Weekend 3: Wine, wet and Armadillo Willy's

After all the excitement of Texas, my third week in the States has been dull by comparison.  Work was very quiet, so much so that I hardly spoke to a soul in the office.  I became aware that if I didn't actually go to the office nobody would even notice.  Some people have noted in the past that working out of two offices like Manchester and Liverpool gives certain opportunities to "disappear" between the two (mentioning no Corporate Location Heads in particular), but I am beginning to wonder if an international secondment might not work the same way but on a bigger scale - I could spend a week in Vegas and nobody would ever know.  Except of course I wouldn't, I'd be racked with guilt and fear of discovery, and my wife would kill me.

By Wednesday I was very much looking forward to some conversation at my "serata con amici" - weekly meetup with Italian speakers.  Unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute, but I didn't find out before I had arrived at the caffé, ordered a drink and waited 20 minutes.  After which I went home alone, drank alone and watched crap TV until 2am.

Further disappointments on Friday, when my Saturday meetup was cancelled, or rather postponed due to a poor weather forecast.  It was a 10 mile hike along a coastal path, so I was pretty gutted.  Thankfully things started to look up after that, when I was unexpectedly invited to join a colleague and her family for a meal out.  After a very pleasant evening, and a large quantity of red wine things looked a lot better.

So what did I do with my unexpectedly free Saturday?  Did I go to San Francisco to see the sights or watch the Americas' Cup?  Did I head for the hills?  No, it rained, then I had a haircut.

Rain was an unexpected phenomenon.  I'd kind of assumed that it was always sunny here, but foggy in San Francisco.  I didn't actually bring a coat with me to California (which on reflection was probably a bit foolish).  I missed most of the rain while a nursing a hangover, but by about 3pm I was ready to venture out, and by then the rain had more or less stopped.  So I drove into downtown Palo Alto.  "Downtown" to an American means the part with the shops and the bars.  Of course to an Englishman it means only one thing - Petula Clark.  (Lord only knows what happens if I go to Downtown San José, I'll end up with some dreadful Dionne/Petula mash-up in my head.)

Downtown Palo Alto is quite a pleasant place to go for a wander - small shops although none of them are basic things like greengrocers, they don't appear to exist here, it's all banks, specialist shops like the Apple Store and trendy cafés and bars.  However I did find a proper old fashioned barber's.  I was expecting it to be like the one in "Coming to America", staffed by a series of incomprehensible old men talking about sport all played by Eddie Murphy, but it was more like slasher Dean's in Sale used to be in the 1970s.  Apart from having no idea how much to tip it was all good.  I won't bother with a beard trim next time, but the haircut is OK.

This morning (Sunday) I went back to the same church, PCB.  The preacher was really good, they're in the middle of a series on John's gospel.  This week was about Jesus driving the moneylenders out of the temple. The music is good when I know the songs, which is about 50% of the time.  I have spoken to a few people but after the service everybody is rushing round picking up kids (so like home).  I am going to go along to some of their midweek meetings where there will be a smaller number of people and more chance to make friends.

I got back from church to discover that my washing machine had died, the drum had spun itself off its axis.  I rang the letting agent's emergency number and somebody is coming tomorrow to assess the damage.  Hope they fix it soon, or I'll have to go to the laundromat, which will probably fill my head with Marvin Gaye, and I've already got Dionne and Petula taking up all the room.

This afternoon I took my borrowed bike back to the Palo Alto bike store to see if they could fix the strange noises and difficult pedaling.  One extremely helpful young man pointed out that my tyres were flat, another one showed me how to use the pump, and yet another one oiled my chain for me. And none of them made me feel stupid for bringing a bike in for repair just because the tyres were flat: that's American customer service for you.

Flushed with success, I did some more shopping, treated myself to a new raincoat in case yesterday's downpour wasn't an isolated incident, and then stopped off for takeout on the way home.  I know

I've spent a lot of time talking about the difficulties of shopping and cooking for one, but this was a special takeaway - Armadillo Willie's.  That's the name, not the main ingredient.  After my Austin experience it was recommended to me as proper American BBQ food, and it was very good, although I couldn't eat that much meat every day.

So what I have learnt this week:

(1) Californians like to warn people about health risks.  There are signs everywhere warning you about things that might give you cancer.  It is like having cuttings from the Daily Mail pinned up everywhere.  They are generally not specific enough to enable you to make sensible choices to manage the risk: e.g. "This building contains materials which the State of California considers to increase your risk of cancer".  The signs are so prevalent that Californians just ignore them.

(2) Americans call bicycle oil "lube" but that just makes me snigger.  There is a chain of garages here called "Jiffy Lube" which still cracks me up.

(3) Root beer has a rather peculiar taste which I probably won't try again.  Apparently it was invented during prohibition as an alternative to alcohol, but I am not sure why they didn't stop production at the same time as FDR's New Deal.

(4) Tom Lehrer wasn't strictly correct when he said "It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon".  According to John 2:16, Jesus was strongly opposed to pigeon disposal when it was for monetary consideration in the temple courts.  However poisoning them is still OK.

(5) American children really do sell homemade cookies and lemonade on street corners,  I bought some today.  I don't know why I was surprised, but I guess I'd assumed that only happened on TV.