So, if you've ever seen Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill, you'll understand the snotty tone of voice in which I say "the city." So, I was born in San Francisco, but lived in Marin once I was old enough to have even the most basic concept of geography, and so whenever we talked about going to San Francisco, we said we were going to "the city." Now to be fair, I did the same thing when living in a suburb of Chicago, so it's not like it's an exclusively California thing, but whatever. Eddie made fun of us, and that's cool. Also, he totally hit the nail on the head. You do not call the city "Frisco" or "San Fran." You just don't. Or rather, if you do, you're wrong, and we will mock you.
Anyway, last Mon and Tues, J & I spent our time in the city. We stayed in a little hotel on Lombard St., just blocks from the Presidio where I was born. Monday, we had the kind of weather you think of when you think San Francisco- foggy, overcast, misting. So of course we spent the day walking around outside. We took the bus down to Fisherman's Wharf where we splurged on a semi-fancy lunch.
Lobster tail... splurged for lunch at the Fog Harbor Fish House on Pier 39
Then we did the shopping part where we bought souvenirs and presents for friends, then decided to be totally touristy and take a tour of the bay on one of the Blue & Gold fleet ferries.
We're on a boat!
The boat went out, under the bridge, then around Alcatraz, and back to the Wharf. It was really neat. The fog and mist actually made it cooler.
Real San Francisco weather
Unfortunately, the BEST shot of the bridge I've ever gotten, I took on my cell phone. The unfortunate part of that sentence comes at the end of the trip. FORESHADOWING!
The Rock
After all that, we went back to our room, took a nap, then wandered down to the Tipsy Pig for dinner. It was amazing. Our waiter was friendly and knowledgeable without being pretentious. The place was cozy and had really great atmosphere--kind of like walking into an old English sitting room, with all the books and stuff. At our table was an old copy of "The Life of Johnson" by Samuel Boswell. The food though... oh, the food! J described it as gourmet home style, and I guess that's as good a description as any. Simple food prepared really, really well. It was totally worth it, and a wonderful birthday dinner, even if it was the day before my birthday.
Tuesday was bright, sunny, and beautiful. So of course we decided to spend it inside. To be fair, if the Exploratorium had been open on Monday, we would have switched our schedule around, but it's not, so we made the best of it. We walked the 4 blocks or so from our hotel and enjoyed the sunshine and the city.
Looking down the street towards the bay
Looking up the street at the hills
Random hydrangea. It was purple, I couldn't resist!
Now, the Exploratorium is at the Palace of Fine Arts, and it's pretty much the coolest museum I've ever been to in my life. The last time I visited was 1990, just before I moved away from California to Texas (the first time). 11 years is a long time to anticipate going back, and it absolutely did not disappoint!
The Palace of Fine Arts--maybe my favorite place in the whole city. It looks like a postcard, but it's real!
So, it's this big, geeky, kid-centered science play ground. Anything that looks touchable, pushable, movable, spinable or turnable probably is, and you're encouraged to touch, push, move, spin or turn it. Each exhibit is a little science experiment. There's an explanation of some THING in the wide, wonderful world, then an explanation of how that thing works, then an example for you to recreate the principle there at the museum. It was wonderful! This video is of us playing with the black sand. It's magnetic, and we were fascinated.
The Exploratorium... SO FREAKIN' RAD! It's a giant play room for science! Here's J & I playing with black sand.
Our picture taken in... infrared? Heat sensing? Something like that.
There was a whole section devoted to biology where you could look at stuff live under microscopes, and there was a room full of magnets and electric stuff, an entire SECTION devoted to sound, and a whole wing about social sciences. They had exhibits like a water fountain made from a toilet. A clean, brand new, never been used toilet with water pumped straight from the kitchen, but... I couldn't drink from it. We played with lasers and tried to communicate with just our eyes. It was so much fun. We spent 5 hours playing with science and it was more fun than I can describe.
Then we walked back to where our airport shuttle was going to pick us up and had some super tasty Indian food while we waited, and I had to take a picture of the tiny police call box, because that's the kind of dork I am.
Tiny Doctor inside
Then we flew home, and I left my cell phone on the plane. Oh yes, I'm just that awesome. So, the fabulous picture of my bridge, from a great angle as we passed under it, as it disappeared into the fog? Gone. Luckily, that's the only thing gone. All my contacts and voicemail and stuff was saved, thanks to Google.
