YaYu! (Gesundheit!)

So I went out to dinner on Monday night with K-poo and Patrick at YaYu in Oakland.

Those Oakland street planners really don't like to give people much warning in the way of street signs or indications that a lane is about to end. This is why I try not to drive to Oakland very often, which may be what they intended. They also seem to be completely avoiding any street maintenance on Lakeshore -- that way they can save money both on the materials for the street and putting up speed limit signs. If you go any faster than 25 mph you run the risk of doing major damage to either your car frame or your tires. As my cubicle neighbor Jon (who lives in Oakland) says, they've decided to spend the money on police instead. He's okay with that.

Anyhow, YaYu is an Ethiopian restaurant, which just seems all wrong since it doesn't fall into the previously documented [color][body of water] theme in naming Ethiopian restaurants. Be that as it may, the food was pretty good although no nightclub activity was to be had, so it felt a little odd.

Things I found out from K-poo during dinner:

- Her welding class is actually welding and woodworking, and she's making a leaning (intentionally, not like the Tower of Pisa) bookcase. She's also officially the furthest (or possibly farthest) behind of anyone in the class, which she claims is because she lets everyone else use the equipment.

- Two weeks ago she bought a bag of taffy-flavored cookies because the grocery stocker convinced her that they would "change her life". She claims the purchase was to allow her to stock up on earthquake supplies. Yeah, that went about as well as you would expect. The cookies are gone, although to be fair, there were a few tiny earthquakes that she is using for justification.

- My sister claims she is actually Latina. (This is news to me, and to my parents, too, I bet.) I won't even try to reproduce the logic behind that statement.

- She's volunteering for some group that takes disadvantaged kids out on boats. They aren't allowed to throw the kids overboard if they are being obnoxious. (I asked.) (Jeff asked the same question when I relayed this information.)

- There's some guy...

So, yeah, it was a fine dinner. I also got to hear some good stories from Patrick about a place he worked that only had six people -- one of the owners admitted that she didn't know what he did during his performance evaluation (because she was clueless, not because he was useless). That's always a good sign. Almost as good as your boss falling asleep during a one-on-one meeting.

Hopefully my contribution to the Oakland economy will allow them to pave the street sometime soon. They have a year or so before the next time I go back...