California Dreaming No More

I had a bunch of cute openings to this post.

Like: “Several years ago, when we still lived in Berkeley but knew we were going to be leaving, a visiting friend who had once lived in Marin said that the best way to experience the Bay Area was to be a visitor who once lived there.” That one would have gone on to explain why visiting the Bay Area having lived there is better than living there (you don’t have to deal with the traffic, parking, and outrageous housing prices--or rather, you only have to deal with the traffic and parking for a few days) and better than just visiting (you can skip cable cars and Fisherman’s Wharf and go straight to the farmer’s market and Amoeba)

Then there was: “I turned 40 last summer, and if I’d been blogging, much would have been blogged.” That one would have gone on to explain why I decided to have a big birthday party (to tackle 40 head on and prove that I have a life in Red State Capital City Suburb), how much fun we had at my birthday party (think children sleeping over at the babysitter’s, Japanese lanterns in the garden, ginger daiquiris, and sending the last guest home at three in the morning), and the excellent 40^th birthday present that sent us to San Francisco seven months later.

I think there were a few more that I’ve forgotten

But I’ve kind of lost motivation on the cute openings, which is what happens when you blog in your head for too long without getting near a computer. So I’ll just say that S and I went to the Bay Area for a long weekend--two nights in San Francisco and one in Napa--and had a blissful time, the ideal realization of all our California dreams.

It simply couldn’t be helped. The weather was perfect (sunshine-filled blue skies and temperatures in the 60s), the coffee was strong (at the little Royal café in the Richmond, in North Beach, at the café in Glen Ellen, etc.), and the children were home with Grandma (the funny thing about traveling without children is that you spend half your time marveling at your freedom and the other half pointing out things the children would love).

I have posts written in my head about art, bookstores, the French Laundry, and public space. Hopefully they will dribble out my fingers through the keyboard and into Blogger at some point in the next few days. But for now, a few highlights:

- Running on the Embarcadero and in Golden Gate Park (that would be me)

- Walking the city streets, the hills, the path at Land’s End, and Drake’s Beach and the trail out to Chimney Rock at Point Reyes

- Dim sum in the Richmond

- Record stores (that would be S)

- Reading entire newspapers without interruption

- An old-style barber-shop haircut (that would be S again)

- Medjool dates and dried persimmon, kiwi, and apples from the farmer’s market

- The bakery serendipitously encountered on the road from Sebastopol to Bodega Bay with a wood oven, a cadre of jolly dyke bakers, and the most amazing fougasse

- Baby D and her ridiculous head of hair

- Sunshine

- Blue skies

- Coffee

- Zuni Cafe