Fiona Says:
We checked out of the Hotel Boheme at 9 am and picked up breakfast at a little Italian bakery in North Beach.
The Facebook friends of mine among you will recognize this account of what happened next.
The sweet old Italian lady working the till gave Sophie and Theo each a spinkle-encrusted cookie. As we were leaving, Sophie accidentally dropped hers on the pavement where it broke in half. We cited the 5-second rule and gave her the OK to pick it up and eat it. At which point, Theo cried "No fair!" and rather forcefully flung his cookie to the ground where it shattered. He immediately crouched down and began picking up the crumbs and popping them into his mouth.
We said, "Noooo!" and dragged him up the hill, toward the car. Theo said, "No fair" over and over again. I think he cried a little. But I stand by our actions. I am pretty sure it was the right place to draw the line.
We started our journey on Day 2 by overshooting Santa Cruz (where we were to end up later) and so we could get some time in at the Monterey Aquarium. Sophie and Theo remembered it fondly from our 2008 trip there. (Nearly as exciting as the aquarium was a black Ferrari that we saw parked nearby.) We enjoyed the jellyfish most of all, as we suspected we might, but also good were the seahorses and the penguins.
Sophie spent some of her report-card money on a manta-ray toy at the gift shop, whom she has named Fluffy. I'm pretty sure that he is the only Fluffy in his class at manta-ray school. I'll bet there are lots of Scaleys and Slimeys and a few Cartilageys, but -- and I'm quite certain of this -- no other Fluffys. Theo bought a stuffed eel who is yet unnamed. And a sort of plastic bitey hammerhead shark on a stick that Jon and I looked at doubtfully and immediately ruled that it could not be used to bite the driver. Theo looked at it closely for awhile and then said, "Hey did you know that hammerheads only have bottom teeth? None on the top at all!" and showed us his new toy as scientific evidence. "Theo," we said, "that was $3.99."
We stayed with Jon's friend Amelie at her place at UC Santa Cruz (she put us up even though she was in the middle of packing up all her possessions to move across the country -- that is true friendship!), and the kids thought it was pretty cool that she's an expert on television. As Jon pointed out, when she wastes time washing the dishes or doing her taxes, she is Procrastinating. When she turns on the telly and sits back with an icy drink, she is Hard at Work. Theo is thinking hard about how to best enter this field; I think he likes this better than his previous career aspiration ("I want to be a fat man that eats.")
We went to a rather odd restuarant for dinner but had lots of fun despite the disturbing decor, slow service, and plastic-wrapped tables. Sophie demostrated her Jon impression (sort of a Queen of England wave and a funny face), which sent me into hysterics. Theo, not to be outdone, started banging himself on the head with a bottle and said "Look! I'm Jon!" which was also very funny and rather unexpected.
Jon Says:
It was truly lovely to see Amelie again. Not to mention her fancy muscle car!
Sophie Says:
fluffy's a girl!
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