Raining cats and dogs…

A heavy, soaking rain lumbered through the Bay Area on Saturday. Ironically, I had just pulled these two ‘cats and dogs’ Far Side panels from my desk calendar this week. They are also amazingly funny…and a tiny bit sadistic 🙂

The rain had passed by Sunday morning, leaving a brilliant blue sky devoid of pesky particulates. We ventured out to Ocean Beach, to see if there were any visible signs of the terrible oil spill in the Bay on Wednesday. On first glance, everything appeared normal, except for some understated “no swimming” signs. However, along the rocky coast, you could see the bands of oil-stained sand at the high-tide mark. Still, these patches didn’t seem to convey the true ecological damage done…and in fact people seemed to be playing on the beach as normal. There was even a family playing with their kids and building sand castles, while nearby volunteers picked up oily trash with oil-covered rubber gloves.

On a more pleasant note, we did take advantage of the sunshine and had lunch today at the Park Chalet. I tried this amazing thin pizza piled high with wild mushrooms, whole cloves of roasted garlic, and creamy goat cheese. Amazing.

Lastly, we passed several “pumpkin patches” as we crossed the city. Naturally, they are all being converted into Christmas tree lots. This lot’s transformation caught my eye in particular, because of the unfortunate pumpkins skewered atop the poles surrounding the lot. We need to return in a few weeks to see whether a snowman or Santa gets skewered next!