What a birthday weekend I had! Friday, the actual day, I was taken to dinner by my family out here to DiMaggio's on Washington Square. This was a fun restaurant, and we've been there before. I like the place, the decor is nice with dark wood everywhere. It offers your standard Italian fare, but they do a good job with food that you've seen in different forms more or less across America, and that counts for something.
Saturday the girl and I went down to lovely ol' Palo Alto and sauntered over to the Stanford campus for a pow wow they were having there in the Eucalyptus grove. Literally. A Pow Wow. It was a good time, there were a lot of Natives from all over the country. I couldn't begin to tell you all the tribes, but I saw Cree and Hopi for sure, and a few Apaches as well. People were doing the hoop and gourd dances right as we showed up, and that was a real treat.I've not been to a pow wow in ages, so this was like revisiting my childhood in a way. I made sure to wear my Sacramento Hot Shots shirt with the Zia emblazoned on the chest and back to show off my New Mexico (read: Native America) roots. In fact, I met some Natives that commented on it and we struck up little conversations about New Mexico. Mission accomplished!
Part of the fun of the pow wow was being out in the warm weather. It's getting really nice on the peninsula now, much better weather than San Francisco experiences. Palo Alto is just far enough south to avoid the fog that rolls in, and we still get a nice cool bay breeze, so we don't bake like they do inland or in the South Bay. Because of this I was wearing only a T-shirt (see supra) and flip flops. Funny thign about the sun: as warm as it is it can also burn you. Who knew? I didn't feel it at the time in between munching on fry bread and corn, but my neck developed a nice red hue to it at the end of the day. {Racial pun} I was a red skin, indeed! {/Racial pun} It wasn't too bad, I don't think I'm gonna peel, and I played it off to Eva that I was just "getting some color."
