Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

Saturday night after dumping my stuff off but before we went to the play, I was introduced to Kitty, one of my sister’s friends who likes to visit. We don’t know if Kitty is an abandoned stray who sleeps in a warehouse or something until 4 in the morning or if she’s just a really greedy little kitty who has found a soft spot with my sister. She does eat, though, as if what we gave her was all she got all day. The routine has become that she knocks on the door early in the morning, gets fed, then hangs out until my sister leaves for the day. She is a very sweet and well-behaved kitty and I am told that she looks much better than she did a few months ago when she showed up all dirty and scraggly and skinny.

Above is Kitty ignoring me and below is Kitty posing for me.

So, Sunday morning, I hung out with Kitty, had wonderful French pastry and coffee for breakfast and a really good visit with my sister. After our lazy morning and saying goodbye to Kitty, my sister and I wandered over to Fillmore and began our long trek south to the Naval Shipyard where they were having the Hunters Point Shipyard Artists rabbit warren open studios. We were able to find a line that would take us from where we were all the way there without changing buses. But it was still a longish ride. I was a little jittery about it as I had a friend in college who’s dad had been stationed at Hunters Point and he’d sent his kids to school in bullet proof cars. But it was really no worse than any of the buses I’ve ridden in Los Angeles.

At the time, I hadn’t yet gotten in the habit of pulling my camera out at every opportunity, but there were some hills we crested that had wonderful views. Then, once we got to Hunters Point (end of the line) it was amazing. It just looks like a line of old decrepit barracks on the outside, but when we went in, it was room after room of nothing but artists studios of every type: painting, sculpture, jewelry, mixed media. It was incredible. Like I said, a rabbit warren. In fact, when we tried to leave, we got lost and a nice guy directing parking helped point us in the right direction.

The reason we went was to visit a friend of mine who’d been offered a wall in her friend’s studio.  Diana does sculpture as well, but the offer of a wall gave her reason to delve into painting and delve she did.  Stephanie, her studio-mate, offered kindly to take our picture:

Above is my sister, me, and Diana. Behind us is Diana’s artwork.

After we visited awhile, we toured some of the studios and my sister even ran into a long-time friend while we were out and about. Finally, though, we were feeling a bit peckish and wanting to get back into the city proper to see about a late lunch or early dinner. So, eventually we made our way back to the bus, transferred to a train and ended up in North Beach.

On the way to North Beach we passed through Chinatown:

Then we landed in North Beach. Ah!  North Beach!  I love it there. It’s home to what used to be one of my favorite liquor stores (closed for some mysterious reason when we were there), as well as one of my favorite cafes, and where I have had some really good healing experiences.  When we landed there, we just walked around a bit while I felt nostalgic. The restaurants there have taken to having someone stand out front and invite people in as they pass by. I know, it’s a bit like shoe salesmen at the mall, but it’s nice to see people who are willing to work for their customers (cuz a lot of businesses out there still could care less about the customer – even in this economy).

We ended up being charmed into going into Michelangelos Cafe for dinner.  They’re at the top of Columbus. They offered us free wine and snacks while we pondered what to have. We had good wine, tomatoes with mozzarella and basil, and something else for an appetizer that was scrumptious. For entrees I had the veal with portabello mushrooms, which was good. But my sister won the prize as she had the lamb shank. And I wish I had taken a picture. It tasted wonderful. It looked great. Of course it wasn’t finished and we decided to take it to go. We had also decided dessert would be at Caffe Greco, but all we talked about down to Caffe Greco was how good the lamb shank would taste as leftovers. Yum!

On the way to Caffe Greco, we saw Hotel Boheme, which I have always liked because of the name and lines of the building. But if you look below, you can see some of the businesses that are now gone.

And then at last we were there. Caffe Greco:

I wish I had thought to take a picture of my panforte and my sister’s dessert, but I didn’t. We did enjoy ourselves. It was a nice stop. I love that cafe. I always will.

