Yesterday afternoon I needed to run down to the PO to mail a critical letter, so I hopped on the Segway and tore down to 24th Street only to discover that the PO was closed for some holiday, which I should have suspected since the streets were packed with cars and the sidewalks with people.

Stifling my disappointment, I scratched my head for an alternative errand, since I was already down there, and realized that I could go to the cheese store and ask Charles about a Basque blue recently glowingly reviewed by Janet Fletcher in the Chron. So I spun around and zipped back down 24th Street, which was totally jammed, backed up for a full block both ways because a van had double-parked in the eastbound lane and exactly opposite it in the westbound lane a meter man had stopped his Cushman to issue tickets, perfectly positioning himself so that between him and the van there was not enough room for a car to squeeze through. Our primary hiring criteria for meter persons are thickness of skin and skull.

The Segway, of course, breezed easily through the jam both ways, adding a bit, I sensed, to the annoyance already experienced by the folks sitting there with their engines snarling. Will this give any of them the idea that they don't have to use a four-wheeled vehicle to shop on 24th Street?

Traffic was not stopped in the block between Noe and Sanchez, but owing to the level of traffic and folks trying to parallel park, the larger vehicles with enclosed passenger compartments were moving slowly enough that I could easily keep up while maintaining a mid-lane position. I find this empowering.

All this excitement so nerved me up that in the moment I had to consider the decision while crossing Sanchez, I elected to perform a Right Flank, March! at full speed into a three-foot slot between parked cars in front of the cheese store. I had been practicing this maneuver on side streets, but I had not yet tried it when a slight misjudgment would dump me in the road to be run over by onrushing traffic, smash me into one of the parked cars, or impale me on the parking meter.

But it worked. Not only did it work, it worked perfectly. Totally smooth. I alit crisply on the curb as my body came upright again and the Segway stopped.

As I did so I heard a voice over my shoulder, "Is that thing cool or what?" And as hard as I could play devil's advocate, I don't think it was sarcastic.

Charles of course had the Basque blue and gave me a taste. As an alternative, he unfurled a major gorgonzola, at which I saluted.

And to put this all into perspective, an hour ago I attempted to jump a low curb in front of my barber shop, one that I had successfully jumped in the past, only to somehow hit it just a hair wrong and end up on my ass in the squishy mashed leaves and muck. Yuck.

Two patrons and my barber were watching. Triple yuck.

I am so enjoying this late adolescence. See, when I was a teenager I was too busy being good.

An admonitory note I sent my friend Andrew, which he felt I should share:

Andrew,

Picture the following situation:

You are on one of your Nature Walks way up in the hills when suddenly, you are jumped by a mountain lion. Her attack is vicious, and although you fight back valiantly, you lose consciousness.

When you awake you discover that you are wounded too severely to move very much and have been loosely covered in brush. The horror of your situation rushes over you: rather than drag dinner to her cubs, she has tucked you away out of sight off the trail and is bringing the cubs to dinner.

Realizing that when dusk falls she will be back with the cubs to devour you, tastiest parts first, you frantically whip your cell phone out and call for help. They ask, "Where are you?"

Alas, you can give them only the vaguest answer, and you whine, "Oh, if only I had listened to Louis and got myself the Garmin etrex Vista 24MB Global Positioning System with compass, altimeter, and PC cable."

Much later, as the sun sinks slowly through a haze of pain, you hear a faint padding sound. "This to save a measly $250," you whimper.

There is a rustling in the brush.....

What an afternoon yesterday was! After watching Justine and Roger win the championships in the Pacific Life Open, I went out shopping on the Segway down to 24th Street. I was trying to run the battery completely down because this extends its life if done periodically. I cut it pretty fine because I ran out of juice about ten yards short of the summit at 21st Street on the way home. So let it rest for a minute and then started it back up and made it over the top and then regenerated some energy in the quarter block down to my door. Wanting to completely exhaust the battery, I rode back up to the crest and practiced acrobatics in the flat space at the top of the hill, mostly just running around in a circle, throwing in occasional emergency swerve practice moves.

As I whirled around, a couple of pedestrians crested the hill from 24th and stood watching me. Somewhat self-conscious, I explained to them that I was trying to run the battery down, and we got to talking since it was immediately obvious that they were tourists and I do love tourists. As we chatted, I tried to figure out where they were from but couldn't place the accent and neither made grammar errors that gave anything away. Finally, I broke down and asked. Boston, they replied. Oh please. That accent wasn't "pahk the cah in Haavahd Yahd."

After a while, it finally seemed appropriate to ask where they were from before they were from Boston, and by that time they had lost enough reserve to tell me that they were originally from Russia. It came out that they hadn't come here until 1991 when we were talking about Solzhenitsyn's works and they spoke of reading them in samizdat. Yow! And the difficulty when your copy was the tenth carbon and you could see only about half the letters and yet you had the social obligation to pass the manuscript on in 24 hours. At least the pressure to figure out the words and get it read kept your mind off visits by the NKVD.

Before that we'd talked about tennis, and their take on Safin is the same as mine: if he gets his head together he will slaughter everyone else. Ha! I got points by knowing that Irakli Labadze was, like Joseph Vissarionovich, from Georgia. Actually, that's how we made the segue from tennis to literature. For some reason I'd quoted them a line (and I think also a chapter title) from The First Circle "Give us back capital punishment, Joseph Vissarionovich!" Igor also loved it that I remembered the last line from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: "The extra three were for the leap years." If you don't remember the novel, you'll need to know that the penultimate line was something to the effect that there were 3,653 days like this one in Ivan's ten-year sentence.

My problem with Russian (well, one of my problems with Russian) is that I can read lots of Russian nouns but can pronounce only a certain percentage of them well enough to be understood by, say, a Russian.

At some point in the conversation (well before Solzhenitsyn), I'd invited them for coffee. Like everyone does, they loved the view out back, but what thrilled Nina even more was my collection of Haworthias. She reached into her purse and pulled out this teeny little camera and leaned over until it was a couple or three inches from the leaves and took closeups. I'd never seen a camera that would take such closeups, and it was love at first sight.

Thanks to the combined efforts a couple of weeks later of my friend Jim and the Nikon Rep we blundered onto at Best Buy, I am now the proud owner of a little toy camera that will fit into my pocket, a Nikon Coolpix 3200.

Here's my first halfway decent pic, the inflorescence on the Pachyveria nelii on the balconette:

Nobody asked, but here is my modest proposal to solve the problem of all them nasty queers wanting to get married. I offer it out of a pure spirit of public service since I, myself, am far too old and cranky to even consider marrying anyone of any sex.

