Grace in Small Things, San Francisco Edition (January 10, 2013)
A few lovely things that happened on my quick (48 hour) work trip to San Francisco (into which I tried to squeeze as much socializing as humanly possible). Oh, how I love San Francisco. I lived there for seven years, miss it every day.
1. Driving up from San Jose on the 280 early misty morning, having just spent a too-short evening/overnight with my college roommate Chris and his fiance Kim, love being around them, they always make me feel so incredibly welcome. (Years ago they even gave me a key to their house so I could come and go as I pleased whenever visiting the Bay Area.) Yesterday driving up to the city the light was just starting to come, the hills so green, the trees so lush...made me think of driving east on the 80 from Colorado the March I moved out to San Francisco, my brother Luke drove me, we left a foot of snow behind in Colorado and the green of the hills and the black-and-white cows, the warm humid air...I will never forget it.
2. Hiking and getting to see some of the art installations in the Presidio with Ryan (with whom I used to surf all. the. time.) So lovely to see him (and see where his family lives as they've moved since last time I visited...it's gorgeous)...and so nice to get out in nature, exactly what I wanted to do.
3. Seeing Wendy, whom I work with and who has a spectacular town home in Sausalito, so girly, so lovely.
[Insert confusing work meeting here.]
4. Getting to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (twice). And reaching Ocean Beach before dark (which I didn't think would happen), so I could get at least a glimpse of my beloved waves. Cold and windy, wild like always, the feel and the smell of the air like it is only there...heaven...
5. Seeing my friends Stacey and Tobin, who live a block from the beach, you can hear the ocean at night from their house.
True story: We went for sushi last night (which was unbelievable. I'm never eating sushi in Colorado again.) Anyway, parking in San Francisco is INSANELY hard, for those of you who don't know. I lived on Russian Hill when I lived there, and in the evenings if it took you half an hour to find a parking spot and the spot was within a 10-block radius of where you lived, you were lucky.
Last night, there was a space right across the street from the restaurant. Tobin did a U-turn to snag it, and some other guy saw it at the same time, turned from the other direction and was about to take it. After they both tried unsuccessfully to wave each other away from the spot, Tobin got out of the car, the other guy got halfway out, each of them saying, "Hey I saw it first, that's my spot." This is the kind of thing that ends up in fist fights, right?
"Tell you what, why don't we flip for it?" Tobin said to the other guy. "That's fair, right? We both think we're right...this is a fair way to decide."
"All right," said the other guy.
The coin was flipped.
Tobin won.
Then said to the other guy, "You know what? It's OK, you can have the spot."
But the other guy said no, wouldn't take it--fair is fair--and we ended up with the spot.
Lovely trip. Missed my babies. I'm exhausted after a 4:15 AM wakeup to make a 6 AM flight. How did I used to travel 150 days a year?
Oh and P.S. any of my San Francisco friends reading this that I didn't get to see...soooooooo sorry! Don't take it personally! There wasn't any time! Next trip I PROMISE. :)
XOXO