Next we wandered to Columbus to see what we could see. O’Reilly’s Irish Pub is still in North Beach. The strip clubs are still on Broadway. And City Lights Bookstore is still there on the corner of Jack Kerouac and Columbus.  For some reason, I thought it was closed. I had forgotten how many wonderful independent and used bookstores inhabit San Francisco. So refreshing and such a nice change from Borders and Barnes and Nobles behemoths.

Above, Jack Kerouac alley, below, looking north along Columbus. Vesuvio Bar is on the left, and there’s City Lights Bookstore.

We didn’t stop in the bookstore or bar, but we did stop in a couple of nice little shops. One was a museum of sorts and I wish I’d taken pictures. It was fun. Lots of cool things from all over the world. We also had lots of good sisterly talk on our walk along Columbus.
By the time we got downtown and to our bus stop we realized we’d left the lamb shank (the wonderful, glorious lamb shank!) in Caffe Greco!

*sigh*

Anyway, we got home and fell asleep to a James Bond flick, still talking about the lamb shank.  And tomorrow would be another day…

I’m taking a page from my friend Jim’s blog and uploading my trip in stages. And of course, all vacations begin with a journey.

May 2, 2009

I traveled by train since I am not a fan of planes and their excessive fees and security measures these days. Traveling should be fun and not a drag. If I have time and the price is right, I go by Amtrak. Amtrak owns the trains but not the tracks so they have to be a little creative going north, though you have better luck training all the way coming back south. You can either bus up to some place like Bakersfield or San Luis Obispo and then train to Emeryville and bus over to San Francisco or some other combination thereof. I ended up getting a train up to San Luis Obispo and then a coach bus that went the rest of the way into the city and dropped me off at the Ferry Building on The Embarcadero.

The train trip up to San Francisco was pretty uneventful in the first half. I did some writing, some reading, and some snoozing in. Good thing, too, because I hadn’t gotten to sleep until like 2 AM and got up at 5 AM for a train that was scheduled to leave at 7:30 from Union Station. (It’s a beautiful station. If you’re ever in downtown LA you should swing by and see it, and while you’re at it, see Olvera Street right across the street from there. It’s the official heart of Los Angeles.)  With all I thought I had done packing, I was not organized enough to take the bus to the Red Line to the train and ended up just calling a cab and getting to the station way too early – oh well.  And again, as organized as I thought I was, I found I had done some weird things upon arrival in San Francisco, like tossing a pad of paper and a travel size hair gel in a small make up container for no very good reason. I also packed two extra pairs of shoes I never, ever used while I was up there, and not enough clothes, really.

Anyway, the first half of the trip on the train was quiet, though I sat near some women I had chatted with while waiting in line, I basically kept to myself. The second half of the trip, however, on the bus, I ended up getting to know one of the women who was going on a further. She hadn’t taken Amtrak before and she being an extrovert and a little nervous, I think she was trying to help herself be less nervous by chatting witha friendly face. It was interesting and pleasant and entertaining as, if you know me, you know that even when I’m trying to speak quietly my voice carries. Good if you’re shouting out drink orders in a bar, not so good if you’re trying to not disturb people on a quiet bus. Anyway, the teenager (? – coulda been 20 at the most) sitting in front of me on the bus rolled her eyes when I kept talking to my friend who was sitting across from me and eventually flounced into the seat in front of my friend. Then, when we just wouldn’t shut up (oh, you could just see how annoyed she was) she flounced back to the back of the bus to flirt with the guys back there. I was entertained, not sure about anyone else. It was also interesting to speak with a young woman who still believes that when a woman gets married it’s up to her to quit her job and take care of her husband. I haven’t been around that kind of thinking in a long time. She’d been married a year and a half and as an intelligent person was of course bored and looking around for something to keep her occupied, like getting involved in her church. She had some good ideas and I tried to encourage her, but I think she has a lot of tapes telling her she’s not good enough. I hope she uses those ideas though cuz if she doesn’t go back to work and doesn’t find an outlet it could be bad news. People need to be able to express themselves and use their brains.

