Mr. P's former roommate and good friend Frank came out from Chicago for a visit, he and his girlfriend were taking a tour of Northern California and wanted to spend a few days in San Francisco. So we made plans to hang out.

It quickly became apparent that by "hanging out" Sari meant that the first day would be a single minded stalking of Alcatraz and tracking down of potential former prisoners of The Rock.

The way some people feel about ice cream and birthday parties, I'm pretty sure that's how Sari feels when she sees a jail. She has cultivated a fascination with all things prison related and the chance to see Alcatraz was to be the high point of the trip.

Sari paparazzing The Rock on approach.

We all had the audio tour and wandered around the D-Block, Mess hall and the Yard.
Frank gave his respects to the homies.

Afterwards, back on the dock, Sari stopped to talk to and buy a book on the life story of an inmate that was there for the day. I don't remember his name but he had done time for bank robbery. Later, on the way to the bus, we saw him walking to his car. It was kind of strange to see him in an unsupervised situation. I'm mean sure, he's in his 70's but still -- he did hard time on The Rock. It's a little disquieting to watch a man who must have spent a large part of his 30's in the hole trying to remember where he parked his Cavalier.

Once Sari had satisfied her jail obsession we were on to the food. We went for sushi where Frank discovered the magical Cherry Blossom Roll. It was made of raw salmon, avocado, ikura and kooge, and it was delicious. None of us were really sure what kooge was but the waitress assured us it was the kooge that makes all the difference. Frank ordered a third roll which was a mistake because with the kooge you should always be wanting more, too much kooge ruins the magic.

It looked something like this, although I did not recorded the real time Cherry Blossom roll.

The next morning we went for dim sum in Chinatown which is a rare treat for Mr. P and I since it's really essential to have more than two people to enjoy a good dim sum session. It's not fun to order three plates and go, with dim sum it's all about variety.

Anyway, Sari knew of a place that was supposed to be good, out of the tourist area and authentic. When we got there the restaurant was hopping so I thought we'd have to wait a while but they seated us right away. They seated us at a table with four or five rather grim, elderly Chinese people who were perfectly happy to enjoy their non-white person table until we arrived. However, the stony stares soon dissolved to laugher and smiles as they realized what stellar entertainment it was going to be to watch us select and eat dim sum.

Mr. P was closest the trolleys and he has little impulse control so we were soon well stocked with dumplings, and they were good. The cart ladies that had the entrail soup and chicken feet passed us by without stopping -- somehow they knew we'd be a hard sell.

We ate and talked most of the morning and early afternoon. Eventually the staff seated another white couple with us, obviously from waaay out of town who had no idea what they were in for, they had the deer in headlights look about them. Sari was gracious and offered some suggestions on what to choose and they seemed to have a good time. Then a single white guy was seated with us who turned out to be a cardiologist that knew Sari's family. I have a feeling that happens to Sari a lot even in out of the way dim sum restaurants on the outskirts of Chinatown.

After that we came up to our place for awhile to try to regain the strength to fight off a nap and explore. Mr. P and I were pooped and really I live near the Haight I don't need to visit it anymore than is necessary to retrieve my packages from the post office. So we said goodbye, Sari and Frank went to go check out the Ben and Jerry's on Ashbury and we went to sleep.

A few months later Frank called to say they're getting married. I'm pretty sure that the ball and chain gag, that is so coming out of the closet for the wedding.