Run SF, Run

I thought I couldn't run the most well-known footrace in San Francisco because I had a softball game double-header. Turns out it wouldn't have made a difference, even the god-I-love-them nutters who jog Bay to Breakers get up at running time to hit the streets. But I didn't realize this until the night before, over mac and cheese and broccoli and sardines with my buddy Hanna. So I sat this one out, but the two of us made plans to set out early for coffee and looky-loo.

When I woke up at 8, I could already hear the cheers and the music from my open window. The race and follow-up frivolity goes by not so far from my spot on the southern side of Golden Gate Park's panhandle. That is, it turns out a half mile is not so far when it comes to this particular event.

Hanna and I got in touch and I went to get a coffee and wait for her on the corner of Divisadero and Fell. It was a gorgeous gorgeous day. I had put on sunscreen and my team jersey, planning to walk to the fields in time for my game. When I got there, I immediately regretted not rocking the more deliciously garish colors the B2B deserves.

In the twenty minutes I was on my own waiting for my friend, I got to watch the amazing people of my newly rediscovered hometown go by in droves. There were unicorns, toga groups, three sets of homemade MarioCart characters, pokemon, a gaggle of bright yellow chicks, and the usual hot girls wearing hot girl costumes. There was a band of Mormons with bike helmets who greeted each other excitedly in the street, blue-painted tighty whitey wearing guys with the white hats of smurfs (plus one in a yellow smurfette wig), and a group of at least twenty ghostbusters. There were more naked men than I had seen in all of my almost nine years in Paris. There were people dressed as Legos. There was an Italian guy from behind me who taunted the police officers as they stopped people and poured out glass containers into the gutter. "Wow, your job must be incredibly difficult today." 

I struck up a conversation with him and a girl standing next to me. Italian guy eventually wandered off, but she and I continued to muse over what Bay to Breakers is all about. "You must have done this a hundred times, being from the area and all." "No, actually, I've been away for a while in France." "France?? Why would you ever come back?" I looked at her blankly and then gestured to the parade of ridiculous, wonderful people in front of us. It was easily the most satisfying answer I have ever been able to give to that question.

Hanna showed up and we walked up the route a bit to find some shade. We set down our stuff across from a makeshift garage DJ playing house and soul. We danced. She was done up a bit in tie-dyed leggings and running shorts. Again, I was jealous. We shouted out to all our favorite costumes:

- Tie-dye power!

- Yeah opera hats!

- Woohoo Mariachis!

- Right on guy in suit and rollerblades, way to commit!

- Bacon! Yeah! I don't even eat bacon and I love you!

- Marry me Michael Phelps! Nice swimmies!

- Pac Man!

- Juicing cyclists and their nurses!

- Jamaican bobsled team!

- Ostriches!

- Super buffed out dude with girl in fat suit!

- Another Jamaican bobsled team!

etc.

It was wonderful. We were there for about an hour and I then I had to go. My walking route to the field was about the same as the race route, so I got to see more chaos on the way. Including Alamo Square, with all the Full House colorful victorians and hundreds of merry makers. And hundreds going by. 

Next year I will get it together and run the race. There is something so appealing about doing something both athletic and ridiculous. Something encouraging silliness and community. Something so San Francisco. 

And frankly, I was impressed at the level of contained mischief. I had talked with a couple of very coppy looking cops a few days before. The two of them were drinking snob coffee in a hipster cafe and we chatted about the upcoming event. They said they were cracking down this year, but "Honestly, what are you gonna do? Aside from clearing away people who are too drunk to walk. Besides, we're at the bottom of the pay scale. It's just not worth it to keep people from having fun."

Turns out they did a good job. When I got back to Lyon St at the end of the day, no one was passed out in the front lawn. In fact, it didn't even smell like pee.

Ganache

The car was warm and the cake was heavy. Really, really heavy. Well, maybe it wasn’t the cake itself, the unmatched layers covered with beginning-to-drip ganache, maybe it was the two and a half inch butcher block we had somehow decided to carry it on. In any case, it was heavy, and my duty was to balance our creation (well, mostly Kate’s creation, but she was busy at the wheel) all the way to Monterey. And I was killing it.

We were going to Dre’s wedding, at the Naval Post Graduate School where she worked and had met her sweetie. The drive was two hours long, down the freeway and the coast past Santa Cruz, our university stomping grounds. It was a winding road, and I balanced the cake on the plane of my lap, working the centrifugal force by stacking left and right, keeping my side of the conversation going and the wedding cake intact.

the gown.

Probably, the cake would have survived regardless of my MarioCart-inspired acrobatics, but I wanted to feel that I had contributed just that much more. The week preceding, Kate and I had traveled down to see Dre and Peter, for his going-away party (in a UHaul full of DJ equipment, positioned open, facing the dolphins and seals and sunset of the bay). We had ended up in a pink champagne and Ben & Jerry’s fueled girls’ night arranging of Dre’s bridal costume, a gorgeously appropriate layering of classic lace and bright orange embroidery. Kate had volunteered our presence for the Big Little Day, and then her cake concocting for this last-minute affair.

