My Dog Tulip, Dive Bar and Pizza Rock, Coupled With Cactus Thorns, is a Perfect Sunday Afternoon

It's a bit difficult to type this morning because I have tiny cactus spurs and thorns embedded in the tips of my fingers. Why? Because I sort of took a day off yesterday. When I take a day off, which is pretty rare, it means I remove my body from its upright position in front of the computer. It doesn't mean that I turn off my cellphone or don't answer it.

Although, I did turn it off in the movie theater. It was such a glorious day in Sacramento that my husband and I decided to walk downtown from Land Park. It's about a 45-minute walk to downtown from homes in Land Park. We've been meaning to check out the K Street development and also see that animated movie at The Crest, My Dog Tulip, based on the 1956 memoir by J. R. Ackerley. If you haven't seen this movie, it's hilarious and warm and touching. You don't have to own a dog to enjoy it.

Afterward, we crossed the street to the Dive Bar to see if any mermaids were swimming around. But there were only saltwater fish in the tank over the bar. It was very dark. Some old guy at the end of the bar stared at the surface of the bar while he nursed his drink. He could have been drunk. Or homeless. A younger couple chatted over martinis and looked inebriated. I wondered how people can sit in a bar and drink at 2 PM on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, wait, was I never 21? Eh, we forget these things . . .

There was nothing to eat in the The Dive Bar but cheesy fish-shaped crackers, so we went next door to Pizza Rock. I could have died and gone to heaven when I bit into the Margherita pizza. Well, not that you'd know heaven by the mural painted on the ceiling. My husband asked why God was giving the little fat baby in the corner a Vulcan nerve pinch. I mused that the guy at the other end of the mural looked like that Tauran guy, Sam Adama, from Caprica. Although the naked teenaged girl snuggled up to God was a little weird.

Margherita pizza: San Marzano tomatoes, swirls of mouth-watering mozzarella, fresh basil, sea salt -- produced in about 90 seconds from a 900-degree wood-fired oven. I'm telling you, it's to die for.

After walking home, it was a perfect time to clean up the cactus garden. The pear cacti had fallen over during the last couple of rain storms because the soil just gives way. We have a lot of clay soil in Land Park, which can get too soaked to support something that tall and heavy. I'm still not yet finished in the garden or I'd post a photo. I feel a bit guilty that I've been so busy selling Sacramento short sales that I've neglected my cactus garden. It needs even more pruning and weeding than I had time for yesterday. Hence, the cactus spurs. There's always a price to pay.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub, BlackBerry Bold Camera, yes, that's a truck protruding from the wall at Pizza Rock. I don't know why.