How can you not have a lovely welcoming of the Sabbath Queen when you are on the deck in Mill Valley, with a nice cool breeze to cool you, nothing but some early summer corn, grilled asparagus, gespazo and grilled chicken? All washed down with some lemon cake with sliced strawberries. The answer is you can't not. Meaning you can, and so we did, and followed it up with some spirited m&m consumption while willy, the dog, tore apart a stuffed octopus. It was a perfect night,and to make it even better it was nice and cool.

It really is a bonus of living here, that summer is cool. Everyone complains about it, and tells me where to go where it's hot, but these are not people who have endured a New York City summer. Really, I love New York, but living there would be ideal if there were a break from late May to September that involved living somewhere cool. Here, it gets cool in the summer, which is fine with me, since I overheat easily. Not that the weather is not weird. Because it is. Like on Saturday, walking along the water, in two minutes it went from sunny to raining to sunny again. Very abrupt weather is the hallmark of summer here, with fog that blows in fast gusts. But fog is fine with me, bring it on I say, and I often do. Saturday evening, we made pizza, which, as usual, came out fantasitcally well, with arrabiata sauce and everything, and dandelion salad, which the Italians say is a tonic for the blood.

Then it was a quick screening of Style Wars, which captures the great period of New York in the early 80s when it was filthy and graffitti was everywhere.

Then we went out dancing. Quite a day really, ending with some snap frost vodka, and loathesome goombas working a velvet rope, and cheap looking women in white pants and tube tops. America is basically one big outer borough. Even though I only had a half a drink, I think it might explain why it was so hard to wake up Sunday. But eventually we not only got up but went to Tiburon, which is 18 miles away, and when I say "went" I mean biked. I had heard Tiburon was nice, and it has a nice bit, I'll grant you that, though mostly it is unremarkable condos along the water. But the water is nice. On the way back I got some Starbucks coffee chocolate chip ice cream, which, even though its a big brand and you are supposed to disdain them for the local shop with the little old man behind the counter, I have to say, it's pretty hard to beat Starbucks ice cream. And I say that as a person who is not a fan of Ben and Jerry or Hagen Daz.