At the beach

We went down to Linda Mar beach in Pacifica on Saturday to enjoy the beautiful day and so Eric could catch a few waves.

While Eric was riding waves, I took Emerson for a walk in his stroller along a path that runs between the beach and the highway. I'm not normally an eagle eye when it comes to wildlife sightings, but I did happen to notice this little ground critter popping his head out of a hole. Check it out!



I think my favorite thing about this little guy is that it really looks like a stuffed animal on a stick that someone below ground is manipulating. However, I'm pretty sure it's not a puppet.

After our walk, Emerson and I went and hung out in the sand for a bit and waited for Eric to return.

Into the painting on the wall

One of the highlights of our east coast adventure last week was an unexpected visit to Lancaster Brewing Company. I was delighted to learn that the building in the painting I like so much that hangs over my grandmother Muz's couch in her living room was converted into a microbrewery and brewpub!

Of course, we had to go check it out.

It was pretty surreal to walk into the image I have become so familiar with through the painting. Unlike in Mary Poppins when they jump into the sidewalk chalk drawings, we didn't find ourselves singing and dancing with Dick van Dyke. But we did sample the 11 brews made on the premises including Amish Four Grain pale ale, Hop Hog IPA and a seasonal Strawberry Wheat. Not sure if I've gone soft after not drinking for so long but after just a wee sip or two I managed to spill several of them and break one glass.

We ate dinner at the brewpub as well and it was an unexpectedly delicious meal. Muz, who is 88 years old, declared her salad to be the best salad she had ever had. Really? I asked her, wondering if there was some qualification like "best salad with feta cheese eaten at a brewpub with her first great grandson" or something like that. No - "best salad" period. What a treat!

This sign, next to the brewpub parking lot, got my imagination running wild. What sort of science are they manufacturing at the Science Factory?


We'll let you know after we visit it on our next trip.

On the road, plus one

We flew east yesterday for our first trip with the little man. We learned a lot about flying with an infant, such as how infants need a boarding pass even though they don't need a ticket. We thought a couple pillows might make the flight with him more comfortable so when we boarded Eric went to ask the flight attendant at the back of the plane if we could have a pillow or two.

"No. We have no pillows in United economy," she declared in a thick French accent.

"Really? No pillows at all?" Eric wanted to be sure.

"What do you want me to do? Manufacture a pillow?" she said extremely Frenchly.

No pillows for us.

Later on, when Eric got up to go wait in the bathroom line for a while, this same flight attendant was passing through the aisle with a bottle of water and a stack of cups. She was wearing black gloves. I have no idea why. I had just started breastfeeding Emerson which for some reason provokes instantly the sensation of having been stranded in the Sahara desert for several days: there was no way I was going to let that water walk by, in spite of having no free hand with which to grab it.

"I'd like some water," I said, "but I need you to help me because I don't have a hand free." I nodded towards my occupied hands.

"I don't have a hand free!" she protested, eyebrows raised, waving the water bottle and cups.

I was clearly not going to win this argument.

Emerson was a champ and barely made a peep on the flight. The woman sharing our row was a grandmotherly woman from Berkeley who offered to help us with him if we needed it. I think she was disappointed we didn't.

Capgrossos

In the first days after Emerson arrived, I pretty much spent all my time staring at him. I mean, it is really really hard to believe that this little person has somehow miraculously been growing inside of your body and then suddenly, they are out. And you can look at them. And they have very small heads.

There was more than one moment that first week when, having looked at Emerson for several hours straight, I would turn to look at Eric or my mother and discover that their heads were huge. Way too big, really.

This photo may help explain what I mean:

Oddly, I have actually had a similar experience once before. I was minding my own business sitting in Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona when suddenly I noticed that some people walking by me had heads that were, how you say, unexpectedly large. And also made of papier mache. They turned out to be "capgrossos" which literally means "large heads" in Catalan, and which are featured, according to Catalan tradition, along with "gegants" ("giants," and also large papier-mache figures) in many festivals and parades.

My conclusion: Catalans are weird and clearly spent too much time staring at babies during critical periods shaping their culture.

Fancy

It's the little things that can make all the difference in government offices. For example, take this chandelier at the social security administration on Valencia Street. It really spruces the place right up.

My new radio

I mentioned to Eric that I was going to get a new radio because we weren't getting good enough reception in the kitchen. He said "Bah, you don't need a new one. I'll fix it."

Here's my "new" radio:

It actually does work a lot better now.