The problem is that in this country there is a long list of special privileges (people counting them have come up with numbers over a thousand) that are granted only to couples who are married. But marriage is a religious ceremony, so giving the married special privileges is a violation of the doctrine of the separation of church and state. The church is free to grant privileges to the married, but the state should not. Since the members of various religions all over the globe have traditionally loved nothing more than slaughtering persons who worship incorrectly or at least discriminating against them, the state should not do anything to encourage religion.

Unfortunately, over the past few hundred years, the line between church and state has been blurred so that it is now possible in this country to get married without ever darkening the door of a church/temple/ mosque/whatever. This is absurd when you think about it. Can you go down to City Hall and get a baptism or bar mitzvah?

The logical solution is to get City Hall out of the marriage business and require folks who want to get married to do so in the religion of their choice. If your religion holds as doctrine that left-handers cannot marry each other, and you, born a lefty, fall in love with another lefty, then you're out of luck. You must either marry somebody acceptable to your religion or get yourself a more generous religion.

What City Hall should do instead of marrying people is give them civil unions. It is these civil unions that ought to convey to their members all the civil rights now given to the married. To ease the transition, persons who are currently married should be considered to also have a civil union.

Unfortunately, all the idiots from Gavin Newsom to the Pope to George W. Bush neglected to consult me on this and are now busily igniting a political war. Just what we need....another war, another way to divide ourselves from each other.

Notes: Gavin Newsom is the mayor of San Francisco, and he recently allowed several thousand same-sex marriages before a bunch of Christians enforcing Christ's love got a court order to stop it.

The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and he sends millions of wretched third-world poor to their deaths of AIDS to keep their souls from being sullied by the use of condoms. In his spare time, The Holy Father works against homosexuals.

George W. Bush is President of the United States, and he is working tirelessly to stuff his religious doctrines down all our throats. Do we really want no abortion, no stem cell research, and the teaching in the schools of creationism on an equal par with evolution? Oh, and no birth control for the people, the poor, who need it most.

My friend Dick has recently taken possession of a 2004 Prius, and I am eager to get his impression of how it handles. I'm just delighted with mine, but this is doubtless influenced by having spent a year and a half behind the wheel of a 2002, which was certainly the least stable vehicle I've ever owned. This wasn't a problem in the city, but on the highway I always felt that I was just barely in control, especially on curves at highway speed.

Chris is visiting now, and on Monday I took him up to Calistoga to see Jeff Notias' Bulldog Cactus Ranch. On the way up I took 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge and then 37 across the Petaluma River flood plain and on over to 29 up to Calistoga. En route, I was able to play tour guide, pointing out terrain features and prattling incessantly about the various wineries as we passed them. The 52.4 MPG I got on the trip up was made possible by the lower speed limits and fairly heavy traffic up Highway 29.

The greenhouse was fascinating, and Chris showed admirable patience while Jeff and I talked the talk and inspected plant after plant. Exercising great restraint, I purchased only five new Haworthias, for example, H. springokulok v. sandpoort EA976, just call me Sandy:

And OK, I couldn't resist, a female Euphorbia obesa, a mate for my male.

To take a different route on the return, I cut west up the grade out of the valley at St. Helena. This narrow, twisty back road provided my first real opportunity to seriously test the handling, as it was one 20 MPH curve after another all the way up and all the way down. I can now report that I just love the handling. It feels like all four paws are gripping the asphalt, and as I grew more accustomed to it, I could take the curves faster and faster.

Actually, the only problem during this phase was an occasional minor squeak, but after listening closely I determined that this was just Chris.

I started the day out last Wednesday with a routine visit to my doctor, after which I returned home and finished packing for my summer camp. The idea was that I would drive a couple hundred miles up I-5 to Redding, arriving in time to get some good shots of Calatrava's Sundial Bridge in the afternoon, stay overnight and take some night shots, and then take some morning shots before I set out for Saratoga Springs via a scenic route due west of Redding to US-101 and then down to the cutoff for camp. A fine plan, and well thought out.

Unfortunately, I was a bit distracted by one of my doctor's observations, and consequently did not put enough effort into thinking through my packing. So about halfway up I-5 I started thinking of things I'd forgotten, and thought of more and more as I pushed on northwards at 74 and 3/8ths MPH. I mean, surely they wouldn't give a ticket for less than 75, especially to a vehicle as public spirited and essentially innocent as the Prius.

So I got to Redding, parked in the bridge lot, rolled the Segway out the back, and spent an hour taking pics from every angle, including from underneath, which provided some entertainment to a bunch of guys drinking beer under an umbrella at a little table about fifteen yards from the edge of the dirt embankment that I was rolling back and forth along the edge of looking for a route down that would combine the least possible slope with the minimum loose gravel, which was what it seemed to mostly consist of.

Even at that distance, I could tell from their body language they were on my side. They were rooting for me. They wanted me to succeed. And somehow I also knew that they, like me, clearly understood that failure was a very real possibility and that if Fate (or lack of skill) so willed it, they really did want to be watching when the wipeout occurred and the Segway and I slid, perhaps even tumbling dramatically over and over each other, until finally we came to rest at the bottom and they could make their way cautiously down as the dust cleared and either render aid or, I being beyond aid, put me out of my misery and make off with the Segway.

So I picked my spot, eased over the edge.... and started losing traction immediately. So I had no choice but to increase the speed of the descent, limiting the increase as much as possible in hope of attaining the bottom in an upright position. Knuckles were white. My audience permitted itself a mild murmur of what I took to be approval when I finally came to a stop on the flat, dismounted, and took a few deep, thanksgiving breaths.

After taking a few pics of the underside of the bridge on this shore, I was ready to attempt the ascent back up the embankment. This time, of course, I needed to be going as fast as possible when I hit the incline so that I could decrease speed as I started losing traction. By the time I made it to the top, I was barely moving, and on the ascent I was no longer quite so sure that all of the observers were wishing me success since a loss of control near the top had such high entertainment potential.

So then I rode over the bridge and down around the smooth concrete ramp beneath the other end, taking pics all along. The glory of this bridge is that just about anywhere the camera happens to be pointing, you're going to get a good shot. Actually, after seeing this bridge, the phrase "amazing grace" has new meaning for me. That bridge enraptures me. It just jumps in front of the camera and exposes itself.

After basking in the glow of this awesome engineering and precise beauty for an hour, I had to turn around and blast back down I5 home so that I could get a good night's sleep and pack the car with everything I needed before I set out up 101 to camp Thursday morning.

