An evening in Santa Cruz
Aug. 8th, 2009 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyEvery summer, Dad comes to Santa Cruz for the Dickens Universe. Every summer I brave Friday afternoon traffic down I-880 and Route 17 to meet him and do dinner.
Friday morning, he called me and said he'd volunteered to bar tend until 7PM and would I mind coming down later? While half my mind was cringing at the idea of my father managing anything more complicated than pouring wine, I also knew I did not want to head south later than I already had to.
Solution: Take a detour to the beach for an hour with my camera.
Lesson #1 Learned: If I take a picture at 6 or 12 megapixels, then crop it carefully, it's almost as good as having a longer zoom capability. Exhibit A and Exhibit B:
Lesson #2 learned: A railing, particularly one made of rounded metal, is not a tripod. Ever. I had to toss every single shot I took looking down towards the Boardwalk and this shot of a 3/4 moon is not as crisp as it looks here
Anyway, back to meeting Dad. Sure enough, "bartending," consisted of pouring wine or slinging bottled beer and soft drinks for the assembled academics, students and fans of Dickens. He didn't get done on time, just 'cause, and I was introduced, as usual, to a bunch of people who have all act like they're my Dad's biggest fans. Then again, he's been coming to this thing since it started 26 years ago and frequently lectures or moderates panels. They even had copies of his Tennyson and the Text for sale at the book table. (Pardon me a moment while I boggle at the price of a copy on Amazon.com! I bet he has NO idea. And Tennysonian Love, which is basically his Ph.D. thesis. Wow. ) OK, it's official. My dad IS a rockstar in certain circles.
By the time we got back down the hill from the campus (which is ripped to pieces for roadwork, complete with flagmen collecting a nice chunk of OT), we were about half an hour late for our reservation at Ristorante Avanti, but were still seated fairly quickly. Avanti prides itself on using local, sustainable, humanely produced foodstuffs. We both chose the Niman Flat Iron Steak (perfectly cooked - I should've trusted them enough to go rare), which came with blazingly green sauteed spinach and a gratinee potato serving that looked like a potato Napoleon, only with the atomic weight of, well, potatoes and cheese. The chocolate pot de creme was better than I remembered, and Dad had a peach and berry crisp that he made disappear despite previous protestations that he probably couldn't finish an entire dessert.
I drove down past Lighthouse Field State Beach again just so Dad could see where it was - that's when I stopped to try the night shots. I took him back up to Kresge campus, then drove back home.
Friday morning, he called me and said he'd volunteered to bar tend until 7PM and would I mind coming down later? While half my mind was cringing at the idea of my father managing anything more complicated than pouring wine, I also knew I did not want to head south later than I already had to.
Solution: Take a detour to the beach for an hour with my camera.
Lesson #1 Learned: If I take a picture at 6 or 12 megapixels, then crop it carefully, it's almost as good as having a longer zoom capability. Exhibit A and Exhibit B:
Lesson #2 learned: A railing, particularly one made of rounded metal, is not a tripod. Ever. I had to toss every single shot I took looking down towards the Boardwalk and this shot of a 3/4 moon is not as crisp as it looks here
Anyway, back to meeting Dad. Sure enough, "bartending," consisted of pouring wine or slinging bottled beer and soft drinks for the assembled academics, students and fans of Dickens. He didn't get done on time, just 'cause, and I was introduced, as usual, to a bunch of people who have all act like they're my Dad's biggest fans. Then again, he's been coming to this thing since it started 26 years ago and frequently lectures or moderates panels. They even had copies of his Tennyson and the Text for sale at the book table. (Pardon me a moment while I boggle at the price of a copy on Amazon.com! I bet he has NO idea. And Tennysonian Love, which is basically his Ph.D. thesis. Wow. ) OK, it's official. My dad IS a rockstar in certain circles.
By the time we got back down the hill from the campus (which is ripped to pieces for roadwork, complete with flagmen collecting a nice chunk of OT), we were about half an hour late for our reservation at Ristorante Avanti, but were still seated fairly quickly. Avanti prides itself on using local, sustainable, humanely produced foodstuffs. We both chose the Niman Flat Iron Steak (perfectly cooked - I should've trusted them enough to go rare), which came with blazingly green sauteed spinach and a gratinee potato serving that looked like a potato Napoleon, only with the atomic weight of, well, potatoes and cheese. The chocolate pot de creme was better than I remembered, and Dad had a peach and berry crisp that he made disappear despite previous protestations that he probably couldn't finish an entire dessert.
I drove down past Lighthouse Field State Beach again just so Dad could see where it was - that's when I stopped to try the night shots. I took him back up to Kresge campus, then drove back home.
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Date: 2009-08-10 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-10 05:09 am (UTC)Seriously, I suspect the impulse to go to Chinatown was probably inspired by certain people's Facebook uploads. ;-D