Tea Party With The Girl Cousins
10:46 a.m. - 2012-08-13


We had a very fun busy weekend. It's been very hot here, and I am totally ready for the weather to cool down, so it was nice to go to two different cool places on Saturday. First, the spouse and I went to the Benicia Peddler's Faire. Huge crowds attend this fair but not right when it opens at 8 a.m., so that is when we go. By the time we leave, it is just starting to get too crowded. There are 300 plus booths of antiques and food and crafts, and the regular antique stores in town open up that early. I managed to get a few craft books and vintage needlework booklets, but one of these days I am going to break down and get a fried twinkie and/or a funnel cake. As we walked past the stand selling funnel cakes, we reminisced about the kinklings they used to sell at the All West Crafts Fair in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. They were sold out of a food van by two enormous twin sisters. Kinklings are like huge, doughy, fried funnel cakes dusted with powdered sugar. We loved how the smiling sisters looked like their delicious product.

Hmm, got sidetracked by the kinklings again. Anyhow, after the fair we puttered around a bit, then the spouse went off to help his mom downsize, and I drove over to pick up my niece and sister-in-law, then my daughter, and we all drove to the north bay to meet up with my sister. We were going to a tea shoppe in the City with almost all the females in my large family. It was really fun hearing all the family happenings (gossip) and finding out how life has been treating everyone. However, in order to get to the restaurant, I had to park in the City. I had been dreading this, since parking there is such an immense pain. I was not cut out to be an urban dweller. I drove down the street the restaurant is on in Noe Valley, saw my daughter and sister waiting in front of the restaurant, waved at them, and drove on by to find a parking place. There was one on my left, but I would have had to make a skillful U-turn nab it. This would have been easily done except for the police car right behind me, so that was out as an option. I drove around the block and found another space on a hill of extreme steepness, and to give myself credit, I did try, but got too scared at having the nose of my car point down at such a sharp angle, so I gave up and kept driving. We eventually found a space two long blocks up a gently sloped hill, so I parked and all four of us walked straight to the restaurant.

I have decided that I must get for myself one of those tower thingies they serve the high tea on. Theirs are metal, but that would match my tea pot which is a souvenir purchase from my favorite Chinese Restaurant when it closed down. There's not really anything served at a tea shoppe that you can't make easily at home, though I would have to look up a crumpet recipe.

It took us forever to get home because there was an accident on the San Mateo Bridge. Traffic would have flowed much more smoothly if not for those irritating people who drive up on the shoulder of the road past everyone else and try to nose into the traffic, backing everyone up. There are always the stupids who let them in. I would like to see the traffic grow a backbone and freeze out those jerks, leaving a line of them stranded on the shoulder until the traffic mess cleared up. In other traffic news, some teenaged idiots are driving around our area throwing water balloons out of the window at pedestrians, then speeding off. It doesn't seem to occur to them that a water balloon thrown when you are going 40 miles per hour can really hurt someone. The last one knocked an older man flat and bruised his back. I hope they catch those jokers soon.