Eventually she got off the bus, much to the relief of the teenager, who had no patience with my friends points of view on religion and marriage. And while they weren’t my cup of tea, either, well you attract more with honey than you do vinegar.

The bus had made a couple of stops that were extra or longer so we were running a little late and I got dropped off around 6:30 instead of 6:05 at the Amtrak station near the Ferry Building. You can see the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island from The Embarcadero where the Ferry Building is (these pics were taken a few days after I got there, but this is what you could see).

Above the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. Below, the rest of the bridge as it gets to Treasure Island.

From the Ferry Building, my sister met me, took me back to her place where we dropped my stuff off, freshened up and then went to the last night of a play by the Off Broadway West Theatre Company called The Homecoming by Harold Pinter. The Phoenix Theater is a very intimate venue consisting of a large room that is the “stage” and the chairs are set around the edges, the ones in back being put on risers. It puts you “in” the play.

This was HILARIOUS!  My sister was doubled up laughing and I was snickering the entire time. The thing is, it’s a really mean comedy. Very British. Working class British. Pinter is known for his uncomfortable pauses and “comedies of menace”. If you know that then it’s funny. If you don’t know that, then you’re wondering why you’re watching all these people be so weird and mean to each other.  Being English-American we thought it was sick and wrong and funny. And since this was the last night of the show, they had a party afterward with snacks and wine and champagne and such and many people came up to us to ask us why we thought it was so funny. Heh. That was even funnier! All we have to say? “You ate my cheeseroll!” (It’s a line from the play – they had cheeserolls at the party – you had to be there.)

After the wrap party, we decided we needed something a little more substantial both food and drinkwise. Thing about San Francisco is that other than bars, everything closes up so early!  It’s not like in New York where the restaurants stay open late especially for people going to plays and shows and such. We weren’t sure what we’d find, but on the recommendation of some people at the play party, we walked around the corner to a place called Max’s and had appetizers and martinis. At this point, if I’d been thinking, I would have taken pictures of the food and drinks. But I didn’t. But you’ll get more later. We had an asparagus and artichoke plate with some dipping sauce and of course I had a dirty martini.

We weren’t ready to hit the hay yet, but we didn’t feel like going out, so after stopping by a store to get some gin (I wanted to introduce my sister to Plymouth Gin), we headed back to her place and sat outside in back talking.

Imagine this place, only after midnight….

And after that, we made our way slowly into sleep. And that was the first day of my vacation.

Blog Contest is still going on through the 15th! Leave your comment here.

Well, not really, but you know what I mean. I will be away from any regular connection to the computer and the interwebs for the next week. I will not be reading blogs whether on Live Journal or Blogger, playing on Facebook, lurking on MySpace, haunting Tribe or anything else. I am spending the evening packing, printing out anything I may need for the next week like tickets and stuff and then I will be off!

In the meantime, I have put out this Gone Fishin’ sign by Bryan Moon just for you. Take a look at his other stuff, it’s pretty fun, especially if you’re a fan of the furry, pointy-eared ones.

I knew it! This article only reinforces at least two of my beliefs:

1) Anything that has been conceived by us either has existed, do exist, or will exist. We can think it, it can be.

2) I’m not wasting time or effort in planning out my escape or defense whenever I go into a place and see how it can be fortified against Zombies!

I’m right!

YAY! I made it. I didn’t think I would at first, but I did. This is the final prompt from Poetic Asides, a poem on Farewells. Below is my attempt:

Farewells

It’s always too busy to begin with –
the point of departure before farewell.
Too short, time. Too much to do as the path
rushes along: run, run, run. Who can tell
how long before you meet again? And then
if you do stop – what to say? Awkward pause
stretches to long silence. And thoughts of “when”
or “why” or “what if” remain unsaid ’cause
in a moment it’s over and you’re gone -
or they are: moved, left, died. Doesn’t matter.
Words unsaid are not heard; life carries on.
Rock’s already sunk beneath the water.
Trick is to make every hello – goodbye.
Say, “I love you.” Tomorrow we may die.