»The other side of summer?

Drove out to Mount Tam to check out the New Music on the Mountain, with the Rova Saxophone Quartet. Had I sensibly checked the web, I could have read that the event was cancelled due to high fire hazards. But I didn't check, so Larry and I drove all the way up and up and up the mountain, stopping at a Central Valley farmer's stand for some figs, peaches, and plums. We reached the ranger post and found the road blocked off with orange plastic barrels. A small hand-written sign read "ROVA: New Music cancelled." We grinned and turned back down the mountain.

Even more exciting was the subsequent drive to San Rafael to visit Josh, Alisa, and Max. Just as we were pulling off the highway into downtown, Winnie started spewing thick white steam from the hood. At the signal, the car stalled completely; as I put on the flashers and motioned for people to move around me, a wiry man hopped out of his car and said urgently "Can you steer? I'll push!" and energetically heaved his shoulder against the back of the truck. Larry looked bewildered (I later found out that he doesn't drive), as a woman and then another woman leaped from their cars and aided in the pushing. We quickly relocated the car to the filling station at the corner and assessed the damage. One of the helpful women and her boyfriend cheerfully offered us a ride to our destination, and then asked "Are you going to have breakfast?" (I started to laugh, and then swallowed it: the time was 2:30 pm, and I'd eaten breakfast seven hours earlier. But this was Marin, and things are different there.)
A quick visit to Chez Raymond-Blatter and then a long wait for a tow back to San Francisco, and we were in apple-pie order.

So much for the last day of summer!