Monaloca

We celebrated the Fourth of July with a train ride in Tilden along with Suli and his parents, and then a trip with them to Jupiter for pizza and beer on the patio. Both these spots would have been packed any other summer weekend, but on the Fourth were were exactly where the crowds weren’t. It made for a calm, pleasant celebration, but didn’t feel much like the Fourth. At least not until Kai made good on taking a nap and was rarin’ to go see fireworks right around the time he usually goes to bed.

Since Joey has zero fascination with fireworks, I drove Kai up to the Rose Garden to view them from afar. We joined a good 50 other folks right at 9:30, and waited patiently for five… ten… twenty minutes. We heard pops and bangs and saw SF city lights in the distance but not a single firework. At last I asked Kai if he wanted to drive higher up the hill to a better clearing. We did, and arrived to see a thin haze coating the Golden Gate and hear from one of the remaining onlookers that this sliver-like fog had hidden the fireworks completely from our Berkeley view. Ah well. Luckily the little man wasn’t too disappointed, and at least we tried!

On the drive I tried to explain to Kai how when I was a kid my dad bought a family pack of fireworks from a roadside stand, and as soon as the sun set we sat on the front curb – along with the rest of the families on our block – and watched these mini displays of fire shoot up into the air. I told him how we can’t do this anymore because it’s too dangerous. The story went mostly over his head. He fixated on how old my dad was at the time, and how old are the people who now set off the big fireworks in the City? I’m sure I’ll have fun re-telling him this “When I was a kid…” story in a few years.

Speaking of when I was a kid: I had another trip down memory lane the very next day, when we packed the kids and a cooler into the car and drove out for a day at Stinson Beach. Berkeley had been wonderfully sunny, but as soon as we hit the coastal hills of Marin we hit a huge, gray-brown blanket of fog. It brought back countless memories of heading to Santa Cruz from San Jose as a kid. We’d spend the afternoon huddled in our sweatshirts on a picnic blanket, munching PB&J sandwiches crunchy with sand.

Lucky for us, Saturday’s fog burned off right as we hit Stinson. The water was chilly, but Kai and Melina both had a blast flirting with the waves. Meli also had fun munching on a few large mouthfuls of wet sand – sans PB&J. She did it with such vigor that I can’t help but wonder if she’s iron (or something) deficient. Coincidentally, she was recently tested so we’ll know soon. And if we need to supplement we’ll do our best to find something as tasty as that salty sand!

No Comments »