Oh yes, what had kinda distracted me Wednesday morning was when my doctor found a pulse in my right foot for the first time. See, her failure to find a pulse down there was what eventually led to her diagnosis of intermittent claudication back in the summer of 2001. So either she has improved her pulse-finding skills or....... The implications leave me so breathless that I can scarcely bear to think about them.

I mean, for the past few months I've been doing this snake-oilish, alternative medicine kind of thing just to be able to say I was being positive. I'd looked into it enough to decide that it was totally harmless, but I never in my wildest dreams expected to see any improvement, particularly not in only four and a half months.

Actually, it's kinda depressing to realize that I now have no excuse not to 1) stop eating like a pig and 2) start working like a galley slave to see just how much of the wages of three years of gluttony and sloth I can repay.

Oh yeah, camp was fun, too.

OK, folks, it's over. Done. Finito. I have finally seen them as the beasts they are.

My love affair with the SUV is over.

It happened quite suddenly day before yesterday afternoon when I was out looking for some California Bay soap. See, back in the spring I had bought a bar from this charming young woman in a stall in the left arcade in front of the Ferry Building.

I kind of felt sorry for her because nobody was even looking at any of her stuff, which was a collection of fancy-schmancy, new-agey, alternative, back-to-the-landy, hand-made things in which my interest level is negative. But my eye alit on a normal-size bar of soap wrapped with a very simple band of paper showing a California bay leaf (Umbellularia californica), and I immediately thought of Rina. Of course, you don't see too many bars of California Bay soap in Amsterdam. So I bought it.

When I gave it to Rina, she ripped off the shrink-wrap and sniffed it. I did, too, and immediately wanted it for myself. I don't like perfumy things, but this was quite nice. Hmmm, I thought, it'll be like I was rolled vigorously in a bay leaf pit until I smelled good, plucked out, brushed off, and sent on my way trailing a faint whiff of the forest.

So when I got back I looked for the nice young woman's booth at the Ferry Building...on Saturday, and then Tuesday, and then Thursday, and finally, in desperation, on Sunday. I'd have looked other days if there'd been an exterior market on them. Alas, she was gone.

Day before yesterday it was a really nice afternoon and I decided to look for the soap in some of those fancy unguent places in the Castro. I swear, I saw soaps made out of every other aromatic on the planet, but no California Bay.

I had given up looking for it and was about to stop in at Cala for some bread when an SUV driver flung his door open at just the right moment for me to discover that the space I have been allowing so that cars couldn't "door" me was inadequate for an SUV. But of course. It stands to reason that the doors on an SUV would be proportional, so they'd stick out farther when you fling them open. No point in looking, since you're invulnerable.

You know how in action movies they slow the motion down so you can see everything? Well, I keep noticing during my little events that the motion seems to be speeded up. I mean, one minute, I'm just gliding along so gracefully, describing a clean arc toward my destination when WHAM I'm meeting the ground. Hello again, ground.

One thing for sure, my rendezvous with the ground have all been different. This time my right wheel was stopped abruptly by the end of the SUV's door and I kind of pivoted to the left. Something got me in my right ribcage, probably the upper part of the door, but that was incidental. My feet were knocked out from under me by the instantly pretty much stationary Segway and I landed, hard, on my left side.

The driver was out of the SUV and hovering over me before I realized what was happening, and he dragged the Segway over to the curb after I had suggested to him that I needed a moment to collect my wits before I started moving. Actually, I was stalling in hopes that things would stop hurting so much.

But of course you can't just lie there in the street, so I experimented with gingerly small movements, resting various parts of my body on the pleasantly warm asphalt and then finally was able to stand even though the lower half of my left side did not seem to be working very well. Still, as I kept moving things I decided that nothing was broken and that I hadn't even lost much skin.

At about this point I noticed the SUV driver inspecting his door, so, keeping my best light tone, I observed that if he were concerned that some damage to the vehicle might show up later, perhaps we should go ahead and call the cops to get a proper report written up to establish the facts and make sure he could contact me. This caused him to feign a loss of interest in his vehicle, darting only a couple of surreptitious glances at it before I left.

After I'd tested the Segway to make sure it would still work so I could get home, I bid him goodbye. On the way home I stopped in at the corner grocery at 19th and Castro to get another carton of milk, the previous one having ruptured in the fall and rendered its precious fluids in a thin stream to the gutter.

Thanks to a handful of 1995 vintage hydrocodone left over from some dental surgery, the night passed pleasantly...as did much of yesterday, which was mostly napping except for a couple of obligatory excursions. Today I'm covered with sore spots and scrapes, but it hurts only when I take a deep breath or laugh. Back into the fray!

Helmet, schmelmet.

Then again, I had an aha moment this morning as I was trying, unsuccessfully, to slither out of bed without flexing my ribcage: My second adolescence is turning out pretty much like my first, but so far without the prudence and common sense.

Oh yes, I finally found the folks who make that wonderful California Bay Soap. They're at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market on Saturdays, southeast end: Juniper Ridge.

I just got a package in the mail from an address in Amsterdam's red light/drug district, and on the customs declaration the description of the contents was "Herbs Mix."

"Oh, goodie," I said to the postman as I was signing all the forms, "I'm so excited. When did you take over the route from my regular postman? He doesn't make me show ID."

"Aw, I'm just a special substitute," he replied, as he stepped back out onto the sidewalk.

We both waved at the tourists across the street who were videotaping the neighborhood. See, the way they were dressed was a dead giveaway these guys were tourists.

And then I raced back in here and tore the package open to reveal three small jars of different herb mixes, one of which Rina had mixed with olive oil and served with my pickled Spanish mussels the first time we cooked together. Now I have the herbs...and if not the proportions, at least the names of what's in each jar.

Well, the names of what's on the labels.

OK, just kidding. It was my regular postman.
And I didn't see anybody videotaping.
And the jars smell like you'd expect from the labels.

I'm going off Saturday to help my friend David save Mt. Diablo. Actually, he's enlisted a few other people in case we can't do it by ourselves, it being, after all, a pretty good size mountain for the Coast Range.

But like so many things, this is not as simple as it might at first seem.

David brought me in because he felt that a useful mountain-saving tool would be a Segway. All our great leaders are visionaries, so David is not unique. Still, I would never have thought of using a Segway, which of course underscores my failure as a leader.

On the other hand, I follow well, so I eagerly came on board, only afterwards thinking of the consequences.

The Segway was beaten up pretty badly by Air France to and from Amsterdam, and, to be fair, I had also skinned it up while learning to avoid potholes, jump curbs, and keep from being doored....all the hard way. One of the fenders was cracked, both fenders were covered with scars, the kick stand was broken, and the mode change cap and charge port cover had been torn off.

