Vacation Recap

My Thanksgiving was great. I drove up to Mill Valley Tuesday night and chilled the next day at home. That night, I had dinner at Piatti, a quaint little Italian restaurant that overlooks the marshland. Olympic track star Michael Johnson was having dinner at Piatti that very night. It was cool to see him, but I left him alone. I figure, Michael already knows he’s the man. Me telling him so wouldn’t do much good, so why interrupt his meal? On Thursday, our family friends, Flavio and Jean, came to the house for dinner. Flavio made cheesecake, which was excellent. The parents made the traditional meal, which was great as usual. It included turkey, two cranberry dishes, five cup salad, sauerkraut, stuffing, and much more. Then on Friday, Courtney flew up from LAX. She went with me and the family to see Cirque du Soleil’s new show, Alegría. As always, the show was excellent. Cirque du Soleil is expensive but worth the price. Over the weekend, I tried to go to Union Square but there were so many people that the parking garages were full! I bought some chocolate at Ghirardelli and then headed home since the city was just plain crazy. On Sunday I drove down the 5 with Courtney and my friend Dani. The drive was hell. It took me eight hours instead of the usual six. A car broke down in one of the lanes which made traffic slow to a crawl. They had to merge the 5 down to one lane for a little bit. Magic Mountain was sluggish as usual. The drive put a bit of a damper on the week but all in all, a great vacation.