I hope everybody is enjoying their weekend. It seems like today is my one day off for the weekend, because we spent most of yesterday in San Francisco. I think I mentioned it before (like in chat) that the city of SF is celebrating the centennial of the Panama-Pacific International Expo (PPIE), and yesterday at the Palace of Fine Arts there was a big event. It was supposed to have a lecture by the author of an amazing book about the PPIE, a concert of 1915-era music as well as some brand new compositions dedicated to the centennial, and also the premiere of a film about the PPIE. The film is what we mostly were hoping to see, as I had been in touch with the filmmaker over the course of the past year or so, and I was very much looking forward to seeing the film and meeting him face-to-face.

Well, we made it to the Palace only to learn that Christian (the filmmaker) had some kind of mishap and was delayed in getting from Sacramento to San Francisco, so they were going to change the order around and have the lecturer go first. So this historian gave a great talk about the various forms of entertainment at the PPIE, and after about an hour she wrapped up the Q&A. At that point it was announced that the film was just not going to happen. So I have no idea what went on--I wrote to Christian a little while ago, but I've not heard anything back yet. Such a shame--I know he has been looking forward to this premiere all year! It must be horribly disappointing for him.

So anyway, it was a fascinating day of learning about the PPIE.

I also got to do something fun on Thursday--I had lunch with Sharoot and her husband Mike! They were in California for their first time, and as it turned out they were going to be driving right through Vacaville on their way to see the redwoods. So we grabbed a little lunch, and it was so much fun to meet them!

It was certainly a nice distraction after the week of medical trials. I had mentioned last week that I was having a flare-up of gout. Well, in the early part of the week it got worse, and Tuesday was THE worst. I literally found myself stuck in my living room at 3am. If I lowered my foot below the level of my heart, I was treated to a stabbing, excruciating pain. As you can imagine, keeping your foot elevated higher than your chest is not conducive to a wide range of activities. So I lay on my back and scooched through the house, dragging the Ottoman with me. I was finally able to get to the freezer, get the ice pack, and eventually got the swelling down. But my whole week was more or less like that. Not fun.

However, I have been heeding Jes's advice and I'm drinking tart cherry juice, and with some other adjustments, and the foot is largely better. Now I need to work on getting my uric acid levels down so that it does not keep recurring.

So that's about it for me. Through all that I was working on trying to get my big work project done for the Quaker School, so that pretty much kept me busy.

Have a great week, everyone, and we'll talk with you later!