12 April 2001

My parents and my grandparents arrived safely last night. Sort of safely. Grandpa has The Cold From Hell, which evidently showed up while they were on the plane. So I'm hoping that gets better, or all he's going to want to do is lie around at my godfather Joe's and be miserable. We gave my daddy his Otter Paws ice cream and sat around talking until past my parents' bedtime. Having people I love hanging around my house makes me happy.

This morning, I'm going to take them to Trader Joe's so they, too, can experience its glory. But I'm a woman on a mission. I went to Food Source on Monday, thinking surely they would have berries. No berries. So I went to Albertson's yesterday. They have had berries all winter. Ever since we moved here in January, we could have gotten berries. Now that I need berries, what do they have in the berries' place? Oh, the title must have given it away: kumquats. They have kumquats.

Who wants kumquats? More importantly, who wants kumquat cobbler? Who ever heard of kumquat cobbler? It sounds like something the Gustavus cafeteria would come up with. (Actual dishes: Reuben soup that smelled not just like body odor, but like the body odor of an old and sick person. Carrot cashew curry. Cauliflower coconut curry. The Gustavus cafeteria thought that if it all began with the same letter, it was fair game to go in the same food item. Cauliflower should not be neon green. Maybe I'm unadventurous, but this is one of the tenets of my belief system. No neon cauliflower.)

So...I'm on a mission for berries. Not my most fascinating mission ever, but who can keep up the thrill-a-minute pace forever? After Mark gets home for lunch, we'll probably go up to Walnut Creek and (I'm thinking) up the mountain. I kind of miss the mountain. Here we have hills, and they're immediate. In Concord, we had a mountain at a distance. Of course, in Concord, we also had coffeehouses (more than one! not counting Starbucks!) and good Italian food and used bookstores and the mix-in ice cream place and a library with a somewhat sensible organization. Ah well. There are advantages everywhere. Here, as Grandma pointed out last night, I can move around without running immediately into bookcases. And we can spill a tiny bit of sugar without waking up to a kitchen that's occupied territory. I Hate Ants. There are other advantages, too, but it's kind of early to come up with all of them.

I'll try to post tomorrow, even if it's short. I'd hate for you to worry too long about the berry crisis (I want a little signature graphic and fanfare music for it). It's just the kind of good-hearted, considerate soul I am.