Anyway, that's our trip to San Francisco. I'm looking forward to our next trip, whenever that might be.
Do you ever get that feeling, like you're going to cry for no real reason (or for a real reason, whatever) and you're doing fine staying on top of it and being ok because you're FINE really and everything is fine, and then someone is nice to you and it breaks the dam wide open and you're sobbing like a baby?
Yeah, that's happened to me a couple of times recently. Going home was really great, and very emotional. I was getting nostalgic and sentimental over EVERYTHING. Ice plants & eucalyptus trees on the side of the highway. Signs for the 101. AM/PM gas stations. The smell of Grandma's house, the pictures of Granny Worley at age 93 (I think) and her mom at age 18 next to one another in the hall. The things that are still the same, even after all these years--the clocks on the wall, the lamps, the magnets on the fridge, the drawing my brother made on the chalkboard in the office in 1982. I was just so stinkin' happy to be there I cried. I blame the baby, because while I am a sentimental type person, I don't usually start bawling at the sight of a bookshelf full of books on herbal remedies and positive thinking yourself healthy. Usually.
My flight was uneventful, just the way you want flights to be. I watched Captain America and ate my grapes. It might have been funnier if I hadn't been fighting the urge to pee, but I don't know.
My baby cousin (who is 23 and has a baby of her own!) picked me up at the airport. At first it was a comedy of errors as she drove in circles looking for me, on the phone with her mother, who was also on the phone with me as I tried to describe my location. It took us about 5 minutes to realize we were in the same place, but on different levels. Then we headed for home, on the101, then 92 and over the San Mateo bridge, which is the seed for a set of recurring nightmares where I'm driving on a bridge so steep that eventually the car falls off backwards. We detoured through Hayward, thinking we were on our way to get food, then back onto 580 heading to Stockton, and by then it had been over an hour, so we just headed home, but it was a full 3 hours before we actually arrived. We talked non-stop the whole way. My aunt fed us and then the rest of the family arrived, well, my other aunt and grandparents. We chatted until we were sleepy then headed to bed. I'm staying in my baby cousin's baby's room. She's 3 and precious. As I was getting into bed she came and gave me her stuffed kitty and the prayer baby (babydoll with hands that velcro together) to keep me company. It was the sweetest thing.
Breakfast was a family affair. Everyone was stirring and flipping and tasting and poking. It was perfect. Olivia chatters and jumps and bounces...she is 3 and mornings are awesome. Eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and some cartoons. Of course, my morning started playing kitchen on the bedroom floor where we made sure our hotdogs had the right amount of condiments and the plastic peas stayed away from the spaghetti.
One of the things that seems very BOSWELL in my mind is playing cards. The family game is Peeknuckle. That's not how it's spelled, but I can't remember how it is supposed to be right now. I've never learned how to play, though I've been taught at least twice. We played Hearts instead and then the craziest game called Hand and Foot that has more rules than good sense. I lost miserably at both but I had a blast playing.
Then, I drove to my grandma's house. It wasn't over a river or through the woods. It was under the freeway and down the street. Grandma got new floors and countertops in her kitchen. Other than that, and a few new pictures, everything is exactly as I remember. There are some pictures that only exist here. Old pictures, like the ones of Granny Worley & her mother...
my great-great-grandmother, Fatima Brumley. Grandma and Grandpa's room is covered in pictures. Pictures of the whole family as babies, graduating from high school or college, with their first babies.
Just one of the walls of pictures. Up top is Grandma & Grandpa. The next row is of their 3 kids as they graduated high school, and next to each kid are pictures of THEIR kids, then a row of grandchildren and family photos.
That's my daddy in the middle, my brother on the left, me on the right
Mom & Dad & my brother when he was wee
This is probably from about 1981. Bow on my head!
Dad & Mom, Glenn & Me. Again, probably '81, maybe early '82? My mom would know better, but I'm just guessing based on how old I think I look. And how much hair I've got.
Does anyone else love pictures of themselves as a baby? Most of my favorites have my brother holding me. And bows on my head. You can't really tell from this picture of a picture, but this one is from Easter, I think 1982 or 83. Anyway, my dress is the prettiest shade of lavender, my hair is still that shiny shade of red that I remember it being before I got old and it turned dingy, and my brother is wearing a tie. I love this picture so very very much. The cherry blossom back drop and the stupid grin on my face...
