This Thursday night begins… Girl Weekend! I was invited by one of my sisters to attend the conference of girls in our family up in Seattle. It’s going to be fun. Unfortunately one or two can’t make it, but we’ll do the best with our small numbers. I have a few surprises in store. The first night is at mi casa, and then all of us nervous nellies fly to Seattle, then a few days of gluttony and back again Sunday. On my agenda is my favorite bakery/cafe. When I lived there I had a delicious commute every morning - trot down my staircase, walk a few blocks up 1st Ave to Macrina Bakery, sit and look at Elliott Bay over a cappuccino and one of their amazing muffins, then a mile brisk walk past Pioneer Place to the Smith Tower. I didn’t think life could get better. Well, then I moved to North Beach :) So I’m taking my oldest sister Sally to this cafe (pictured above is Amy not Sally)- we have dreams of opening a bakery sometime, and Macrina is my model of cafes done right: working, artisan bakery with a small espresso area. Great natural, healthy ingredients made into tasty muffins. Oh, and spending time with my sisters will be great too.
My aunt and uncle from Minnesota just visited, and it reminded me of childhood visits from my other Midwestern extended family and their unique visitor behaviors.
Sit around drinking coffee for hours at the kitchen table. This begins right when you wake up. I forgot about the endless pot and kept reminding myself it was my duty to fill the cups. I remember everyone doing this in their bathrobes- so it’s pre-shower and getting dressed. My aunt told me a funny story this trip about when her and her sisters were wearing big bouffant wigs (60s?). When you’re visiting, do you put them on right when you wake up, or do you go to the table in a handkerchief and put them on later? Is it weird that suddenly your hair got big? I always wondered about that, for people wearing wigs. When was it OK to not have your wig on?
Fixing stuff. My uncle started fixing my sink about 5 minutes into visiting. My grandfather used to take on some project and work on it almost the entire visit, revisiting the scene and making hardware store visits, or bringing it up at odd points in the conversation. “Do you have Liquid Plummer?” Etc. It shows a kind of intimacy and trust, I think. My grandmother would start ironing almost right away. She’d see a pile and get out the ironing board and dive in. I think it’s an expression of love, for non-PDA Swedes, to help someone out and make their life better.
Yesterday morning I was doing some spot-ironing on the coffee table. I have an ironing board but it’s a hassle to get out. My aunt was sitting at the kitchen table watching me, and my uncle was flitting around near me waiting for the inevitable disaster. I asked her what was wrong. “The finish will come off,” she said. I told her I’d give up on the table a long time ago, and that I wasn’t using steam. They visibly relaxed. I joked that I knew this was the story they’d share back home: “Just when we were getting used to staying in the apartment in the City, she ironed her pants on the coffee table!”
Picture: my sis and her husband on our road trip. 1/27th of the way through.
My first rides with CalTrain were from San Jose/Diridon to Palo Alto, about 20 minutes. I was on a year break from college due to financial issues, and attending San Jose State and Stanford night classes. I had a scam- I’d board at San Jose, and slowly travel up the train, walking, until I reached my stop, so I never stopped and thus never paid a ticket. Strangely this worked 100% of the time, but if you’ve ever ridden CalTrain you know just how slowly those conductors ticket.
The next commute was from Sunnyvale up to The City on random weekends, when I was escaping my torturous post-college residence at my parents I’d bike across Cupertino to Sunyvale- wooded streets and sleepy lanes. Then, with my squishiest (but unwrinkled) outfit and kitbag in my backpack, board with the bike and ride up to King Street. Then, arrive and bike up Townsend to Division, up to Webster then up Page (ouch, can feel the burn now) to my college friend’s on Page where would stash my bike and join for real the playland that is SF on the weekend. Sunday rolls around and I drunken stumble/bike back to sleepyville. The real challenge was not dozing through my Sunnyvale stop.
Ah, then the final chapter: my grinding commute- when I finally got a place to live with some friends in the city but still had my Palo Alto job- where I was exploited for $8/hour doing office managment, bookkeeping, animation (they made animation software), tech support, anything you could name. I woke up in Lower Haight, ran like the wind to Duboce & Church to get the N or J, took it to 3rd, ran up the escalators to the street, jumped on the next 30 from Chinatown, took it a nailbiting 15 minutes to King St. Ran to the train, and, if I had 5 minutes get a donut and coffee. I barely made it most days, and if I missed it, that meant a (routine) phone call (at a pay phone) and a wait an hour until the next train left.
Oh the improvements!
- cell phones
- connecting underground lines!
- more frequent morning trains
- bullet trains!
