...silently for me
Oct. 24th, 2004 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironymaidenso, um, last week we went to San Francisco.
i enjoyed my trip. all my normal careful planning and research went out the window since the run-up to our departure was occupied with the inlaws' visit. but that was fine. everything clicked together just so to escort us out of the city, from the bus arriving within five minutes of our settling on the bench outside the Westin, to a last view of Mt Rainier glided by sunset, to our on-time departure in a half-full plane, and finally a tailwind that set us down fifteen minutes early. five bucks got us from Oakland Airport to downtown San Francisco on a clean bus and a comfy, speedy train. i was tired enough that i didn't think too hard about being inside the transbay tube until it was over.
i awoke to find a gift of new crayon art for my fridge slid under the door. C and i met Mom, Dad, Angela, and Andrea at breakfast; Andrea was excited enough to see me that she looked up from her book. (i'd say that my niece is very much after my own heart, except that she's terribly girly and doesn't groove on factoids. she does, however, carry a book everywhere she goes, and loves to draw and sing and dance. so yeah, we're related.) we were picked up by the incredibly charming Dave from Scotland for our day of touring. alas, he was only the shuttle driver.
our real driver for the trip to Muir Woods was rather quiet and dry. he said some fascinating stuff, but it sailed right over the head of my favorite 9 year old, so i found myself distilling his little dissertation on climate and the history of the Sierra Club into sound bites for her. she was disappointed that we were going into the woods instead of shopping. then we stood inside the fire-hollowed trunk of a living tree, and she changed her mind. i like that most redwoods are clones, and only reproduce sexually if they catch on fire.
Sausalito. meh.
the afternoon was a city tour, sort of a buzz by overview with picture stops, where we enjoyed the views and smashed pennies for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scarlettina. the Japanese garden has some great features, but was a little scruffy. by scruffy i mean that the landscape was not unearthly clean and impeccably groomed like the one here. so it's a fabulous garden, but it doesn't have the same serene feel. the city felt like that a lot to me. very much like Seattle, but dirtier and less loved. i like the liveliness and the streets that are still active at night, but the commercialism seems a bit more crass.
that evening we were all dead tired, so we ordered pizza in and called it a night.
we spent much of Saturday with Bill and Heather, shopping through Chinatown, eating a tremendous lunch at The Stinking Rose, watching the sea lions at Pier 39, listening to blues in the courtyard of the old Del Monte cannery. mmmmm the stinking rose. i think i still had garlic in my system on Monday.
Doug and Karen had rented a car for the weekend. the hotel valet lost the keys. i am not making this up. so they had a taxi allowance, a free night at the hotel, and the concierge got a primo table for all ten of us at a restaurant on the water (Francisco? Franciscan?) with a view of the bay in every direction. we need to get out to Milwaukee before the wedding in April - i don't get to see Douglas nearly enough. only my brothers would find a still-seaworthy Liberty ship as exciting as i do. i wish i would have had time to tour it. no, not really. every day one of those things stays afloat is tempting fate.
Sunday morning C and i had a leisurely breakfast at Mel's. yeah, a chain of restaurants based on the diner from American Graffiti. and then we walked about five blocks to Good Vibrations. much like visiting Archie McPhee, it is magical to go to place that has for years been a glossy catalog full of interesting descriptions of shiny things that you want to play with. especially delightful was an old queen telling the salesgirl why she thought everything was better with the addition of William Shatner. C limited me to $100. sigh.
so we went to SF for a wedding. my cousin Michelle married her boyfriend of ten years, her brother Mark officiated, and the rest of her immediate family and her nieces and nephew were all in the wedding party. fifteen minutes of ceremony, five hours of party afterwards. Mark is the co-owner of a catering company, so we started the evening with caviar, oysters, and blueberry martinis for all and it just kept getting more delicious. the ceremony and reception were on Treasure Island, which is the bit of land in the middle of the Bay Bridge and has a perfect view of the city and Golden Gate. it was incredibly cool to see the DJ running solely from a powerbook. i love my Walker cousins - no Macarena, no Celine, just a brilliant combination of Aerosmith and New Order. i like to see a girl in a bridal gown screaming with Steven Tyler (just to clarify, we're not talking about the ballads here) and i think my niece and the M's (alas, my cousin Melissa has continued to the next generation and given her three M names as well) were a bit taken aback to see me pogo to Bizarre Love Triangle. good times. did i mention the single malt at the open bar, or the pour yourself vodka shots from a bottle encased in ice impregnated with violet petals? yeah.
