BlueJay Cafe, Madrone Lounge, Sailing 101 & Raining on the Sicilians Parade

BlueJay Cafe, Madrone Lounge, Sailing 101 & Raining on the Sicilians Parade
Current mood: pleased

So, I was planning on having a pretty uneventful weekend but my good friends took care of breaking those plans but I'm glad they did

I think I made an early start of the weekend mood by going to a spontaneous happy hour mostly with my girlfriends this past Thursday night...there was only a few of us. We went to Madrone Lounge; small but very denlike, I like the blue walls with the dark furniture, it immediately is cavelike but in an strangely cozy way, if you can imagine that...reminds me of the look my roommate & I were trying to go for in our current apartment, as cozy as it is; also, I had some "cucumber infused" vodka drink that was STRONG like a motha', I only needed one & I was pretty much set for the night...oh yes, I have to mention this, there were weird a _ _ old porn movies going on in that club but when I say old, it's like it's not even tintillating by our standards now...it's more like soooo hilariously funny...one scene is some girl dancing with her shirt off in a beehive coiffure & then doing the "Twist" in the middle of some party...ummmm, can we say that we see more action in the latest Snoop Dogg music video than that...it was so damn funny...

Anyway, we were getting hungry during our happy hour so I thought I would instead go to Godzilla Sushi on Divisadero instead...the walk was too far so, the lovely ladies & I backtracked...then, luckily, stumbled upon a restaurant called BlueJay Cafe instead....I say "luckily" b/c early that day at work I kept talking about po' boy sam'wiches at Pier 23 to my co-workers & was reminiscing about N'Awlins & their great jazz fest with them...anyway, this cafe has gumbo, sweet potato smashed or sweet potato in a pie; big hunks of fried chicken AND catfish (which is what I had), my friend had meatloaf wrapped in bacon, my other friend had a lot of cornbread & macaroni...it was SLAMMIN' & a good value, how can you beat that??? I felt like we struck gold & discovered a real find. Plus it had all this funky, eclectic art on the wall along with a few poetic phrases and words scribbled right next to it...it was down home good & stick to your ribs food. I'd recommend it to everyone...I read some reviews about the service being slow but that Thursday night...it was pretty efficient & our waitress was efficient, attentive & friendly, too...here's a review from a year ago but it's a pretty fair assessment of the experience I had there...if you go, enjoy...I think I plan on frequenting there every so often, since now I've found a place that has some good catfish nearby...


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/28/FDGJ96B07S1.DTL&type=food

So, yesterday, I tried to hunkerdown & just rest...I almost accomplished it...I ended up doing some laundry, grocery shopping for basics only (milk, butter, bread & eggs) & then making a Blockbuster run...that was good...sometimes doing "nada" feels like an absolute vacation...the routine is not so routine for me sometimes, for the past few weeks there's been one thing or the other to take care b/c it was either for work, my family, a celebration...not that I'm complaining but getting pure rest is always heavenly to me...makes me feel refreshed.

Anyway, my friend made plans with me all day today to meet up with her old music professor/ guitar coach from Santa Clara University....apparently, he's also the director of FREE (yes, it's free!) sailing classes for high school student that are held at Golden Gate Yacht Club in the Marina. That yacht club is apparently supporting the America's Cup this year, too. We met all these "Commodores" today which cracked me up inside my head but hey, I went with the flow (excuse, my lame joke). My girlfriend wanted to go not only to support his sailing students but to remind him that she loved sailing with him before...apparently, she said she did it last summer, where they started out in the Marina, stopped off at The Ramp for food (that great outdoor restaurant/ bar/ salsa dance club off 3rd Ave./ Hunter's Point )...they had a picnic on the boat & then docked off a pier near SBC Park...when she told me this over the phone on Friday...I'm like YES, of course...vamanos!

So, it was nice morning & afternoon today; pretty special in fact...while knoshing on flapjacks & sausages, we had a pretty spectacular view of the bay while we watched all the students practicing their moves of "tacking" the boat (see all the different definitions below for it in sailing, apparently what they were doing is moving from one move to the other) , maneuvering their "spinnakers" (when her Dr. Professor was talking about them to us, it made me think of my senior prom b/c I went to a restaurant called "Spinnakers" in Sausalito...how I felt so grown-up dressed in my fluffy prom dress, eating lobster ravioli while I "thought" I was in love with my prom date...ha!)...anyway, I just looked it up & the etymology of the word is that it may have come ultimately from "Sphinx", the name of the first yacht to use such a sail, or to spin, to move rapidly, a variation of the Scottish word "spene", to run before the wind. Interesting...love looking up the history of words...

