December 31, 2005
Farewell, Homeland...
Tomorrow we are finally going home. We were going to go home Wednesday, but a home improvement project for my parents took on extra dimensions. It was going to be simple: repaint a bathroom. The discovery of mold and water damage demanded more. While deciding what to do we restored the tile floor in another bathroom. After being told that no handyman was available for weeks, I bit the bullet and learned how to patch sheetrock.
The bathroom is now patched, the mold removed (it turned out to not be as deep as I feared), and it looks pretty good, but it is not painted. However, I have to review three restaurants in the next five days, so we must return. Oakland calls. And if I don't respond the editor will call.
Anyway, here are my observations:
1. I realized that I have not spent this much time in Sacramento for years. It is a nice place. I will be happy to be back in the Bay Area, but I like Sacramento.
2. A week and a half of grandparental spoiling is going to be tough to correct.
3. Home Depot has about three helpful employees. The rest are stupid and malicious. They know less about sheetrock than I did a week ago, and they would rather get rid of a customer than find out the information requested.
4. Target is great.
5. Sacramento is really becoming a good dining town.
6. The mosaic bug is biting me hard. I think I know what the next project around here is going to be.
7. If a cafe posts hours it should stick to them.
8. We are wops. "We have been eating Italian food every day. Let's go out for American food. How does Buca di Beppo sound?"
9. Buca di Beppo makes good food. It is that southern Italian red gravy stuff, which is about as Italian to my Tuscan tastes as Cajun food, but they do it right. Tonight was my first visit, and it was good.
Lousy, bad, tactless decor, however: Waaayyy too much "Mambo Italiano."
What do you expect from Southerners? I kind of like it, and not simply to gloat "oh, in Tuscany we gave the world Michelangelo, but down in Naples, they have to make do with this sort of stuff."
Seriously, as far as theme parks decors go, it is cuter than saccharine animals. Too much Kennedy stuff, though. He was the Trojan horse who brought an end to generations of healthy mistrust of the Irish among Italians, and he was the most untrustworthy of them all. To this day I have a soft spot for that SOB Castro, simply because he shares my dislike of Kennedy.
Posted by: Erik Keilholtz at January 2, 2006 10:45 PMHappy New Year, Erik!
It was good catching up with you at St. Stephen's. I want to send you that memo we talked about, but naturally, I lost your e-mail address. Please advise ...
Posted by: Jeff Culbreath at January 2, 2006 1:35 AMBucca is the American/Italian food I grew up with. Lousy, bad, tactless decor, however: Waaayyy too much "Mambo Italiano."
It's really good to sit down and get a nice big plate of mozz, tomatoes, and basil.
On the mosaics -- I want to do a Cretan dolphin or bull-leaping thing somewhere in the house.
Posted by: SecretAgentMan at January 1, 2006 12:17 PM