Back to the Garden

I woke up this morning frankly feeling not much better than I had the night before. We took a while to get cleaned up and out of the hotel room. We still had some time before we were supposed to drop the dogs off with their sitters and head to Naida’s party. So we decided to walk around the Cal campus since neither of us had been there in years.

As soon as we parked, we found that many things in Berkeley just do not change at all.

The dogs had to see all the highlights of the campus such as the Sather Tower and the University Library.

And, of course, Edie is a big fan of the Free Speech Movement - or the Free Bark Movement, as she prefers to call it - so we had to stop by the Free Speech Cafe for a picture.

After we wandered around for a bit, I was feeling exhausted and in need of a cup of coffee, and Eli was starting to drag, too, poor thing. We looked for a place on Telegraph Avenue, but it unfortunately had not changed much from the late 70’s when a former college roommate who had gone off to Berkeley described it to me in a letter is “psychopathology as street theater.” We found a spot on the other side of campus.

We dropped the dogs off with their pet sitters at a house in Oakland - not that far from where Naida lives. In the past we had always taken them to the party, but Raul now has a cat so we could no longer bring them. We had a tough time finding day care for them in the East Bay. All the commercial services wanted them to come for an “evaluation” which apparently needed to be scheduled for months in advance. Somehow, getting your child in The Dalton School must be easier than arranging for canine care in Oakland. Fortunately, we found a service called Rover which matches pet sitters to clients. The dogs spent the afternoon with Randi and Travis, a sweet young couple who no doubt needed the business more than Citizen Canine did.

Up in the hills, the garden looked as lovely as ever.

It was nice talking to all these people I had no seen for a year, but we finally had to tear ourselves away to pick up the beasts.

In the evening, we went off to see Much Ado About Nothing, an odd cinematic adaptation of the Shakespeare play. I doubt I will think about it much, but I liked it better than the Branagh film. Still, it cannot quite compare to watching it in Vancouver watching the sun set over English Bay.