San Fransisco Treat
My admiration for Helene Redell and Ardith Betts rises exponentially with the complexity of the task at hand. We have gathered in the lobby of the hotel and they are orchestrating madly: who isn't here, call their room, the bus is late, lets get the luggage loaded, who brought bagels? Aren't you sweet!
2 hours after departing Princeton, we arrive at the Newark airport where our tour bus disgorges a heap of luggage the size of a mini-van and a gaggle of hung-over scholars. We are 2 hours early for the flights, and since we have one-way coast-to-coast tickets we are virtually all chosen for "random" luggage inspection. The only scholar to have not been chosen: Kian Gohar, a swarthy Iranian-born multi-national, multi-lingual scholar. Go figure. I, personally am never surprised when I get pulled out of line: I look like trouble. The inspections took almost 2 hours, causing Helene to nearly stroke out. We arrived at our gate with approximately 20 minutes to spare.
A direct, trouble-free flight -- complete with a mediocre movie -- later and we're on the ground in sunny California.
We arrive in San Fransisco mid-afternoon, and are met by Zach, Zina's Dad. Several of the other scholars are also from the Bay Area and are also whisked away by family members. We head directly for our hotel where we unload our heap of luggage. We shuffle things around in the suitcases, taking only one to Zach's where we will do laundry.
On the way to Zach's, I notice that California is home to tons of old cars, from the nearly ubiquitous original VW Beetle, to immaculate examples of the Datsun 240 Z, to the mundane import daily drivers such as a very early Honda Civic station wagon, which I think would be a tremendously cool project car. If I had unlimited time and money, I would shoehorn a Honda VTEC motor into one and call it a day. SF is also known for it's bike scene: I see all manner of bikes from the '70s and '80s including a pristine '84 Suzuki GS1100, which I consider one of the really handsome bikes of all time. Also on the way I see a shop entitled "Mr. S Leather and Fetter Shop". Welcome to San Fransisco.
Zach purchased a new home since our last visit, and we are given the grand tour. Zach describes the transaction as "buying a view with a house attached". He's only partially right: the view is spectacular, but the house is quite nice as well. There is a two-car garage for his woodworking shop, a large kitchen and open living room/dining room floorplan, and enough space in the basement for a pool table. Sadly we didn't have time to use it on our visit.
The house tour complete, we take a short drive over to a public beach and walk to the shore. Zina says that the agricultural fields to the south of the path used to contain artichokes, but they are full of string beans or sugar peas now. The view from the overlook is nice, in spite of the slightly cold, foggy weather. We are all wearing rain gear, but I've opted to keep my shorts on: I didn't realize that it would be so much colder at the shore.
We opt not to go down to the beach at this locale, but rather to drive south to San Gregorio beach, which has several miles of open shoreline. I enjoy the walking and chatting: Zach is good and interesting company. I enjoy the difference between my native Atlantic beach and this Pacific beach. I see interesting flora and fauna, including a plant that had washed up on the beach like a quote mark flung from it's paragraph habitat. I have to admit that I was getting pretty tired and genuinely not looking forward to the walk back. We arrived at a cave that is usually under water: it was a weird strange rush to walk into the absolute blackness simply trusting that the ground will be under my feet with each successive step. Even though my camera battery was dying, I took a couple of shots in the dark, quite literally. I discovered later that I had forgotten to put the lens cap on and there was a mist of sea spray on the lens, leading to an interesting distortion of the image.
I didn't particularly enjoy the walk back to the car: it occurred to me that we awoke at 5:30 am Eastern time, and that as dark settled over the west coast beach, we were hiking at midnight on our body-clock time, and we had not eaten dinner yet. I'm also not very fond of walking on the beach: it feels like the sand dissipates about half of the energy I put into walking and my calves get sore. I was grateful to reach the car. On the way home, we stopped at a farmers market and bought some artichokes and other veggies for dinner.
The following day, Zina's friends Anna and Frank were invited for brunch. Zina and I woke up early we were still on Right Coast Time and we went shopping. We bought some bagels, eggs and bacon. We also stopped into a nursery where we bought some seeds for vegetables. We have the idea that we can make our Mongolian apartment into a hot house and have fresh veggies during the winter months. I hope it works out.
Back at the house, we cook up a huge batch of food, and Frank and I split a whole package of bacon since we're the only meat eaters. Boy, that was delicious, and I savor it because it will probably be the last decent bacon I have for a long time. After the brunch dishes are cleaned up, we do our laundry, read email, and I sort pictures.
Visiting Family, Part II
In the afternoon, we head over to Zina's Mom's house. The day is lovely with a light breeze. Zina's younger brother, Sergei, is an avid fan of anything aeronautical. He and I take one of his model airplanes over to the schoolyard and fly it for almost an hour before dinner. When we return, there are hot hachapuri a delightful Georgian dish consisting of cheese-filled bread which is slit open and an egg is dropped in.
After dinner, we hang out and talk for a while, playing with their new kitten, whom, because of it's big ears, Zina names Murcielaga, which is the Spanish word for bat, the flying animal, not the sporting equipment. It's a really good cat boundless energy for playing, a sweet disposition, and capable of big, mellow belly-rub induced yawns, which I have the good fortune of capturing this in living pixels. Murcielaga is, unfortunately, just a substitute for our cat, Umble, who we sent to live here while we were gone. He ran away several weeks before we arrived in SF. I was really looking forward to seeing him, and I'm really bummed that he's gone.
The visit with the Momski-side of the family was entirely too short and yet, quite comfortable. It was like we were just dropping in for a snack on any ole' evening, not at all like the fanfare and hoopla that we've been going through. This is a really nice thing, and I'm sure I will miss this kind of comfort because you just can't get it with strangers no matter how hard you try.
NOTICE: all contents copyright Alan Lapp 2002