My father taught me how to make some wicked cool pasta sauce while I lived in Germany. To this day, I still use what I learned.

Thanks Dad!

This man, Dan Fabulich, spent TWO YEARS trying to get a patch checked in.

My god, man. You have the perseverance of a mountain. I don’t know who you are, but you have my respect.

In the bug dialogue, Jonas Sicking says “…I specifically requested not to have…”
Sicking, you are an intelligent person. And I like you; there is no doubt about that, though I don’t know you either. But…be nice.

Sunday was much less eventful (thank goodness!) than Hunt Saturday. I slept off some of the sheer energy use necessary to walk up and down California hills, and was kinda revitalized, kinda stiff. Breakfast was cashews again, as far as I can recall.

Lunch (late lunch?) was at at place called Ike’s Place. SO, SO good. Yeah. They’re sandwiches. However, this is a warning to all! These sandwiches are NOT generally finger food. They’re so good and packed and occasionally saucy and definitely fresh, that you may want to take them home or back to work or…whatever. Somewhere that you have a knife and fork and plenty of napkins.

And Ike himself. Ike is human. Ike is extremely human. And he treats you like a human. Great guy. Kinda short. And every girl’s dream, I’m sure. You can look up his **Space page — I hate **Space and refuse to link to it.

So…sandwiches with MS and B-Si-Mo. Then tea/cake…thing. At a place called Sweet Inspiration. It was a little more pricey than normal people would pay for something like that, but hey. The atmosphere is cool, so why not.

Then dinner at a restaurant with…uh…”homestyle” food, named Blue. It has no online presence whatsoever, which I find kind of strange. There’s a menu somewhere, I think, but no actual site. You’d think somebody would at least take a picture of the place. Oh well.

The food was good, but I’ve been feeling kinda queasy on and off for the past six days for no apparent reason. I couldn’t really eat all that much of it, unfortunately. I’m sure it was good, though.

OH oh oh yeah…I forgot. I stopped by a bookstore called….uh…Aardvark. Aardvark Books. They have the coolest thing there — a cat named Owen! I sat down on the floor to look at a book, and in about a one second, maaaybe two, there was a cat in my lap. He instantly trusted me (nearly stuck his head in my mouth!) and curled up and fell asleep. This kinda limited my book browsing abilities, but nonetheless I still managed to find two books that are nearly as old as I am. One is called “The Blind Knight” (so far, an EXCELLENT read). The other is…well, I can’t remember the title and it’s currently in my luggage. But there are two (sub-books?) books inside of it called “Northshore” and “Southshore”. One of the lines related to the book is “On the north side of the river, the truth can kill you.” Of course, I was instantly intrigued. The bookstore was giving paperback books for half-off, so I just had to get them.

So eventually…there was a walk back to home base with a bit of a downpour, a long shower, and a Jackie Chan movie called “Supercop”. A badly-dubbed Kung Fu movie. I LOVE badly dubbed Kung Fu movies. Aaaaaaand sleep (as Brix would say).

Looks like I have a couple of days to catch up on!

So…Saturday was the day of the big San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt. I ate cashews for breakfast and more of that weird tasty orange energy stuff. For preparation…well, I guess I really didn’t do that much at all. Since we’ve done the hunt a couple of times before, we were just kind of ready, I guess. Maps, flashlight, stopping by a local hardware store for batteries…JTJ brought some alternate street indexes for the first time.

So we left a few hours early, and wandered around the Embarcadero Center looking for food. The place MS had in mind was closed, though :( And their menu would have been soooo tasty. Oh well. We ended up eating at some “Automatic Diner” (whatever the heck that is). The food wasn’t too bad. I learned that plastic bags and cups are no longer really allowed in the city (isn’t that weird?!). Instead, most of the “plastic” things that you drink from and eat with are made out of corn somehow!

After lunch, we began with the “volunteer” phrase of the hunt where we signed up, got our shirts, and mentally prepared for the thousands of people that would flood us. Our *main* job was to hand out the instructions and clue sheets to the hunters. We chose to do the beginner tent. I collated the two, for the most part. MS counted them and handed them out. MS received a lot more hunters than I did. I think there was a group of 13 tickets to process, once!

