello? Anybody here?" No answer.

Looked left and saw towels and sheets from my downstairs closet strewn on the stairs. Okay. Now I know. I've been robbed. Stepped into the living room—my stereo is still there. My DVD player. All my CDs. The little photo cabinet under my plant has a drawer open, and sitting on top of it is an old camera case with a cheap plastic drugstore 35mm still inside.

Glanced in the kitchen—the cabinet above the stove is open, but nothing is missing. Random check of the other cabinets. No disturbance. The beautiful dark blue serving plate is in its usual stand next to the wine racks; the delicate glass vase D&D brought me from Malta sits untouched on the shelf.

Was there just a really strong gust of wind that knocked a few things out of place? Did somebody break in, look around, and not take anything? A bizarre moment of feeling vaguely insulted. Come on . . . I have some pretty nice stuff.

Up the stairs. Turned the corner, still carrying my dry cleaning and work bag. I don't remember dropping them on the floor, or dropping my keys behind a bookcase somehow, but I did. OH. My. God.

My bedroom is trashed. Entirely trashed. It's hard to explain how it looks. Like a tornado went through, I guess. Or a hyperactive kid with a sweet tooth and a short temper, searching for the hidden cookie you promised. My laptop is gone, of course, torn from its tangle of wires and connectors. So's the mouse, but not the keyboard or hard drive. Too bulky?

There are papers and clothes spilling off the desk and out of the closet, thickly carpeting the floor next to the bed. The bottom rows of both tall white bookcases are partially overturned, Winterson mixing with Tanizaki, and some of my cheap paperbacks have been flung off the small bookcase, newsprint pages slipping out of their covers. Les Misérables, Hocus Pocus, The Oath.

The bed is covered with empty jewelry boxes, brushes and combs, my camera case. But there's my camera! Another moment of mystification: Why leave the nice Pentax, the two extra rolls of black-and-white film? The cop tells me later that's perfectly normal. "They're just taking computers and jewelry these days," she says. "High-end electronics. If you had a flat-screen TV, they mighta taken that." Yet another reason to feel justified for not going digital yet.

Taking the mess in with your eyes is one thing, into your head another. I just keep imagining who the person was, what he was thinking. The ladder he used to climb in my upstairs window was left askew in the yard. Turns out it doesn't even belong to my landlady. The cop said the thief (or thieves) spent 10 minutes or so in the house, a long time by burglary standards.

The next day, the fingerprinting cop tells me about a guy whose life savings were stolen. $20,000 in cash. A Mexican immigrant with no bank account, so despondent about his loss that his young son was the only one who spoke with the police when they came. The father sat in the corner and wept. Then she tells me about a burglar who broke into a couple of apartments, drank a bottle of Manischewitz and a bottle of 150-proof rum, then threw up in two different rooms.

It's the first time I feel lucky; I'll feel that way many times over the next several days. The initial shock is bad, but it fades slowly overnight. I can't start cleaning up before the police take their report, so I go visit some friends. We drink a bottle of wine and joke about how their place and mine look the same now—they're in a packing frenzy, moving cross-country two days later. Another friend comes by later, waiting up with me patiently until the police finally arrive at 12:30 a.m.

I take the next day off to clean up. It's exhausting but suprisingly quick, methodical refolding and reordering, reminding me how much I still have left and how everything has its place in this comfortable me-sized nest. Looking at the empty boxes and remembering when Grandma gave me those earrings . . . which great-aunt found that ring in her antiques shop in Derbyshire . . . what year it was when I shamlessly annexed that great red necklace from Mom.

Here's what they didn't take:

1. My books
2. My albums
3. My photographs
4. My clothes
5. My journals
6. My (first ever) new set of dishes
7. My camera
8. My camping gear
9. My art
10. My optimism

I love California. I love my neighborhood. I put a new lock on the front door for peace of mind. Switched my bank account. Put a fraud alert on my credit.

As soon as I'm done filling out the insurance paperwork, I'll be getting back to business as usual.

Organic scrilla

The closest grocery store to my place is a Whole Foods. But since I have rent to pay and no diamonds to hock, I almost never shop there, except when I need a refill on good olive oil or I'm in the mood for a stroll and some foodie window-shopping.

Tonight my list included oil, salad greens, and an apparently mind-blowingly delicious blend of rice and other grains that each of my parents recommended in separate phone calls over the weekend. It comes in a plastic container with a lid and includes wheatberries. "They have it at Whole Foods," my dad assured me.