Also, it was filthy, especially places where the Air France Securité stickers had been pretty much permanently plastered.

So I ordered replacement parts, which sat patiently in their wrappings while I tried to figure out the tools I needed. See, I didn't really know what a T-15 Torx wrench was, and I didn't know what the difference was between this and the other torque wrench I needed for the wheel nuts except that the T-15 needed to be capable of 1.5 Newton-meters while the other had to pinpoint 50 Newton-meters.

I also figured it might be useful to know what a Newton-meter is, sensing that it's probably not the size of petard required to hoist Isaac Newton one meter.

I went online to Griot's Garage, thinking I might figure something out by looking at T-15's and other torque wrenches. I just got more confused. Clearly, this was going to require my going to some auto supply place and humiliating myself.

So, I put it off. Time passed. I tried to drag my friend Bob into this, and he was helpful. In fact, he bought a 16 mm. deep socket for me and lent me some other tools. His doing this somehow nerved me up, and so I went to the Kragen out in Westlake, knowing nobody would know me way out there and I'd never have to go there again. Besides there's a 99 Ranch in Westlake, and I'd been wanting to shop one of those since I started reading about them last year.

Hey, it wasn't all that bad, and I proudly brought home a regulation torque wrench. But then it fell out that my pride was premature. However, since even I am bored by the details of how many trips to how many places it took to get everything I needed, I'll cut to the workshop area...the dining room floor.

Frankly, I was astonished at how easy the whole thing was, particularly since I had got so wound up over it, and I ended up having a good time blasting Dan Bern's New American Language while I replaced both fenders and the kickstand, scrubbing the wheels in the kitchen sink while they were off.

This morning I wheeled the Segway out onto the front sidewalk and detailed that sucker with a toothbrush. Are we ready for our screen test or what?

And if it weren't for David I'd still be running around on a filthy Segway with a cracked fender and a broken kickstand. Thanks, David.

OK, there have been inquiries. That saw was not actually used. I just put it out in terrorem, to soften the Segway up.

And why not? Here's what we're trying to save. This is a view from the area where we picnicked:

I just got home from the hospital. I've been thoroughly stented, four of 'em actually, one at the bottom of my aorta, one at the top of the left femoral, and two at the top of the right femoral. And even though I'm taking it real easy now, I can already tell that yes, there's a major difference in functionality, or to phrase it a different way, I sure can walk a lot better. I can already see that what will slow me down on hills is going to be lack of lung power rather than lack of oxygen to my legs.

And the lung power will improve after I've spent a few months in the galleys.

Now for the credits: Dr. Ross for setting this into motion by discovering a pulse in my right foot. Dr. Eichler at UCSF Medical School for gaining my confidence and convincing me I should do an angiogram. Dr. Schneider and his crew at Moffett Hospital for performing the angioplasty, and some really nice folks on the recovery floor whose names I was too gaga to write down.

More credits: On Tuesday morning when I was changing into the gown for the procedure, I remembered to rub the belly of the little green frog Merrill and Sybil had given me Monday night.

Later in the afternoon:

I just got back from taking 24 jars of assorted jams, jellies, and chutneys to the hospital, 12 for the Interventional Radiology crew and 12 for the staff on the 14th floor, where I languished for a day after the procedure.

Still later:

Now that I'm up from my nap, it's all clear. Merrill's little green frog must have restored my ability to walk for a reason, so he now sits atop my monitor to guide me. For the first time in my life, I have an icon I can follow wholeheartedly.

He has not spoken to me yet, but I stand ready to do his will. I don't know what my first mission will be, but there's a lot out there that needs correcting.

Meanwhile, I am purifying myself spiritually, building strength and endurance. I sun-tan in the blinding light of the Certain Frog.

At bedtime:

Some folks inquired after my first missive whether I had been enjoying some post-operative pain medication. Oh, yes, pain is now a stranger. Others inquired whether congratulatory chocolates were in order. The Frog has indicated that after I have served as his terrible sword on this world, chocolate will be in great abundance....as will pain medications.

It is good to be The Frog's scourge, but tonight I must rest, for I feel as if a tiny all-terrain vehicle has been driven around inside me.

I'm off to Texas for my forty-fifth high school reunion. My doctor has refused to staple my mouth shut against the possibility of 1) my saying something that would get me shot or 2) my losing all self control and eating as much as I could of chicken-fried steak, Mexican cuisine, chili dogs, barbecue, and other Texas delights like the one invented a few years ago in Austin where they take a medium-size bag of Fritos® (serves 6), dump a hot can of Wolf Brand® chili into it, and hand the bag to you along with a spoon. Once all that chili's in there, it serves only one. Well, there might be enough for two, but it's a cultural thing: with us Texans, they can't get two of us to eat peacefully out of the same bag.

I'm sure I've mentioned that while life as galley slave at the gym is turning out to be easy, I'm still at the concept level on life as a starved-for-its-own-good lab rat. To solve this problem I now have a new diet. Actually, I invented it. The Everything-You-Want Diet: If it tastes good, it's forbidden. Spit it out. All of it. Otherwise, you can eat everything you want.

It's still there, and I'm in it.

Getting here was surprisingly easy. When you're not having to fly a lot, first class isn't the necessity it becomes for the frequent flyer, and coach class is perfectly adequate, especially when the flight is made short by an entertaining passenger in the adjacent seat.

The good news continued after my arrival at DFW. Ten minutes out of the airport, just at the Ft. Worth eastern city limits, I spotted a Whataburger® sign while there was still time to make the exit ramp. Double meat, no cheese, no fries, Diet Dr Pepper®. I'm easing into this cautiously.

But then as I approached exit 408 near Weatherford, I saw a billboard for Baker's Barbeque, and I just knew in my heart this was the real thing. It was. And through a miracle of misunderstanding I ended up with only two ribs and thus did not gorge myself.

So then I headed for Midland in earnest. Near Abilene I was suddenly hit by a smell that brought with it a memory rush that nearly cost me control of the vehicle: sweet crude. Well, actually, this crude wasn't totally sweet as there was definitely a hint of hydrogen sulfide to give it some character. Oh, that oilfield smell, a heady mixture of volatile esters and rich hydrocarbons, a smell underappreciated by folks who didn't grow up in oil camps and thus as toddlers associate that smell with Daddy when he came home from work. That's reinforcement.

Poor Marcel, having to make do with the smell of a dinky little almond cookie to evoke his memories. Not, of course, that there would be any comparison at all between us. Well, other than the inversion, and we don't talk about that.

No indeed. Not in the Oil Patch.

