I slept 9.5 hours last night because I slept 3 hours the night before. The reason? vicki (UID: 1604) was in town and there are not enough hours in the day to pack all the fun in that comes with the project called vicki. An intrepid team of SFKossacks was sent in to do this mission.
Let' go in chronological order:
We begin with dinner at Andalu in the Mission District of San Francisco. vicki is a wine expert and she undertook the selection of our wines which was massive. (That's norm and side pocket in the background.)
Many more photos and video below the glyph.
More peeps arrive. Standing is The Awful Truth, Maggie Jean and Mrs. side pocket. Seated is Precinct1233's husband Robert and norm's hair.
Best group shot of the evening for dinner: From left to right, Paul Hogarth in pink shirt, Mrs. side pocket, side pocket and then across the table is maggie jean, Michael who works with vicki, The Awful Truth. NOW if you click on this photo it takes you to my Flickr album where one can put notes into the pic. There you will see the reflection in the mirror, a self portrait of me, precinct1233, jotter, vicki and norm are there.
Mandatory close up of jotter wondering where the food is.
jotter uses the wine list as a place mat. lol.
This was one of the last family style dishes to arrive. It's the only one I had time to photograph. The others were swiftly dealt out to the nearest diners faster than comments in a pie fight.
vicki holding court, side pocket paying his respects and me with a half-assed photo bomb.
It's normy! norm!
SFKossacks mandatory, ritualistic clicking of glasses.
jotter and Precinct1223 in the most beautiful orange linen Ralphie shirt.
Robert, Precinct1223's husband
Note at the end of the table: side pocket mugging and maggie jean giggling, typical.
kimoconnor arrives! Just in time to walk with us to karaoke!
Cute v. Cute
[Photo I missed: jotter driving his van along side our group walking to karaoke.
We felt stalked. ;) ]
Ahhhhh, The Mint Karaoke Lounge.
vicki perusing the karaoke menu.
Like almost all karaoke bars the crowd sings along. Usually there are table of girls yelling along with a bunch of girl drinks.
And now for the performances:
Behold: vicki
(mes excuse, I was late in recording...)
And now the only person I know who karaoke bar hops: Paul Hogarth
Note: Listen for vicki yelling "giddy yup!"
vicki won a special recording of her song, the jacket says "Karaoke at its Finest!"
And now we move on to Martuni's, a super fun gay piano bar. The pitchur taking will slow down from here and I messed up both my vids of vicki and Paul. The incidents begin. The owner of the bar took our drinks away because Michael spilled 2 ice cubes, vicki forgets her scarf there. norm misses the last BART train to the East Bay, we have to go back up top and find him a cab. ($50 cab ride, ouch) vick and I wait for our delayed BART train for 1.5 hrs. My head hits the pillow at 3 A.M. oy. It's hard being me.
Now for a few pics from Martuni's.
Paul knows the piano player so he went first.
Must have a martini at Martuni's. It's a commandment.
vicki, singing something beautifully.
So...... I gotta make myself wake up the next day to be on time for the day's plan of heading back into the city to meet vicki and play before she catches her red-eye back to the East Coast. First I upload all my pics and vid to clear the camera then high tail it back to BART. vicki, norm and I connect near the Civic Center BART station and we Paul at Opera Plaza for the Michael Moore book signing at Books, Inc.
While waiting, vicki found two very important books that should be in everyone's library.
Michael Moore arrives and speaks for an hour and 10 minutes.
The lucky ducks who got to sit. The standing room crowd was as large.
Mr. Moore ready to sign books, note one body guard in the foreground and one behind him. He had 3 that I noticed.
The line to get a book signed. There were two lines, the other was just as big.
Paul getting his book signed.
Afterward, we walk to Union Square for more clinking of glasses at Scala's Bistro.
Then a brisk walk down Powell heading for the BART station.
The cable car turn around.
vicki says goodbye to norm in the BART tube.
Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
We have more kossacks visiting San Francisco this year. We are looking forward to it.
Schedule of Upcoming Out of Towners:
Claude: Dinner, Sunday, Oct. 2nd
Jill Richardson: Dinner, Thursday, Nov. 3rd and Farm Workers Reality Tour, Sunday, Nov. 6th in Watsonville