This provocative sign is posted at either end of the Confusion Hill by-pass section of 101. Of course its one of those signs that can't be both read and followed, since your eyes are not on the road if you read it. Here's what you're not supposed to be looking at



Otherwise, its a full moon and you know what that means in Ukiah, right? It seems to mean discounts. I got the internet rate at the Best Western, even tho they are filled with firefighters, and then when, with trepedation contesting with hunger, I went to Patronas, I not only had a delightful meal, but the bill came up short. I sent it back for recaluation but they decided I had won the karmic lottery that night, and refused to add on the things left off.

For meal fans, I had the sausage and cheese pizza, which for a few months was on the menu under the more upscale name of "flatbread" instead of pizza. The pizza is on very thin, semi-crunchy crust, and its very good. I often have the gorganzola and fig pizza, but this night I was going more for the taste of fats. I toyed with the idea of the thick meat sauce on pasta, but, hey, what I can I say, the pizza parlor kid in me lives on. Syrah with it, even though the new menu has new, and higher, prices for the wines. We are having an inflation, it's clear. At desert time I weakened and had the cornmeal cake with strawberries and peaches, topped with a dab of whipped cream and a mint leaf. The strawberry shortcake - a favorite food of mine since I am a son of the south - was offered only on angelfood cake, and to me that echoes more of Safeway than the South. No doubt it is delicious since the cake served at Patronas would be scratch and not Safeway, but the dish is named "shortcake" after all, and some of my earliest childhood memories are of huge, heaping, dinnerplate sized strawberry shortcakes down home in Star, Mississippi during the war, so I prefer shortcake as a feature. Cornmeal cake had a kind of hush puppy or hoe cake sound to it, which as a son of the south I liked also, but as a base upon which to put fruit, I was doubtful about. Turned out well, it was quite good. The decaf coffee was a bit mundane, which is unusual for Patronas. On the other hand I didn't have to pay for it, so who's complaining.



Then I walked out into the warm Ukiah night, with the trees lit up with lights behind the courthouse. It was a magical evening. Most of the photos didn't come out, however. That's magic for you.