1-21-09 Wednesday (Super Power Outage)

Today will most likely be a day of small projects and relaxation. Relax from what, you might ask? Well, sometimes living a life of leisure is tough stuff. My feet hurt from sightseeing, my pants are too tight from excessive BonBon eating; and my back is sore from standing and staring at alleged works of art. See what I mean? I wouldn't want to trade places with any of you. It's hard work so I figure I'll take the hit for the team. I'm like that, ya know?






In all seriousness, my gut is entering rooms before the rest of me. Jim and I have gained back nearly all, or possibly all of our weight. I know snacking has been a bad thing. Well, there's a lot of bad eating habits we have. I think this time I should focus on calories. Anyone have suggestions of some low-cal, high taste foods? Especially between meal snack stuff? I need something "filling".

It's started raining here so I took Dasher for a walk before it gets bad enough to need an umbrella. We knew ahead of time that we'd have rain so it worked out well that we finished out our GoSanFrancisco cards. I think Jim has some other stuff planned that wasn't part of the Go Card. One is a ghost hunt but I don't know much more about it.

Jim's ex-coworker Sandra has been in town and we haven't seen her. I assume Jim is keeping in touch and we meet up with her soon. Sandra and her friends will be fantastic sources of things to see type knowledge.



I got up at 7am this morning. I was warm and couldn't sleep anymore. I've been cleaning this, doing that, and it's only noon. So many hours left to the day with no plans! It's strange.



Jim is taking a nap, so I'll take the opportunity to fill you in on silly stuff that I've forgotten to. During our first Pier 39 visit, we went to the visitor's center. The woman recommended a restaurant called Caesar's Italian. I have a menu in hand and have to laugh at their 7 course dinner which includes: Salad (Italian Dressing), assorted antipasti, vegetable soup, pasta meat sauce, entree of your choice, coffee and dessert (choice of vanilla, chocolate, sherbet or spumoni ice cream). What a sucky bunch of choices. Pasta meat sauce hopefully means pasta WITH meat sauce. Coffee is a "course"? The price of the entree versus the 7 course meal is about $10-$12. I guess that's not too bad for the other courses?

The train: I've told you that it runs VERY close behind us. One of these days I'll catch the train running with a video. It still startles the crap out of me! Even when I'm awake, if it passes by, it sounds louder than the time before. By the way, the train that runs behind us is freight and Amtrak, not BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

Jim and the chicken bones: OK, I'll explain this story. Jim worked at a buffet restaurant (Mrs. Appletons) where he prepared a lot of chicken (cheap meat) in giant deep fat fryers. He had to wash the bloody raw chicken, bread it, and fry it. Left over chicken was dismantled from the bone, and used for chicken pot pie, chicken soup, etc etc. Working with this chicken all the time made him dislike chicken on the bone. Hmmmm, now I'm starving for fried chicken. KFC or Publix is the best. Popeye's is pretty good too. (salivating but less the throw up feeling in the small toilet room)

Bums: San Francisco, being a major city appears plagued by these homeless people. I don't remember seeing so many in New York city. Some are just sleeping somewhere on the street. Others are panhandling. Some play instruments or try to entertain. Some want to provide "help" such as directions for money (they listen in on conversations). Another one hung out by the bathroom and advised us to use a different one because this one is loitered by bums and it smells. I said we were fine but thanks. When another person took his advice, he put his hand out for money. I wonder how many have homes, cars and the like but do this for income? It seems to me I've read or watched something about these fraudulent homeless people.

Litter: I've been so disappointed in the litter problems San Francisco has. Perhaps they need to utilize more community service people? New York and Seattle are cleaner. It's not just San Francisco either, it's been along the highways. It's ugly.

BART: What a noisy friggin' train. I've done a little research and an article online says it's because the wheels turn at the same time instead of having a differential. Whatever it is, it's awful. I found a website where people bitch about BART.

Smoking: It has been 3 weeks and we're both 100% smoke free. I've been asked by some if I feel different. I feel exactly the same as when I smoked. I don't have any new super powers yet such as enhanced taste - "Jim, do you taste that? Oh my God, it's a flea's leg" or the super smell - "Jim, did you catch a whiff of that fart from the mosquito 5 lots down?" When we do get these amazing abilities, we probably won't use them for good. Probably not evil either. That's over rated. Maybe for personal gain? But really, I still have those sneak-up-on-me cravings, oh and I'm always hungry.


Now it's 4:30 and I'm almost bored. Maybe Jim and I need to use a gift card at Chili's tonight. We have a coupon for the free appetizer. Life is good.


To finish out the blog for this evening - we went to Chili's... yummy. After Chili's we stopped at a Lucky's supermarket for a few things. Of course, a pan handler was hanging out. Geez, it's bad. We finished out the evening by going to Cold Stone. I had the Peanut Butter Cup Perfection; I wonder why I keep gaining weight. Here's hoping it wasn't contaminated with Salmonella.