This is of my Great Aunt Viola's daughters. On the left is Carolynn Mundy Dunn (aunt of Sunday Mundy, who's father is Little John, called Fudd--I also had a Great Uncle Toy, and that's his real name.) & Paulette , my dad's cousin, whom I called Aunt, even though she's not.Taking pictures of pictures is really difficult, but I couldn't stop myself.
Sunday morning was all about biscuits and that's pretty well documented. It was a great trip. It was good to see family and to hear stories about the good old days.
I'm going to go take a nap now, and tackle our two days in the city later.
As I mentioned in my Vlog, where I talked very quickly, I've lived a few different places. I've been saying for a while that I've lived in Dallas longer than anywhere else in my life, which is only true if you split up my time in The Bay Area into when I lived in the city (on the Presidio, which I think is cool) and when we lived in Marin Co. But really, let's just count that all as one area, because... really, it is. City & suburbs... so, I've still got California as the place I've lived the longest*, and while I guess I'm technically from there, I don't really feel like I get to call myself a California girl most of the time, and certainly not a San Francisco girl, even though it is still my bridge. Since I think Chicago is technically part of the Mid-West the way the rest of the country divides things, though not in my mind, I think that makes me a Mid-West girl, if anything. Anyway, this realization came about while planning my upcoming trip to San Francisco.
First, Jennie shared a link for some RIDICULOUSLY cheap flights from DFW to SFO, but we couldn't use them for Christmas (when my parents were going to be out there), so we decided to go as a birthday trip for me. Awesome. We were going to rent a car and I realized... I'd never driven to my Grandma's house. I know right where it is (corner of West Ln and Stadium Dr), but I've never driven there. Ever. By the time I was old enough to drive, we lived halfway across the country, so I flew out there and got driven around. Every trip since then has been with enough people that I've never been the one behind the wheel. I think I may have driven to a grocery store from my aunt's house... and maybe with my cousin navigating from my grandma's house to my aunt's house... but that's it. Crazy. Some plans changed & we aren't renting a car, so this will continue to be true!
See, this is why I don't think of myself as a California girl anymore. I'm sure I did for a while, and probably longer than I maybe should have, but after talking to my cousins who actually did grow up there, all the way through high school & college... well, they have a different cultural experience, right? All my high school driving & becoming independent memories are centered around the Tastee Freeze in Grayslake, IL. (Best hot fudge milkshake I've ever had, hands down!) I don't think of myself as from Chicago though. Maybe because I left and most of my friends from high school are still there. Heck, Peter lives within eye-ball distance of our old high school which has changed names and expanded such that I barely recognize it.
Ok, so there is home--where I live, my current city and area of influence in terms of where I hang out and where my friends are and stuff, and that's DFW. Fine. No problem. My brother has been in TX since 1990, so while he's not from here either, he's got as much, if not more Texas than California in him... maybe. He wears boots, so you know, that's something. I do not own those kind of boots. The only boots I currently own have buckles and flames on them. So, that's home.
But then there's Home. Home is where my grandma lives. She & Grandpa have been in the same house since before I could walk. It's the only thing that's been stable my whole life. I mean, not in an emotional way-- my life growing up was fairly scary Norman Rockwellish, but we did move about a bit, so, I don't have that house that is home, when people talk about going home. J's folks have lived in the house they're in now for 20 years or so. It's not the only house he remembers, but most of his childhood memories are centered there. Before I went away to college, we lived in 6 different houses and one temporary apartment. While I have fond memories and some attachment to several of them, none of them are Home in a way I can go back to. Grandma's house is Home. She makes sure there's a box of Cocoa Puffs in the cabinet when I visit. Now that I'm old enough not to spill, I'm allowed to eat my bowl on the coffee table, and at some point, we'll all watch Wheel of Fortune and Grandpa will tell groaner jokes and threaten to trade us all in for pole cats. Grandma will make biscuits and drink Yuban coffee. Or maybe none of that will happen. Well, the biscuits will happen, because that's what I asked Grandma for for my birthday--to teach me how to make the best biscuits I've ever had in my whole life.
Anyway, I'm incredibly blessed because I'm about to be 31 (and my brother 38) years old and have all 4 of the grandparents I was born with. My mom's parents live in Ft. Worth now, so I get to see them pretty often. But California is far, and I have a feeling it's going to get farther once my internal fetus becomes an external baby. Geography works that way, right?
*Although, with the current plan, Dallas will claim that honor very shortly. But I'm still not from here.
