Because I am the lowest girl on the totem pole leadership-wise at the workplace, I am working the holidays, but using up the rest of my vacation time for 2007 next week. Thursday and Friday there were a lot of questions around the office--"Where ya goin' on your vacation?" "San Francisco, California." They looked away, bored. Thoreau would be lost on these people, surely. Backyard, nothin'.
My goals for my vacation are simple. I want to take 80 minutes to eat meals instead of 8 minutes. I want to take a break from whatever I am doing that consists of more than just going to the restroom. I want to not feel all tense when the bus doesn't come in on time. I want to drink coffee before it goes to a cold ooze. I want to sleep in past 5 am.
Then move out the camera just a little and get the lens to widen. You'll see that I also want to ice-skate for the first time at the Embarcadero Center. I want to taste a hamburger at Rosamunde on Tuesdays at lunch. (All week the Rosamunde in the Haight at Fillmore cooks different kinds of sausages on their grill, delicious on their own. Then a week's worth of sausage serves its second duty--on Tuesdays and Tuesdays only the Rosamunde cooks burgers on that sausage-seasoned grill from 11 am until they run out of meat, which is somewhere around 1 pm.) I want to visit the travel bookstore Get Lost in the Castro. I want to sip a hot chocolate in Ghirardelli Square while the lights come on in the cold, and ride the cable cars back home. I want to write over the Valley of the Red Spans.
I want to see the Tide Organ.
I want to find every Christmas bulb in the City.
A Mi Manera.
So, dear reader, here is today, chapter the first.
I woke up around 7:30 (that's really sleeping in). [The following comes from my journal entry this morning.] I go to the launderers and drop off my big black duffel of the week's clothes and linens. I walk down the hill on 9th to the ATM. I walk back up the opposite side of the street that I came down, in the sunshine, and I cross to the Number 6 stop. I take the Number 6 up Parnassus, past some construction at UCSF, around the turns of Ashbury-Frederick, straight down the Haight to Fillmore, where I get off and have breakfast at the no-frills Kate's Kitchen. I order two thick-cut bacon slices and pumpkin pancakes. This is the same breakfast that I ordered at Ketch JoAnn's in Half Moon Bay with my brother and Serena. Ketch JoAnn's made it better, albeit funkier--they served the bacon on a glass plate shaped like a fish. Their pancakes were thick and moist enough that they taste like pumpkin bread.
Kate's pancakes are more like a large, flat fritter, with just a hint of spice and pumpkin. Both are delicious, but I liked JoAnn's better.
Ah, yes, and there was also orange juice.
[I was there about 40 minutes, which is a vast improvement from 8 but still needs work to hit the 80. :)]
After breakfast I walked up the hill of Steiner to the Painted Ladies, and lingered on the grassy knoll there. In my midwestern past on sabbath days I would go to the parks and express gratitude to God for the vista. But can I really do that in a City? When you walk into a park here (save Golden Gate Park, but kind of applying to that, too, since it is man-made), what lies before you in the vista wasn't created by God; it was created by man. Do I praise man? Or can I still praise God for creating the people who created this?
Then I walked here [Cafe Abir], ordered a hot cider and mineral water, found a seat on the window-seats. I have now sat at all three types of seating here. [Cafe Abir has three kinds of seating--tables, highboys, and a sofa running the full width of the cafe. On my first visits I always sat at tables. Before my date with FG I sat at the highboys, and this time at the sofa.]
[And here the pertinent information in the journal ends. We now return to the blog post, already in progress.]
After writing there I went to Westfield to get some soup--big mistake on the weekends this close to Christmas. I took it to the Metreon to eat it in their food court. I sat at the fringing counter and carefully opened the corn chowder with scallions and cilantro, the half-sandwich of turkey, swiss and avacado on a dutch crunch bread, and bottled water. I took a moment of silence to ask for grace, and then worked slowly through the food while watching them slide pizzas in and out of the oven at the Firewood Cafe, the fires dancing behind the crispy dough. An hour this time. I'll make it to that 80 minutes yet. I walked from there to Stacey's and gained inspiration from all of the paper and ink, and then climbed back on the 6 and rode back to my home to pick up the laundry, put it away, and nap.
After my nap, at the onset of darkness, I through the avenues, admiring the holiday lights there, and then up Parnassus. A lot of bones and muscles hurt because of long term effects of the Accutane, but if I let that get to me then I feel worse, not better. If the pain is too bad I get on the nearest bus or light rail, but for the most part I focus on the beauty of the cold darkness and the lights and take the pain as the part that pinches me and keeping me awake to what's around me. Up the hill past UCSF, until the brightest stars, past the posted Bridge in the distance, and then down the hill to Cole Valley. Dinner at Bambino's and my first baked Alaska...tasting like buttered ice cream and coffee to cut the sweetness and coolness. Then bundled back up and back under the stars and on the other side of the street again to see a whole new set of lights.
Our finest gifts we bring.
And then a shower, sense and sensuality, and lit candles and e-mails answered and Christmas music and in a short while here I will enjoy more of my library book. Day One. Living like I'm dying is better than living as though I'm here a long time yet. Go out into your backyard, dear reader, and pick a star out for yourself. Selah, and sleep well.
1 comment:
living. good. :)
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