The bright side toa 4-hour commute: I had my posse of friends that I met on the first non-bike car, with a free 4-seater (those were the agreed meeting rules) Bobo, a geek who worked at Maxis, Jared who was doing a reverse commute. He was a gay teenager who loved to come up and work at Sparky’s in the Castro, and lived with his wealthy parents in Burlingame. Dinah, she was also reverse commute and had really horrible health care stories, owing like $10,000 or so for some catastrophic car accident while uninsured.
We’d balance our huge coffee cups and crumbly donuts. Coffees inevitably spilled and the conductor would give us the evil eye. I miss those guys, on Fridays and after work we’d figure out some place to hang out or share a beer on the train.
I finally got a job in the city and didn’t have to commute. Bobo and I stayed in touch, but otherwise lost touch with my commuter friends. I never really took Caltrain that much aftewrards- got a car, and evolved into that SF behavior where you never leave your 7 mile cube.
First bike ride in a month 2 days ago- a quick jog to the gym- and wow, was I skittish. There’s this (lack of) personal space that you build up over time. When you take a vacation, you’re back to zero again. On Bay Street, a car whizzed by me and I almost drove into a parked car, it was so close. Today, second time out, I was a little better, but still got almost-swiped by a car on Bay Street again.
Chatting with a friend at the gym - he bikes from the Mission to downtown every day- we were commenting on how it seems that bikers are 100X more observant than anyone else on the street. Pedestrians, we agreed, are the worst. I don’t know how many times I see someone walk up to a crosswalk and keep looking ahead of them, with their earphones/cell phone plastered to their ear, without looking at approaching traffic. Just one step, and we’re both down on the ground, probably in traffic.
But it’s worth the little dramas- heart racing, adrenalin shooting out- just to get somewhere in under 10 minutes, and feel that pleasant little buzz in your legs or the wind in your face (cheesy happy exercise metaphors here). Really. And yes, I’m that dork with the hat/reflector tapes/reflector bag. No side-saddle on a fixie in a miniskirt for me.
This “beautiful people” tea (that translation has been reinforced by 2 other Chinese-speakers) my brother-in-law’s Taiwanese handlers got him to give to me, from China, is really, really good. It’s white Oolong tea, and has these lovely leaves that separate and float. I’ve been brewing it and then using it as ice tea for all day. The taste is gorgeous, multiple notes, warm, slightly sweet, and makes you a tad hyper. I love how Chinese tea boxes tell you the medicinal benefits before the taste. Also, there are like five ways of judging tea of which I remain blissfully ignorant.
Had a tea party the other day and everyone voted this one as their favorite. Trader Joe’s has “white tea” that is an affordable alternative.
Posted by banane on July 15th, 2008 — in road trip
This one story from the road: I read this great Buddhist blog, how once when she was talking to her grandkid she just gave up and talked about poo for an hour. Heck, it’s what he wanted to talk about!
On my car trip with 6-year old occupying the rear passenger seat, for 300 miles or so across the expanse of San Joaquin Valley, my iPod has run out of juice, my car-adapter wasn’t working, the radio wasn’t that interesting, and he was feeling chatty. I thought of that blog, and somehow we got into a competitive insult game, involving almost everything scatalogical. I was impressed when he whipped out some rare forms of poo. I introduced the concept of infinity: “Well you’re wearing a diaper of infinity Tilden blueberry poos… “, etc. That’s me, super-aunty, who can act immature on a dime. Knock-knock jokes also work. Thank you, iPhone, and Google, oh Oracle of the Internet, for finding that page of knock-knock jokes.
Well, first off, not the eau de trash that is wafting in my window from the sewers… on a hot day not the ideal place to live.
As I flew to Baltimore then drove back, I had a lot of time to think about the things I like about this fair city.
- Lots of variety of cuisine, cheap, and in relatively good quality.
- People seem to generally care about ingredients, steep and cheap prices alike, and don’t care about volume.
- Freshness is really important. (caveat: seattle takes freshness a little more seriously)
- The weather is temperate. I really appreciate this. I’m glad I can wear my hoodies all year long. I like driving to weather, I’m glad I don’t know how to drive in snow. I don’t think living in a temperate climate means I’m weaker.
- People generally frown on judmental opinions combined with lack of open-mindedness. I appreciate that. Get to know someone before hating them, essentially.
- While you could argue that economically we’re classist in SF, I tend to think Westerners try really hard not to mention where they went to school, if their Daddy is a Vanderbilt, etc. It’s a general “remake yourself,” rags-to-riches attitude, or heck, just rags. The Lebowski-esque flip-flop wearing millionaire who doesn’t own a yacht.
- Public parks and public beaches, lack of private-everything. A general openness.
- How there’s not a lot of Jesus signs and memorabilia everywhere.
