Wander Back: Bay Area

The train arrived to San Jose mid-morning and then I bussed out to Mary’s house. Claire was home sick, so Jon was also working from home to take care of her. Claire and I watched some blues clues and then she helped me make a big batch of dumplings for dinner. Mary came home with Will and we had a feast of dumplings and veggies and rice and a plum pie Jon had made with plums from their tree.

The next day, everyone was well enough to go to school and work, so I had the house to myself. I had a leisurely morning then went grocery shopping to get ingredients to make bolognese. I then spent the afternoon chopping and cooking and letting the sauce simmer while catching up on podcasts and crosswords. Everyone got home a bit early as it was back to school night for Claire. Jon had caught Claire’s cold so went to bed and the rest of us had an early dinner. I babysat the kids (first time babysitting in my whole entire life) for a bit while Mary went to the school. We played some games and built and smashed things with magnatiles and then played outside and got nice and dirty in time for Mary to come home and give everyone baths.

It was really nice getting to see Mary and her family after years of not seeing them. We got to hang out and chat in the evenings after kid bed time, just like the old days when we lived together in Boston.

On Wednesday, I headed out the same time as everyone headed to school, but I was off to the BART station to head north to Alameda. San Jose has some really nice protected bike lanes through the city. A couple less fun streets, but overall an easy enough ride. Larry was waiting for me at the BART station in Oakland, so no need to bike to their place.

We arrived to their house and Alison, who recently broke her ankle, was waiting for us out in their beautiful garden. We sat and ate and chatted for a while and then Larry and I went on a bike ride around the island before lunch. Alameda used to have a big military base that’s slowly being repurposed, so there are some really nice bike paths and piers to check out along the shore. After a nice lunch and more hanging out in the garden, Larry dropped me off at the ferry terminal so I could ride into San Francisco.

I met Tina at her office downtown and we took a quick lap of the Salesforce Park, a raised park with amazing plants a few stories above street level. We then jumped on the mini and went to her house. I was excited to belatedly warm her home and finally meet her cat and see her boyfriend Nick and meet his dog Marty. There are mature trees in her back yard which make her place feel like it’s almost a tree house - very cool.

Tina, Nick, and I met Tina’s brother Jeff at a Peruvian restaurant a few blocks away. We feasted and then Nick had to head out, but Jeff and Tina and I headed a couple blocks over to a nice neighborhood bar with several dogs hanging around, including a very sweet lab who had a large bone he was carrying around constantly. Jeff had been borrowing Larry and Alison’s car, so I drove that back to Alameda, but first dropped Tina and Jeff off and checked out Jeff’s awesome roof deck and extensive plant collection.

I woke up earlier than I had hoped on Thursday, but Larry had gotten pastries and had the coffee machine set up, so I had a nice quiet morning sipping coffee and eating a morning bun in the garden (Alison claims this was her bun, but this was not conveyed to me and early bird gets the worm 🤷🐦🐛). We then packed into their car and drove into San Francisco. First up was the Ramses exhibit at the de Young museum and then the Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy show at the Legion. Both were excellent, but the Guo Pei show really blew me away. I’m not a big fashion person, but this was just super impressive and the way the pieces were tied in with the art throughout the museum was really well done.

We picked up Jeff on the way back to Alameda for a night of pizza making. Jeff and I helped sous chef for Larry as we made a bunch of pizzas to fire in their little pizza oven. We sat out back cooking and eating and chatting and it was a great evening. Larry had even picked up a few desserts for us all to share, which we enjoyed around the fire pit. Jeff re-borrowed the car to head back to the city and the rest of us were off to bed. I had a somewhat early train in the morning, which Larry generously dropped me off at the station for.

I’m now en route to Colorado where I’ll be visiting some friends and cousins.