My old friend Mel had said he was so decrepit that he can barely get out of the house, but he'd held out on me. The main problem is that the old fart has totally let himself go and has gone from fat to just plain obese. Hell, no wonder he has trouble walking and taking care of himself. I'd have trouble, too, if I had to heave 300 pounds around.

And yes, I can understand letting oneself go and giving up. I'm sick with shame over my having given up when faced with problems mere shadows of his. Through blind luck I've managed to get myself into a better frame of mind and then be blessed with a medical miracle that has me able to walk properly again. (Well, not really a miracle, but it was definitely some very creative stentery.)

But consider Mel's situation: You're a very gregarious, family-oriented person, and your wife dies fifteen years ago, your only child - a son a year younger than me - dies last summer, the last of your siblings dies last fall, and your best friend dies last spring. Why not eat yourself to death?

To do my part, I brought a large selection of chocolates. An assortment of the very finest I could find in San Francisco. To drop some names: Recchiuti, Schmidt, Scharffen Berger, Guittard...and then a stack of imports, mostly single bean Venezuelan criollos, etc.

This is rather like bringing a selection of fine liqueurs to an alcoholic. Contributing to the delinquency of others has always been my forte.

I came back to reality yesterday, and a rather nice reality it is here in San Francisco.

Well, it was until I went to the gym this morning and after a thorough workout discovered that I weigh six more pounds than when I left for Texas. That's a pound a day!!!!! And I did not eat all of that hog....just the ribs and chops and OK a little bit of the leg. And I left some of those tamales in Mel's refrigerator.....totally uneaten although that pig has probably eaten them by now. Mel, I mean.

All I can say is it must have been the chocolate milkshakes, so I'm clearly going to have to cut back on those.

I don't want to steal too much thunder from the official version of my visit, but I do have to mention one highlight.

My old friend Mike, who I'd never visited, had emailed me astonishingly anal directions to get to his house in the upper greater Dallas suburban sprawl, and I had a trifle too rapidly transcribed them onto a scrap of paper that I could consult as I made my way across the DFW metroplex at the end of my drive across West Texas from Midland.

His directions called for me to take 161 northeast off 183, and as I approached 161 I learned the name that went along with its number. President George Bush. Aaaaarghhhhhh, I squealed, as I contemplated the horror of having to drive on a freeway with such a name and then dwelt on the perfidy of a supposed friend who would play such a cruel practical joke on me.

But see, I was really nerved up (and only later realized that this was mostly because of his strategic fretting about rush hour delays and the possibility of my not getting there in time for us to use our reservations at Abacus, a restaurant that numbers itself among the jewels in the crown of Texas). So I didn't dare just blaze on past the cutoff and work my way north cross-country on alternative routes about which I knew nothing.

No, I had to take the Dubya exit.

And only then, once I'd turned off a known highway and was totally committed, was the full egregiousness of Mike's betrayal revealed.

I noticed 161's full name: "The President George Bush Turnpike." Turnpike! I shrieked. Didn't you used to have to pay for "turnpikes"? And then, omigod, there was the sign: "Last Exit Before Toll."

So yes, it was either take the exit out into the godforsaken wilderness from which there could be no possible way to extricate myself in time to get to Mike and Marilyn's by dinner, or give money with mine own fingers to drive the Dubya Turnpike. The shame. The horror. The disgust.

I would like to say that I reached a point when the trauma became so great that I went into shock and my mind mercifully blurred the details. Alas, that was not the case, as I very clearly recall digging in my pocket, retrieving three quarters (a Mississippi and two Virginias), and casting them with a curse into the maw of the collection device. Dashing my last hope, it failed to choke on them.

But then I was on the turnpike.

It was new and wide and beautifully landscaped. The curves were banked and gentle. The pavement was groomed to a silken smoothness that eased the passage - no potholes, no bumpy expansion joints, no rough patches. And most importantly, no traffic jams. Actually, not all that many vehicles and certainly no noisy ones, none belching smoke, no exposed Bondo or dents or even smudges. Everything calm and quiet and sparkling clean, rather like the executive bathroom for the board of directors.

Not the sort of highway that trucks and, oh please, buses full of smelly people, would really feel comfortable on, so to spare them the embarrassment, they are excluded - leaving only those of us entitled to this luxury.

And to help us appreciate it, from time to time our hard-earned highway gives us vistas of vehicles on lesser roads huddled in bumper-to-bumper misery and choking in exhaust as they inch, their drivers soaked in sweat and crazed with frustration, to their eventual destinations.

I deserve this tollpike, I realized, and pricing it up to keep the wrong kind of folks off it is, yes, Martha, a good thing.

Don't know why it took me so long to come around from my former silly liberalism. I guess it was just breathing that Texas air....and well, my friend Mike's thoughtfully arranging this experience. Oh, how, I wonder, how can I ever repay him?

I'll think of something. Ohhh, yes, I will.

The high school reunion?

So strange. I've tried to put a good spin on it. I mean, I went into it honestly expecting everything would be alright. And to be fair, many of the people at the reunion, including some I barely remembered, were welcoming. And with only one or two exceptions, everyone was polite.

But what I really got out of that reunion, and it came to me suddenly while we were massing for the traditional group photo before the big dinner on the second day, was that even though I had spent my high school years desperately trying for their approval, I no longer needed it. That since I had warm and loving friends in progressive cities on three continents, Odessa and I could get along just fine without each other.

I left the reunion before the dinner, went over to Manuel's, a favorite Mexican restaurant of my youth, and had a delicious farewell dinner by myself.

Like the rest of the town, Manuel's hadn't changed; but in Manuel's case, that was a good thing.

Time for a pic. Here's an early morning shot on Market Street:

Omigod. I just ate something really fabulous.

A handful of fresh pohas smothered in lemon yogurt.

Yesterday I discovered that the poha jam I've been reading about is in fact divine, but I also discovered that to convert ten bucks worth of pohas (at the jam-maker's discount, yet!) into jam was a long, tedious process that resulted in a miserable three 8oz. jars of jam.

And stupid me, I had invited some neighbors to hang around and watch the end of the process, so of course I had to give them one piping-hot jar, and another jar has to go to Lee James, with whom I'd discussed making the jam out of her pohas. So I'm sitting here looking at one jar for myself.

So when somebody gives you a jar of poha jam, know that they damn well love you. And don't nobody hold their breath for one from me, neither, because in addition to the above problem, I am in general getting too busy having fun, now that I can walk again, to be spending my days over hot stoves and steaming cauldrons.

Instead, you can just rip a handful of the little darlings out of their husks and eat 'em with lemon yogurt. You won't be sorry. It's real easy and real delicious.

