I went south for a spell. It was my sister Kim who motivated me with a "you showed me your Portland, now let me show you my San Francisco. But I'm moving to Albequerque in a month..." to get my butt down there before much time had passed. So the other week my bike and I hopped a train, rode for 17 hours mostly through the night, and wound up in the blazing sunshine at the Ferry Plaza farmer's market on a fine Saturday morning, eating ramen for breakfast with that powerful hunger you get just before eating for the first time in 24 hours...since Lily sent me off from a double lunch at the carts in Portland (and more than a few condolence drinks. Fortunately getting on the train drunk is not frowned upon, unless you mouth off at the conductor. See day 6 for a demonstration!)
As a tourist I'm more of a wanderer, soak in it and walkabout kinda guy, which works well for me, but I tend to spectate a little more than I'd like. Give me a month and I'll get involved, give me a week and I'll watch the world go by. Fortunately I have friends who assured that I didn't turn into a wallflower on this trip, but instead within 16 hours of arriving, made sure I did end up at a kick-ass tacqueria with more than a dozen workers and a bouncer (to give you some idea of scale, my previous "most populated" taqueria had 5 workers and I'm pretty sure one of them was under 10 years old), and at a bar that serves personally-sourced-from-across-the-country-by-the-bartender delicious sour beer, or at the nicest movie theater I've ever seen in my life that lets you reserve seats to watch True Grit (which, I must agree, was better than Tron, even though I seem to like the new Tron more than anyone else I've talked to about it. I make no apologies for my taste!)
Good times with good friends helps me forget some of the pain that accompanies life change--minus a girlfriend, but I think still having a friendly girl in my home and life. That's up to her. But no time to dwell since, whirlwind! Still have a sextet of friends to hook up with (was a quintet but Tony popped out of the woodwork when I tweeted San Francisco so plans grew to accommodate him.
S.F. isn't a town where I thought I knew a lot of folks but it really runs the gamut of my timeline: my sister Kim, to whom I gave the welcome-home-from-being-born present of chicken pox at age 2 days. Shari, a middle/high school friend (and I don't say that lightly--I had about 6, then. Total. How different a person I once was; though I maintain that even today I wouldn't want to be friends with most of the people at my school. Not my types. In reaction to making this statement on day 1 of my trip, I unfriended most of them on facebook during the train ride home.) Whew. As I was saying, friend Shari who helped me through those hard years and is now someone I connect with once every few years, intensely and deeply, and then go dormant for a long spell. Geographical distance is hard to overcome when you're as terrible a distance communicator as I am--hate the phone, am awful at replying to email, don't read facebook status updates. Oh well, tis the behavior pattern I've chosen and it suits me even if it has its failings.
Carry on through college with most of the remainder (less as study buddies and more as friends-during-that-time), partially met via the UT ACM and otherly met via silverchat, next a fellow I met at work in 1998 who has remained an intense cheerleader and instigator of epic ski adventures (hi, Ari!), then a guy who got me my first "real" job, Justin, and Andrew--who had the unenviable task of being the guy who got that job after I dropped it like it was hot, but still enjoys my company somehow and even buys me a drink sometimes! and then Tony, a one-time running buddy spinoff of probably nucleartacos. Man, a digital detective would have no trouble piecing those years of my life together--everything was so connected! I guess it still is...
I rallied some of the troops for lunching, we were feeling dim summy but after the challenge of parking, finding an ATM in Chinatown that spoke English AND was willing to distribute cash, and walking through the Chinese new year celebrations, we found only a closed shop and settled on the restaurant next to it for dim sum only they also didn't have dim sum and anyway we ordered decent chinese food from this place whose name is only one small line of graffiti away from 'wanking'. It was probably the least painful group-order at a family style place that I've ever experienced; Mhat I think is the one who pointed out that no dietary restrictions in a group make everything fanfuckingtastically trivial, and I think he's right. It's been a long time since I wasn't group-eating with people with a zillion food allergies/requirements/moral standards. I love Portland's quirkiness and respect my friends' needs, but I also don't mind things being easy.
Sadly that was to be the only time I saw Mhat as I ditched him two nights running later in the game, but hopefully he'll forgive me and we'll make up for it next time, for there shall be a next time! Twas too fun not to return ASAP...oh well, that's a spoiler =)
On Saturday evening, we'd kinda decided on a leisurely Sunday bike ride, but once we'd pastrified and the sun was out again in force, there was apparently no choice but going to Dolores Park by decree of Meredith. I'd never heard of it, but Shari and Andrew had and were in favor, and Kim was up for anything, so plans were made to rendezvous there and see what there was to see. Aside from copious Vitamin D delivered via 70 beautiful sunny degrees Fahrenheit, there were at least a couple thousand folks in this 4-square-block park on the hill. Shari explained the various zones to me--Hipsterville, The Beach, Where the Wild Things Are (acrobats and burners). We first took a seat in Hipsterville since the people watching was fabulous, but we'd sat a bit too close to some shade trees and had to move to retain the sun factor, and ended up over a hill in a calmer place where we nommed, quaffed, were solicited repeatedly for drug purchases, bought some handmade gourmet truffles from a wandering dude in the awesomest straw hat that looked like a Gehry construction, and generally laid around getting warm and lazy.
