Psapp likes cats.

Saturday, June 17th

Slow morning, with our regular trip to the Alemany Farmer's Market - although we are (for shame) very late. Again, by the time we make it, they are out of the crimini mushrooms. Next week we will try harder. We will wake up early and not lounge about reading the newspaper with furry cats on laps. Maybe. However, we do score blueberries (hooray for blueberry season) and Chef L'Erique is overcome with the need to make guacamole and loads up on avocados. Tonight he is going to grill.

Later that afternoon, we forget to buy tortillas at the grocery store, which gives us a good excuse to buy them at our favorite Central American Market - El Ahorro De Barraza on Mission Street. When we get there it seems that the streets are deserted, we remember that it's The World Cup and decide that everyone is home watching soccer. The people in El Ahorro are listening to the game on the radio. Along with flour tortillas, Chef L'E also finds a juice there that makes him happy. "Aha!" he says, "They have this here?" as he is holding it in his hand. It's cashew juice. He buys it immediately. On the sidewalk he points to the label and tells me the story of the weirdo nut called the cashew. How it grows on the top of the apple-like fruit (he points to the picture on the label. look how weird it is! he says). He tells me that the cashew grows there in a hard shell that is filled with toxic oils (similar to poison ivy). Who knew that cashews were threatening at one stage in their transformation to salty delicious nut? I did not, but now I feel suspicious about this cashew juice. I bet he is going to make some cashew juice cocktail, that "nutty" guy. I hope it doesn't kill us when we drink it.

I do other things around the house to make myself worthy, but Chef L'E - well, he is the Chef - and all respect and admiration and big giant smootches to him. Just know that he LIKES to do this kind of thing and decides to make salsa and guacamole from scratch (when I recommend buying it, he INSISTS that it is so easy that he will make it himself). I selfishingly ask if it involves the blender, because that's my involvement in the salsa making. Blender washing. However, as long as the Chef is making guacamole, he has my blessing to make the salsa in the same blender and I will wash it with a big smile on my face.

The Chef also grills all the onions/chilis/tomatoes involved in the salsa. He grills the chicken too. We have a tasty grilled fajita dinner at our kitchen table with giant bowls of Chef L'Erique salsa and guacamole. Yum. However, we can only drink two Pinka's organic pilsners from Munich because we are going to a concert later at Bimbo's - to see that cute English band Psaap and from Argentina, Juana Molina (and Jose Gonzalez, who I like, but you know, he's the third act and we don't plan on staying much after midnight - for we are old and creaky and love to sleep.)

We decide to take BART to North Beach as today is the North Beach Festival and parking is always a curse in North Beach. It's a long walk but I distract Chef L'E by telling him we'll walk through the Stockton Tunnel and ogle the Chinese markets on the way there. Oops, but they are closed. We remember that Marybeth never let us walk through the Stockton Tunnel and once we are walking through it (stinky, full of trash, claustrophobic) we remember why. It's much longer than it seems.

We get to Bimbo's and despite the long and inefficient "will call" line - we make perfect timing as when we walk in Psapp is just starting. I like Psapp, and they like cats - the extent of which we discover tonight. They LOVE cats! They mention cats several times and then they throw out little pipe cleaner cats (of which we are not lucky enough to catch so we have to buy our own at the merch table for $5) they dedicate several songs to cats (or say, "this song is about a cat"). Several times they also ask the audience, "Who likes cats?" at which I respond by yelling YAY! ME! but not too loudly as to reveal myself as the crazy cat lady kook who should be institutionalized. Last year one of the things that endeared me to Psapp was a very charming video for their song "About Fun" (which, ahem, made my "best of 05 " list). If I haven't already e-mailed it to you, you can find it right here: http://www.posteverything.com/leaf/psapp/about-fun.mov

Anyway, the finished their marvelous set (involving a calvacade of noises emenating from kazoos, t0y typewrites, stuffed owls purchased at truck stops and much, much more) with a song from The Aristocats, "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat." Can you believe that? I suddenly became overwhelmed with how much Psapp loved cats and I had a hard time paying attention I was giggling so hard. I kept looking over at Chef L'E - oh my gosh, are you listening to this? Cats! Chef L'E was still scoping out the floor hoping that he would discover one of the home made cats that had gone missing during one of the toss outs. I think he even touched some stranger's shoe hoping it was a pipe cleaner cat.

After Psapp finished, we had to stand around and listen to drunk people who just wanted to go out, no matter if they didn't know a thing about the bands who were playing tonight. There were some particular stupid idiots next to us (because in exhange for my happy life, I am constantly surrounded by idiots at shows and movies - a fair enough trade.) One was talking on his cell phone loudly, he said, "I'm at the Joe Gonzalez concert" even though that's not the name of the headliner. When Juana Molina came on stage, he said, "Is that Neko Case?" I'm not kidding. But that's enough about idiots.

Juana Molina was wearing a lovely yellow dress. She was surrounded by electronic knobs and machines of all sorts. She made some bleeps and blurps and then she sang some nonsense and sent it off to be repeated in a loop and then she sang along with it. She reminded me of the little elf that is Bjork, but Juana Molina sings in Spanish. Later Chef L'E mentioned that he did not approve of her crazy skatting ways, but I did not mind it one bit. I was glad to watch her make all the crazy noises.

After Juana, I told Chef L'E that we had to say for at least one Jose Gonzalez song. I was curious to see what he looked like. I thought it was odd that he was headlining as I assumed he would just play acoustic guitar, and well.. him, this was a crowd of people who just came to see some music OUT and didn't know who he was. Well, okay, probably some did - but there were a lot of idiots there. During our wait we went to look at all the cute Psapp merch, where I was thrilled to see that I could buy my own pipecleaner cat - and postcards and buttons! The guy at the table smiled at us, as we were old folks obviously excited about the pipecleaner cat and Psapp buttons.

Jose Gonzalez starts, he is sitting on a chair and playing his guitar. He is often compared to Nick Drake, but as he starts I can only think that he reminds me of Jose Feliciano - despite the fact that he is Swedish and not visually impaired. The song is only half over and I poke Chef L'E - "let's leave" I say. I've now seen him, he looks like an average fellow and it's not worth standing in a packed crowd of idiots to witness more of a guy playing a guitar. Plus it's 11:30 and we are starting to argue about the time when BART stops running. We hit the street - and walk A LONG WAY back to the BART station, through desolate Chinatown and past a crazy guy who I think is foiled from mugging us because of construction in the street that is blocking his path to cut us off. We leave him yelling at the contruction as we reach Powell Street Station. There we hear on the loudspeaker that BART stops running at midnight, so we are happy we are not still at Bimbo's watching Jose Gonzalez, folk singer. The BART train is full of Oakland A's fans and we are all out way past our bedtimes.

zzzzzzzzzzz.