Patrona was closed, again. They are closed Sunday and Monday, the two days this week that I am in Ukiah at evening time. So, I've been to the Thai restaurant, now what to do for dinner? I Google Ukiah Restaurants & get to a site with reviews of some of them. There is an Italian Place with good reviews so I drive there. Out of business, under new management, new name, new menu. I gave it a skip. People around the courthouse have been favorable about Oco Time, a Japanese place on a side street one block south of Schats (who also don't serve dinners on Sunday and Monday). It looks great, lots of sushi rolls. It probably is great, but its not large and all the places were taken. But, two doors down is their take-out store. I went there and got a chicken bowl and a large container of miso, and a bottle of water (too late for tea, or other caffinated drinks). Right outside on the sidewalk was a table with two chairs, and that's where I ate. Great view of the side street intersection with the main street - looked kind of Hopperesque. Temperature falling to reasonable levels, a very pleasant evening. Hardly anyone walking on the sidewalk so I was undisturbed, and enjoyed the meal very much. Cost $10.

I'm on my way to San Rafael for court tomorrow morning. The courthouse is the Frank Lloyd Wright building, and is the only courthouse I've ever been in with its own docent tours. The pleasure of going to court is tarnished however by trendy and unnecessary security which (gasp) doesn't wave attorneys through. You can now only get onto the court floor by one elevator, which interferes with the designers intent for traffic patterns. That aside, the cafe is excellent, the building interesting, and the drive long.

So I come down the night before. I usually stay at the Days Inn in San Rafael, but today the internet said it was booked up, BUT there was a Days Inn in Novato, 12 miles north of San Rafael that had a room. So I took it. This Days Inn is that odd motel across from the Marin Airport that doesn't seem to be accessible. You have to drive a mile past it to find the exit to get on to backtrack to it, and that's a dead end. The room is ok, the place has a restaurant, hi-speed internet and free corn flakes in the morning. All good. They want $1 if I use their in-room safe. Goofy.

On the way down I was listening to the new Harry Potter on CD (17 of them) and time passed quickly. I hoped for Patrona but they were closed, so I backtracked (which I hate to do) and with some luck was able to find the elusive Thai restaurant of Ukiah. Its Eric's fave, and was #2 on my list, but tonight's dinner gives it a downgrade. I got BBQ Pork with two dipping sauces. Does it come with vegetables, I asked. Sure says the waiter, its on a bed of vegetables. No such thing. Its on a pile of iceberg lettuce with no other vegetables in sight. If he'd told me I would have ordered a spinach roll, too. The Thai tea was good, the wine slightly turned. The people next to me kept talking about interesting stuff like Ry Cooter but there were 4 of them and I couldn't figure out how to join the conversation. Next time I'm going searching for the Japanese place.

I try to never miss a Mime Troupe show at the Mateel. They play venues from here to Bakersfield, but I suspect they seldom get an audience as in sync with their comedic viewpoint as here. That makes it all the more fun, since being in an audience which gets it, and responds, adds quite a bit to the experience.

The basic idea of the show is that Condy Rice and Dick Cheney are vying for a position on the Haliburton Board, and the seat will go to the one with the highest popularity in the polls. They compete by being rivals to build a cancer hospital "for the children" in a town in Iraq. The other plot is a court martial of an army reporter who was covering the construction project for an army newspaper. Sounds pretty funny, huh? Well, it was. I read one review of the show, I think in an SF paper, which completely missed the point.

Unfortunately the Mime Troupe does not video these shows, so see it or miss it. I suggest seeing it. Try their website for a schedule.

Speaking of needing to recalibrate my sense of pricing: this was for us, dinner and a show with a drink beforehand. It cost about $85 for the two of us. Rangpur gin & glass of wine before the show $10, admission $44, one dinner and two plates of sushi $25, wine with dinner $10, cake and pie $6. I grew up with 25 cent gasoline and $3000 new cars, cokes 6 for a quarter. I guess that $10 then is like $100 now and if I could just move my mental decimal point over 1 place I'd understand better what things cost. $85 for a night for 2 at the Mateel? It just blows my mind, to use a phrase from the 60s. I suppose I need to recalibrate my expressions, too.

You would think that after all those years supervising rock band touring schedules I would know how to set up a law tour. I mean the principle is fairly basic. One day, one county. If I'm in Mendocino county that day, do the Ukiah & Willits cases. How hard can it be?

The problem is I don't always book my own dates. Clients come to me, they have to appear on a certain date to get arraigned (which starts the cases, in court) and sometimes I'm already booked somewhere else. That's what happened this week. I had a very nice afternoon schedule in Eureka. Something at 2pm, something at 3pm, home by dinner time. But then a client had a 10 a.m. arraignment. Still not so bad. Except it was in Ukiah. I could make it, however. Do the 10 am, drive to Eureka, hour to spare before the 2pm. Yeah. But. It's always "but" in the law. But there was a co-defendant, and the co-d's lawyer couldn't make it at 10 a.m. due to something that happened in another courtroom, so we waited. At 11 a.m. my margin had evaporated. Now if I left I might get there on time, and I might not. Finally I get it done.

Now I'm on the road. Remember that steak I had last night at the Brass Rail? Well the doggy bag is in a flexible cooler bag in the front seat. That's lunch as I drive up to Eureka. More often than not lunch is a sandwich from the Willits safeway, or Redway liquors, or the Alderpoint store. Today its the doggy bag. The part potato is surprisingly good, the steak is better than edible, the little bit of brocoli was ok. Add a coke and that's lunch.

I remember back in the grower days of the 20th century when a trip to the Brass Rail was quite the thing. Get a room, get surf 'n' turf and some bubbly, and it was the ultimate Sohum experience, I'm told. That was then. What about now?

Now, my sweetheart and I got there and grabbed two seats at the bar for a pre-dinner drink. The bartender was a long tall woman with lots of good energy and we discussed the ingredients and got excellent drinks. M.A. was quite taken with Rangpur gin. The TV was on to COPs, and I wasted some time yelling at the kid they were busting to shut up and quit giving them evidence. He didn't hear me. I could do without the TV in bars where I'm having a drink and a conversation.

We ate in the main dining room. Big stone fireplace, paneled walls, lots of room between the tables. We sat by the east windows that look out onto the deck, natural light augmenting the ambience of the room. The head waitress remembered us, always nice, and the service was friendly and helpful. I had Sterling Steak - at $25 the cheapest steak on the menu. You could eat for about $12-15 if you had a salad dinner, but if you wanted the beef you had to pay for it. (Surf 'n' turf is now $70, if you want to go hog wild, which I did not. I'm still struggling with $25 steaks, part of me wants to grab a sandwich at Murrish's and save the money) M.A. had the Captain's seafood plate. Soup was quite good, salad was green salad, thank god for Thousand Island dressing, the main course came on pewter plates on wooden chargers (I guess that's what they are called). The steak was large, cooked just as I like it, and delicious. I'll be eating the second half of it for lunch tomorrow. Big baked potato packed with sour cream, bit of vegetables - but not much more than you get at the Cattlemen's Dinner. Beef and potatoes was the actual dinner. We had wine from the bar. Service great, food great, wine great. Bill not overwhelming, but not small. Its definitely going on my list of places to eat when you're feeling like something special.