The thing about Whole Foods is that it's so clean and colorful and friendly, it makes you want to snatch up everything in the store, even when you know it's $7 a pound less at the normal market around the corner.

Aside from being numbingly expensive and tantalizingly pretty, my neighborhood Whole Foods also has the cheeriest, perkiest, gayest staff ever. The guy who helped me look for the rice was practically sashaying through the aisles. It was awesome.

Here's what I bought:

1. Bariani extra-virgin olive oil
2. Square bucket-like thing filled with "organic spring mix"
3. One orange bell pepper
4. Box of ginger tea
5. One cocktail avocado. Yes, you heard that right.
6. Organic chocolate truffles

I spent 45 minutes there and left $52.89 poorer with my little bag of stuff. They couldn't find the rice—Fred Astaire said it must be a "regional buy" available only on the East Coast—but I felt so fancy it didn't matter.

Also it was the best avocado I've ever tasted.

Fiat lux

Commonly cited in biblical and academic circles as "let there be light," fiat lux apparently translates more accurately as "let light be made."

But either way, it only means one thing to me this week:

I have a window.

The kind that looks out over the Alameda harbor, frames the occasional tree branch waving in the breeze, knocks nasty fluorescent overheads into a blessed state of cobwebby disuse. The kind that's most often politically won in the corporate world, but this time came my lucky way from a generous coworker who prefers her shades drawn. Or, rather, that there aren't even any shades to draw.

It's an unsurprising professional hazard that I read all the time. Which isn't the worst way to make a living, really. But since every single person in my family—parents, brother, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, the whole tribe—wears glasses except me, I've long since accepted it's only a matter of time until my first trip to Lenscrafters.

Still. It hasn't happened yet, so I may as well do my best to prolong the inevitable. My rods and cones have been kicking along with no help for going on 30 years now, and the most I've ever done to thank them is try to break my habit of reading at home in low light as the sun sets. Unsuccessfully, I should say.

Until this here window.

A hallmate and I were chatting one day about our office setups. I'd been feeling lethargic, and she'd been feeling distracted. All those people going by all day watching me, she said. And the glare. My eyes are tired, I said, and I can't concentrate. My brain is moving too slowly.

The perfect thing, we both said: A switch! Let's switch.

Requests were made, memos sent, boxes packed for union members to move several long yards. Pictures were hung, semi-ergonomic chairs were tucked into place. Shades were opened.

And it was...wicked good.

Lazy, hazy

It's not that I've overcome my blogging addiction. It's just so ridiculously nice outside, it feels criminal to spend any more time in front of my computer than I already do for work.

But here's a little story for you, so you know I still care. BB King, in all his 80 years of axe-wailing glory, played the Santa Cruz Blues Festival last weekend. They may have to prop him up in a chair, but he still rocks the house like nobody else.

yeah, baby

Between songs, BB taught the crowd a couple of key lessons about human relations. For your blues edumacation, here they are:

1. Women are not to be trusted.
2. But we should be valued above all else.

Summertime summertime sum-sum-summertime. Summerti-i-i-i-ime.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

You all know how I feel about Orlando by now, so no need to get into that again.

Let's move on to Chapel Hill, where I spent a relaxing long weekend visiting my sweet friend Kate and her family, including Lila the Wonder Baby.


There's more where that came from. No, really, I took a ridiculous number of pictures. Can you blame me? If you're as big a fan of the short set as I am, feel free to skip all the bothersome words in this post and just scroll on down for more adorableness.

In addition to being beautiful and brilliant and the future leader of the free world, Lila is a champion napper. Every couple of hours, she rubs her eyes and scowls and lets her folks know she's ready for a snack and a little rest. That seemed like a wise plan to the rest of us as well.

Rediscovery: Naps are the best. Give me more, please.

Between siestas and meals, we went for a stroll through the botanical gardens, where they breed giant chess pieces:


The designs on those particular pieces happen to have been etched by Kate's husband's ex-wife. How about that?

Across the way from the chessboard, we saw some pretty water lilies:


And a huge tree with enormous flowers, like so:


But enough with all the crap about foliage. Isn't she the cutest?


I love how she's already mastered the classic liberal look of deep, deep concern at the state of the world around her. Just wait until the next election, kiddo.

Another great college friend, Erica, drove down from Asheville to meet up with us on Sunday—giving Lila a double dose of auntie devotion:



But nothing can top the squeezes she gets from her momma:


And remember, it's never too early to train the youngsters to represent:


Oaktown in the crib, yo. Mad love to the NC.

Now where's that patch of sunshine for my next nap?

