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Saturday 30 March 2002
	It's late at night. Isaac and I are in bed, watching our Wallace and Gromit DVD on the PowerBook, when Isaac realises something is wrong about a scene in The Wrong Trousers. Says he, "I never knowed that dogs could read newspapers."
Thursday 28 March 2002
	We spend part of the day on the Bay, taking the Blue & Gold Line's ride under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz Island. We came prepared with layers for warmth and a bright yellow North Face Gore-Tex mountaineering jacket for dryness. We had a great time, perched on the bow. Lila fell asleep in my arms, half of her zipped into my jacket. It's the second time Isaac has been on the water; the first time was on the Wailua River, in Kaua'i.
Sunday 17 March 2002 - St. Patrick's Day
	Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Waking to falling rain, we dressed ourselves - even Lila - in green and headed to The Fiddler's Green for a good Irish breakfast to celebrate the day. Per Isaac we drove through both the Broadway Tunnel and the crooked portion of Lombard Street. As we got close to our usual parking spot we noticed a lot of fire engines in the neighborhood. Then we saw lots of yellow tape cordoning off our destination. Seems there was a bit of a conflaguration in the 1907 Haslett Warehouse, next to the Cannery, a few feet away from the restaurant (which is just out of view to the right of this picture). Between Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf, this edifice was being turned into a hotel. Just after midnight a fire started and the fourth floor and roof of the building were destroyed. The brick façade still stands, albeit with smoke streams staining the brick. So between the holiday and the fire the pub was extremely crowded. Luckily we got a table, switched to a quieter table (damn'd basketball hooligans :-), and enjoyed a fine feast. Isaac got to play with the toy cable cars and other tourist brick-a-brack at Didi's shop, next door.
Monday 11 March 2002
	Six months later PENTTBOM is still on our minds and in our hearts (and in our heads - I can't believe the towers are gone despite having been to Ground Zero several months ago). Today - and every evening for a month - two beams of light will commemorate those who lost their lives. Dad is here on his annual birthday visit. The weather is nice(r) and we took Isaac and Lila on their first cable car rides today, from the Powell Street turn-around to Aquatic Park, near The Fiddler's Green and Ghirardelli Square. Viruses have been arriving, in several languages no less. Anyone know this Hahaha <hahaha@sexyfun.net> person? Subject: Snowhite and the Seven Dwarfs - The REAL story! Today, Snowhite was turning 18. The 7 Dwarfs always where very educated and polite with Snowhite. When they go out work at mornign, they promissed a *huge* surprise. Snowhite was anxious. Suddlently, the door open, and the Seven Dwarfs enter... Subject: Blanche neige et ...les sexe nains C'etait un jour avant son dix huitieme anniversaire. Les 7 nains, qui avaient aidÈ 'blanche neige' toutes ces annÈes aprËs qu'elle se soit enfuit de chez sa belle mËre, lui avaient promis une *grosse* surprise. A 5 heures comme toujours, ils sont rentrÈs du travail. Mais cette fois ils avaient un air coquin... The latter sometimes arrives with a subject of Les 7 coquir nains. I wonder whether someone did a hasty cut-and-paste; I'm pretty sure that "grosse" (German: big) ought to appear as "gran" (French: big). And I'm quite sure that "surprise" isn't French. The English version surely wasn't written by a native speaker. Wierd.
Friday 8 March 2002
	Mmmm, started the day with a good Irish breakfast at The Fiddler's Green and ended it with a visit to Chelsea Fish & Chips (which supplies the Edinburgh Castle, down the street). San Francisco's best. The weather has turned from its previous daytime warm of high seventies to a cool fifties. Our gardening continues. We've removed the wood panels from the rear fence, bringing in light and breezes to the garden. Pink jasmine, anyone? I keep trimming trees and packing the green litter into paper bags and four-foot-long bundles (as requested by the trash pickup company). I've been hacking at the loquat tree since we don't eat the bitter fruit and the leaves are some sort of mutant non-biodegradeable plastic. The leaves have been shredding and strangling the plants below. The tree is about half of its former size. Let's see how it plays well with others. I've been to Chamonix, France, two times. It's been great. One of the blasts is driving through the twelve-kilometer tunnel under Mont Blanc to the Italian side and skiing the Courmayeur resorts. It was three years ago that a truck caught fire (and burned for two days) inside the tunnel, resulting in 39 deaths. (About one-third of Italy's freight used to pass through the tunnel.) The tunnel will re-open tomorrow. ALERT: BBCi reports that an explosive device has gone off outside the tunnel. Wierder and wierder. No details yet.
Thursday 7 March 2002
	Isaac was up at 06:30! So we visited May's Coffee Shop in Japantown; open at 07:00, kid-friendly. Had good coffee and read the Nichi Bei Times while my boy ran around the tables, past the waterfalls and the koi. The stores don't open until later, so all is reasonably safe from enthusiastic breakage. (All things considered, though, I prefer reading The Garden Isle, the daily Kaua'i newspaper.)
Sunday 3 March 2002
	Wow, is it March already? Last weekend I mentioned to Rose that our cottage was certainly due for a spring cleaning - possibly the first one I've ever done. And so we're on it. She's concentrating on the inside; Isaac and I have been gardening for several hours each of the past four days. We have twenty or thirty paper bags full of greenery, ready for our trash pick-up service (which now accepts garden clippings semi-monthly). Today we bought a chain saw, albeit an electric one. There were some logs and big limbs from a cherry tree that had been cluttering the back yard for a bit too much time. I read the manual, donned my plaid shirt, heavy boots, gloves, ear and eye protection, and fired that baby up! LOUD! But the wood is in tiny pieces, and getting tossed into cardboard boxes. I heard that our Board of Supervisors recently outlawed burning wood in a fireplace for decorative purposes, those fake logs are still acceptable. Grrrrr. I guess it's just another thing I have to give up living in the big city, but I'm not happy about it. Are we in the Caves of Steel yet?