There is something amiss about Bay Area Rapid Transit: the signage is clear, the oral announcements are comprehensible and accurate, and it's even rapid. Gee. Coming out of a tunnel where the view of is an industrial warehouse section of Oakland is not quite pretty, but the rest of the East Bay was fine.
RDC's friend (and now mine) picked us up in Berkeley and we went to their house to meet his nigh-wife, their daughter (12 and "almost 13" though how late July is "almost" for a December birthday is one of those nuances that geriatric arterial hardening has scoured from my mind), and her cat. They were all great (and the view from their house in the Berkeley hills is decadent), the daughter particularly. We went to a beach in Alameda because the pool they intended in Berkeley was closed, and a beach is better than a pool anyway. We talked Harry Potter and other children's books, and two hours later but kind of only an hour late, PLT arrived with his two daughters.
That was wonderful. I had not seen the elder in almost five years, and 8 is more sustainable fun than 3. Four is great too (as is 3, really), as the younger soon demonstrated. We played in the waves and I gave motorboat rides to the younger and was available for dolphin rides (scarier, because involving going underwater) to the older. I advised Almost 13 that it was her responsibility as a tween to dunk her mother, who was making immersion worse for herself by one-inch increments. However, she was not to be solicited into misdemeanor.
PLT and Sprouts could not join us for dinner, which involved fajitas (made of skirt steaks) and avocados, but we had later dinner plans with that bunch. A strange thing about Berkeley houses: they don't have screens (the coworker commented on our screens when he visited Formigny), just like France. I saw insects, but no pesky mosquitoes. However, because of the cat, this family cannot keep doors open. I'd rather have ventilation. That preceding is what you call sour grapes, right there.