Birthday Licentiousness
Last week Mrs. side pocket informed me that in honor of my 80th birthday she had booked a hotel in San Francisco where we’d have dinner with our kids and attend Beach Blanket Babylon. I was excited and pleased. So on Friday the 1st we drove to the city and met the kids in the fancy hotel. It is across from the Ferry Building at which market we sold flowers years ago so I figured we could check it out on Saturday. We went up to the top floor lounge which had food and a view.
Bay Bridge
The food there looked pretty good and I thought, hey, why go out to eat when we could get enough right there but I didn’t say anything. So we meandered out and down the street, and my son Eric said “this is it”. It was a German restaurant so as we walked past other diners I was musing on what German specialty I would order. We stepped into the back room. Mental fireworks! The room was filled with Kossacks!! My perception focussed on Meteor Blades in the center and in widening circles I perceived more and more Daily Kos friends and my amazement grew and grew. OMG, folks from New Jersey, Washington, Berkeley, Chico, San Jose, Sacramento, and more. The most incredible birthday surprise anyone has ever had! It has taken me days to settle down from the high and I’m far from calm now.
Arranging a surprise of this magnitude is such a huge undertaking and keeping it a secret almost never works, especially in the age of social media, and considering the fact that side pocket is on the computer almost 24/7. And yet it was a 100% complete surprise.
Now a few photos of the event have appeared already but I know Neeta took many as she usually does and plans to post a diary in a few days. So they will be here for all, especially for me, since I was inside my consciousness and no doubt missed a lot. There are too many folks to thank individually, but I must mention Neeta,( super organizer), Mrs. side pocket, and Markos, who showed up suddenly, along with his kids, and gobsmacked me even more than I was already gobsmacked. And of course maximum thanks to everyone who attended and made me feel like the most fortunate Kossack ever.
About 12 years ago I was already so connected to Daily Kos that I decided to express that via my license plate. For all that time I had the plate DLY KOS on my Prius.
Louie at rest. (I miss him so much)
So we bought a new Prius which is gun-metal gray. I had a thought. Californians had long been proud of their old-style black and yellow plates, proving that they were not newbies. But the DMV recently released new plate options, including 1960’s Legacy Plates. Though I felt sorry for the old-timers that had their pride diluted, I dealt with the DMV by phone and mail and paid $50 and waited 3 months, and wow, perfect satisfaction at the color matching. It is so much more visible that driving to the city I received thumbs up and peace signs. Also, too, Daily Kos itself might be gaining more visibility.
Old plate
New plate