Last Week This Week, This Week Tomorrow

Before I address the Labor Day Weekend festivities, first I have to catch up as I flew out of Seattle early Monday morning Aug 29th and she who will not be named picked me up at the 24th & Mission BART station in San Francisco and off we drove to the Sierra Nevada country near Grass Valley where we camped four nights and hiked to and swam in the south fork of the Yuba River.  How do like all that info packed into one sentence?  You can thank the now forgotten British writer J.B. Priestley, he of the long sentences, even longer novels and the some of the greatest (and shortest essays) ever to grace the English language. 

I could remember if forced to recount the many miles of that now distant weekend but I'd rather concentrate on why getting away from taxi is essential to the average driver's well-being.  Those who don't get away begin displaying a yellowish tinge, then an accelerated tendency to driving in concentric circles.  Before that occurs I recommend getting the hell out of the cab and do something, anything different.  I remember a driver who drove three years straight to buy an over-valued taxi outright.  He was skin and bones.

On a Monday and a Friday we visited Berkeley and twice ate at Saul's, a real New York deli way out on the Left Coast.  She who can't be named was raised just off Church Avenue, Brooklyn and knows authentic when she eats it.  She still pines for the Grand Street Dairy.  Such wonderful culinary memories of a bygone Lower East Side.  Saul's address is 1475 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley.  When there check out the Cheese Cooperative a half block away and their ginger shortbread.  You will be happy you did!

During our final night at our South Yuba campsite a black bear visited us, dining on organic bread and butter.  I interrupted the beast on its second foray, our furry friend impolitely growling, then snorting in my direction.  The night was dark so I might have been a mere ten feet or so from the midnight diner, the bear of course reminding me of various customers I have had.  Like so many other churlish creatures I have known, it failed to tip.  Maybe next time!