Kate Wolf Music Festival and Other Happenings in Northern California

                                                                                                                        We're heading off to the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival in a couple of days.  I grew up listening to my parents play her songs on the record player while the late afternoon sun would filter through the wooden shutters of our west-facing windows.  The sunlight would hit the dark green shag carpet and the tiny bits of dust flying around in the air would be transformed into glinting bits of gold.  The festival started in 1996 to commemorate the life of a singer/song writer who died of Leukemia in 1986.  Some of the first songs that I learned to play on the guitar were "Give Yourself to Love" and "Across the Great Divide".  I'll learn "Green Eyes" someday, but it's always been a bit melancholic for me and I haven't made the space to learn it yet.

The line-up at this year's festival is amazing.  We're looking forward to hearing/seeing The Waifs, Hot Buttered Rum,  David Grisman, Ani Di Franco, Po' Girl, Greg Brown, Poor Man's Whisky, Little Feat and a whole bunch of other great musicians playing under the magical oak trees near Laytonville.  Of course, there is also Kidlandia for the kids and lots o' good food and drink for the adults.  Ben and Jerry's ice cream bars, too.  But they always melt too quickly in the heat, and they're poorly frozen to begin with...

I think this will be our 4th or 5th year going, the first being in oh-three when D was just 6 months old.  In between music performances, we'll swim in the river, hang out at camp with friends and catch up with the great northern California vibe that we miss so much.

E took the van up to the festival today to start working for our tickets.  He's worked the back-stage kitchen for several years now, earning a free ticket for his work.  I am supposing that the van is now parked under a shady shelter and he is busy setting up the portable kitchen or cooking some delicious concoction and meeting interesting people.  He met Pepe Lobo, for God's sake.  If you can meet the president of Honduras, you're bound to meet anyone.  So, I will travel north tomorrow with kids and my parents in their camper and we'll camp somewhere along the way.  Then we will go to the festival Friday morning.

So what's been going on in Sebastopol?  Meeting up with friends, seeing great live music right downtown, riding our bikes to swim lessons, to My Friend Joe's, and to Farmer's Market.  Last week at Farmer's Market we had the most delicious huevos rancheros.  While we were eating our meal, met up with Danielle, who grows the greens that the whole meal was bedded on.  Gotta love Sebastopol and its locavore priorities.

Selena and I went to San Francisco yesterday, visiting the de Young Museum to see the Impressionist exhibition.  We ate at a great pan-asian restaurant, walked through great neighborhoods while I froze my ass off in the typical breezy, foggy SF summer night.  Despite the cold, I was struck by the heart-breaking beauty of the fog, the ocean and the romance of the city.  We were able to sleep-in in our cute, cheap, windowless North Beach hotel room this morning until 10:00 where we then walked out our hotel, down an alley, and around a corner to "Pat's" for breakfast.