Just go to Whole Foods and make a scene until they bring out that case they were saving for themselves. Ignore the price and fill a bag.

Here's all you ever wanted to know about the Poha.

It's just one piece of good news after another here at Universe Central.

I can't yet walk up my hill fast enough to work up even moderate panting, and I was fearing that the cause was not atrophy from lack of use of the leg muscles but rather peripheral arterial blockage, which would mean that without more medical procedures (assuming they were even possible) the best I could hope for would be to be able to keep up with normal people while walking.

However, I was so grateful for walking that I felt guilty daring to hope for more, so I put off testing while I tried to regain some leg strength. But yesterday I was about to be late to meet Robin for lunch, and since I'd kinda leaned on her to be on time because of a hidden agenda I had, I felt it would be in real poor taste to get there late myself.

So there I was a short block from the meeting point with like two minutes to go....and broke into an increase-speed-as-much-as-possible-whilst-using-minimal-leg-power trot. And it worked!!!!!!!! I was able to maintain the trot up to the Embarcadero, where I was forced to stop for traffic (thank God) and lack of lung power. I was just gloriously winded, my sides heaving. It was wonderful! Am I moving blood through my legs or what!!

Now I'm gonna get me some real springy running shoes and find a track and start shaving seconds off my mile. That's how I did it in the late sixties, just went out there unable to run a whole mile at any speed at first, but every day tried to shave a second or two off the time. I'll just do that again, this time without smoking.

Ummmm. And maybe I'll start with a block instead of a mile.

Still, I wonder what the record is for sexagenarian milers? I mean, just to have something to shoot for in case it works out that I can't play tennis again.

Meanwhile, I've been prancing around telling everyone, "I can run!" and reactions have been universally favorable. Of course, that's just locally. I'm sure if I made the same statement before Mr. Ashcroft, the response would be, "Yesss, but can you hide?"

Here's a rooftop I like on Hartford Street:

Pride.

Oh yes, there was a bit left. A tiny shred, really, a mere remnant, but it was definitely there and I suppose I was unconsciously clinging to it.

See, I'd finally been worn down. Since I started riding the Segway, every woman I know has been on my case about getting a helmet. And then this Spring and Summer, as my mental state gradually improved and I started radiating more and more approachable vibes, women I didn't know began accosting me with suggestions involving protecting my head, despite my protests that it was demonstrably my most durable part.

And then even a few men tiptoed carefully around the H-word.

And finally, after I got my legs fixed and the shock wore off, I began experiencing a strange sensation that after some soul-searching I identified as a reappearance of caution.

Yes, now that I again have something to lose, the scale has tipped.

So this afternoon I turned myself in at Noe Valley Cyclery, where the nice guy introduced me to current concepts in head protection as arrayed in an impressive wall display. We quickly decided on the second model from the bottom owing to its cute little visor and then, since I couldn't match my hair color (there are holes in these helmets!), I just grabbed a white one, only later realizing that I should have got a silver one to match the Segway. It's not easy being a minuscule minority: a fashion-challenged gay man.

But anyhow, the guy put it on me and then adjusted the complex strappery so that it was both comfortable and snug as he clicked it shut beneath my chin, and I was off down 24th. To my surprise, it remained comfortable as I rode, and so many bicycle riders use them that I didn't feel at all dorky.

Entirely pleased with myself, I decided to swing by the cheese store while I was down there. By now I'm so accustomed to riding the Segway that it really is pretty much second nature, great arcs ending with graceful dismounts onto curbs as I'm shucking off the pack so I can draw out the cable lock in one smooth, flowing motion. The helmet doesn't get in the way at all.

It was only after I'd locked the Segway to a parking meter while I chatted with a passing couple that I discovered that the nice guy had assumed, incorrectly, that I knew how to unfasten the helmet.

The good news is that the couple was turning away as I made this discovery and that there was nobody else right there on the sidewalk to watch as I frantically and with total futility clawed at the fastenings and then took my glasses off and after a couple of tries managed to somehow wriggle my head out of the damn thing without dislocating my jaw.

The bad news is that from the dim store interior, Charles was watching through his screen door, and as I entered he gave me a look. No, not a smirk. Oh, I could have dealt with a smirk.

It was pity.

My daily hour in the galleys would be more bearable if I hadn't noticed that while my back was turned, six-packs went out of fashion in favor of eight-packs. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe the extra two are silicon implants. Ummmm. How do you find out? I mean, you can't just ask, "Are those real?"

I voted absentee and am going to drive down the coast on November 1st rather than hanging around town for the election.

I'll take the freeway to Monterey to save time since I've been up and down the coast between here and there innumerable times, but then I'll hug the coast on Highway 1 down to San Simeon since I've been farther than twenty miles below Monterey only once—in 1972. The idea is to have plenty of time to do the basic Hurst Castle tour that afternoon so that I can set out first thing the next morning for LA, get to the Huntington right after lunch, and stay in the succulent garden until they kick me out as darkness falls over my squeal, "I brought a flashlight, dude, and I can just let myself out when I'm done. Leggo."

Here's a shot some Lithops in the Huntington. There are many tables of these:

I'm taking an extra set of batteries for the camera—and my charger. Ummmmm. Maybe need to get me another one of those little chips that you store the pics on. Better yet, I'll just carry the computer in since I'm taking it on the trip in this excellent dedicated backpack that Bob gave me.

I mean, bring some bottled water, and what better way could there be to spend election night?

A conservative friend (he calls himself an independent, but we know) wondered whether I was fearful that California would slide off into the Pacific when Bush wins. I assured him that my fear is that in the depths of its despair after the election, California will not simply slide but actually jump into the Pacific.

Which is why on Wednesday morning I'll be hugging, instead of my usual tree, the coast—so as to get some neat pics of swarms of Californians going over the cliffs. I'll get rich because these pics will sell like hotcakes in Odessa.

Oh, and speaking of cliffs:

When I was discharged from active duty in the United States Army in 1966, I was 25 and weighed 140 lbs. This was all lean meat because the lunchtime habit of a number of us at my last duty station, the 102nd USASA Security Detachment at Autobahn Kaserne out from Heidelberg, Germany, was to play Field Volleyball for the lunch hour and eat a sandwich on the fly afterwards.

Field Volleyball was similar to traditional volleyball in that it used a classic volleyball and a net. It differed in that the net dangled from a steel cable stretched between two telephone poles so that players could hang on with one hand while bashing at the ball with the other.

This was volleyball as a contact sport, and I discovered the down side in the Spring when I went for a ball at the same time as my motor sergeant, whose arms were as big around as my legs.