Anyway, my friend's old guitar coach was pointing out that most of the students are music students and because, he's a sailor too he was trying to explain why musicians would be adept to sailing. He said that a purely "mechanical" musician who knows how to play the instrument well & knows how to bring out the correct notes in an instrument is not necessarily the best musician...he said that when someone is a great, superior musician, ultimately, creating a great song or fantastic music requires an abstract mind...some things you don't see but you largely just have to go by intuition or feeling...he explained that sailing is very, very abstract because you have to read which way the winds are changing or going at any given moment...that requires a mind that can detect the movement of the waves, the air, the wind, a keen perception of the weather changing, in addition, paying close attention to the other boats speeding & turning around you...plus, at the same time you have to have physical strength because in the small sailboats that the students are learning on, the maximum number is a crew of two...so, you have to be mindful of who the "skipper" is & just follow their lead no matter what because you rely on each other. My girlfriend mentioned too that it takes a lot of hand-eye coordination...it was pretty neat seeing them...but our extra special treat that day? Well, after he talked to us up on the theory of sailing, he decided we should at least see the "Application Theory" (as I jokingy called it, since I felt like I was right in a lecture hall over again, listening to Dr. Professor) her professor invited us to ride with his teenage son, who happens to be their coach & also, a 3 time National Title Champion (so, we were in good hands but we wore our life vests, anyway ;->) to ride on the chaser, propeller boat with him so we could watch all the kids/ sailors in action...we were so EXCITED...anyway, it was so fascinating to watch the kids just easily command the boat; ducking their heads when they switched the spinnakers & then pulling hard rights & lefts that veered all within the span of their bodies as they almost laid out across the boats; all the while they looked like they were having fun . The funny part was there was one redhead girl, named Rose, who I later read in their little bio at the breakfast, has been sailing since she was 5 years old on Lake Merritt (!) and she was complaining that she was dehydrated and needed water pretty soon or she would faint...I swear she looked no older than 12 years old but man when we were watching them on the water, she kept winning all the races...their young "coach" kept cheering her on & encouraging her (I later learned that she is actually in my hula school, too because I chatted up with her mom & they just joined the halua this year & said they loved learning from Patrick's class; I was happy to meet some new hula sistahs/ again it's a pretty small community in San Francisco)...anyway, the sailing was pretty cool, pretty cool...it reminded me of when I used to outrigger canoe a few years back; I love being on the water. My friend & I both agreed that we can easily get carsick but we don't mind being in the boat at all...I've told most people before, I feel a real affinity with water...I'm not being cheesey/ hippie and/ or flaky but I think being a Pisces has a lot to do with it, I really do. I like the sea air, I like the wind whipping in my hair, I don't even mind once in awhile falling in the water because, I like swimming; the chilly waters & even scarier sharks would deter me from the SF Bay water, though...ha! Anyway, I've actually never gotten to be in the Bay before after all these years livin' so comfortbly here, so that was a real first today, so l have to thank my friend & her old guitar professor for that...he actually, directed both of us to a place near the Berkeley Marina that gives free or next to nothing lessons that will tailor sailing lessons to our schedules; there's apparently, an all women's classes if we don't feel like "guys yelling at us" as her teacher, jokingly said...hmmmm, I'm going to have to check that out, especially since the weather is getting warmer and I thoroughly enjoyed my time out in the water today...we'll investigate & see...

Anyway, after that our next "thang to do" on our agenda was to go check out a Sicilian Festival happening at Union Square...it was okay, a small affair and they actually had some vendors that came all the way from Sicily for the event. I tried some biscotti type bread, we tried to get some espresso dealers to give us some coffee but they were being chintzy for some reason (if you came all the way over here, why not hawk the stuff? Who knows...) & then bought cookies drizzled with colorful sprinkles from some nice, older, maternal women who ran a local bakery & also, bought a boxful of cannolis (one of my Italian faves =>) & saved it for dessert tonight. My friend wanted to check out some Sicilian opera singers there too...they sang about half a dozen songs & then all of a sudden the rain started coming down. It was a little disappointing for us but the coordinator was far more disappointed b/c he kept saying, "They came all the way from Catania, Sicily here, please stay, it's only a little rain, it will pass, it will pass..." We felt so sorry for him...so, we decided to wait it out & ducked into Williams & Sonoma to browse & use the restrooms to wait out the rain but when we came out the singers had decided to leave...it was too bad, I was enjoying the invigorating songs; I love how they burst out at the top of their lungs with some of the notes...I don't have to understand the words when the intro' one song as "a quarrel between lovers" where the woman says "I am giving back the love you gave to me" ...ha! Haven't we all been there? Again, like the music professor says you it's the things that you don't see - the abstract that can make you a great musician and I might add a great appreciator of music, too...

Anyway, check out all the definitions of the sailor's word "tack"...again, it's the same analogy of all the words for ice that Eskimos have, right? The more definitions a "culture" has of one word, the more important it is to them...this word definitely fits that bill...

Great, great weekend... I'm happy I came out to play today...don't know why I even try to hide when there's so many fun things to do...


Tack n. (Nautical)

1. A rope for holding down the weather clew of a course.
2. A rope for hauling the outer lower corner of a studdingsail to the boom.
3. The part of a sail, such as the weather clew of a course, to which this rope is fastened.
4. The lower forward corner of a fore-and-aft sail.

.. Nautical.

1. The position of a vessel relative to the trim of its sails.
2. The act of changing from one position or direction to another.
3. The distance or leg sailed between changes of position or direction.

..

1. A course of action meant to minimize opposition to the attainment of a goal.
2. An approach, especially one of a series of changing approaches.

V. tr
5. Nautical. To bring (a vessel) into the wind in order to change course or direction.

v. intr.

1. Nautical.
1. To change the direction or course of a vessel: Stand by to tack.
2. To change tack: The ship tacked to starboard.
2. To change one's course of action.

Currently listening: Since You've Been Gone By Kelly Clarkson Release date: By 01 February, 2005