Ichy knee said she goes!

The open house at Emeryville Taiko last night was fun. I now have a few more things I can incorporate into the warmups I've been doing. (Have I mentioned that I seem to be the only person in my class who bothers to warm up?)

Put another coat of black paint onto the sugoroku box and will probably try to get a third on tomorrow morning. This so-called "semi-gloss" isn't very glossy at all. Sanding takes it right down - which isn't a bad thing because I'll be drafting designs on the sides in pencil and painting them in gold. I'll make it look lacquer-y with top coats of polyurethane.

And on that note, I'm off to the kite festival. I've decided NOT to shlep the hurdy gurdy today, take my camera and just enjoy, especially since I plan to try to find free parking on the east side of the freeway and hike down instead of coughing up $10.

EDIT: So much for that brilliant idea. I should know by now that Berkeley and motor cars are incompatible no matter how you slice it.  I spent an hour and a half sitting in traffic just trying to get down there. Couldn't find a place to park on the east side of the freeway to even try to make the walk over - why? The AM traffic channel said that all the parking lots in the marina had been full for more than an hour at that point.

Plan B, I thought. If there's parking at West Oakland BART, I shall brave San Francisco. There was not.
I took local streets back and made a stop at the Cost Plus in Jack London Square to see if they had any interesting sake in the wine clearance bin (they did not). A glance at the ferry dock as I came down the Embarcadero to make the turn for the Webster Tube showed a huge line.

Plan C, came home. Ate lunch before I gnawed off a limb. Put a coat of paint on the inside lid of the box. The outside of the box looks pretty good and I'm going to put that third coat as soon as I'm sure the second one is dry.

On The Diner

So I was making my lunch with "Check Please!" on PBS keeping me company and they reviewed some joint in San Francisco called The Blue Plate. Raving about the mac and cheese, meatloaf, pork chops and banana creme pie ensued. I perked up my ears accordingly as I came out of the kitchen. Then they said an average dinner per person ran about $35 per head!!!!! Blue neon "Eat" sign outside the place, this is not a diner.

Then mamapduck mentioned the Fog City Diner in a response to one of my previous posts. I remember the first time I ever walked past it on my way down the Embarcadero. Sure, it looks like a diner from the outside, but there's no whiff of deep fryer cutting through the air from a block away to grab you by your lizard brain and cry "You Want French Fries Right NOW." I glanced in the window and there was a guy in a white shirt and a bow tie spreading a tablecloth.  So not a diner, I don't care how much neon and steel is out front. I didn't bother looking to see if there were gumball machines inside the door I was so disappointed.

A diner does not close at 11:00 PM on a Saturday night.
A diner does not charge you $16 for a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
A diner does not "accept reservations."

I grew up in northern New Jersey. I have a very specific response to the word "diner," and there are times when I really miss them. Here in the Bay Area we have chains like Denny's, of course, we have pancake houses, and if you go a little farther afield, the Black Bear chain is probably my contender for diner-hood in California. They get the job done, but it's not the same.

 
http://www.dinercity.com/njDiner/bendixExtM.jpg  The Bendix on Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights. Its interior will be familiar to anyone who ever saw Rosie mop up spills with Bounty towels.

A diner is where you end up after a movie or a shire meeting or fight practice or before you start your shift someplace. It's where you can have breakfast 24 hours a day, or a black and white cookie, or a monolithic slice of moussaka (because a lot of Jersey diners are owned by Greek families), or pie where the meringue is taller than the lemon filling. It's where the waitresses all know you if they've seen you at least twice, and may just look the other way if someone decides to see if he can fashion a blow gun with a soda straw and shoot the toothpicks from your club sandwich into the acoustic ceiling tiles. (Yes. I know. I have very strange friends.) They not only don't rush you out of your seat, they will refill your drinks while you spend hours talking about who knows what with your friends. The food won't earn Michelin stars, but it's generally good, reliable, comforting and will not bankrupt you.

