****loads of firecrackers and cute little kids.

Keep your string bands, Philadelphia. We've seen your inflatable cartoon characters, New York.

San Francisco has the Chinese New Year's Parade in San Francisco. They have it at NIGHT, which means cool stuff like this:  .
A slideshow of photos from last night's Chinese New Year's Parade in San Francisco.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/02/08/BA3V15PN9G.DTL&o=0
Video and article about awakening the dragon here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/25/BACR15GICJ.DTL&hw=chinese+new+year+supervisors&sn=002&sc=720

The downside to all those firecrackers? The sound quality of the TV broadcast is always a disappointment. We had Ben Fong-Torres and Julie Hayner's commentary loud and clear, but you could barely hear the parading drummers, bands or children's choirs because they'd cranked the sound feed way down - because of the firecrackers. I had to take their word for it that the kids from the Chinese Hospital were singing "A Spoonful of Sugar."

Still, if you like parades, this one clicks my clacker. Sure, there are floats with commercial sponsors, there's the Miss Chinatown pageant chicks in tiaras and cheongsams, but the endless processions of school children in often-homemade costumes bring home how much of a community staple this one is, regardless of Southwest Airlines putting their name on it. Did you know the SF police department has its own lion dancing squad? Heck, they had garbagemen parading.

Fun stuff...

She travels fastest who travels alone

....but maybe I racked up a few karma points today by inviting a friend to attend the Noh lecture in San Francisco.

Had I gone alone, I could've (a) hit Nippon-ya in Japantown before the lecture to pick up a mochi assortment for Estrella. (b) I could've gotten to the lecture early enough to get a seat where I might actually have been able to see more than the backs of craning heads. (c) I could've gotten home by 4:30 or 5:00, gotten a parking spot in front of the house and maybe even gotten some pre-war truck loading done before the rain got heavy.

Instead, I picked up a spool of rose colored thread to finish the shibori kosode with, picked up the friend, had lunch in a coffee shop near USF that lacksadaisical service (it should not take that long to make a cold tuna salad, especially one that's mostly salad and two bites of canned tuna).

I'd like to fire off a letter to the Consulate General's office in San Francisco about what a disservice their choice of venue did to both the lecture and the performance demo. (I did write about it in the survey sheet they routinely give out at JACC events). The hall was way too small for the number of attendees and the "stage" area was at floor level, which meant that unless you were sitting in the first couple of rows, you couldn't see Mikata-san (who chose to conduct his lecture while seated on the floor) or the musicians (fue, ko-tsuzumi and o-tsuzumi). All I could see from where I was seated were a succession of craning heads. When the performance segment began, we could at least see Mikata-san from the waist up, because some of the folks in front of us had either left, or decided that standing in the back was an improvement. The scene was from "Atsumori," in which Rensho recalls the death of his young adversary while gazing at the sea. A brief synopsis of the play can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsumori_

What I could see and hear was breathtaking, but it wasn't enough! And I really need a red and white dan gawari kosode with big honkin' butterflies and gold Genji clouds on it now.....

I couldn't FIND parking near Japantown when we cut across town after the performance, at least nothing close - my companion can't walk all that far or fast. I decided to head back to the East Bay and buy supermarket mochi at Ranch 99, be told, "Oh, the Berkeley Bowl will have it." I HATE the Berkeley Bowl - even if I did actually get a parking spot. The place is never not a madhouse. Ever. I don't like crowds to begin with and I do not appreciate being hip checked by some overly entitled teenager without the manners or sense to excuse herself while buying organic pet food on Daddy's money. I also paid about $2 more per package for mochi than I would've if I'd bought it anywhere else. 

The kicker? I left the rose colored thread I bought this morning to finish the kosode with IN THE TRUCK. Which means I am not going to be able to finish it until I get to Estrella. I just won't have time. I have to load up tomorrow and make up a batch of onigiri to go into the cooler.

On the other hand, I got to see someone I hadn't seen in about a month and a half who I do enjoy hanging out with, get her out of the house to do something interesting, and help her get some legal documents to a copy shop just before it closed.