Never Gonna Give You Up

“You play fair with me; I'll play fair with you.”
Glenn Close as Alex Forrest in
the 1987 motion-picture FATAL ATTRACTION

Diary Notes for March 19^th and 20^th 1988…

March 19, 1988

It was a special Saturday.    I had an early bike ride along Shoreline Drive and I was expecting Kelly to arrive thereafter.   The plan was to go on a mini-road trip together.   Our destination was the Historic Sonoma Plaza.   I wanted to document the day with Polaroid photos, so we took a few before we left at my place.   I remember posing as if I were pretending to be on the telephone.   Kelly took this solo photo of me:

I said, “Make sure you include my bike.”
Kelly knew I loved my bike.  She probably thought me crazy.

I set the timer for another photo of the two of us and she laughed hysterically when I said, “Oh man…we look like Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein in this one!”

The town of Sonoma is centered on the plaza, the largest plaza in California.   During the drive we listened to cool tunes and laughed all along the way.   We couldn’t help talk about Jim and Christine.  

“Do you really think they’ll last?”  I asked.
“I don’t know…they always have these fits about nonsense but it seems to be going okay.   I hope it works out.”

“I know…I mean I think we’re so perfect but I’m not so sure about them.   At least it won’t lead to a FATAL ATTRACTION like that movie…I hope.”

“I know!”

It was so wonderful at how we agreed about so many subjects.   I loved that.   As we arrived to the plaza we planned on buying a bottle of wine and having a little picnic in the park.  The plaza is surrounded by many historical buildings, including the Mission San Francisco Solano, Captain Salvador Vallejo's Casa Grande, the Presidio of Sonoma, the Blue Wing Inn, and the Toscano Hotel.  In the middle of the plaza is Sonoma's early 20th-century city hall, at the plaza's center and still in use, was designed and built with four identical sides in order not to offend the merchants on any one side of the plaza.  

We stopped to browse at hats in a little boutique.   Kelly was accommodating when I snapped her in a silly hat.   Of course, she had to get even and take a photo of me in an equally silly hat.   That was funny.  

The Sonoma City Hall was dedicated in 1908.  The location was where the Bear Flag Revolt took place in 1846, which led to the Mexican-American War.   It was fun to people watch and simply relax in the park.   I snapped a shot of Kelly on the park bench and she was unsure of how to pose.

“Just be natural.”
“Yeah, right,” she said.
She made me laugh.   The photo turned out all right though.

We walked about town and Kelly took one last photo of me next to a house that had some wine barrels with a fancy water treatment.   It was soothing to hear the water there.

After our enjoyable day it was time to drive back to Alameda.  It’s a bit of a drive but I managed.   After all…I was in good company.    We laughed over and over about the hit song of the week that they kept playing over and over while we were in my car.   I think it was subliminally sending us both a message and we both knew it.   The song was by Rick Astley called "Never Gonna Give You Up".   We both loved this song so very much.  We also talked about the Oscar nominated movies we liked, specifically FATAL ATTRACTION, MOONSTRUCK and THE LAST EMPEROR.

It was a memorable evening...

The next day, March 20, 1988, my mom came by to visit.   She was excited.  
Mom exclaimed, “You know…Sherri and Helen are going to have the babies any time now.”
“That’s right!   Besides Ashley and Lauren there will be two new babies around.   This will make for more fun at Christmastime.”

RJ:  “Words are important.”
Pu Yi, at 15:  “Why are words important?”
RJ:  “If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.”
-as heard during the  1987 motion-picture THE LAST EMPEROR