Saturday we walked Xochitl up to Bernal to frolic in the grass like a little bunny rabbit. She loved it.
Xochitl is going through a phase where now she's barking at any dog she sees, which is totally awesome in a place like Bernal which happens to be an off-leash dog park. After a few trials and errors, she quickly learned that the presence of a new dog on the horizon meant treats magically appeared on the ground. That worked long enough to get her over the hump and stop caring about the new dogs, since there were many of them. After that, she figured out to just follow us on the trails.
I went to work for a few hours, came back, and took a nap.
That night the front house had a party. Normally a front house party consists of a crowd that begins in the street, spills out the back, and stumbles into our house at 3 am looking for the bathroom.
But this weekend, probably due in part to the untimely good weather and the presence of spring break, the crowd was pretty tame. The second keg wasn't tapped until about 2 am (which is normally when folks are screaming for blood because the second keg went dry), and the new fence proved to be a monolithic deterrent that successfully kept the drunks out of our yard. We were able to have actual conversations with friends and all the windows and doors survived. They may not have been able to recoup the cost of the booze through the cover charge, but it did mean there was plenty of Pabst left to make that Sunday even lazier.
The next day Aaron took me out on the BSA. To understand the enormity of the previous statement, you have to hear the back story...
Last spring we drove up to Enumclaw to rescue the BSA. The 1969 single stroke motorcycle had been one of his dad's favorite toys, and Aaron remembers hopping on as a child and going for rides up the logging roads around their house (hey, it was the '70s!). Several decades ago the BSA was retired and sat lifeless and broken in the garage. A few years back, Aaron's younger brother Craig decided to "fix" the old bike while on a short visit home. Well, he managed to take it all apart, but never bothered to put it back together. When we got up to the farm, we were faced with an assortment of parts scattered around the garage and a couple old manuals to guide us. We pieced it together and brought it back to San Francisco.
Fortunately Aaron's landlord happens to be the premier old bike expert in the Bay Area. Even with Dennis as an invaluable resource, it's still taken nearly a year to get the bike working, and this weekend was its first time out in the city. Isn't it pretty?
(Aaron looks stoic because starting the thing is an art in itself and takes a huge amount of concentration)
We puttered around for a long time. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous. Not because Aaron is a bad driver or because I'm scared of motorcycles, but because all the controls are reversed (it's an English bike) and Aaron had told me that, during practice rides, he'd repeatedly mixed up the clutch and brake when his reflexes took over. Fortunately, this ride was without incident (except for maybe stalling a few times).
We finished out the afternoon in Dolores Park which was perfect except for Xochitl's amazing display of her nonexistent recall.
Next week we begin a dog training class that promises a "Rocket Recall." We'll see.
1 comment:
Sounds perfect indeed! (With the only exception being that darn recall of course.) My husband will be drooling if he ever gets a glimpse of that bike, poor guys has a helmet and a license, but no bike. Lame.
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