And Tram. Oh Tram, wherever you are, thank you. You made things so very much easier for me. Tram ripped my tickets for me so I could just concentrate on getting the papers out to people

Then it was meeting JTJ, waiting for the start of the hunt, and solving clues. The clues were surprisingly a lot easier this year. At least, that’s what I thought. MS said that it was that we just got better at solving them. I dunno ’bout that. Maybe it’s the odd occasional modesty in me that makes me want to say that they were easier. God forbid I complement myself.

We were able to see the tail end of the dragon as it passed by, but that meant that we planned part of the clue route incorrectly. Nobody saw that the parade route had been extended, so we all had to backtrack and go around the tip of the parade. What we all realized afterward is that we should have taken the clue route in the opposite direction so that when we reached the ‘crossing point’, that part of the parade would have been over and we could have just kept going. This cost us the trip to the location of one of the clues and we ended up having to skip it. No biggie — the hunt was still a blast

The most scenic and creative part of the hunt was (in my opinion) the part where the books light up over a shining sidewalk full of printed text. I can’t wait to see that part of the city again sometime.

The most comical part of the hunt was when I had to pee. Of course, as soon as that was the case, all bathrooms vanished instantly. The first bathroom I tried was “out of order” and I couldn’t enter it. It was one of those weird automatic public restrooms. The next two businesses we found “had no bathrooms”.

Then I saw an open door to a business. I ducked inside and said “Hello?” J of JTJ said she’d go with me as I heard behind me the phrase “Women’s Acupuncture Clinic” uttered by someone. I said a little louder…”Hello?”

I tried a door. Janitor closet.
I was about to try another door and this Chinese lady walked out, saw me, and went into a state of utter confusion and shock as I was shutting one of the doors in her building. Me. A man. J asked if there was a bathroom I could use. The Chinese lady was still in some sort of confusion as she replied, “No men here, no….no men here.”

My bad.

Thankfully we found the Chinese Hospital after that, whereupon I found a (rather spotless) public restroom.

We turned in our clues, picked up our “I FINISHED” shirt pins, and went to get food at a place called “Chevy’s”. Mexican place. Waited an hour and a half for mediocre food for no good reason. That’s all I have to say about THAT. The conversation and company were very very good, though.

I don’t even remember much about the rest of the night. I was exhausted.

So! Yesterday was awesome during the day, of course

I did, unfortunately, wake up with a cold sore. Generally this denotes either stress, or me coming down with a cold. Coupled with the sore throat I had, I was leaning toward cold. However, MS has this orange-flavored…umm…drink syrup mix thing? I don’t remember what it’s called and I’m certainly not getting up to go look. I think it may have helped, because I feel much better this morning. However, the stupid cold sore woke me up, and so here I sit, typing, having been up for about an hour and a half now.

Anyway! I went to Japantown yesterday. I loved it! If I lived here, I have a feeling that I might end up going there every day. I got a bento box, new chopsticks for myself, chopsticks for my boss, hellokitty paraphernalia for one of my coworkers, a bunch of awesome rare Pocky that I simply cannot get in my area, tons of Ito En green tea for half the price at the airport, a new teapot with built-in infuser, a Japanese teacup (kind of like this, but mine is cooler and blue!), and a rice bowl.

I had lunch at a couple of places and I had AUTHENTIC ramen soup for the first time. I went with the shoyu flavored soup base. It was very delicious!

After that we wandered around for a bit, MS picked up a teapot as well (though his is nicer than mine, of course — I got mine from the discount store), and we headed back to home base.

Then it was naptime, a trip to the grocer, and another return to home base. My friend (who doesn’t know it yet) Bonnie was working at the store when we arrived. It might have been my imagination, but she seemed like she was in a bit of a hurry. I have a feeling that she wanted to take care of customers and get the store closed out early so she could get home to watch The Bonnie Hunt Show and The View. She is a highly opinionated gal, of course.

We returned home and made Smothered Pork (not lamb!) in the pressure cooker. We also made some sort of peas ‘n turkey dish with Indian flavorings. Dinner was soooooooo good. I don’t think the flavor would have been nearly the same if it weren’t for the pressure cooker. MS is a great chef that way. I highly recommend this dish if you ever stay here at the chez.

Then it was brownies, and a horrible movie named “Dead and Breakfast”. The movie was a guilty pleasure. It was so so good…and so so horrible at the same time. Completely worth your dollars and time (though they’re the same if time is money, of course) if you like bad horror movies. And everybody knows I do I’m going to have to wait to watch “Gothic Vampires from Hell” (or whatever it was called) until I get home, though.

So! Today is going to be the big Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt. I’m so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D