so i did discover what coffee snobs we are, and how addicted to the specific caffeine delivery of Seattle. while i became increasingly desperate for a barista who understood the word "breve," i still was able to say no to the stand at the baggage pickup at SeaTac since it was Appasionato and i hate their roast :)
i enjoyed my trip. all my normal careful planning and research went out the window since the run-up to our departure was occupied with the inlaws' visit. but that was fine. everything clicked together just so to escort us out of the city, from the bus arriving within five minutes of our settling on the bench outside the Westin, to a last view of Mt Rainier glided by sunset, to our on-time departure in a half-full plane, and finally a tailwind that set us down fifteen minutes early. five bucks got us from Oakland Airport to downtown San Francisco on a clean bus and a comfy, speedy train. i was tired enough that i didn't think too hard about being inside the transbay tube until it was over.
i awoke to find a gift of new crayon art for my fridge slid under the door. C and i met Mom, Dad, Angela, and Andrea at breakfast; Andrea was excited enough to see me that she looked up from her book. (i'd say that my niece is very much after my own heart, except that she's terribly girly and doesn't groove on factoids. she does, however, carry a book everywhere she goes, and loves to draw and sing and dance. so yeah, we're related.) we were picked up by the incredibly charming Dave from Scotland for our day of touring. alas, he was only the shuttle driver.
our real driver for the trip to Muir Woods was rather quiet and dry. he said some fascinating stuff, but it sailed right over the head of my favorite 9 year old, so i found myself distilling his little dissertation on climate and the history of the Sierra Club into sound bites for her. she was disappointed that we were going into the woods instead of shopping. then we stood inside the fire-hollowed trunk of a living tree, and she changed her mind. i like that most redwoods are clones, and only reproduce sexually if they catch on fire.
Sausalito. meh.
the afternoon was a city tour, sort of a buzz by overview with picture stops, where we enjoyed the views and smashed pennies for
scarlettina. the Japanese garden has some great features, but was a little scruffy. by scruffy i mean that the landscape was not unearthly clean and impeccably groomed like the one here. so it's a fabulous garden, but it doesn't have the same serene feel. the city felt like that a lot to me. very much like Seattle, but dirtier and less loved. i like the liveliness and the streets that are still active at night, but the commercialism seems a bit more crass. that evening we were all dead tired, so we ordered pizza in and called it a night.
we spent much of Saturday with Bill and Heather, shopping through Chinatown, eating a tremendous lunch at The Stinking Rose, watching the sea lions at Pier 39, listening to blues in the courtyard of the old Del Monte cannery. mmmmm the stinking rose. i think i still had garlic in my system on Monday.
Doug and Karen had rented a car for the weekend. the hotel valet lost the keys. i am not making this up. so they had a taxi allowance, a free night at the hotel, and the concierge got a primo table for all ten of us at a restaurant on the water (Francisco? Franciscan?) with a view of the bay in every direction. we need to get out to Milwaukee before the wedding in April - i don't get to see Douglas nearly enough. only my brothers would find a still-seaworthy Liberty ship as exciting as i do. i wish i would have had time to tour it. no, not really. every day one of those things stays afloat is tempting fate.
Sunday morning C and i had a leisurely breakfast at Mel's. yeah, a chain of restaurants based on the diner from American Graffiti. and then we walked about five blocks to Good Vibrations. much like visiting Archie McPhee, it is magical to go to place that has for years been a glossy catalog full of interesting descriptions of shiny things that you want to play with. especially delightful was an old queen telling the salesgirl why she thought everything was better with the addition of William Shatner. C limited me to $100. sigh.
so we went to SF for a wedding. my cousin Michelle married her boyfriend of ten years, her brother Mark officiated, and the rest of her immediate family and her nieces and nephew were all in the wedding party. fifteen minutes of ceremony, five hours of party afterwards. Mark is the co-owner of a catering company, so we started the evening with caviar, oysters, and blueberry martinis for all and it just kept getting more delicious. the ceremony and reception were on Treasure Island, which is the bit of land in the middle of the Bay Bridge and has a perfect view of the city and Golden Gate. it was incredibly cool to see the DJ running solely from a powerbook. i love my Walker cousins - no Macarena, no Celine, just a brilliant combination of Aerosmith and New Order. i like to see a girl in a bridal gown screaming with Steven Tyler (just to clarify, we're not talking about the ballads here) and i think my niece and the M's (alas, my cousin Melissa has continued to the next generation and given her three M names as well) were a bit taken aback to see me pogo to Bizarre Love Triangle. good times. did i mention the single malt at the open bar, or the pour yourself vodka shots from a bottle encased in ice impregnated with violet petals? yeah.
so i did discover what coffee snobs we are, and how addicted to the specific caffeine delivery of Seattle. while i became increasingly desperate for a barista who understood the word "breve," i still was able to say no to the stand at the baggage pickup at SeaTac since it was Appasionato and i hate their roast :)