Tony joined us with a dog he was sitting on (not literally) for a friend and Jet's vim and verve was such that he was soon eating whole gobs of cheese and terrorizing the ladies while Tony stood around trying to keep him in check. But good times were had until sunset-time when I tried to take some pictures of the beauty from the top of the hill and, well, my phone camera's just not up to sunset shots. But I still basked in it before checking out what the dudes who walked by carrying 4 boomboxes were up to. Was hoping for breakdancing but settled for pirate radio dance party...Yeah, it felt a lot like Eeyore's Birthday in Austin and this was just a random January sunday. Wish Portland had a place like that, where *everyone* just congregates to be awesome on any sunny day ever...
Then it started to get cold so we retreated to dinner debate which led to Beretta with the whole crew for tapas and drinks, which were exceptionally good but not really containing a lot of the food value, then Andrew, Shari, Kim and I headed to Rosamunde for fine sausages and beers and conversation and finally we lose Shari to the "must work tomorrow" beast around midnight as we hit a bar called Zeitgeist, where I was warned I might be treated like a second-class non-hipster and barely given the time of day. Up for testing the theory and others (a biker bar for bicyclists? incredible bloody maries? hipsters smoking pot openly as though it was going out of style? all true!) we swung by and I did indeed have an incredible bloody mary, though the bartender did make me feel a little out of place with his "taking our order and then serving a bunch of other people first" attitude. The Bloody Mary was worth waiting for and Andrew entertained us with tales of an impending business trip to nowheresville middle america, far from any city, with the intention of not driving. Still not sure how he pulled it off, but he seems to have survived...
That night I comparison shopped available guest beds at J&M's--sofa bed versus air mattress in the man cave and the man cave definitely worked better for sleeping in, what with the lack of direct sunlight at 8am. equally comfortable for a tired fool, though. By the time I got up and rolling the next day it was kinda late and so I met Kim for lunch--banh mi from this strange sandwich-shop-in-a-drugstore whose name I didn't catch but were quite tasty (however my personal requirement of banh mi is that they should cost no more than $3, and I didn't ask if they met my criteria or not). Then we brainstormed a day's activities--science museum? Ice cream shop? Botanical Gardens? Really, the weather the ENTIRE time I was in SF was so gloriously sunny that I couldn't really ever say no to being outside. In fact I may have dragged folks out more than they wanted. But I certainly got my reverse junuary on! (Despite being not so much a sun lover after overexposure for so many years in Texas, I am going native in my desire to not be rained out constantly...)
So the plan was made: go see Golden Gate Park, and probably the Japanese gardens, since Emil and I went to the Portland version and found them quite beautiful and soothing and they've been on my mind since. And we vroomed over and parked a mile or so away from our destination and meandered over, through the edges of many things--bike riders' routes, joggers' staggers, strollers' rollers, sports fields and parking lots. And we went in the Japanese garden. And it was pretty and had a rather silly (historical, culturally significant!) bridge in it and ridiculously overoptimistic blooming cherry trees, but it was done too fast. so then we walked through some sort of amphitheatre filled with spikey trees, Kim played sphinx, and we botanical gardened it. And lo were those far better. Huge-riffic and full of beautiful plants even in the winter, and good trees, and cacti, and walking, and talking, and an olfactory garden, and a pathway of ancient plants organized by time period with freakin GPS transmitters embedded (tho invisibly) in them (said a sign, we think, meant to discourage theft). And more walking was had, and we cheered a return to the car for a drive...
...up to twin peaks, lo the highest point on the peninsula. Pretty views, darn windy, and a broken public toilet whose door wouldn't shut and me too modest to pee anyway...recall I was totally sober at this point! But, Henry Slowcombe had a working bathroom to go with an ice cream cone filled with blue bottle vietnamese iced coffee ice cream, plus a scoop of secret breakfast: cornflakes and bourbon ice cream, and life was good.
After visiting an average of over 4 different food and beverage service establishments per day I'd been in SF, I was ready for a relaxing dinner and conned Shari into hosting us for cooking of the pasta and broccoli. Dinner was fucking amazing, probably the best food I ate the entire time I was there, and I ate a lot of good food. Pasta with simplish meat sauce and broccoli with garlic and cheesy bread and OMG I waddled off to bed around 1am after keeping Shari up far too late, talking about good friends versus old friends, talk of Burning Man (she almost convinced me to go. It might still happen.), and then peaceful slumber until I hugged her goodbye, got back on my bike, and headed out to meet the sunnyagain day.
Met Tony and Kim for lunch--we had simple burgers and drinks back at zeitgeist, because it was around the corner from Tony's office, then he suggested a coffee place down the street that we walked past 2 nights before with Andrew and he said something like "that is a coffee shop where they make each cup individually and tell you a story while they do so", which seemed to me the ultimate in pretension and so I had to examine it more closely, but all I figured out was that this place was bigger than my house for no apparent reason, and that I had what was probably the mildest and most delicious latte I've ever had. Because I've had about 10 in my life, and 8 of them were at burning man and on ice. But apparently they have Coffee Skill. And snobbery was non-overbearing, though perhaps a certain fullness-of-themselves...anyway, that didn't get in the way of getting our buzz on and then I stopped to change in the ladies' room at Tony's office (hey, he told me to!) and I was off north.
