play day

we finally got our play day.


on saturday, snark and i drove to oakland and visited the grand lake area where the saturday farmers' market is held. we browsed the numerous booths, indulging in ripe slices of peaches, nectarines, plums, pluots, and apricots offered to us as we walked by. we ogled the berries, the crates of summer squash, the bundles of lettuce, the baked goods. we tasted samples of sweet lemon cream cheese, garlic cheese and parmesan spread, hummus, and cilantro pesto; we tried snippets of indian food; smelled homemade soaps and tested the lavender lotion. it was a lot of fun--probably because it included so many interactions with food. of course, we ended up filling the bags we brought with fresh basil and parsley, fingerling potatoes, a magnificent peach, a white nectarine, blackberries, naan, samosas, a palm-sized blueberry tart, and more delectable buys.

the grand lake area is a place where i have spent a lot of time. and i connect to it in different ways: as a place that feels like home, but also for a long while as a place that held a lot of fear for me. i first came to that area because i trained in classical ballet; my mother would drive me, usually in traffic, 6 to 7 days a week to my dance school. once i had my license, i drove myself. in my very early twenties, the grand lake district became the midpoint between where i worked in oakland (fruitvale district) and where i lived on my own (ashby bart station area, where oakland changes into berkeley). i'd regularly stop in the grand lake area to pick up dinner at the chinese restaurant after getting off work or to drink coffee at Peet's in the evenings and at Noah's on sunday mornings, reading the newspaper, chatting with my friends, watching strangers walk by, and writing about it all in a journal. later on i came to the area because it was where my boyfriend's family lived. during all the time visiting this area, however, i usually felt some aspect of fear: anxiety about how the ballet class would go for me that day or, after i quit dancing, fear that i'd run into the woman who had been my ballet teacher. although she was a very tiny woman, my anxiety over seeing her turned her into a much more terrifying, larger, powerful version of herself.

the point of remembering the ways this place existed for me in the past--how it would be tinged with a thin outline of panic for me--is significant: this time, walking around with super snark, i was certainly surprised that i wasn't accompanied by the irrational fear that some ultra-emotionally-damaging part of my life was out to get me, to continue haunting me; it had finally dissipated. so maybe this is why i love getting older, why growing up is so damn cool!


snark and i traversed the area: sampled fancy chocolates and oohed and ahhed over icy bins of gelato; snark was disappointed that the jewish bakery was closed and he couldn't get a macaroon, but we bought a dozen bagels at noah's to share with my family; we checked out the new trader joe's that used to be an albertson's; and we shared a veggie dog at my favorite little hot dog shop. yay for food! and for being able to take so much pleasure in looking at it, smelling it, and eating it.


by the time we got to berkeley, we could only gratify our visual lusts--our bellies were too full by that point to actually eat anything. we walked along telegraph ave among the street vendors and explored the university. we sighed at the plethora of restaurants in the space of a single city block (korean, thai, japanese, indian, pakistani; restaurants primarily boasting crepes, pizza, vegeterian food, soups, salad, or beer). that's one major downfall with living in bisbee, the lack of diverse food options.

anyway, eventually we came back to vallejo. took vdog to the dog park. came back to the house and played 16 rounds of dominoes! how much more fun could a day get?!