Ca-Li-FOR-ni-A! (It's a Nation State) :: Where the Heck is Mom?

January 9, 2010

Here we are arrived at the classy and stylin' two bedroom-bathroom-livingroom-kitchen accommodation in the Noe Valley neighborhood in San Francisco where Nancy has invited me to join her for the celebration weekend of her oldest grandson Charlie's sixth birthday. Lucky me!

We spent the evening with Josh (Nancy's son) and Kelly, Charlie, and Henry. They live in the Bernal Heights neighborhood in San Francisco. San Francisco is defined in many small neighborhoods some only a few blocks in size but if you want to live in one of the neighborhoods then that's where you want to live and not somewhere else. It's very specific.

Josh runs his knife business (sharpening, repairs, sales) out of the front room of their flat. He's moving soon to a retail space and is very glad of it.

Birthday boy Charlie's brother Henry on his way to bed. Sleep tight, sweet dreams!

January 10

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Kelly made that cake. We watched a little of it happen last night. It took four carrot cakes and 8 recipes of frosting to complete this creation. One of the boys said to Kelly 'you know, this is the best birthday cake I ever ate'. Right on.

That's Josh in the foreground and Kelly in the background far left, entertaining their guests.

What a lovely park. It was all colors of green-green-green. But then it was wet too.

And here come Roger and Sandy recently relocated to San Francisco. We're going to see their place tomorrow. I am pleased to report they are doing very well.

A balloon lady came much to the delight of all the many many children.

Happy Birthday Dear Charlie, Happy Birthday to UUUU.

Josh and Kelly, serving cake to the 40 or so guests. Good thing the cake was as big as it was because 'people' were coming back for thirds (oh, would that be me?).

Then Nancy and I, tired as we were from watching all that energy being expended, went home and didn't go out again.

January 11 and 12

Not so many pictures these last two days but plenty of fun!

We took various opportunities to walk around town.

We visited Sandy and Roger at their new place, the towers of Park Merced, and enjoyed lunch and an afternoon stroll in Sandy's little town of West Portal.

nd.

We visited Bruce and Claudia at their new place, a lovely home in the hills of Point Richmond, and enjoyed lunch and an afternoon stroll not in their town but we took a drive into San Rafael.

This is the view from in front of their house, if you walk a little and peer a little through the trees, use the telephoto full out, and blow it up big in the computer...

From around Bruce and Claudia's place.

January 13 and 14

I slept over with Roger and Sandy and in the morning, after coffee and a nice breakfast, we went out for a walk around the lake.

The lake! It's Lake Merced and right there in the city of San Francisco. This is the smallest section and an easy stroll from the Park Merced towers where R&S live.

Hi cute people.

You can see the towers peeking over the trees.

More.

Roger and his mom. Mom lives in the next door tower and is one of the reasons they made this move to San Fran, so Roger could keep an eye on her, do her shopping, take her to the doctor, see that she's safe, while she can still live on her own.

The Park Merced/Park La Brea towers have held up over the many long years they have been in service. They are big apartments with big rooms, high ceilings, good windows - nice!

More.

Then I buzzed over the Golden Gate Bridge (not-so-safe but gotta-do-it grab shot from the car)...

...for a delightful evening-night-morning with Bob, Desda, and Shira. All is well with the Zuckermans - Bob is back to playing guitar every day and business is picking up; Desda has got a crew of folks anxious to help her put her ideas out in the marketplace; Shira is getting stronger and dedicated to a return to good health.

And then, I'm down the 101, to home!

hmmm...I did hit a lot of communities this trip: Noe Valley, Bernal Heights, Lake Merced, East Portal, Point Richmond, San Rafael, Novato, Larkspur...Fun!

Between Trips.

Nancy and me,
on the road again.

February 17, 2005

This is the second day of the trip but first we need to Meet The Donalds! Here's Nancy, baby Charlie and sweet Josh and Kelly.

Charlie's First Movie!

We went downtown to meet the kids for a movie, the noon time 'Rattle and Reel' where adults are welcome to bring their babies to the theater. We saw a documentary about The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It was quite wonderful and here's a link to the story.

(n.)

Charlie of course had to come first, but now to the start of the story:

February 16 and 17

I left on the 16th with Nancy for a week or so to enjoy Nancy's grandbaby Charlie, and Josh and Kelly too, in San Francisco, and to enjoy getting to know Nancy's friends Ellen and Bill in Eureka/Arcata. Lucky me for sure.

We arrived in mid-afternoon and immediately hit the streets. This is from the mural decorating the outside walls of the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy.

A clip from the above. Some of the expressions: 'I don't think I was courageous. I think I was determined.' 'It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than out abilities.' 'The only way to have a friend is to be one.'

Our cameras, endlessly entertaining.

SF is defined these days by neighborhoods of several blocks circumference. We are staying in Noe Valley, three blocks up the road from The Castro and Josh and Kelly live three miles away in Bernal Heights

Another scene in The Castro.

Who are those people? Subways around the world are inhabited by the same people so I suppose you already know who they are.

Subway art. Cool.

(n.)

Public transportation is a lively art in San Francisco.

There's BART for long haul rapid transit, then Muni runs a subway and buses, and they've got these electirfied babies and some historic cars from around the world, and the cable cars of course, that actually are used for transportation.