But I was right back out on the court shortly after the cast was removed, so I had regained all the physical conditioning benefits by the time I rotated back to the states in August.

After my discharge at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, I drove my Volkswagen across the country to Texas, and when I stopped in Pittsburgh to visit my aunt and uncle, they took me out for steaks. During the meal, my aunt kept slipping morsels onto my plate from hers; and, being 25 and voracious, I certainly had no complaint about this unfamiliar behavior even though it was strange enough that it stuck in my memory.

Ten years later, I had given up trying to make myself straight, had come out, and had moved to San Francisco. By dint of a year's work in the gym, I'd got my weight up to 150 and was in even better condition...and significantly better shape since that ten pounds was all upper body muscle.

Every Sunday I played volleyball with a bunch of gay men over in the Oakland hills, and after the game we went to the rather grand Piedmont home of the one older player for splashing and supper around his pool. Not exactly a dirty old man, since he wasn't putting any moves on us as far as I could tell, but still, we were there because we were definitely decorative.

We were also hungry. Our host provided sodas, a big salad, and bread, while we guests stopped in at a Safeway on the way and picked up meat to grill. To quench our thirst, most of us chugged a beverage on the trip between Safeway and our host's house. Mine was usually a quart of chocolate milk. Yes, a quart! Well, you know, gotta restore those fluids you lost on the court.

All this came rushing back to me last month, when Jeff and Steven next door had some house guests from Canada, a twenty-something gay couple, both serious athletes and, incidentally, cute as bugs. I found Glen and Phil as delightful as my neighbors, so I cooked supper for all four.

Steven and Jeff had seconds. Phil and Glen came back for thirds, and as I watched them eat I suddenly flashed on my aunt and finally understood the pleasure I had given her forty years ago...the joy of watching a lean, young man wolf huge quantities of food.

And yes, I recognize that the pleasure may not be totally unalloyed for those who are currently buying the groceries for an adolescent. But I promise you, when you're old and gray and every extra bite you eat reappears around your waist, there is something wonderfully fascinating about watching heaping platefuls of food vanish into flat bellies.

Where the hell does it go? It's as if all that food somehow metabolizes in their mouths!

The pies are finally in the refrigerator, and since it had been several years since I'd made them, there were some, um, moments during the preparation.

Like when it struck me that this year pecans seemed just a little too, well, red, and that fine blue California walnuts would be a more comfortable choice.

Or when I at Lucifer's urging tossed just one extra tablespoon or so of ultrafine sugar into the meringue because I was going to be using an extra-dark chocolate and wanted a teeny bit more sweetness in the curst. That's not a typo. I am no longer calling it the crust.

I was powerless to resist the urge even though I knew what was going to happen, and it did. So once again I found myself desperately trying to form runny would-be meringue into crust shapes and watching as they visibly sagged while I was throwing the damn things into the oven.

Still, it had been worse, other times, and this time the shells are actually somewhat concave and have a discernible, albeit slight, rim. And since I let them dry overnight in the warm oven, they're definitely crunchy.

The only difficulty during the making of the filling was after I'd filled half a page with pencil calculations to determine that I needed 227.2 grams of chocolate. See, the down side of smuggling your own dark Droste in from the Netherlands is that they don't really need ounces over there and see no reason to clutter non-export packaging with them.

Luckily, I remembered that it takes 2.2 pounds to equal a kilogram. So once I figured out how many grams I needed, all I then had to do was use the other half of that page for the calculations to determine how many squares, and what percentage of the last square, were required to get 227.2 grams.

I was feeling pretty smug about doing all this successfully, but when the chocolate was sitting in the double boiler over simmering water and I went to reward myself with a cup of the coffee left over from the recipe requirement and my eye alit on my kitchen scale, it struck me that another way of getting the right amount of chocolate would be to painstakingly weigh out eight ounces.

However, if you do it that way you don't get the reassurance that you are still bright enough to calculate ratios, which require both multiplication and long division.

And no, I am not showing my work on how I arrived at the figure of 227.2 grams—especially since it's pretty clear by now that these pies have more chocolate than usual in them.

Here's the recipe.

Here's what I preserved in 2004. Well, at least this much got onto the kitchen calendar. I'm sure a few things didn't, but hey, they're probably already eaten up by now.

TB - Tayberry Jelly - 1, 5, 12, 19, 26, 29 June, and 3 July.

SAL - Strawberry Jam - 21 June, 4, 11, 23 July, 21 August, 5, 6, 11 September, and 2, 10 October.

NAL - Nectarine Jam - 5, 7, 12, 23, 28 July.

NCABPL - Nectarine, Cherry, Apple, Blueberry, Plum, Lemon Jam - 9 July (Yep, for some reason I had ended up with just a handful of all of these, so I threw 'em all in. The ultimate in mixed fruit jam.)

EAL - Elderberry Jam - 9 July (Yes, we've read all our lives about Elderberry Jam and Elderberry Wine. Well, Andy at Mariposa Farm brought some to market and I made jam. Good grief, our ancestors sure were desperate for jam. In the first place, just cleaning the damn little things is a hassle, as is stripping them off their fragile little stems, and it takes a zillion of them to fill a cup. And then when you finally get the jam made, it tastes good enough but nothing to write home about. So I used a test. The folks who got this stuff were those who lit up like Christmas trees when I said "Elderberry Jam.")

Pickled Sugar Snaps - 12, 29 July, 7 August, and 9, 18 November.

Pickled Haricots Verts - 27 July (Pickling these little things is too much like building a ship in a bottle, so I did it only once this year. I need to save me some little bottles in preparation for next summer's haricots verts season.)

Pickled Yellow Wax Beans - 27 July, 15 August.

SRAL - Strawberry, Rhubarb Jam - 31 July.

PAL - Pluot Jam - 2 August.

Pickled Jade Beans - 5 August, 12 December.

PC - Pluot Chutney 8, 9, 16, 23 August, 14 September.

NC - Nectarine Chutney 10, 23 August.

GTAGC - Green plum, Tomatillo, Apple, Golden raisin Chutney - 11, 21 August.

NATC - Nectarine, Apple, Tomatillo Chutney - 16 August.

PAPC - Pluot, Apple, Pepper Chutney - 17 August PAPC (This one turned out pretty hot.)

PGAC - Pluot, Grape, Apple Chutney - 18 August.

MPAGC - Mango plum, Apple, Golden raisin, Cherry Chutney - 19 August.

"Dapple Dandy" Pluot, Tomatillo Chutney - 20 August (I finally recorded the variety of the pluots. I really should do this with all the fruit.)

