Oakland Airport

Will spent the weekend with his cousins in Los Angeles so I volunteered to keep Dana company on the drive to the airport to pick him up if she would detour through Berkeley.

The plan was to go to my old stomping ground on Domingo Avenue--Peet's Coffee, a wonderful olive oil place called Amphora, and the Red Bird clothing boutique where I hoped to say hello to my old friend, Kim. It's been six months since I've been back and I felt that I had finally achieved the proper level of detachment.

There was a "big rig fire" on the bridge which backed up traffic in all the usual places, only worse. We drove by the old house and everything looked pretty much the same, perhaps just a little neglected. The street was quiet, and we didn't see any of the old neighbors.

The long awaited new bakery on Domingo finally opened about a month ago, but is closed on Monday. Peet's was quiet having finished with the morning coffee crowd of which I was once a part.

We went into the Red Bird where my friend Kim's mother didn't recognize me right way because my hair is longer. She said Kim was sick and would be very disappointed that she missed me. We were just getting into catch up mode when there was a loud crash outside and we all went out to watch the unfolding drama of a car which had hit t a tree, caving in the whole front end of the car. Nobody got out of the car, but somebody driving right behind pulled his car over in the middle of the road, effectively shielding the steaming wreck from the traffic, and went to check, cell phone to his ear as he went. A Fed Ex truck driver went to investigate and reported back that apparently the man in the car had had a heart attack...Multiple police cars, fire trucks, and Paramedics arrived and the ambulance was just moving off as we drove by on our way to the airport.

We will probably never know exactly what happened, but it is good to know that there are people around who are willing to help out in such an emergency.

We chose the correct route to the airport, avoiding the little red car crashed into the tree and aftermath of the big rig fire on the bridge, and arrived at the airport n time for me to snap a few pictures of people arriving in the baggage claim area before Will emerged from the DO NOT ENTER area, and we were on our way back to bucolic Sonoma County. Will wanted to be back in the Hollywood scene, I felt happy to be coming home and Dana was already orchestrating tommorrow's pre school dentist and physical therapy appointments for her boys....