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I have always loved cafes. When I was in college, I spent countless hours in nondescript cafes in Santa Barbara studying until closing time. I would be holed up in the corner, nursing one coffee and trying to be invisible so that no one would start staring me down to give up my table to “paying” customers. When I moved to San Francisco, I worked at Starbucks while finishing up my Master’s degree in English. A bit of the magic aura of a coffeshop did vanish while I was mopping the floors at closing time and kicking out the last of the college students on the other side of the counter. However, I met my husband at that Starbucks….. He was the guy who ordered the venti mocha, with non-fat milk. I have gone through various phases of “regular” drinks. The mocha, the vanilla latte, the regular coffee, and now, the cafe con leche. My husband and I now frequent a cafe on the other end of the block from that infamous Starbucks called Cafe Lo Cubano. During the day, this cafe is too trendy for us, however, at night, it calms down to a relaxing retreat. We often walk there to unwind from a long day of work to chat and skim the newspaper over steamy espresso drinks. We also have taken some night photos both inside and outside the cafe during our various trips. I am personally still a novice at night photography, or low light situations in general, but here are a few photos that have turned out. We use old Nikons–a FE2 and FT2 respectively.

This photo is taken from our regular table. I am a sucker for symmetry and repeating subjects.

A nostolgic photo, this reminds me of mopping the back hallways during my barista days.

One of my husband’s photos–this is the MUNI stop right outside the cafe. A beautiful shot.

This photo is the first one from this cafe. Once again, this great shot was taken by my husband.

Our friend, Yousuf, has his new website up. Go check it out at Counter-Flow.com. The splash page is really in true Yousuf style. The main page is great as well. I love the motion, music and overall feeling of the design. Yousuf also put in a little mystery to his site. There are three Easter eggs that you have to find on the site. Happy hunting!

It has been a rainy couple of days in San Francisco and it doesn’t look like there is an end in sight. According to weather.com, it will be raining non-stop through next week.

Rain brings out the full range of human emotions. On Sunday, the rain gave us a good excuse to be lazy and take afternoon naps–we were lulled to sleep by the sound of the raindrops against our window pain. Later on, however, we walked to Trader Joe’s only to be caught in a torrential downpour. The wind threatened to make our umbrella a martyr and we had to wrestle it back from the edge of umbrella death. If any of you take MUNI or any form of public transportation on a regular basis, this could be the best laboratory to test humanity during the inclement weather. This morning we watched a woman on crutches succomb to the huge moat surrounding the curbs downtown–she ended up with a soaked foot that went far above her ankles. It makes me think that most people are like cats. Rain is great when you are inside, cozy and warm, with tea and a good book. But, once you are outside, you start to curse the rain when your clothes become drenched by a lashing rain that does not let up. People have all kinds of defenses in the rain. There are those that bundle up in Gore-Tex, those that sport huge golf umbrellas, those with wimpy travel size umbrellas and then those who try to pretend that they really meant to leave the house without an umbrella. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love the rain, but I must confess, even I become a little disgruntled when I can’t dry off after becoming one of mother nature’s victims. Well see how the next week goes–PJ is already swearing off MUNI for the next week after tonight’s adventure of being packed like sardines in a wet, musty bus, fighting our way back home.

February 16 is PJ’s birthday. For his birthday dinner, we decided to cook at home, for health reasons. I went to the Ferry building during my lunch hour to pick out ingredients for the birthday feast. If any of you readers are from San Francisco, shopping at the Ferry building is like getting mugged and stripped of all your money, except that in this case, you get some tasty treats to take home with you. The sticker shock was justified by the celebration, though, and I ended up surpassing the amazing Ahi Tuna steaks to purchase Escolar. Escolar? Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either. But, the fish market salesperson talked me into it–a fish steak like the Ahi Tuna, yet rich in flavor, like crab or lobster. PJ loves to try new things…hmmm. I was hooked, I picked up my fish steaks and headed out a happy consumer. We broiled it—and it was fabulous. Or was it? I woke up at 3:30am incredibly nauseous. And that was just the beginning of it. Before you are tempted to spend a fortune on escolar, read this link. However, if you have $30 to spend on an excellent wine, we do recommend Atrea’s Old Soul Red by winemaker John Fetzer. Maybe next year we will stick with the Ahi Tuna. We’ll see.