Bay Area

Oh, man. San Francisco. I know, I know: the traffic, the high cost of living, the threat of the land you're standing on breaking off into the ocean in an earthquake. It's not ideal in several ways. Despite that all, this city just does something to me. Plus, so many friends and family members have settled in this area. A visit was LOOOOONG overdue, and I've had such a great time revisiting old haunts from when I spent six months here in 2003, reconnecting with friends and cousins, etc.

Because of people's busy schedules, I'm doing a little backwards jog, starting out south of the bay and working my way north. In Half Moon Bay, I saw the most eerie sunset of my life...

...while having dinner with my sweet high school friend, L, and meeting her adorable daughter (also an L! a party of Ls!) for the first time.

From there, on to Mountain View to see college friend M (also known as Hummingbird because of her ever-busy, ever-on way of buzzing through life), who has also created a new human being, Z, since the last time I saw her.

She played hooky from work for a morning and we had a ridiculously fun time eating our way around Palo Alto until she had to return to her gainful employment. Then I rejoined SR, who had taken his own gainful employment to Watsonville for the week, for a bit of exploring Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. I got to see the scene at the beach just one block from where he used to live, where surfers looked like sharks patrolling Monterrey Bay in the fading light.

Then I headed up to that city I love...

...to see another great college friend, C. If we're going by sheer numbers, she wins the reproduction prize, having created not one but THREE new people (courtesy of the big surprise of identical twin boys who arrived this past April) since I last saw her, five long years ago. Not only did we catch up, but I got to see the office where she still manages to work a nearly full-time schedule as a lawyer. (HOW do these amazing friends of mine do it? I feel plenty busy in my unemployed, childfree state. I literally cannot imagine how you all are juggling work, babies, and husbands.) AND I got the extra treat of getting to rock one of the twins to sleep before exchanging last hugs and tiptoeing out of the apartment to let sleep-deprived parents catch as many Zs as possible while the tres niños were all--miraculously, but I'm sure too temporarily--slumbering.

From the city, I headed to the East Bay, where my favorite (and, okay--only) brother, C, has just relocated from Seattle. He and his terrific wife (also a C) have a sweet house in Pleasanton, and when SR finished up his work in Watsonville and met back up with us, we were C & C's first official houseguests in their brand new digs.

The (free!) Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park drew us (and every hippie for miles) into the city, where the people-watching was rivaled only by the voices of Patty Griffin and Natalie Maines. At one point, we were perched on a steep hillside on the only tiny little plot of space we could find available among the overwhelming throng of people at one of the stages, surrounded by groups of strangers sharing joints with each other while three very young children to our left were passing a very large, live snake back and forth. What a scene.

So we got the full S.F. experience, and it was great, as ever, to spend time with my baby bro.

The next morning, we expanded the party by joining up with two cousins (and the wife and kids of my cousin A) from my mom's side of the family for a brunch in Lafayette. And by brunch, I mean the meal that comes between the time when these party animals open a bar and have a beer at 10 a.m. while catching the beginning of the Packers game, and when they return to the bar for a few more beers and the end of the game.

From here, I backtrack to see friends and family north of the S.F. Bay. You didn't think I was going to skip Napa, did you?