“Elders!” I shouted as we drove to the ferry this morning, passing a two young men on bicycles adhering to the Mormon Elder dress code.
For context, I do this all the time when SHB is driving. I point out items of interest like a little kid, particularly focusing on cops, squirrels, kitties, geese, and ducks. Elders rated a shout-out.
“But not Lovecraftian Elders. That would be different,” SHB replied.
“You don’t know. It might be exactly the same.” I like being contrarian.
“No, really. ‘Have you heard the good news about BLARRGLEBLARGHHH?’”
This is the part where I laughed so hard I snorted.
We missed the ferry by a few minutes, alas. It seemed like everyone in Alameda decided to have a garage sale today, and that slowed us down getting to the boat. So we headed over to BART instead to keep our lunch date in SF. Luckily we had a few minutes to spare, and there was time to briefly hit the farmers market at the Ferry Building for a few things. It’s organic blueberry season! Hoo-freaking-rah, because the blueberry jam we made last year has been dwindling and it’s definitely time for some more. The new batch of jam we made up this afternoon is cooling in post-processed jars as I write this.
We also bought a bunch of Rancho Gordo beans. I have a weird relationship with beans, kind of like the relationship with an irritating but productive coworker. I really try to like them, but I have the most difficult time keeping it up. We’re trying heirloom beans to see if I like those any better then the gross squishy limas I remember from various elementary school meals. We never really ate beans when I was small, so I’m trying to learn to like them now. Harder than it should be to overcome some unsettling weird texture aversion, but like I said I’m working through it.
Lunch was lovely and relatively bean-free: Yank-Sing to celebrate KLC’s birthday. We joked and caught up and snarked, all the while stuffing ourselves on delicious dimsum. Great fun all around, with at least some of the barbs being loosed on Transformers 3. Which reminds me…
Last night, we kept up our anniversary tradition of watching whatever the biggest blockbuster movie is to come out over 4 July weekend with a showing of Transformers 3 at the Alameda Theater. The Alameda Theater is an old art deco venue, built in 1932 by the same architect who built the Castro Theater in SF. It has been beautifully restored and has been open for a few years. The original historic theater tends to show the big movie releases of the moment, while the attached cineplex offers more variety. Even though the historic theater has an awesome mezzanine and balcony, these are rarely open unless a movie sells out… or if you have a special event. I wanted to sit in the balcony with friends. We went with the traditional “little kid birthday package” complete with cokes and skittles. Lots of friends came out to suffer through the movie with us, including a few whom we don’t see nearly as much as we should.
You know those friends that you’re utterly comfortable with but just don’t see often enough. I’ve gotten to spend time with five of them in the past 24 hours. Color me lucky.
And how did we reward them? With a terrible, terrible film. Karrie got the best quip after it was over: “That movie was almost over like three times! And it would have been better!” Seriously – it’s just plain awful, possibly the worst movie we’ve ever seen in the 15 years of this tradition. Fun to watch with friends, though. Sharing the experience definitely took the edge off.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Don’t Worry