long but good day
At 4AM this morning, the battery on the smoke detector outside our bedroom decided to die. This meant that the smoke detector was beeping every 60 seconds. Denise ran down to Safeway at 4AM to buy a 9V battery. Something as seemingly simple as changing the battery made no difference, as the lame smoke detectors here are all networked together somehow. So when one of them is down, the others somehow pickup the difference. Eventually, we figured out that pulling out the battery, and disconnecting it from AC power made it shutup. I managed to fall back to sleep eventually, until just before 7AM when it somehow started beeping again. At that point Denise inserted a fresh battery, and did something (we're not really sure what at this point), and it shutup. When I got out of bed, I reconnected the AC power, and its been silent ever since.
We spent the day in the city today. We drove to Golden Gate Park in the morning, and walked around large chunks of the park. We started off playing with a frisbee in this large field. David had lots of fun throwing the frisbee, chasing it when Denise or I threw it, or picking these tiny little flowers (mostly dandylions, clover & daisies). Afterwards, we walked through the botanical gardens (which were huge, I never realized how large, and diverse the collection was), and we ran into this guy who had a large bag of peanuts in the shell to feed the squirrels. He just handed us some peanuts, and david was having alot of fun, throwing peanuts to every squirrel that we found (plus he was making these kissy sounds trying to get the squirrels' attention). Afterwards we walked over to Park Chow and had a tasty lunch. Following that we walked over to the Japanese Tea Garden, but they were charging admission, and we decided it wasn't worth it, and walked around the plaza in front of the de Young Museum. Next we drove to the western half of the park, and parked near the Buffalo paddock. We took a short walk over to a large lake, and David had a great time looking at the assorted birds & turtles in & around the lake. For some bizarre reason he thought that this flock of pigeons that were flying in circles around the lake were the funniest thing ever. He was also fixated with throwing leaves into the lake. We walked back to the buffaloes, but they were being anti-social, and were so far towards the back of their pen that we really couldn't see them well at all. We continued walking westward, all the way past the windmill and to Ocean Beach. It was super windy, so we just stood at the wall in front of the beach itself, and watched some windsurfers, and other assorted people on the beach. David really really loves the beach. At this point we had done alot of walking, and David was starting to weardown. I ended up carrying him on my shoulders the last quarter mile or so back to the car.
Since it was still mid-afternoon, we decided to drive up to the Presideo, and parked at Crissy Field. David & I walked down to the waterfront, and stopped at the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary vistor's center. They had a very nice set of exhibits, with several fish tanks, some life size models of an otter & walrus, some pelts & skins from assorted sea creatures, and a shark's skull (with teeth). David even got a large shark sticker that he was quite excited over. Next we wandered down to the field (which is just a large sandy beach with alot of marine plant life growing on it), and walked around a little bit before heading back to the car. Pictures are up at the usual spot.
We had reservations that evening for dinner at FireFly. The drive wasn't too far, and we got there a bit early. Luckily there was a small playground nearby, and David had some fun there. We changed into somewhat dressier clothes for dinner. Denise & I were both a bit concerned that David might have a meltdown during dinner, because he had a rather long day, and on top of that we were eating at a fancier restaurant than what David was used to. Thankfully, his behavior was pretty good, and we had a good meal. Denise & David shared some shrimp & scallop pot stickers, and I had a goatcheese Souffle with beets as an appetizer. All of them were quite tasty. For a main course, we got some more potstickers for David, Denise had Grilled Pork Rib Chop with Spicy Porter Jus, Bacon, Grilled Corn off the Cob and Creamy Grits, and I had Royal Trumpet Mushroom and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chile Relleno with Black Beans, Creme Fraiche and Avocado Fava Bean Salsa. Mine was pretty tasty, and Denise liked her's overall, although the Jus was a bit too peppery in her opinion (I thought it was just too salty). For desert I had the Strawberry Rhubarb Parfloat with Vanilla Bean Gelato, Basil Seeds, and Basil Syrup, and Denise had a Banana Twinkie with Dark Chocolate Ganache, Walnut Cream, and Bruleed Bananas. I liked mine alot (especially the basil seeds), and Denise thought that her's was good, but nothing too special. The drive home went alot more smoothly than I expected.
That night I watched Down in the Valley. Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed. I thought that it started off well, but just past the halfway point, it became very contrived and unbelievable.