Fate seems to give my heart a twist

Seven days in San Francisco is a vacation. Ten days is a relocation. I am back! I've been back for two days but the first day we didn't have internet access at home which was maybe okay. I spent the 4th with DYA having breakfast at a favorite diner, napping, sexing, bike-riding to ice cream, finished telling all my SF stories and went to bed early, which is a ridiculous thing to attempt in Logan Square on the evening of July 4th when the fireworks are out of control. And this year it was people right in front of our house joining in the fun. If you doubt the magnitude of "mere" alley fireworks, see documentation here courtesy of Liza. So I had two nights in a row with only 4-5 hours of interrupted sleep, but you know, I survived, I'm strong like that.

Onto the stories! I decided to write topically, not chronologically, so we'll see how this goes.

Coffee

Specifically, lattes. Maybe SF does do coffee better. I wasn't entirely convinced of this before this trip, but I had lattes nearly everyday and they were generally all amazing. The best was Maxfield's, which was conveniently located half a block from where we stayed for four nights (though I also made the 20 minutes walk there when I was staying somewhere else later in the week). Maxfield's was where I was sitting both times I had these a-ha moments of understanding maybe exactly why people fall in love with the Bay Area and find their way to it as a life choice. The city is not without its problems -- what city isn't? -- but much like choosing a life partner, it's about which problems you specifically want to live with. I began teasingly referring to the city as "Magic-land" because 1) people smoked pot on the streets anywhere and everywhere and all times of day; and 2) none of the windows in buildings had screens so obviously there are no bugs there.

I had lattes from Cafe Du Soleil in the Lower Haight, the unnamed coffee shop on Church Street in the Castro (where soft rock was playing and from where I posted my last blog entry), and from a place in Noe Valley with limenal, where she insisted I try her iced latte which she believed to have a hint of chocolate to it. I didn't detect it. But the following day, while walking the city and visiting with Corrie, we went to a dessert coffeeshop where she bought me a chocolate lava souffle cake as a belated birthday gift and an iced latte and THAT drink tasted like chocolate, even before I bit into the cake. The power of suggestion? Or the power of Magic-land?

Manhattans

My other drink of choice for my birthday vacation relocation. I had two (or three?) on the night of my birthday. I had one the next day, after lunch with Damon down in Fisherman's Wharf (fried clams from a stand that I couldn't finish and relinquished to the aggressive birds), at this old irish restaurant and bar popular for some irish coffee drink. The decor was all dark wood and polished brass and plush carpeting, and the bartender was a tall gaunt man with thick white hair and moustache who stood before us somberly and accepted our drink order (of two maker's manhattans, straight-up) with the barest hint of respect in your gentleman's drink. We were, of course, two gentlemen that day, sporting our hats and beards. I did turn 30 after all. While he made the cocktail, I looked on the wall behind where he was just standing to see a giant painting that featured dozens of smaller images, all of the bartender we just met, mixing up drinks. Apparently he was some sort of institution and I was tempted to buy a postcard replica of the painting, but opted for the memory alone. Then I had one the next day, once again after lunch with Damon, though this time it was in Sausalito -- again by the water, this time it was sandwiches from an italian deli and gourmet food shop. Then we walked over to another "institution" of a bar, with more dark wood and polished brass, this time out on the water directly, and we ordered the same, received the same nod of recognition in drink choice, I removed my hat this time and sat it on the bar while we drank.

I took a break from Manhattans for the rest of the trip, until my last night in town, when Randy and I went to Twin Peaks (aka the Glass Coffin, aka the Velvet Coffin, aka our favorite bar) and over the course of the night had 5 of them. I also had a rum ball from Hot Cookie. In between the rounds, we were visited by many of my favorite cast of SF characters. I got to meet Sparky's snuffleupagus, aka Starlet. There was a surprise visit from DP who was also visiting from Chicago. There were accidental friendships between us and the young hustler one table over. There was a jukebox where I played Linda Ronstadt's Different Drum twice -- once to begin the evening, once to end it -- as well as my other 'theme' of the trip, Boz Scaggs's Lowdown. And there were rounds of our favorite game "Daddy or No Daddy?" and its variations "Dirty Sexy Uncle" and "PawPaw".

......

This concludes part one. There will be more food and drink, I should just tell you now -- I did go to wine country. Also, I had kobe beef for the first time. Also, amazing balsamic vinegar. Also, also......But there will be other stories too. I was eating breakfast while typing this, which I'm sure informed my storytelling choices.

San Francisco Chronicles, Part Two

I wouldn't say I love San Francisco, not in that way. It's more like....you know when a close friend/family member is dating someone, and they seem nice enough, but maybe nothing special or particular, you don't have a handle on them, and then finally, one the awkward pretenses are down and you have a real moment and you totally understand why your friend fell in love with them. Um, its like that. In a long-winded metaphorical way.

On Monday we drove over the hill towards the Golden Gate Bridge but as we passed through Pacific Heights, we screamed going down the sharp inclines. DYA said, "it's a good thing it doesn't snow here" and I said, "yes, because EVERYONE WOULD DIE." Then we started saying that when we passed over any steep hill in the car.

That day was perfectly clear and amazing, going over the bridge and up into "wine country" specifically Napa area. On the way we passed through a small area near Petaluma and got a drink at Ernie's Tin Bar. It was about the size of Matchbox but all decorated in animal heads and trophies and a woodstove and plaques and local newspaper clippings and two random Van Gogh prints in the corner. I had a beer, which I rarely do, and it was local and organic and cold and delicious, especially with the peanuts and pretzels that Gloria, one of the owners gave us. All the locals at the end of the bar were dressed in jeans and flannel and baseball caps and played a dice game and talked about Nascar and ate Kettle Chips and talked about a petition to save the eucalpytus trees from development. And there was a strict policy "Use a cell phone, buy a round." They said a guy spent $93 the night before because of a phone call. It must have been hella crowded, because my pint of beer and DYA's bottle of ginger beer combined for a total of $4.75.

Later on in the week, I visited the northside to see the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance except it wasn't there. The fog was particularly heavy that day, for the first time all week, actually, so I didn't mind, it was a novelty, to stare out into the ocean and know there was a gigantic red bridge in front of me but I couldn't even make out the shadows. We walked inland a bit and came upon this instead:

( picture I didn't take, but of what i saw )

And no photo I found while googling really does the Palace justice, when it comes to the experience of coming up to it on a sunny day with blue skies and how moments before when only blocks away, it was hidden from sight. Then you come around the corner and it's like some mystical ancient temple that sprung up out of the lagoon, the trees are growing around and integrating it, a sign of the passing of time and the distance of human's belief in building such architectural homages to imagined deities. Around the circle were men in various scenes of what appeared to be battle, but what intrigued me were in the pillars that stretched out away from the center circle, and on the four corners of everyone were four women, facing inward, head down, clutching at the wall as if they were not sculptures holding it up, but beings clinging to the keep from falling.

If were rich and could live anywhere in that city, I would contemplate a house across the street from the park its in, where I could sit every day in my living room drinking coffee and staring, especially in the dawn hours before inevitable school groups and lunch-hour picnickers and tourists like myself wandered by to obstruct the view.