Return to the seventh circle

I'm in Florida. Again. There's really nothing more to say.

Except the shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel took an hour and a half for some reason, and the only reasons I didn't go insane were 1) deliriously tired; 2) sharing my seat with a pint-sized elderly woman who was beside herself with excitement about the enormous, glorified strip mall that passes for Orlando's downtown.

She kept pinching her even elderlier husband on the arm and saying things like, "Look, Jim, they have a waffle house! Look, a Black Angus Steak House! Only $9.99 for steak and seafood? That's so cheap!" Then she turned to me and said, "Isn't this exciting? There's so much to see!"

She totally wasn't kidding.

The thing is . . . what do old people do at Disney World? I'm genuinely wondering.

Stepping toward justice

My big bro (aka The Good Lawyer) has spent the last few months working with the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL) to author and publish a report about the treatment of juvenile detainees during and after Hurricane Katrina. I recently had a chance to read the report, and the experiences described by these kids are truly horrifying.

Many of these teenagers, including two pregnant girls, went for days without food, water, and medical attention. They suffered tremendous physical pain and psychological trauma. The report, mostly in their own words, is a disturbing and powerful call to action. It leaves no doubt that Louisiana's juvenile justice system was in dire straits before this natural disaster, and the state's incompetence during the hurricane exponentially worsened Katrina's impact on these already underserved youth.

The one upside is that the report was released to the public yesterday and has begun to garner national attention for the deep-rooted and pervasive problems with the state's justice system. If any good comes from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, it will lie in the public spotlight and resulting outrage that will—if there is any justice—force city and state officials to take action.

Thanks and kudos to my brother and his colleagues at JJPL for their efforts on behalf on the children and young adults of Louisiana.

Read more about the report, “Treated Like Trash: Juvenile Detention in New Orleans Before, During and After Hurricane Katrina,” in The New York Times and New Orleans CityBusiness. The story has also been picked up by the wire and is appearing in other newspapers across the country.

Scenes from an edible garden

Ladies and gentleman, I'm very happy to report the Semiotician has returned safely from her international adventure and is paying all her California fans a visit.

But since she's grown accustomed to the Euro lifestyle, we took a trip to Napa so she could pretend she was still over there. (I also had some tickets to Copia that were about to expire. Free stuff is a powerful motivator.)

Despite its potential for total cheesiness, it turns out Copia is a great place to spend the afternoon. They have some modest but interesting exhibits about wine history, a display of groovy eco-friendly art, and a creative restaurant. But my favorite part was exploring the pretty and tasty Edible Gardens next to the main building.

I had color film in my camera for once, so here's a little tour:

garden sculpture

self-portrait with chard

wild cherries

a pomelo in hand . . .

garden sculpture encore

the ultimate almond

still life with pomelo, text, leafy green

canopy joints

the other kind of flower

chard parade

which country are we in again?

Then we wandered to the next town over for our promised "decadent but unstuffy" dinner. Props to Martini House for the private deck seating and the wild mushroom tasting menu—but that's not their logo above. I was trying to take a picture of the cool silver wheelie thing in the shop window, but there was just so much sunshine, it didn't work out.

Here's to unintentional portraits of ladies on the move—

I'm with the band

A while back, I clued you guys in to the sort of thing I read for a living. This week brought another doozy: 86 pages of instructions for installing an evaluation version of one of our products, written by a guy in Germany who, so far as I can tell, never sleeps.

I'll spare you too many stories of how this resulted in sentences like, "In the case that you are having to transfer the files to the driver that you are not having, for sure you need to locate the document onto the other server of the CD that you came in."

Let's pretend neither of us ever had to read that.

But we can definitely talk about how many terms used in this beast of a document sounded like sweet new band names:*

• Static Librarian
• MAD Plugin
• Boot Scenario (albums: Flashing the Bootloader, Boot Project)
• Second Skin
• Radio Button (albums: Skins Button, Needles Button)
• The Prebuilds
• Power Cycle (album: Out/Off)
• Image Project
• Hot Plug and Play
• Pin1
• Core Dump Connection
• Command Shell
• Flash Bank (album: Bad Block Management)
• Speedbar

Tell me you can't imagine at least a few of those plastered on telephone poles in your downtown. Tonight! Static Librarian opens for Second Skin and The Prebuilds.

And believe me when I say that entertaining myself like this is how I got through pages 2 to 86.


* No words were altered or harmed in the creation of this list.

Jargon triage

I've been thinking lately about the gradual death of the word "album." And how high-tech might wind up being strangely responsible for its comeback.

