WOW!

yesterday i took the train to san francisco to meet up with my friend D. i usually love taking the train to the city. i can read, listen to my ipod, or just gaze out the window. unfortunately, yesterday there was a giants game. the train that is usually comfortably empty was packed to the gills with giants fans. the two men sitting behind me talked about sports the ENTIRE time. i'm talking about a ride that takes about 1.5 hours because the train stops EVERYWHERE. at one point i wanted to turn around and say, "could you two PLEASE just shut the hell up for five minutes????" around palo alto this little chinese lady got on and sat next to me. talking on her cell phone the whole rest of the way into the city. AAARRRGGHHHH!!!!

D and i had breakfast at Dottie's True Blue Cafe on jones. yummy! even though we had to wait in the line for an hour the food was well worth it. i was sitting there looking at the decor, wondering to myself why there were pictures of dorothy dandridge all over. it took me about half an hour before i made the connection. dorothy, dottie... um DUH!

anyway, i had a hard time deciding so i ordered "the True Blue Plate Special" it's your basic breakfast. a small juice, two eggs cooked any way, bacon, home fried potatoes, and buttermilk dill toast. the specials on the board hanging on the wall are what made it hard to decide. there was a delicious sounding eggplant strata that we saw someone at the counter eating. he gave it the thumbs up. then, a man at the table beside us had ordered the other thing that i had been considering. sweet potato, caramelized onions and gruyere cheese tart. with so much delicious food how was i to choose? that is how i ended up with the basic.

but what a surprise that was. the bacon was perfectly "flubbery" as i like to call it. not greasy in any way. just porky delicious. the scrambled eggs were the lightest and fluffest i have ever had. and the home fries? they made me want to move in and call dottie's my home if i could have them every day. as D can attest, i usually skip the potatoes all together since they tend to make me so full after only a few bites that i can't eat what i really need off the plate... the protein.

i still had a hankering for something sweet so i ordered the chocolate chip french toast with roasted pecans and got that to go. managed to nibble on that on the train ride home.

anyway, after breakfast, we went over to the de young museum. D works for one of the major corporate sponsors of most all of the major museums in SF and thusly gets us in free.

i introduced her to the incredible art of Dale Chihuly (pronounced chee-hoo-li).
this is the artist himself.

a piece he did for the bellagio hotel in las vegas

these last two are just some of his work that i adore. i can't even begin to describe how dales art touches me. it is so organic and natural in form. it almost makes me want to weep from the pure beauty of it.



i caught the 6:00 pm train home. talked to some nice people on the ride. ate my chocolate chip french toast (no syrup needed!) and then my niece J met me at the mountain view station. we jammed over to the AMC mercado and caught the 8:10 pm showing of the new X-files movie "I want to believe". i liked it. i am not going to say any more about it though because i don't want to ruin it for the x-filers that haven't seen it yet.

niece J saw "batman" on saturday night and demands that i go see it on the big screen. soon as the severance check arrives that will be on the agenda.

after a brief visit to the united states...

David returns to Florence,

a little worse for the wear.

you've gotta have balls to pull a stunt like this...

Art stunt colors Rome's Spanish Steps