Here we are at a bar in Bernal Heights where we enjoyed a nice cocktail before dinner. I was amused to discover our fellow patrons were all women and this lovely lady, our bartender, also played bass in a Retro-70s Drag Band. The name of the band is ‘Wood, Against the Grain.’

She said no matter how much face hair she wore she still couldn't manage to pass. It's true. Her band mates were obviously more successful in achieving that manly look.

My Bombay up twist was perfect and Nancy said it was the best Margarita she ever had bar none.

Me outside our cottage in Noe Valley. Nancy found this place on Craig's List. The owner of the house was renting just this one 'mother-in-law' style apartment (ok ok, it's probably bigger than my place back home...).

(n.)

February 18

On our way up to Eureka I was driving so I drove us off the highway and into the totally all tourista all the time Golden Gate Bridge viewing opportunity despite Nancy's protestations and in the end she said 'thank you, that was fun'.

More. Folks were out in great numbers turning their faces toward the sky to bathe their sun-starved cheeks in the light and warmth of the morning.

On the road again... We're doing the Highway 101 North from San Francisco drive through farming country and the coastal redwoods to Eureka. I think you could do that drive one hundred times and it would be fabulous every time.

A view out the car window during a rare dry moment. We spent many entertaining hours listening to a book on tape, 'That Old Ace In The Hole' by Annie Proulx. We were lovin' it. Since we needed another few days on the road to finish though, I don't know how it ends and will enjoy sitting around the library for a few hours to find out.

The outdoor garden at the the Cornelius Daly Inn. Mighty sweet, and the whole place terribly terrribly tricked out in every aspect of 1900s restoration. And the innkeepers were definitely an odd lot. The husband had a prior career as a stand in for Lurch and the wife never even made herself known.

Nancy was mildly horrified. 'Unbearably twee and ongapatchka Victoriana.' For coffee they had only a weak, flavored brew and little packets of Coffee Mate. But they made up for it by being expensive.

February 19

Ellen, one of the motivations for this trip. She recently eloped with her long-time true-love and was having a dinner party for her friends to celebrate, wedding cake and all.

Ellen was also having a gallery show which we got to enjoy. Her pictures are entirely remarkable and here is a website highlighting her work.

(n.)

From Ferndale, another Victorian Restoration town, 11 miles south of Eureka. Nancy and Ellen went shopping and I took a turn to check out the sights.

It is a curiosity to me that this trip I didn't do much of my usual line-'em-up effort to get interesting pictures of the people in my day, and when I did I didn't much like the results. I could dwell on the psychological implications of this, or not, which is the most likely outcome.

The cemetery in Ferndale.

February 20

This was the day of no photos. We drove in the rain, visited Bob in the rain, had dinner with Josh and Kelly in the rain... It was rain rain go away aaaall day long. It's enough already with the rain.

We ate many a meal with Josh and Kelly and Charlie one being this Indian Pizza. We also ate at a Mexican restaurant, and we ate Chinese food to go, but the most delicious food of all was the ham sandwich Kelly made for us to take on the airplane.

(n.)

February 21

The next moring the rain did go away for hours and we enjoyed a nice walk and foto-foto.

The Bay Bridge from near our b&b. Wow, fabulous view.

Me attempting the shot above. Nancy named this picture 'Trespasser'. I really really don't think they would have minded tooo much...

(n.)

He biked up here. As if walking around this town doesn't give you calves enough.

We stopped for a cuppa at this euro pan asian tea shoppe where, along with very tasty and well prepared tea we had a few bites of a mochi delight and then went on to catch BART for a ride over to Berkeley where we were meeting Nancy's friends Bruce and Claudia for lunch.

We were setting up this shot and Nancy was watching herself carefully for approximately 20 minutes, needing to be positioned just so, turning to the left, the right, look up, move to the side, start the left-right thing all over again, all to find just that perfect profile.

That's me, cracking up.

(n.)

The BART experience was fun and interesting despite a mechanical breakdown that caused a 30 minute delay and unexpected transfer, and even despite Nancy's kevetching.

Here's the BART website. It's a good system and popular with the residents I think except that the costs are quite high. Bruce and Claudia had kind words and even the rider who was protesting most loudly about the delay, when queried as to the frequency of such inconvenience said it's usually quite good and only in the last couple of weeks they've had 'computer problems'.

I will say though that the look of the LA stations really does stand out in comparison.

Musicians Claudia and Bruce and their website. Check it out!

(n.)

It was raining for our return from Berkeley so we hopped a taxi at Civic Center and were easily back at our b&b for a quiet evening to rest up for tomorrow's return flight.

February 22

A few details from our morning walk.

I left all the wires in these pictures because they are so much a part of almost every view in SF. Even though you can become blind to them, when you happen upon a street where they have put the wires underground you will definitely notice the improvement.

Well, except here. I did retrouch them out of here.

When it was gray and icky out I'd walk around mostly with my head down, trudging, but when the clouds would part everything looked pretty darn entertaining.

We stopped off at Josh and Kelly's for one more Charlie fix before heading to the airport. The park is just a few vertical blocks away.

Awww.

(n.)

Goodbye downtown, goodbye Alcatraz and Bay Bridge...

...goodbye Golden Gate Park and Golden Gate Bridge and Radio Tower. Goodbye parking on 53 degree hills. Is this what comes from hanging out with a one year old? Goodbye San Francisco! See you again soon!

Click HERE and all the pictures in this chapter will get big.