- How we don’t have a lot of freakish LDS sects running around, just freaks in general, of all stripes.
- Good coffee is everywhere.
- I run into friends in cafes and we sit and talk for awhile, then I run into another friend in a cafe, and there are lots of interesting things going on all the time.
- At least in North Beach, there’s a “less is more” attitude that perhaps is Chinatown’s influence or maybe Bohemian, I’m not sure (this is not in relationsip to views, though.)
- We’re all wannabe artists.
- Second to last: people don’t stare strangely at my iPhone
- And lastly: there is a lot of free wi-fi around.
Ta-da! Add large unfounded generalizations in the comments if you dare.
Picture is of my two nephews who made the most out of the visit to the non-existent sea lions on pier 39 by acting like sea lions. What troopers! That’s good tourist behavior: don’t bitch, make art!
Arrived in Monterey 7 days after driving out of Baltimore, and had a few days of rest and relaxation, including a funeral. Family friend died of cancer during the road trip, so I headed to the service with my parents, both of which had key roles. I was just the support staff, but since he’d been a friend for so long, I ended up learning a lot more about my parents.
My favorite story my dad told during the service, and that I’d heard bits and snatches of, was that of the swing set. Jud, my dad and some other engineers at Univac - or maybe it was the Nameless Division of Intelligence, not sure — had a work room with blackboards all around. One day my dad started doodling a play structure for his 3-and-counting kids. Jud, his friend, and some other engineers got involved in the elements of design. It stayed on the wall for a month, getting tweaked and over-designed, and eventually they setup shop in my dad’s basement working on the thing. Once completed, they set it up in the yard, and Jud volunteered to be the Test Subject- it was a swing set that you could collapse and move, as well as be sturdy enough. Well, Jud is about 6′5″- but the swing set lasted, and lasted through all of us kid’s births and childhoods, and my family moving to 3 different houses.
Day 5, we drove from to Lincoln, Nebraska to Laramie, Wyoming. Day 6 (today) we drove from Laramie to Wells, Nevada.
We just pushed through a record 580 mile day- quite a distance with 3 kids, dog and cat, and we weren’t speeding. One of the hardest part of this trip is finding hotels that take pets, and fill other semi-requirements like first floor, wi-fi, continental breakfast, non-smoking. The iPhone helps- we do recon with Google Maps when we decide on a city to stop at. The other thing- managing the timing of all the little bladders and stomachs. Third would be: entertaining said children without getting car sick.
Super 8 has wi-fi, and a dog-friendly attitude. Cute sign at the Super 8: “Dogs don’t bust down doors. Dogs don’t beat up furniture. Dogs don’t throw violent parties. We love dogs.” Last hotel I was at- the Hotel 6 in Laramie- had a beer opener screwed onto the bathroom wall. NICE. Seriously, it was useful. Went wi-fi-free last night, which just made me work on my MySql installation on my MacBook. I’ve had 2 days of not-so-hot sleep, not sure if it’s the time change or just lack of recovery from “laundry night.” I had a rough hour with the 4-year-old who hid in his blanket for most of the hour, and later asked, “When are you leaving?” We worked out some kind of peace and we drove together the last few hours before this town, Wells, Nevada. He told me about his dream to open a “pet store in your hotel room.” Combination of- my room is bigger usually and has more room, and, he likes his pets.
We are going to treat ourselves to a fun leisurely drive tomorrow and the next day. . Jenny, Birk and I were poring over the map when finaly it’s like, let’s just call Mom, she’s done it a zillion times. Sure enough she weighed our suggestions and made her own- all without a map present. The plan: Tahoe, then down 5 to Pacheco Pass.
Wells is small and the only town after a 60 mile salt stretch. Nevada is such a shock after the puritanesque Utah. But generalizations about Nevada aside, we went to a store to try to get sippy cups, but it was closed. A few people talked to us outside. One lady offered her own in her mobile home, and another lady went back to the store, re-opened it, and handed Birk a package of 6 for free.
A bunch of kids are playing with a remote car right now outside my window. Wish they would go to bed. Where are their parents!! Arg, it’s only 9PM! Problem with changing a time zone every day.
Posted by banane on June 29th, 2008 — in road trip
Didn’t get off the interstate except for a tiny bit in a small town, Mitchellville, which, becuase of flooding, the main street was closed. Tried for lunch in the next town up- Altoona- and eventually got to a ribs place. It was hard going. Despite being Sunday, most cute, small places were flooded. Tried to shoot from the car a flooded field (there were tons):
We went from Peoria to Lincoln, which was surprisingly beautiful but yes, kind of boring. Long rolling hills, and a thundercloud was looming constantly. Too pooped to blog- watching Wedding Singers & doing laundry in the hotel.
Stumble it!