MPAGC - Mango plum, Apple, Golden raisin Chutney - 21 August (Yes, you close readers, the one on the 19th had cherries and this one didn't but I somehow used the same code for both.)

CL - Cherry Lemon Jam - 7 September (For once, no apple).

NGAC - Nectarine, Golden raisin, Apple Chutney.

GGTGAC - Greengage, Tomatillo, Golden raisin, Apple Chutney - 9 September (I suspect that these are not true "Greengage" plums but rather a modern hybrid that approximates the classic plum's color and taste whilst avoiding the classic capricious production.)

GGTGC - Greengage, Tomatillo, Golden raisin Chutney - 10 September (As above, but without the apple).

Pickled Jalisco beans - 10, 12, 18 September (These are a large string bean that comes from Jalisco. Poli Yerena brought some seed back on one of his visits, and he now grows a few for the farmer's markets. They cook amazingly fast considering how big and tough they look. I love them pickled as well as boiled. I'll scoop up a bagful and then pickle the more straight and presentable ones and cook the crooked ones.)

TPC - Tomatillo, Pluot Chutney - 16 September.

BBRC - Black plum, Black currant, Red onion Chutney - 7 October.

PAAL - Poha Jam - 3 October PAL and 10 October (The PAAL is not a misprint. It means I put the pulp of two apples in there and upped the sugar to try to stretch the pohas. This is clearly going to be a luxury jam.)

SAPL - Strawberry, Apple, Pear, Lemon Jam - 17 October.

BPCC - Pear, Black currant Chutney - 17 October.

Pickled Romano beans - 19 October.

Pickled Brussels sprouts - 19 October, and 3, 17 December.

PGGRC - Pineapple guava, Golden raisin Chutney - 12, 16 November.

KAL - Kiwi, Apple, Lemon Jam - 5 December.

Damn, was I a busy beaver or what? Well, see, I started handing this stuff out when I went to my appointments with doctors and such, but now I feel like I'm disappointing them if I'm not carrying jars.

What I really love, though, is laying one of my jars on someone who doesn't expect it. Like yesterday I'm out with Sybil at the Ferry Building and we stop by this fish market there by Hog Island and this nice young man is touting his local halibut and I get a fillet and ask him to skin it for me. Well, the skin was particularly tenacious, and he had a little trouble with it while I prattled about how happy I was to have had the sense to ask him to do it. Then Sybil and I both got a jar of his freshly-shucked oysters, and there was some confusion over them, doubtless partly sparked by his frustration with the halibut, and so on the spur of the moment I whipped out this jar of kiwi jam and gave it to him for all his trouble.

People in shops are so unaccustomed to anybody ever doing anything nice for them that they're just stunned when it happens.

About the taxonomy: I do not mark anything other than the date of production on the lids of jars of pickled vegetables because I figure folks who can't distinguish Brussels sprouts from green beans through clear glass are beyond my help. I mark the lids of the jams and chutneys with codes tied to notes on the kitchen calendar. The contents are listed in order by volume, so the difference between the PTC and TPC above is that there were more tomatillos than pluots in the second one.

About the apple and lemon: I typically make Jams, jellies, and chutneys in batches using two quarts of the base fruit. If the code contains "A," I put the pulp of one apple (for its pectin) into the batch. However, some chutneys have the A in the code and some don't even though I wasn't consistent for some reason. The chutneys do not contain the juice of a lemon, which I indicate with an "L," but the jams and jellies almost always do because this brightens the taste as well as lowering the Ph and helping them set up. This year I omitted the "A" and the "L" from the code for the tayberry jelly (TB). I hope next season to create codes with more precision and consistency.

I didn't make any this year, but last year some folks got a jelly coded YB for Yerenaberry, which is my name for a mystery blackberry hybrid that somebody gave Yerena some canes of a while back. He took the berries to UC Davis, but they couldn't identify them. Frankly, the tayberry jelly is better, but the wonderful thing about the Yerenaberry Jelly is that nobody but me makes it. Yerena doesn't grow many of them and their season is short, but I'll try to keep my eyes open for them in 2005.

Additional Notes: In addition to the primary fruit, the chutneys almost always include one cored apple (red, yellow, or green), some onion (red, yellow, or white), and some raisins (red flame, golden, Thompson, etc). All chutneys also contain sugar (brown or white or both), salt, vinegar (white wine, apple cider, white, or fruited balsamic or a combination thereof), fresh hot peppers (and chile powder or red pepper or white pepper or Patak's hot lime relish), cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin, mace, turmeric, curry powder, bay leaves, fresh ginger, and fennel seeds or star anise. One of these days I hope to put some instructions into my Downstairs Recipes.

This year I went through a phase in which I thought it was nifty to use whole spices because one of my favorite restaurants, a little Pakistani dump on Polk called Shalimar, uses them. Somehow, you feel like you're getting more bang for your buck when you chomp down on a whole black cardamom lurking in your curried spinach. Having inedible chunks in there somehow makes the chutneys seem more "real" although I'm not sure it makes them taste any better.

About the lemons: Gloria gives me lemons (and also sometimes apples) from her trees, and I save them to use in my jams. While you're down there praying, you might throw in a word for the good health of her trees....not to mention the continuation of her kind feelings for me.

About the sugar: As I learn more, I keep reducing the amount of sugar and cookings things down longer.

About peppers: I have been gradually using more and more fresh hot peppers in the chutneys. I plan to continue adding more until enough folks squeal. Also, I'm going to be throwing another pepper into the beans and sprouts next season. Feedback is golden. It gets acted upon.

Not that there's anything unhealthy about it, but I have not used commercial pectin in over a decade. I put that one apple in there in the expectation that nobody will be able to detect the taste but that its pectin will thicken the product.

Finally, about the chocolate syrups: I don't mark these on the calendar or put dates on them because I give them away as fast as I can make them and typically they get consumed immediately. I do mark a code for the source cocoa: D - Droste, SB - Scharffen Berger, SC - Schokinag, and V - Valrhona are the ones that I used most this year.

I guess I'll also confess the failure. No, not all those things that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but rather the absolute, face-in-the-dirt failure. Anne Fukano, one of the wonderful folks at the UCSF Vascular Surgery department, gave me a half gallon of pomegranate juice, the painstaking product of her mother's arthritic old fingers.

Yeah, I choked. I was so intent on very carefully boiling it down into a jam, no matter how little I was left with, that I stood there carefully and continually stirring it until, without letting it stick, I scorched it. I had used a thermometer in the past with jams, but for whatever reason, I neglected to use it this time. Now I'm trying to work up my nerve to face Anne.

To end the year, another Market Street shot, the Hyatt: