Day 21: The Bay Area

Friday was a busy day even though we didn’t go many places. We took Susan over to Amy’s new studio apartment, and then we headed out to explore her Berkeley neighborhood and find some lunch. Instead of heading toward the area where we KNEW all the typical restaurants were, we headed in the opposite direction to see what we could find. We found plenty.

We began with this needle exchange truck that claimed to not have needles. I’m not quite sure what was being exchanged, then.



We have been quite impressed by California’s murals everywhere, but this one beats all.


It actually had a 3-D aspect to it.

I was told that I needed to take a picture of this place because of its similarity to a place in Durham that I am not aware off. Bull City, you figure it out.


We ended up at Dorsey’s Locker, which is a soul food restaurant about 15 blocks from Amy’s apartment. We had been on the search for it ever since Dave had seen it the night before, but we thought it was about ten blocks closer. When we got there, we were the only people in the place, there was one waitress, and there was one cook. We received our water after our dinners, and we got our tea and sodas with dessert. The waitress also got my order completely wrong. I order a bbq chicken sandwich, but she changed my order to a bbq chicken leg because it would be cheaper. I didn’t eat it, but I didn’t complain either. She was a very sweet lady and was trying to do me a favor. She also gave me greens when I had order green beans. I can see the confusion there, too.



While we were there, another customer came in for take-out and was complaining about how slow the place was. She needed to get to work on time and didn’t want to cook to “lie to [her] about how long it would take.” Yipes.

This picture is intended to vaguely recreate the prom since Dave and Susan went to their junior proms together. (Note the vase of flowers standing in for a wrist corsage.)


I not only enjoyed this sign in someone’s apartment window, but I also liked how much tape was on there to hold it up.


One yard we passed had particularly enormous plants in it.


As soon as we got home, we had to pack up to go to see Chris Karlof and his NEW WIFE, Monica. Here we are saying goodbye to the cutest little boys in the world.


Fletcher and his fishy toys are on Dave’s lap, and Sebastian is eating his goldfish crackers with me.

We got to Chris and Monica’s at about 5:45. They made us an amazing dinner. Here’s Chris making lamb and sausage burgers for us. Oh, wait, or is he prepping for the exam?


We had a few delicious cocktails before dinner. Chris made a round of Sazeracs and a round of Aviations. Then, we had a delicious salad with greens, radish, onions, and avocado with the awesome honey-mustard salad dressing that my mother-in-law taught me to make. We followed our salad course with the awesome lamb burgers topped with a mint-yogurt-cucumber sauce and a side of roasted potatoes. After resting a bit, we had some fresh watermelon for dessert. It was terrific!

We got to really top off the evening with a couple rounds of games. Chris and Monica (affectionately dubbed "Chronica") love to play strategy games that usually revolve around special cards for building, buying, and selling property or goods. We had a good time!

We went to bed much earlier than I had expected, but Monica was the first one brave enough to call it a night, and I followed closely behind. We each slept on a different couch. I got to have my own room, and I have to say, that couch was AWESOME! It was really wide and long so I could stretch out. It was also really firm, which kept my back from going all spazzy on me the next day. Nice stuff. It sounds like we didn’t do much that day, but we did plenty, and we were pooped.