Hello, guys, I'm back to the regular posting till the next vacation.

San Francisco, Puccini & Pinetti restaurant, we went for lunch. Too early for wine, they have (yummy!) non-alcohol cocktails. The food was very good. And pricy. Mr Again had chicken, I had eggplant with non-sour marinara sauce. Usually the sauce is yucky, not in this place.

This restaurant is close to the down-town, BART, cable car on Ellis @ Cyril Magnin. Very friendly service. Just don't order Tiramisu, it was the worst ever. Salads, entrees are wonderful!

Also saw "Absolutely San Francisco" musical... don't waste your money! Not even 1/2 price tickets! First time saw people leaving in the middle of the play.

Are you familiar with the word "gesneriads"? Webster says it's african violets. Very small but interesting flower exhibit in the Golden Gate park.

There was also "love parade" didn't see it, only some participants... and Market street was closed. Looked like Haight-Ashbury invaded down-town

And stayed at home instead of checking out the toy exhibit to write up 2 Chicago reports.

Sounds like you had a busy weekend Faina!

My weekend was quiet. I worked a few hours, picked up some fruit and pumpkins at the Farmer's Market, took my daughter to watch our local university's women soccer team win a game on Saturday afternoon. And that was about it.

My husband helped a friend work on a fence; the project morphed into a bigger project and the two hours it was supposed to take turned into all day Sunday.

Well, my weekend wasn't as busy as Faina's! (Great Chicago report, BTW!)

Friday was very low key after a wild night at the Eric Clapton concert on Thursday. 8-)

Ran all over the place on Saturday doing errands, visiting friends. One friend had a jewelry booth at a local Pagan Pride Festival so I stopped by to say hi just in time to see some Christian protestors get arrested. Apparently, they were up on a hill behind the event screaming bible verses to all the people there - all without a permit, which is why they were arrested. It is just me, or don't you think they would have better luck 'converting' people by setting a positive example instead of being loud and obnoxious unwelcome guests?? Just my 2 cents...

After that excitement, I came home just in time for a severe storm and tornado sirens blaring. A tornado touched down about 15 min. away from my house - a little too close for comfort!!

Sunday was a day of trip planning, bill paying, laundry, pup walking, biking, and food making. Boring, but nice.

We went to Chicago for our 25th Wedding anniversary.

Stayed at a Bucktown B&B. Loved Bucktown, refurbished area with lots of nice people.
Two nice dinners with great wine, and a visit to The Shedd.

Came home to watch my team win!!

It was a good weekend.

This weekend we traveled across town for dinner at a restaurant we hadn’t yet tried but one that Kal may have been to, well, I know he has been next door at least. Anyway the parking lot was full except for the open space right next to the front door. Whoo hoo it’s going to be a great dinner, right? Not exactly. We had 8:30 reservations and the restaurant was a bit less than ½ full. The hostess led us to the first table inside the restaurant. This means that everyone coming in or going out including the help and anyone on the Terrace would pass by our table. Additionally the speakers were right above our heads and the music was turned way up. We couldn’t even hear each other. I looked around at all the empty tables and wondered how many more people would be coming in. Why would the hostess seat anyone here unless there was no other choice? Are they not instructed to seat each party at the best possible table? When our server arrived she immediately noticed the noise level and asked us about it. We wondered if it would be possible to move and she said she would get the hostess right on that. A few minutes later they seated us in one of the better tables in the house. Odd. Our new server was nice and took our drink orders, told us one of the specials was sold out (8:30?) and returned with our drinks. Our salad course was delivered and each was quite delicious. Things are really looking up. The salads were quite large and could easily have been shared. Maybe they are large because you need fortification because our server came by multiple times after our salad plates had been removed to say our main course would be right out. Finally it arrived. My fish dinner appeared very strange to me. Though the skin side was up it was quite curled and tiny. I turned it over and there was very little meat on the other side. What was there was so tough I could not cut it with a steak knife – I kid you not. I worked my knife and fork together to tear a piece so I could taste it. The flavor was good but the fish was clearly over cooked. When our server came by to see how things were I told her that it had been awhile since I had eaten this particular fish so could she tell me if it should take this much effort to cut it. She agreed that it was improperly prepared and asked if she could bring me something else. I felt that another entrée would come after my DH was finished so I declined and said I’d just eat the vegetables and potatoes. After our entrée dishes were removed our server arrived with the dessert menu and made a recommendation when we asked. DH ordered that and we ordered decaf with cream and sugar. The coffee came along with every kind of sugar and sugar substitute you could want; just not enough actual sugar for 2 people. The cream pitcher had, I kid you not, 2 drops of cream. We had been talking to another server who was really friendly to us so we asked her for more cream and she immediately brought us another little pitcher with cream in it. At this point DH and I got a case of the giggles. It was the kind of night you feel like will never turn around. The desserts were delivered and DH ate a few bites of the recommended dessert. It was too dry to finish. Mine was fine – not terrific but good enough. The entire meal was amateurish. Shocking for the price. They did not charge me for my meal but the bill was still over $90.00. We may give it another try as we have a second gift certificate for this place.

We traveled back to our house making note of the cheaper gas prices. We should have stopped to get some gas as I am on empty today. Hope your weekend travels were better!

Ran, ate, drank, slept, went to the beach.

No lie.

Not good. More bad news and yet I did get to see my Grandson's football game as it was close to home for a couple of hours.

2006 is continuing as it started. My brother is going back to Iraq in December for a year and my Dad refuses to move. I hope I see MI in October.

But no need to reply. I am sincerely enjoying others escapades.

Not to be rude but you must have come on an off night. I just saw "Absolutely San Francisco" and thought it was marvelous. The theater itself is a bit funky and odd (the ventilation leaves much to be desired,) but the show was energetic, sentimental and quite charming. As to your audience experience, I will say this: in my many trips to San Francisco, I have enjoyed different theatrical events, and the audiences here tend to be quite rude -- walking out for inexplicable reasons, flashing photos, talking, etc. This show is more in the off-off-Broadway or fringe vein -- very sincere and a bit rough around the edges, but by no means the sort of pedantic, off-putting screed that many tiny theater companies fob off as "art." And, if you had taken a look, the music is all completely original, not half-thought out parodies like "Beach Blanket Babylon" or "Menopause: The Musical."