The Bellevue Club

I went swimming with Akaya and Kim, my neighbors and friends, at the Bellevue Club on Lake Merritt. This is the sweetest club. It was originally a women's club and is located right on the shores of the lake, beautifully luxurious in an understated way and kept up as if it were still 1907. What a treasure! Kim is a member (lucky Kim) and it costs big bucks, you can just tell.

We were the only ones in the underground lap pool, which was nice and warm. The dressing room, which now admits a few men in their own cordoned-off area, features a gadget that spins your swimsuit dry (no earplugs or swimcaps, please - the gadget eats them).

Upstairs there are rooms opening out on a balcony over Lake Merritt that can be let to your visiting out-of-town guests, whether or not you're a member.

Further upstairs there's a gorgeous bar with a balcony overlooking a white-tablecloth restaurant, and the lake. The restaurant serves dinner on Wednesdays and Sundays, and sometimes on Fridays. The bar is open when the restaurant is serving dinner. It is unclear so far whether or not you must be a member to eat at the restaurant and/or drink at the bar, but what is clear is that you must call in advance so they can turn the credit card machine on. (!)

The entire building and all it represents is priceless. What a fabulous place it would be if it were part of the regular Oakland scene. But then, it wouldn't be pristine, would it? When I find out whether non-members are welcome, I'll write more.

Birdland Jazzista Social Club

This must be the season to discover new things. I can't believe I've never heard of this before. What a great concept! So this guy in Berkeley started making food for his friends in his driveway and it turned into an "every-Friday-night" kind of party where neighbors and friends got together and drank and talked until the wee hours. Then one of his friends was in a little band, so they cleaned out the garage and set up a light and the little band played for the Friday night party. And then they decided they needed a stage and pretty soon they were booking bands. I mean, wow!

Wasn't long before the authorities moved them off the sidewalk, of course, and out of the street so now they're a social club with membership but still a laid-back neighborhood attitude and, so far as I can tell, free food. I can't wait to check it out myself...The Birdland Jazzista Social Club.

I learned about it from a musician I know who is going to play there...Nicolas Bearde. He's really good and has played with Bobby McFerrin and at Yoshi's and lots of places here and there. Very cool deal.

Musical Hide and Seek at Chapel of the Chimes?

I can't imagine why I'd go to Chapel of the Chimes, which is a mausoleum, unless I had no choice. Like, I am dead and gone, or possibly it's Halloween.

Well, believe it or not tomorrow, June 21, there is some very cool music happening at Chapel of the Chimes to celebrate the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year - and I am going there. Check out the info http://www.gardenofmemory.com/ . I hear it's a walking concert, with gobs of artists hidden among the urns and turns in the mausoleum, where the ashes of the dearly departed are interred in a beautiful setting designed by Berkeley's first and most famous female architect, Julia Morgan. I'm a BIG fan of Julia Morgan.

OK, so I'm going to hear cool music with (cool) dead people in a cool building. Maybe see you there...end of Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, right next to Mountain View Cemetery (which is also a cool place to walk). Am I getting weird?

Spring weekend - Art Murmur

We had an amazing time at Oakland's Art Murmur on Friday... just walking around uptown looking in galleries and stopping here and there. It was so great to see the streets and sidewalks filled with people. This used to be a questionable neighborhood - there was NO ONE on the streets after 5pm. Now it's full of cool restaurants and bars and clubs and galleries... and people! Do you know about Art Murmur? It's the first Friday of every month and you just walk around. A whole lot of indie art galleries are open and there are food trucks on the street and vendors and all the cool restaurants and clubs are open. This last Friday we stopped a few minutes at an old school drive-in/hamburger joint on Telegraph at about 22nd. Can't even remember its name, but it was so cool...the parking lot was filled with cherry classic cars from the 60's and 70's and someone was spinning tunes from the time. Like a warp, it was! Later we stopped by the Art Deco-y restaurant Flora for a drink and a nibble, and then sauntered into Van Kleef's for one of their famous greyhounds. The music was lame that night, so we left,, but Van Kleef usually has cool music.

Trader Vic's Emeryville

Yes, you can revisit the past. Trader Vic's was an icon of my early years in San Francisco....an un-attainable goal, a dream. For a time it was located in an alley off Union Square, and you had to line up behind limousines, possibly to be admitted. It was exotica, a whiff of Hawaii and Tahiti. That storied restaurant closed, and my dreams shifted to other things.

Tonight I went back to Trader Vic's, now in Emeryville...much closer to its origin, which was in Oakland. It's a very cool place, still. We had No Tai Mai Tai (a nod to Wayne, the designated driver) and a Bahia. Both drinks were excellent, the Bahia a mixture of rum, coconut milk, and pineapple. The glass the Bahia was served in was beautiful - for a moment I considered liberating it, but then the "good me" prevailed.

I was surprised. It was a great bar, and I will bring friends here. It is a bit kitchy and I wondered why all the men had on Hawaiian shirts, but hey - why not?!! Two interesting (amazing!) facts: The Mai Tai (which means the very best in Tahitian) was invented at Trader Vic's in Oakland, and the legendary SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen once wrote "the best restaurant in San Francisco is in Oakland...Trader Vic's". There you go.

Spring gardening

Finally, two days of sunshine in a row! I planted part of my herb garden yesterday . . . sage and thyme and oregano and cilantro. Mmmm, it makes my mouth water :=) In fact, I nipped a few leaves off my baby sage plants to make Chicken Breast with Sage, one of my faves, for dinner.

Today I planted climbing peas and green beans, mixing them all up near a fence so they'll climb together. Always Ms. Grace, I dropped a clipper on my ankle and gouged a hole, which of course bled. I was cutting back those vines that are trying to take over the left side of the yard. They're so pretty with their pink flowers and then later the wisteria with their long purple blooms, but they're deadly. If you let them go they'll smother everything, so I attacked. Then I was attacked, but only by a clipper.