Rainy Days in Berkeley

Written January 24th
About January 22nd and 23rd

Hi Mom and Family,

I was outside waiting for the Supershuttle van at 3:45 AM on Friday. There was a beautiful moon, full or near-full, and I got this photo:

Oakland was rainy and cool when I arrived. I loved the way the airport looked with the lights reflected on the drenched pavement.

: 

Before leaving the airport, I wrapped the contents of my roller bag with the garbage bag I always pack if there is a possibility of rain. Smaller Safeway bags wrapped up my lap-top and the song copies inside my back-pack. I have learned that, if rain is coming down hard enough, neither the suitcase nor the backpack are water-proof.

 
 
Because the plane was early, I had time to work on some music with Oscar before we had lunch. I really enjoy my lunch with them on the Fridays of the weekends I'm here.

 I told them that for the coming weekend I would not be able to come for lunch, because I wanted to be available to lunch with Kathy and our high school friends whom I have not seen since '66, Alice Kalmar (who was such an interesting addition to our high school experiences) and Kathy's friend Heidi Schoener.

I walked south to Stone Mountain and Daughters to look for some fabric I wanted. I loved walking in the rain in Berkeley as much as I did when I was in high school:

 On the way back to Andronico's, I stopped at Baubles and Beads to get some brown "e" beads to for a necklace I am working on. I was very sad to hear there, that this store is closing, both their San Rafael location and the Berkeley one, in order to sell solely on-line. To me, beads are something that one likes to pick up and feel before buying.

I know there are great bead stores in my area, but it's been a nice little treat for me to stop there at such a nice bead store, pleasantly located between BART and Andronico's.

The bus trip up the hill was quite difficult, because I had a heavier load than usual.

I was happy to find you seemingly well and happy, Mom, though Sandy said you'd felt like lying down all day. This is very unusual for you lately. (I myself sometimes feel that way on a rainy day, and go looking through my favorite old chick-flick DVD's!)

You rose at 10:00 on Saturday, Mom, and ate the entire breakfast which Tamika fixed for you, two eggs, some chopped up Canadian bacon, and toast. No lying down nor napping for the entire day. 

In the afternoon, I worked on my chicken ettouffeé recipe and Sandy his squash and garbanzo dishes. As usual on a "tea" day, Tamika made the salad. She also chopped up all the celery, green pepper, red pepper, and Canadian bacon and minced garlic needed for my recipe! I chopped the onions.

She chopped up everything very fine, and said that was what her grandmother insisted on. My chopped onions looked very amateur compared to what she chopped!

The chicken ettoufeé came out pretty tasty and was well-received. Good old new Joy of Cooking!

 I used the chicken broth in the recipe, which we made from those chickens that Madelyn brought here for a meal during the holidays (or was it Rebecca?)

Ana Jarnigan came around 3:00, by pre-arrangement, "to have some one- on-one conversation with Teddy". She brought some lovely slipper-socks knitted in Peru.

She told us that Michael Jarnigan recently lost an old and dear friend of his to a brain tumor. Michael spoke at the funeral.

You can see in this photograph how nice Mom's hair looks. Great haircut you gave her, Nancy! Many comments about it from the guests at the "tea".

The tea was great, about a dozen of the regulars. A very interesting conversation, first about philosophy, which several of the people there turned out to have majored in, and then about the financial crash of 2008 and the reasons for it.

The music Oscar and I played went quite well. It helped that we had worked on it some the day before.

We usually play for the last half hour of the 4:30-6:30 tea. It's very relaxed, some people come closer to us to listen but others keep conversing in the living room. If I don't start by around 6:00, you starasking about it, Mom

After dinner we washed up for quite a while. Then we started "Downton Abbey" an old one which they are watching as a way to get background for the Downton Abbey VI which Sandy has ordered. I mentioned that it would be on TV Sunday night, but he said he hasn't watched anything on directly on TV for years, as he prefers to watch what he wants to watch, when he wants to watch it.

I made it through the half-episode they had started, but I could not stay awake after that. 

Love,
Lennie