Birthday Dinners and Uber Musings

My plan was to take the Boy---just the two of us---out to Avalon on Catalina for my birthday. See, the company that takes people there and back (only 26 miles away!) have a "free birthday ticket" deal going.

Of course, that's "free birthday ticket with purchase of one adult ticket", which for a round trip is nearly eighty bucks.

Also, after staying up ridiculously late the night before after the birthday dinner party, we decided against what would have been the Boy's first boat ride.

The dinner party was nice, even though I under-cooked the salmon and didn't get the skin how I wanted it, and later Corrie told me to just forget about the skin, "We're not in France," she tells me, "you're probably going to have give up on that,"

She's right, of course.

The sea bass was great, the Brussels sprouts grubbin, the tabouli I made the day before (so the flavors would combine perfectly) was excellent, the home-made tzatziki and hummus for appetizers were both fantastic...but you always remember the one thing you'd like to redo. The roasted pear dessert was magnificent.

Corrie set up and planned the whole thing, organizing and shopping and the like. I just cooked the food...and bought the fish at the fish market in San Pedro, my first time visiting it.

Anyway, after the last couple had left---via Uber, just like the other couple a short time earlier---Corrie and I had a discussion of Uber and Lyft.

I was thinking...besides the trip to San Diego last January for Jimmy Berlow's bachelor party, I haven't been in an Uber...or Lyft...

It seemed to me, as we talked about it late Saturday night, that there had been more Uber and Lyft rides to our apartment than either Corrie or I had been a part of anywhere else. Between winter parties and birthday dinner parties, it seemed like an accurate guess.

"I guess that makes us an Uber destination?" I mused.

"I've never been in an Uber," Corrie posited. "Or Lyft. Crazy. I'm sure in this demographic and age group and based on where we live, we're serious outliers."

On NPR it sounded like a city in Orange County needed to cut bus service because of a lack of riders. One line was going to be cut entirely, but for the hundred people who rely on it, the totally rely on it and have no other options. The city has decided to subsidize Lyft rides for those affected passengers.

At those bus stops, instead of a times-table for when the next bus arrives, there are instructions for downloading the Lyft app. The passenger pays only what they would pay the bus company ($2 or $2.25) and the city pays the rest of the tab.

The program is in the pilot stages, but is, as the cliche would have it, outside the box.

Instead of Catalina's biggest city of (sleepy) Avalon, I got to hang out with the Boy and get a nice shot for the last Polaroid we had in house: