back south for surgery - early december 08

my date for surgery was monday 9 december, but i had to go in for pre-op appointment on friday 6 dec, so claudia drove me down on thursday, after dropping the dogs off at happy dog. we had a lovely drive down, stopped for dinner in willits, still made it to diane's in good time. santa rosa is not the bottleneck it used to be, looks like the construction that's been going on there actually did some good!

 
 
after the pre-op apointment, diane & i went to japantown & had lunch at the sushi place where the little plates float around on water & you take what you want. afterwards, i went into the SF taiko dojo's shop for a pair of bachi (taiko drumsticks), since we're finally getting a taiko club at HSU & i'll be happily banging on big drums when i get better. sensei didn't want to sell them to me, however, he said they were "too good for beginners", it would be "wasting the sticks". but we talked for awhile, & he saw my love for taiko, the joy & respect with which i would be using them, & he changed his mind. (i had also played the cancer card of course, told him why i was in SF, & that treating myself to these special bachi, from his shop, seemed like good medicine) one of his disciples was in the shop & she whispered to me "he never does that!"

diane took me to her favorite ice cream shop (joe's original homemade ice cream, on geary) & we had ginger cones, heavenly! on the way back to the car (also brandnew, it answers her fone for her), stopped at a drug store to pick up the bottles of fleet's phospho soda i'll be drinking tomorrow to cleanout my bowels, diane was singing "ice cream and enemas" to the tune of "lollipops and roses", or whatever it is. i think it's roses.

foto by Ed U.

  
 

 
 
then we went looking for a labyrinth that's been laid out with rocks on the cliff below the legion of honor, overlooking the mouth of the golden gate. found it eventually, turned out to be perfect timing, i was standing in the middle as the sun set. it was so clear we could see the farallons, but there was just the rite amount of wispy cloud cover to paint a spectacular colorshow. which accompanied us as we drove back into the city to fort mason, where diane takes art classes, there was a big art show/sale, diane had a few watercolors up, & we looked at lots of good stuff, i particularly liked the work of a friend of diane's, printmaker anita toney

saturday, another beautiful day by the bay!

we walked all day, yard sale, library booksale, along the waterfront looking at houseboats & sailboats, terrific clam chowder at a place called "fish", visited open studios for more art, diane calls it art therapy.

   

went up to san rafael, to where lissa has her studio, they were having open studios too, this is the weekend for it apparently, ended up having an extensive & very interesting conversation with jill culver, who does what she calls "soul portraits". visited jane in her new place, lissa in the same neighborhood, what a whirl! i have to say, this cancer has been great for my social life!

 
 

lissa herschleb
  

 

 jill culver
  

 

 

 

 
 

 THEN of course, 2 1/2 days at UCSF medical center!

 

<--my view
  
 

 
 

 and hooray! back to sausalito!

 

my view-->
  
 

 
 

 where diane & her daughter renee were getting ready for christmas
  
 

saturday nite there was a lited boat parade, & fireworks...
 
 

 
didn't see much of the fireworks, mostly hidden by a house & tree on a hill, but couldn't complain much, after watching the parade from diane's balcony, in my bathrobe!

 

 monday nite went with diane to her watercolor class -- last session, when everybody showed their work from the semester. made me want to start painting!
  

 
 

it was a beautiful drive home on wednesday, passing thru short stories of winterwonderland up in the hi country, then out into brilliant sunshine. so many thanks to marshasue & jerry for coming to get me, they said they enjoyed the trip. especially since diane "threw together" a lovely roast chicken dinner for us all on tuesday nite.
 

 
 

 we stopped at real goods in hopland, they have some fun new sculptures.