The Morning of the Second Day
12/13/2009
I slept in this morning. It was almost 5:30 before my internal clock finally got me to the point I couldn’t doze any longer. At 3:30 I was more than awake enough to get up, but that would have made for a very long day and a very early bedtime. So here I sit in the lobby of The Wharf Hilton with my index fingers beating the hell out of these keys.
The Nancy and I had a wonderful time dodging raindrops as we peregrinated the undulating streets of San Francisco sightseeing with thousands of other weekend tourists and Christmas shoppers. We rode the fabled cable cars – where The Nancy asked the one of the operators if we could get real Rice-a-Roni somewhere, and he denied anyone in San Francisco ever ate it. We rode a bus, as in public transportation, to a brew pub called Magnolias in Haight-Ashbury, and met some really cool people and made observations (we don’t judge) of all the weirdoes literally littering the streets in seated and prone positions – a lot of apparent homeless people, some truly needing help, others having fried their brains with alcohol, drugs or just caught up in the past.
This is an amazing, diverse city. We heard many languages. We saw people of very light Nordic complexions to very dark African ones, a mixture of the oriental and the occidental, the thin and the not so thin, the tall and the short, the happy and very sad, our cast of thousands.
I saw a lady as we sat at the bar in Magnolia’s who reminded me very much of my mother and could not help but go over and tell her how much I appreciated her being there. She was beautiful and so mom-like I regret not asking her for a hug.
We walked around the The Wharf area with the wind occasionally inverting our umbrellas as we darted in and out of stores, and dined at Alioto’s overlooking a marina where seals frolicked in the cold waters amid the boats. The Nancy got seafood about as fresh as it can be had. I, on the other hand, had spaghetti with tomato sauce. No sea critter for this non-meat-eating boy.
We “nightcapped” our day sitting at the bar at Knunckle’s where we met a guy named Larry who entertained us for a couple of hours. We couldn’t decide if Larry was just slow or suffered from Down syndrome. Larry is a regular who only comes on Saturday evenings for his limit of two beers. The bartender kept a keen eye on Larry and was concerned he was making us uncomfortable. We waved him off a couple of times as Larry got a little loud. Larry was having fun and we were having a good time enrolling him as a friend. People like Larry have it made. For them life is simple as they are only able to be who they truly are.
The Nancy and I walked into the Hilton about 10:30 and giggled our way back to our comfy room where earlier in the evening, just after dark, a housekeeper entered our room as The Nancy and I were napping (truly sleeping). She was delivering snacks and I believe we gave her a great story for her blog.
It was a wonderful day: new adventures, new friends, wet clothing and at least a dozen really good beers. Life is good!
And that is all I have to say about that…