November 26, 2014

The morning started with me waking at 7:30.  WHY?!?!?    This is vacation…I’m supposed to sleep much, much , later, but, my brain being what it is, I couldn’t convince it otherwise, so I was up.  Eventually, after my morning ritual, I got together the dog house plans created and sent by Brad and called Home Depot to place an order, but I was unable to get through, so I decided (with Ethan’s permission) that we would save this until Friday, because Home Depot is one of the few places that is actually closed all day on Thursday.  Thank God.  Everything should be closed on Thanksgiving…like it used to be.  I did my best to get the kids inspired to leave on our adventure.  Maggie was in her room on her Kindle,  Ethan was lying in front of our fake fireplace,   I said, “Should I just go alone?”  Ethan said…”I’ll go with you.  “  So sweet, especially since he abhors music shows.

We headed towards Berkeley.  I was prepared for a long line of traffic, but we breezed right through.  It took us a while to locate the actual downtown section, and we proceeded to walk around.  The coolest place was Moe’s Bookstore.  Ethan suggested I hide out there and just live in it.  I bought  two books on Africa – one the history and the other a story about a boy soldier from Sierra Leone.  Maggie found a book on Mexico’s Tarahumara people, and Ethan a book on DIT experiments.  It was soooo cool.  We also dropped by Rasputin Records and I bought a few records– again, I could’ve been there much longer, but with still no receiver, I am not as passionate as I am about the books.  This is a bad, bad thing as records don’t weigh as much. For lunch, the kids wanted to eat in a “healthy” place, so we did….  I didn’t have the heart to tell them that it was all crap – sticking “whole wheat” buns really does nothing.  They talked about Europe and I reiterated that, as wonderful as it is, there are problems.  No place is perfect….  They said, “Yes, we know.  But it’ll be terrific and after a few months of getting settled it will be amazing.”  I need to look specifically into the Montessori aspect of working with Alzheimer’s/Dementia patients.  I think that could be my “in”.

We headed to San Francisco – seems we were headed in the right direction as there were cars, yes, but nothing compared to what was pouring out of the city.  Ethan shared with us how he learned from his teachers (???!) that red Jello uses parts of beaver’s rectums (ahem) and then said “What have bananas had no ‘b’s in them?  Then they’d be “ananas.”  I love those nonsensical convos.  We made it to the Mission District fairly quickly and found - I thought -a close parking spot.  There was brief entertainment for Dude sitting in his work as first there was an “Am I in the parking spot?”   I listened to Maggie’s directions as Ethan was not necessarily trustworthy (only to realize he was telling the truth).  The shop owner was giggling watching our charade.  Then…as everything was almost finished, Mags noticed the car keys...inside the locked car.  Fortunately the window was open just enough that Mags could slip her arm in and unlocked it.  Ethan turned on the car to open the window…and went the wrong direction…but the tough girl survived, and we continued our adventure.   We discovered that I had parked about 8 blocks away from the venue.  In other situations I might be sad, but this is SF and we walk a ton here, anyway.  I realized, around block 5, that I had forgotten to put socks on this morning when I was asking my kids if the tall boots looked ok.  Rats.  We found a park and the kids had a beautiful time playing as I watched.  They later said that was the best park they’d ever been to and Ethan mentioned loving to be able to play in a park “at night” (it was 6).  We had a couple more hours to kill before the show, so we headed to our pizzeria – Delfina’s.  Excellent food – not  too long waiting.

 

We headed to the show and once inside, we immediately saw Barbara, Ben and Alex’s mother.  This was terrific as she had a table upstairs and the kids and I sat down with our adopted family and watched the show that way.  After so much walking, my body was having none of the “let’s stand for 4 hours in a sold-out music venue,” and Ethan wasn’t thrilled as it was. He covered his ears and lay down.  Towards the end of the show, Brad invited us backstage and Maggie was able to sit on the stairs and watched the guys.  She loved it – and that’s what mattered.  Ethan sat in a back room, Mags sat on the stairs and watched the show, and I got to see Charlie, Phil’s new baby boy.  It was a nice show.

We headed down to the car – first heading the wrong direction (shoulda listened to Ethan).  Loved walking in the still of the night.  Much to my chagrin – we needed to stop for a bathroom break and the family tradition of Denny’s.  The food was disgusting.  We talked about needing to replace this with a different tradition..but in this country???  Got home at 2:30 – clear roads the whole way.  The kids thanked me for the adventure as I unlocked the front door…and off to bed they went.

 Pictures:  A bookstore in the Mission District.  After the Moe's adventure in Berkeley, both kids said, "Keep walking!  Just keeeeep walking...."; The kids noticed the similarities between The Mission's BART station and Daleks from Doctor Who; Swinging around in the park; Fun times getting to The Chapel