My apologies to Berzerkely for my interior thoughts...

Maya's been largely a gem when it comes to tolerating the touring and City-cruising she's been subjected to over the last 4 days. Yesterday's only dust-up occurred when we made a trek to Berkeley and were perusing the offerings at The Cheese Board - her cries seemingly offended the three-deep crowd of eco-rights activists, organo-entrepeneurs and Birks-and-natural-fiber humanists. So I went outside and pushed the stroller while Joan and Herb picked out some rolls and a loaf of garlic cheese bread. One especially-condescending tweedy fellow probably thought he was being clever when he politely said to me "so you have the duty today" as he strolled by. By "the duty" I must assume he was referring to caring for a (momentarily) unruly newborn. To defend Maya's honor, I should have pummelled the dude. But I thought better of my continued freedom. So we gathered our loaves, hightailed it back over to the City and carried on as if we'd never ventured to the East Bay. Don't get me wrong - I love Berkeley. Just not yesterday morning.

The highlight of the day's touring, however, didn't include Maya. I'd never been to Alcatraz and having folks in town that wanted to give me the touristy cover to do so was well-appreciated. Much can be made of the tourist trappy-crappy aspects (aggregious parking rates, pushy "official" photogs lining up those getting on the ferry for the picking after they returned from the Island with instantly reproduced "6 for $20" crapshots, every imaginable sort of poorly produced black t-shirt or ashtray or the like with some variation of "Escaped from" or "Return to" or "Property of" Alcatraz festooned upon it bearing down on the crowd like a flock of seagulls). But the Rock itself was amazingly well-presented in educational terms. We had one particular tour-guide (John, a retired school teacher whose last name I unfortunately missed) that gave us a special tour of "Escapes From the Rock" in the cellhouse hospital that was fascinating, touching and utterly insightful. The day was stunning. The sun started to dip behind the Marin Headlands as our Ferry returned across the Bay, and we now have Alcatraz stories to recount to all those who might care to listen (note to self: rent "Birdman of Alcatraz" and check out Burt Lancaster's portrayal of the actual Birdman, Robert Stroud). If you come to the City and you've never done it, swallow your pride and check out Alcatraz. Few will be disappointed, in my estimation.

Not much on my end this week when it came to newsy commentary - I'll get up my weekly story summary soon enough. But now that the Pope's funeral is over, the world can move on to our next big unifying event - waiting for Jenna Bush's booty-shaking vid to hit the airwaves. I can hardly wait.