Stern Grove Festival + One Injured Dog

On Sunday, we were invited to Stern Grove in San Francisco by a friend of mine for a picnic.  Stern Grove has a free music festival that attracts some world class artists, and it’s one of those things that I never really knew about — even though we used to live in the City.  For example, Allen Toussaint played a freebie there back in July and the artist featured when we went was called Bajafondo — an electronica band that fuses rock and tango flavors with some wonderful results.

The place was packed, and when we arrived Bajafondo was just taking the stage.  By the time we found our friends and sat down, we were kind of discombobulated.  Julie was starving, Maya was ready for some food, and I was cramped in a small patch of grass trying to get myself sorted.  After about five minutes of kneeling, I had to get up and walk around.  I grabbed my new video camera and was going to record a few songs by the group. The minute I got a shot framed, three security guards came up to me to say I couldn’t take pictures or video of the stage.  When I pointed out that there were many people doing just that (i.e., taking pictures and video) , he said “We tell them to stop as we see them.”  I put my camera away, but I did get some shots — which I might turn into another video piece.  We’ll see… Anyway, you can check out the band on the My Space page, and here’s an amusing video of they produced featuring a “dancing fool.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9TmiwA16s4[/youtube]

Sadly, our dog (Genevieve) got injured when we came home. We’re not sure what happened, but my guess is that she heard us coming home, bolted down the stairs, slipped and fell on the wood laminate floor downstairs. Poor puppy. She was crying (which she doesn’t do) and yelping in pain we we opened the door. Julie took her to the vet yesterday to do some tests (the vet thought she might have a kidney infection), and this morning they called to say her blood and pee tested fine.  She was still in pain, and we took her back to the vet for X-rays to see if she fractured any bones.  I hope it’s just a soft tissue injury so we can treat it with anti inflammatory and pain meds. To add insult to injury — or maybe injury to injury — Maya and I were taking Gen for a walk last night and two dogs got away from their owner and charged Gen.  One dog head butted her, Gen spun around and started yelping in pain again.  I yelled at the guy (who was walking three dogs) and he just replied with a laconic “Sorry.”

What a bad day for Genevieve.