LA_Spokane_SFO

 Ok it is now Thursday and last nights mad dash from arriving at hotel and organising ourselves to get to our restaurant booking revealed something else. Jerry had brought only shorts and John had left behind all of his shirts bar the one he was wearing. So although shopping with two guys is not my idea of fun, hitting the shops today was definitely on our agenda. But first we used our morning walk to visit St Patrick's Cathedral, started in the 1858 and only completed in 1939. It opens at 6.30 in advance of a 7am service. There were no takes among us for the morning service but we all found the cathedral moving. We had bets o n the number and demographic for the morning service and were all wrong. We estimate around 50 parishioners and a range of ages.. Jerry had a $2 coin that bought to Tapirs and H John and I each got to light one. After grabbing a quick breakfast is was off to UniQlo for shorts and pants, which was very successful and Jx2 are both now firm fans. We breezed thro...

 

John Mahoney arrived on Monday 27 Jan   2025   for his third visit to Australia. His first two days included Jerry meeting him at the airport in Sydney for the train trip to Newcastle, landing at 47 King St Stockton in the early afternoon, dinner at our place with  Anna, Kate and granddaughter Bénédicte (with a fab Shiraz from Anna and a  beautiful Pavlova made by Benne), surviving a blistering hot Monday by laying low, sharing a pub dinner  with Josh’s family at the Gates Hotel and then experiencing a full a southerly buster as only Australia can deliver.  A southerly buster  is when it is so hot you think it just cannot get any hotter and then a storm arrives with wind and rain and often lightening and the temperature drops in minutes. This was a challenging beginning but the fun was only just starting.  We have planned two “road trips” during John's stay and the first was flying to Melbourne on Wednesday.   We DID get to Melbourne on the d...

At the Airport now for the first leg on my way home. These last pictures include today and last night and any that I have missed fitting in along the way. There is one shot of my favourite peets coffee shop, one of the Topper, one of if not the last of the old So City bars (dad says there was 50 at one point in time), one of la Tapatia where I bought my tortilla press and one of Uncle mike doing the frozen banana thing at prestons ice cream shop in Burlingame. Last night was dinner at Don picos, a Mexican place in milbrae. That is the last group photo. This morning after my session at Peets, a bowl of nonis soup for breakfast and a quick stop at Sees Candy, I went with Non and Gramps to a big supermarket in the Bay View area of SF where gramps grew up. We went there because non was chasing her favourite hair spray, which she has been looking for all the time that I have been here. She and Gramps use the same brand and she always keeps her eye out for sales, but she has not been able ...

Yesterday I was Linda's offsider for the first of three days delivering Thanks giving Pies to all of the dentist offices along the peninsula that refer patients to Linda's Periodontal Office (something to do with dental work). I think all u she has organised for 60 pies to be delivered to each office in the mornings so staff can share them for their lunch or afternoon break. First job is to go to Draegers Grocers where the pies are made fresh each day. Draegers is pne of those very beautiful grocery stores where you can walk around for hours. As Thanksgiving is just around the corner they had Giant chocolate turkeys for sale! Then it was bundling up the pie with a reference book on dental work and a thank you card and then delivering to the various offices. As we were picking up the pies Linda also spotted some cheap pie servers which she ended up buying as well so that the staff could cut and serve the pies easily. As we went along we were bundling the book, pie, pie server ...

Krista's boys, Noah and Lucca have an amazing support team around them and lots and lots of love. our Mom and Dad are Nona and Pappa and they play small supporting roles but the boys have their routines and their favourite things to do when they visit the house, like Noah who loves to sit in dads big old caddilac. LInda and Mike are Noni and Nonno and they are stars, they do lots of picking up and baby sitting and sleep-overs. Both boys have wonderful individual relationships with both of them and Lucca has a thing for mikes ears. Michelle and Tony are Zia and Zio and they are also a big part of their world. Krista and Greg are in the hot seat and as they both have big jobs (Greg is head of grounds at AT&T Park, home of the Giants Baseball Team, and Krista is City Clerk for So San Francisco), so the support crew is very important. Life for the So City crowd is busy and everyone likes to keep track of what everyone else is doing, especially because sometimes plans change and So...