Being in Berkeley

Mom and I are letting the kids sleep in this morning (and giving ourselves some much needed peace and quiet!) so I had some time to go thru my pictures from yesterday. The drive down was long with more fighting between the Things than we've EVER had before so when we do the second leg of the trip to San Diego I am considering giving them dramamine to make them sleep. Or a fifth of vodka. Whatever.

*It's a JOKE, I'm just joking!*

We wandered around Berkeley yesterday while Marvelous Mom took my car to Sunnyvale to visit a childhood friend. Daughter and Scientist Genius Brother went to see the new Johnny Depp movie (drool) and the Things and I got ice cream and then hung out in a park in the middle of the city.

The park was absolutely hysterical. There were lots of homeless people, some sleeping on the grass and others congregated in the shade hanging out and talking with what looked to be assistance workers - possibly from the YMCA that adjoins the park grounds.

There were several hippies playing guitars.

A gaggle (flock? swarm? school?) of teenage boys were skateboarding on the opposite end of the park from the homeless guys chatting.

Young lovers were making out on a blanket off by the playground area.

And a guy in a THREE PIECE BUSINESS SUIT was doing tai-chi in the grass.

I'm telling you, only in Berkeley.

My little tree-huggers doing their thing...

Eating ice cream in the plaza outside the Berkeley B.A.R.T. station...

And finally we finished off the day eating pizza at Zachary's, the best pizza place on the entire planet!

Today we will go into San Francisco where Daughter has an itinerary as long as her arm (we might make it to a quarter of the places she wants to go) and then tomorrow it's off to San Diego!

Vegetarian

Have I told you the story of Vegetarians I Have Known?  No?  Well, pull up a chair and let's chat.  It's all her fault...

I've posted this pic before but it's the best one I have of her and she will kick my ass if I post a bad pic so here it is again.  This is my BFF cousin.  We grew up like sisters, fighting and trying to kill each other at every opportunity.  Now I would take a bullet for her and consider her my sister as well as the psychic mother of my daughter.  (Daughter is so much like BFF cousin that it is spooky.)  

ANYWAY....

BFF cousin had a dream, something about animals and eating and hunting (I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention when she told me about it.  I SAID we were like sisters!) and she became a vegetarian.  Then she read a book called Diet For a New America by John Robbins and she tied me up with duct tape and made me read it too.  Then I became a vegetarian because that book was scary!  

It was GREAT!  I really didn't care that I saved chickens and cows from becoming my dinner but I got SKINNY!  My body really really likes to be vegetarian!  I was hawt stuff!  Then I took daughter to Italy to visit another cousin, Army Boy, who I love dearly and was stationed just outside of Venice.  Hmm...stay in Italy, visit one of my favorite cousins and STAY IN FUCKING ITALY?  I thought about it for half a nanosecond and then took daughter and flew to Italy for two weeks.

Have you ever tried to order a vegetarian meal in a language you do not speak?  I don't recommend it.  After half an hour of trying to communicate 'vegetarian' to a waiter via charades I finally gave up and ate meat.  Yummy, cholesterol raising red meat.  I fell off the wagon and have not managed to climb back on.  I'm gonna have to read that book again.

So after I fell off the wagon, Thing 1 decided that he too was going to be a vegetarian.  It was August of 2005.  He was 9.  And he hasn't eaten meat since.  No beef, no pork, no poultry, no fish.  Zip, nada, zilch.  He decided to become a vegetarian because he loves animals and doesn't want to eat them or kill them.  Before he eats anything he reads the list of ingredients to make sure it doesn't contain gelatin (it's made from horse hooves or bones or something) and soup is not acceptable if it has chicken or beef broth in it.  I have to admire his dedication to a cause.

He has expressed dismay at his inability to give up ice cream and cake (eggs!) in order to go totally vegan but he consoles himself with not wearing leather and making me - and Grandmother! - buy all organic free range dairy & egg products.  The fit he threw when I bought regular eggs one time had to be seen to be believed!

And you know what, he's sick less than any of the rest of us!  Thing 2 and daughter both had the pukey flu this past year but Thing 1 didn't get it.  He never even got a cold!  And he's 2 inches taller than Thing 2.  

I believe it's time to haul my ass back on the vegetarian wagon.  Maybe I'll drag the rest of the family on with me...