The Dipsea Café

Not being an American Football devotee, on this holy 49ers game day I opted to take the little lady out for what I hoped would be a relaxed and pleasant brunch.

Unable to get a table at Le Garage in Sausalito, I picked instead the Dipsea Café in Mill Valley. I picked it mainly for the fact that it has a terrace and in the hope of dining outside.

When we arrived, the place was packed and we were told that we would have to wait another twenty minutes to dine on the terrace. Being severely allergic to loitering, I easily convinced my mate to sit inside.

Nowadays the Dipsea Cafe is huge and unlike the intimate little place of my youth, it feels more like a cafeteria than a Sunday brunch getaway.

A hostess with a distractingly large derriere led us to an isolated table.
Then a rather uncouth waitperson plopped menus on our table and ran away.

kinopoisk.ruTo me, the ideal waiter would a carbon copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves.  A gentleman’s gentleman who speaks the Queen’s English, who can quote Spinoza and mix the perfect dry Martini.
Everything our waiter was not. Our man alas proved as congenial as a parking enforcement officer.

As I said the Dipsea Cafe is huge, and proportionally noisy. And turbulent munchkins don’t help. Personally, as a member of the Curmudgeon Society, I am willing to pay extra for the privilege of dining in a kid-free zone, but unfortunately few establishments seem willing to oblige. A pity!

For our first course, we chose to split some Calamari Fritti. The Fritti was there all right, but the Calamari itself was missing. Instead of squid we were served some rubbery pieces of under seasoned latex.

For our main dish we both chose salads.  A Salade Niçoise for Tamara and a Cobb Salad for myself.
Suffice to say that I can make better salads in my sleep.

Fortunately, the hostess provided some unusual distraction and made the entire interlude almost bearable.

This place does not get my seal of approval.
Hope you had a better day with the 49ers!

Alain

 

Monsieur Tout le Monde

Feminists like to point out that “Behind every great man there’s a great woman.”
That might be true, but it is also very likely that “Behind The Fall of Every Great Man, there is also a Woman.”

Let me rephrase that.
“Behind the fall of many men, often stands a woman.”

francois_hollande_442338527_north_522xFew men are great, and even fewer politicians qualify for that adjective because for a politico, self-interest always comes before greatness. Greatness is just an afterthought.
And greatness is not in the cards for the present president of France François Hollande.

When running for president Mr. Hollande pledged to be “Monsieur tout le monde” (Mister Everybody) and in many, many ways he has been.
But France does not need an ordinary “petit bourgeois” to run its affairs. It needs a forceful leader in the mold of Charles de Gaulle.

A leader needs decisiveness, style, dash, and very few men can claim these attributes.
We will more easily forgive a dashing rogue than a grocery clerk, and Francois Hollande is everything but dashing.
He is as dull as dishwater.

But now, to add to his problems (besides abysmal approval ratings) Mr. Hollande has fallen prey to a scandalous love triangle.
Monsieur Hollande, who never married, sired four children with his former mate Ségolène Royal.
Then French journalist Valerie Trierweiler (nicknamed by some the Rottweiler) became his live-in girlfriend when he separated from Ségolène.
When he was elected president miss Trierweiler followed him to the Elysée Palace and became the unorthodox First Lady.

Now, it has become known that “Monsieur Tout Le Monde” has taken up with a French actress 20 years his junior, and that he is sneaking up at night to her apartment… riding on a motor scooter… just like any ordinary Frenchman.

Nobody is blaming Mr. Holland for having a mistress (it is the spoils of war for a French President) but cheating on an “official” mistress looks worse than cheating on a spouse.

The previous “first ladies” of France, were all aware of their husbands’ dalliances but like the Queens of yesteryear, they tolerated the “favorites”.

But this all seem too much for the favorite in tittle. She checked into a hospital for “exhaustion” and France is breathlessly waiting to see what’s going to happen next.
Mr. Hollande is a “waffler”, a procrastinator, preferring to defer difficult decisions and everybody is wondering how he is going to dodge that bullet.

In February Mr. Hollande is scheduled to visit North America.
The big question is: is he going to come alone or accompanied by a female companion? And pray tell, who would that be?

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Monsieur Tout le Monde…

Alain

Veni, vidi, vici

Yesterday in San Francisco, in a tournament sponsored by La Boule d’Or, the Pétanque Marinière players came and conquered.

In a series of 3 games played after lunch, five of our local players emerged at the top of the heap and took home the big bucks.

IMG_8878

The attendance was unfortunately limited.
As the oldest Pétanque club in the Bay Area, La Boule d’Or deserves better and all the local clubs should make an extra effort to attend these tournaments more frequently.

Kudos by the way to Etienne Rijkheer, Antoine and Eva and Minou and Minette who travelled a long way to participate in this event.

Among the players wearing our colors, comrade Tamara Semionovna didn’t appear on the podium with the rest of the top dogs.
But she had a good excuse for that.

Saturday, while doing wheelies on her bike, she fell and injured her elbow.
Taken to Emergency, she was promptly sewn together with fifteen stitches and told to go forth.
In a spirit reminiscent of Stalingrad, she agreed to come to San Francisco and fight for our colors in spite of her injuries.
Just for this, she deserves a medal.

Unusual for a San Francisco winter, the day was warm and enjoyable, and as far as I know nobody was wearing flannel panties.

A Galette des Rois was brought by Jean-Claude Bunand and enjoyed by all.

A great day for pétanque and much glory for our club!

Alain