Bonds, Barry Bonds

So last night Debbi and I went to Su Hong, mainly because she had a craving for pot stickers. (I didn't have a crying need for Chinese food, having been to Su Hong on Thursday with Lucy, but it being my favorite Chinese restaurant, I didn't really need persuading.) We had only been sitting down for a little while when Debbi whispers to me:

"Is that Barry Bonds sitting down at the table across from us?"

I look over, and sure enough: Barry Bonds' wide smile, Barry Bonds' dangling earring, Barry Bonds' baseball-crushing physique. He was being seated with a woman I didn't recognize (wife? Old friend? Sister? Beats me).

Unsurprisingly, conversations around us turned to Bonds and the Giants, at least from the few snippets I could hear. But from what I noticed only two people actually approach Bonds: A middle-aged man whom Debbi thinks was probably a manager of the restaurant (I'm not so sure; maybe more than one such man approached him?), and a very young girl with paper and pen. No, I didn't go up to him; I don't think it's beyond the pale to talk about a celebrity who walks in, but thirty-something guys shouldn't go interrupting other guys' dinners. That's how I feel, anyway.

I think this is my first celebrity encounter (unless you count guys like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) since spotting Mike Rutherford in a Madison restaurant right before a Genesis concert. Maybe ten years ago. Rutherford seemed pretty happy to chat with other folks in the restaurant, but then, he was gearing up to perform before 50,000 people, so maybe he was just in that frame of mind.

Anyway, it was pretty cool.

It was a frazzlingly busy week last week. Not a bad time, just that I had enough balls in the air that I sometimes went home for the day with my head spinning. I got a lot done, though.

Plenty of socializing, too. Gaming on Wednesday (North American Rails, and I won for a change!), then meeting Lucy on Thursday. We hadn't seen each other for a while, and managed to converge our schedules at last. Borrone was hideously crowded though, hence we got Chinese. We've sort of headed off into different orbits over the last year or so, and it was good to see her again.

Friday was a gathering at Becky's for Bridge. I baked apples again, and Debbi brought a very yummy cheesecake. If you can believe it, Debbi likes to bake cheesecakes, but doesn't often eat them, I think because they're too rich.

This weekend the temperatures cracked 80 degrees. Yow! Debbi's wanted to go to the beach for a while, with the sand castle-building toys she bought me for my birthday last year, so we did that (braving the nasty traffic on Half Moon Bay Drive), hanging out in the sun for a couple of hours, building some little castles, and splashing our feet in the water. The beach was quite busy! Though not packed, since parking was not a problem. Hey, the beach in March; how bad can it be?

Today we went for a bike ride, and then went into my back yard where I dug up the top 4 or so inches of soil in the planter behind my bench and laid down a new layer of topsoil. There were some pretty extensive root systems down there, most of which I think I pulled up. Hopefully the rest will die, and those that don't I'll foil by being more diligent at pulling up whatever pops above the surface as soon as possible.

Lesson for today: Dirt is heavy. This is why people have wheelbarrows, I guess!

So sometime soon I need to figure out what to plant there, and go out and buy it. That area gets a fair amount of sun, so I'm thinking some cherry tomato plants at one end, and flowers otherwise.

Lastly, baseball season began today. Hurrah! I've been too busy to follow spring training much, but with our fantasy baseball draft two weeks away, I need to get on the ball and fast...