Rode up to land of Ari using google directions which were incidentally quite ok all over town (except for a monster hill the next afternoon). I chose the scenic route, that is, with as much multi-use path as I could find, so I skirted the bay, traversed the Golden Gate Bridge, coasted the other coast through Sausalito through some marshlands in Marin, and then hauled the last 10 miles through suburbia, but still on mostly acceptable roads with bike lanes (and one really cruddy bridge with a sidewalk 4ft wide next to a highway that I had to pass another biker on, going the opposite direction. he confirmed it was the only game in this town and to love it or leave it, so I grimaced and continued), and then I arrived at Casa Berman, just in time to go for a walk with Rachel and Sasha, whom they must be doing an incredible job raising if her charm, pleasantness, and smarts are any indication. And the walk was good, even if I did meet Rachel's friend wearing my spandex diaper and almost freeze my begonias off as we walked home in the twilight.
Brewpub dinner plans were foiled by remodelling, so we had some really quite awesome high-grade Cali-Mex (whom I can't link because I never knew its name) that was not filling but really tasted quite above my expectations, and Ken and Kelly were surprise guests of awesomeness--ski buddies from a trip a couple years past with whom I had a chance to reconnect with briefly and deeply, and then ice cream on the way home and then Ari-made beer, beer, beer, with a main course of extremely satisfying geek talk too late into the night (as we met with him a geek in training, and left with him a PhD and able to code circles around me in our 6ish year shared career at the university in Austin).
In the morning we drop off Sasha at daycare, I get to enjoy the ritual of her totally geeking out to They Might Be Giants' "Spider", we cram my bike in the car, and Ari and I enjoy morning eggs in Sausalito at an old haunt (this is one of only two places I've eaten in Sausalito, and I've eaten there probably a half dozen times now) before I ride back over the Golden Gate, much more quickly than I remember it from the last time I rode south from Sausalito--that hill does not feel so enormous on a good bike with a pannier, instead of an ill-fitting mountain bike with a backpack -- the one leading up to the bridge from the north, that is. But then in San Fracisco again I follow google's directions which took me up the steepest hill I have ridden since I was quite literally riding up the side of a mountain in Canada to get to the cable car in the middle of the mountain to ride to the top of the steepest hike I've hoke in recent memory! whew!) to Church Street Cafe which Kim said would be good for people watching but really just had a staff that barely understood English which was ok because the conversation was divine nonetheless (yay for a family that is fun to spend time with!) and we scooted around the corner to an incredible lunch which consisted only of maybe the best sandwich I've put in my face in years, and which I shall attempt to further describe but I will first just you this picture instead.
Yes, it is double wide and contains over 16 ingredients one of which was JALAPENO FUCKING POPPERS. And I of the huge appetite could only eat half. And the other half was fucking gloriously tasty 12 hours later when I ate it on the train. Yeah. I don't understand either. But it rocked.
We couldn't decide what to do next. And then we did. The Exploratorium. A science museum without many kids in, but many, nay, nothing BUT hands on experiments. I generated electricity. I remixed sound. I did that thing where you go into a room that is dark and a bright light flashes and there is your shadow stuck on the wall. I touched a lot of weird things, I played with a lot of others; we laughed and wondered and gawked and stayed until they kicked us out.
Then we had to kill some time before my train. Boo to the 21st amendment brewery who had only one beer of their own on tap (tho the 21st amendment to the constitution enables so much fun in my life, and much of the brewery named after it's beer is awesome, I felt gypped for getting there and getting none of it that I liked). So instead we went in hunt of Kim's favorite food-without-a-building, the Chairman Bao Bun Truck. And we had weird steamed tacos that were full of fucking tasty. But weren't too much food, because if you recall correctly I had conquered a half sandwich denser than a redonkadonk not 7 hours prior and (yeah, that hamburger with egg, cheese, ham, spam, bacon, and TWO GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES FOR BUNS!). So then we had some posh drinks at this bar nearby that Kim knew, which was quiet and felt kinda like church only for cool people. And the only awesome thing about it (aside from 'hand cut ice cubes') was that there was a drink where you just told the waiter that you wanted someone else to come up with a drink for you, and they would. You could give some direction (what kind of liquor, citrus or not), and back would come some bespoke creation in a highball glass that made you feel like you should be wearing a monocle. A cool monocole.
And then it was time to go. So I went and watched some minor drama unfold in the train station wherein a drunk dude was turned away at the last second for being too drunk (but he was a belligerent drunk). And the shuttle bus from San Francisco across the kinda less gorgeous but still nifty bay bridge couldn't fit my bike on it, and I was sad. So I came home sansabike. And slept 12 of the 18 hours of train ride and didn't quite go nuts, but it was close. And I made it home safe. And so did my bike, the next day, on the next train. And there was much rejoicing.