Peeking into the rock

Rosemary had a brunch today. Her birthday is this week, her dog's birthday was last week, and she never had a housewarming party. I was so unorganized that I only brought some potato salad Frank made and a bottle of plum wine.

( the horrible story behind the potato salad )

Rosemary's house is very close to McLaren Park in San Francisco, that is, it's in that area where the streets tend to be named after foreign capitals and so on. (why won't livejournal let me select text for cutting and pasting? What's up with that?)

I had a wonderful time, of course. It was for me like a family gathering is for other people. Most of the people were connected through my father and the old Suburban Palace collective, though others were connected in other similar ways. I got to see my baby great-niece and other youngster's I've known since they were but a wish and a promise. And Rosemary has a darling roommate, a kid who looks much younger than her 21 and has the cutest girly posters on the wall, you know, a little punk, a little Justin Timberlake, a little politics. The roommate has a sweet brindle miniature dachshund and adorable friends. They all wear those pants that sag off the but, with decorative underwear and three-inch belts, piercings, tattoos, cute little hairstyles, like a United Colors of Benetton ad -- they're even all somewhat dfferent colors, all alert, pleasant, vibrant.

And of course there was too much food.

( long bit about Rosemary's neighbor )

I have a lot to say, here, which is why these cuts all over the place. You know what I wish? I wish that you could make it so that when you clicked on an lj-cut link you'd only see the extra text that pertains to that link, not the whole long version of the post. So that people could better choose how to read the post. Anyway, I seem to have discovered an allergy I did not have last week: one with potentially serious implications. I resent. I resent with both hands. I just spent over thirty dollars on various gourmet nut things to have for company and I don't think I can eat them.

( the alarming story of the cashews )

So Thursday I took Emma to various appointments -- one of them the steroid shot that's supposed to maybe make her stop hurting -- and went to the City to pick up Frank. I've decided that I'd rather drive to the City on Sunday and Thursday to take him and pick him up than to have him take the train (and bus). This is not because he's so tender he can't take the public transportation but because I selfishly want to see my father and stepmother twice a week. Thursday was a shock. My father couldn't eat or speak and could hardly move. Rosemary and Frank got him to the table, but to get a bit of stew down him I spoonfed him. Moher was devastated to see him like that and she not able to do much herself (Ishe's recovering very well from the satroke, though).

Today I took Frank back up to the City, but I went the long way round, so that Frank could go play some role playing game or another with his friend Keith at Games of Berkeley, and then the nice fellow and I ate noodles and shopped at Ikea, and most importantly, stopped over to play with my grandniece Julianna. So it was evening when we arrived in the City and I was worried, of course, but:

Luis was not sitting up or walking around, but he was comfy, lounging on the couch, with color in his face and very pleased with his state. He was talking, sounding like my father. He'd gone to the emergency room the day before where they had prescribed Gatorade and jello (dang, why didn't I think of that?) and pointed out that no, he wasn't supposed to be getting two opiates after all, the one was supposed to replace the other. My brother, always the gourmet cook, had made my father a Bavarian (which is sort of a jello custard thing). And Luis had eaten some actual food as well.

While we were shopping around town, I got my father a random Gypsy music CD -- just something I knew he wouldn't have -- and Ted got a Hawaiian steel record, and I got myself a copy of Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle which I've been searching for since before it was published as I heard him read a bit of it at the San Jose World Con and it had been a revelation, pure and simple. And we got Julianna a weird little stuffed animal, dog knows what it's supposed to be (the sign said "Kanin/rabbit" but that doesn't make sense. It's clearly neither a dog nor a rabbit). Julianna's parents, Lisa(Alyesia) and Jon, had made a nest of the stuffed snake we brought a few months ago -- "safety snake" -- so she can practice sitting up and have something soft to fall on, a strategy we had told them about using with Frank and Emma.

We've been drying a few mushrooms almost every day, so that now we have a nice little stash of chanterelles and another one of wine-colored agarics and another of craterellus. And the nice fellow keeps adding to his store of candy caps. He wants to make candy cap cookies or ice cream. I think when you go with the sweetness of the candy caps like that they become cloying. I've wanted to put them into tomato sauce, but Zak is right: he says they should be used to make squash ravioli (or, add I, squash soup).

(note to Emma: yes, I got your recommendation letter from Beth, in which she does invoke the name of the Longshoreman's Union, which means that yes, you have to write the essay, but of course I will help you. I had to be suitably impressed by Maya's 4th grade history project which is a complicated diorama showing the founderr of the first waitresses' union in San Francisco in her Labor Day parade float). And it's official: we'll be taking up a collection to send Rosemary to Calistoga for a mud bath.

I'm almost ready to write again.