The Skyline (West Milford). The Pompton Queen (Pompton Lakes). Matthews (Bergenfield). The Coachhouse (Hackensack). Even the Empress (Fair Lawn), which was never the same after the remodel.
Though I confess it's not the cuisine - it was what went on around those tables all those nights.

EDIT: This thread seems to have devolved into favorite dives to eat at, which is cool. There was a neat little place down at the South Shore center called the Velvet Grill - and it's gone. I've never been able to get near Ole's Waffle Shop on Park Street. There's a place by the Park Street Bridge on the Oakland side called Nikko's Family Restaurant that looks dinerish, but the reviews on Yelp are downright scary. 

So wrong, so many levels, let's COMPOUND it!

It has just come to my attention that after Barack Obama left a prayer at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, someone removed it and the contents got published.

I did an internet search to see if I could confirm this - then thought, "Oh, crap, what if the article has the text of Mr. Obama's prayer in it!" I don't want to read that. What he wrote is between him and his deity and is none of my or anyone else's business.

I scan the headlines. Hmm. BBC News has it. Surely they can be trusted to handle this tastefully. I read the lead paragraph. I begin to cautiously work my way down the page - and I see the top of a photo showing hotel letterhead. They published it too.

Whatever you think of Mr. Obama, whatever belief system you do or do not adhere to, this is just plain wrong - which is why I am not linking to the story in any way.

EDIT: I am disabling and deleting all comments to the post because I get the feeling one of you is going to put something in here that will reveal what Mr. Obama wrote and I'll be damned if I'll let you wave it in my face. I refuse to speculate on whether or not he knew or expected or cared if someone lifted his prayer - or judge him for that.

I have a conscience. I don't want THIS ON MY CONSCIENCE.

Son of "I love my friends!"

I just had a man half my age PM to ask if there was any chance he'd see me at Pennsic.

This is the self-same gentleman who threw himself to his knees, bowed, then kissed my hand and said how honored he was the first time we met face to face at Kingdom Crusades a couple years ago. The one who followed me through a downpour last August helpfully pointing out puddles and trying not to be too shocked when I splashed gaily through them, the one who escorted me back to my camp after we'd gotten some tea into us and the storm broke.

It was with genuine regret that I had to tell him no.

To those of you traveling to Pennsic, may you have safe, dry and happy journeys, adventures of the good kind and stories to tell when you get back.

Writer's Block: Carrying the Cultural Torch

[Error: unknown template qotd]The only reason I'm answering this was because I Viewed Other Answers and couldn't believe my eyes.

Does NO ONE know the difference between a habit and a tradition? Judging from the first page of other answers that popped up, you'd think not. What part of "carrying the cultural torch" are these people not getting?

Brushing your teeth is not a tradition.

Tradition is something handed down. It's something you do because your family or your community did it and now you're the generation to do it and pass it on to the next.

My Irish Catholic grandmother always kept a votive candle lit in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary on the tall dresser in her bedroom. Always.

My mother has her own votive candle and statue.

As the child of a Catholic and a Jew I had to reconcile myself pretty early on to the idea that there is no One True Way and that spiritual fulfillment is where one finds it.  Not long after I moved into this place, I picked up a package of Japanese incense, hoping to drive away the fresh paint smells coming from the apartment my landlord was re-doing on the second floor. Long after the paint odors had faded, I continued to light incense, because I found that I liked it.

I also found myself lighting it for other reasons. Those on my F-list have seen me write "Incense is lit" in response to requests for prayers, positive thoughts or crossed fingers. The lighting of incense is a symbol of prayer or intention or whatever you want to call it. It's an offering, whether it be made in a Buddhist temple or the Vatican. The same is true of the lighting of votive candles. (Tangential thought: modern fire codes have resulted in these horrible electric "candles" in most churches nowadays. Drop a coin and press a button. It just isn't the same.)

My nose tells me that if I have a stick of Nippon Kodo going in a bowl on the second floor, the smoke rises at least as far as my garret. I cannot say if it rises high enough to be noticed and appreciated by a deity. It is one of those things we humans do to mark our hopes for ourselves and those around us, to bring us comfort in "interesting times", as the proverb describes it.