When I was a kid, everybody had records—there are a few stragglers left next to my stereo now, and most of the musicians I know still collect vinyl—but it's probably been 15 years since I've called anything round that holds music a "record." Nobody ever really called tapes "tapes" too often ("album" usually won out), except in the early hip-hip and electronica scenes, where underground mix tapes and DJ demo tapes helped spawn new stars.

But starting in the late 1990s (a little too late to help tapes much), it seemed like folks began talking about albums in terms of media, rather than content: You went to buy a CD or buy vinyl, not an album. When I worked at Rasputin in 1998, customers would ask for "the new Garth Brooks CD" or, more often around here, "Do you have Lauryn on vinyl?"

Artists talked about recording CDs or discs, and the staff at Rasputin compared the size of their CD collections. One manager had more than 800, with his favorites stored in a rotating, programmable 250-CD changer. Sort of like the iPod of stereos.

Then came digital music. Most of us have actual iPods now, and even though we download music at staggering rates, I've never heard anyone say he just got the latest Kanye download or MP3 file. Instead, he downloaded the latest Kanye album. My guess is that "MP3" and "download" (as a noun) both sound too much like an impersonal technology, and not enough like a song, for us to embrace it as musical language.

So, we're back to our good old universal signifier. "Album" is the only word we have that can refer to any form of media we manage to dream up: 8-tracks, records, tapes, CDs, mini-discs, MP3s, MP4s. Every collection of music in any one of those formats is an album.

Vinyl and tapes may already be collector's items, and CDs well on the way there—and good luck doing anything with those dusty 8-tracks in your parents' basement—but albums, thankfully, will always be albums.

1550 kinds of yummy

Caveat emptor: I'm not a professional gastronomist or even a seasoned amateur like this lady or this gent. And yes, I'm still a vegetarian. Even so, I feel this burning need to review the amazing meal I got lucky enough to eat recently at 1550 Hyde, a classy neighborhood spot in San Francisco that's now at the top of my semi-splurge list.

Every great dinner starts with great company, of course, so hats off to the ever entertaining A. Nomad and Miss C. Mobtown, who gets extra credit for wearing her new spring shoes in the pouring rain. If you believe hard enough, girl, it'll come sooner.

On to the food. After deciding to pass on their tempting prix fixe menu (including a seasonal maple tart) and California wine flight, I started with the arugula salad with Meyer lemon vinaigrette, pine nuts, and shaved pecorino—just the fresh taste I needed after braving the apocalyptic weather. A little salty, but I'm pretty sure that's more the fault of my palate than the dish. The other ladies started with the green garlic soup and praised it to the skies.

There was only one vegetarian entrée (and a pasta that could probably have been tailored), but I can't really argue with green garlic polenta with snap peas, asparagus, and parmesan. It was light, simple, flavorful, delicious. Wouldn't change a thing. A. had the hangar steak with cranberry compote (after rejecting the heritage red wattle pork shoulder because "certain words just don't make you want to eat something"), and C. had a gently prepared kind of fish whose name escapes me right now. RIP, anonymous fishie. It was a beautiful way to go.

C. suggested we might be too full for dessert—until we saw the cheese menu. They had an Abbaye de Belloc that would have been criminal to skip. Then our cheerful waiter made a lucky error on the ordering machine, and we wound up with a sampler plate of all three cheeses: Humboldt Fog, the Abbaye, and potatoes in...um...a melty thing. Raclette? [Dilettante food writer slaps own wrist.] Whatever it was, we ate it all up until there was none left.

And we drank wine. Left the choice to C. and her Italian roots this time—since she also picked the restaurant for us, clever boots—but I can vouch that the California and French lists looked equally good. Three cheers for the 2002 Rosso di Montalcino "La Palazzetta." A. had the California flight, but I couldn't read over her shoulder from across the table, so she'll have to enlighten you on that another time.

A picture of this feast should go next to the word "feast" in the dictionary, and it didn't even come close to bankrupting us. In the BCB's book, it gets a bucket of stars.

Driving Mr. Gibson

You don't have to tell me. I know.

There you were, with bated breath, just waiting and waiting to see what I was going to name my car. And I dropped the ball. I did not deliver.

Forgive me. Ahem.

Introducing . . . the new terror of the open road, the green golfer, the one and only green dragon, the green jellybean, the lean mean speedy green vaseline where-have-you-been machine:

Gibson.

No, not the actor.

Like, the guitars. What do you take me for?

You also don't have to tell me he's the cutest li'l thing ever to rock a 1.8 turbo engine.

Hee hee. Mine.