Like other weddings of my international friends, this one had been pushed forward by the requirements of Green Cards and cross-continental travel. Peter is Swiss-Austrian, and the two of them would be Europe bound soon enough. The ceremony itself would be aptly silly. Complementing the bride’s orange gown, the groom would wear a lipstick kiss in all his wedding photos and, after the outdoor naval-base ceremony involving dancing and bubbles and singing along to Home Is Where You Are, we would all have to stop and freeze for the playing of TAPS.

It had been unexpected, this wedding. For me anyway. I had found out about the engagement some months before by phone outside in San Francisco’s financial district.

“I have something to tell you,” Dre had said, on speaker in her car during commute hours.

“What?”

“I’m getting married.”

“WHAT?”

“I’m GETTING MARRIED.”

“Hold on, I can’t hear you…”

“Ok, is that better?”

“Um, yeah. Yeah I think so.”

“I’m getting married.”

“WHAT?”

And so on.

marzipan  and construction paper.

But really, it’s that time. Kate had gotten married a year or two earlier, in a wedding filled with tiered cakes and mason jars, with forage-inspired floral displays and a mountain lodge retreat on the side of Mt Tamalpais, where the fog and wind whipped at all of us but my friend the bride looked so serene. There had been quite a few others. Mostly out-of-the-ordinary, non-religious, and with unmatched bridesmaids. The most traditional looking was secretly an open marriage, and the least- involving second and third takes, sheep, two bands and a jam session, a campfire, and a double teepee- has proven one of the strongest and longest so far.

So I suppose I am starting to evaluate things I had never considered. Maybe that’s why I would act a little weird once we arrived in Monterey. Maybe because of the couplings all around. Maybe because of her impending escape to the very place I had just left. Maybe because I was tired from drinking too much wine the night before while the Kitchenaid threatened to fling batter all over Kate’s linoleum, maybe because of uncertainty in the face of the surprising inevitability of Time Marching On.

Meanwhile though, I was working so hard to hold this now-intact velvety chocolate cake aloft, to prove my support for one of my closest friends’ great big decision, for everything that had happened before and would happen after. To prove my capacity for tackling a task at hand. So, every turn, I paid attention. I looked ahead. I anticipated motion and kept it all level. So that this cake would arrive and be beautiful and delicious and worthy of all the things I and we wanted for her. Worthy of her. And through the hilly expanse of agricultural Northern Califonia, flanked by cows and sheep and what would be artichokes, with my other best girl at my side and my stomach aching from laughter and travel, with a mind full of silly memories and the pushed-back feeling that things were changing regardless of me, with an extra towel just in case the ganache slipped, and a cup of coffee wedged in the door of the City Car Share rental: I had to feel like I was killing it. 

Epicurean Regression

oooh... stock image

After six months of re-American life, I started to feel the hankering for French things again. I had been staying away from them: not looking at pictures of Paris (more difficult to avoid than one might think), not interacting too much with the people I left behind, avoiding bakeries. But about a month ago I found myself ordering a (disappointing) croissant in a cafe. Selecting brie instead of pepper jack. Reverting to "pardon" when I bumped into people by mistake. It seemed I was ready to confront the France that I missed in a more direct, need I say visceral, way.

It began at Christmas, when a friend flew back a box of macarons. Those little delicate cookie creations, vibrant colored crackling puffs sandwiching fragrant creams and jellies in flavors like Vanilla Olive Oil, Hazelnut Cocoa Bean, Moroccan Mandarin, Rose and Lavender... I ate them almost exclusively at night. In bed. Guiltily cheating on my homeland and its Oreos.

I began having cravings for French food. Some of these were satisfied by the family friend with whom I'm staying, a woman who has learned from three decades of marriage to a Frenchman how to simply, matter-of-factly concoct the perfect tarte aux pommes, to make pate à choux rise just so, and to flavor everything with cream and butter. She also makes killer chocolate chip cookies, but I digress. Regardless of Priscilla's kitchen prowess, what I really wanted was escargot.

My date and I got dolled up on a Wednesday and headed to the inner Richmond for a night of inner richness (ha ha ha). He was excited. Ordered a town car. He had never had snails before and was raring to go. He was not disappointed. 

mmm... stock image

It is difficult to mess up escargot. The traditional recipe exists essentially as an excuse to consume butter perfumed with garlic and parsley, but oh, it is so so good. Especially helped out with a glass or two of Sancerre. We had oysters too, with red wine vinegar mignonette, and then I had bouillabaisse and there were digestifs and a complimentary apple tart (not as good as Priscilla's)... I was in heaven. I was in fake Paris. I knew it was fake because a female French customer told us we looked fabulous.

But that wasn't enough. I needed more invertebrates. For my birthday Kate took me up the coast to Tomales Bay, where we sat in the freezing cold sunshine (ah, Northern California winters) and I learned to shuck, shuck, shuck my little heart out. My dear friend knew just what to do. She brought champagne, a spread of cheeses, lemons, and a beautiful baguette. I thought of my uncle Jean François and the mountains of oysters we put away during the holidays in Toulouse, of my first bivalve off the coast of Brittany, of my father and his skilled wielding of the blunt, heavy-handled knife. Kate and I ate ours raw, of course, all 36 of them. I looked at the families around us, many foolishly barbecuing their little gems of the sea, and scoffed.

Then the next day I reviewed the places on Yelp, had a burrito,  and everything went back to normal.

Retirée

It has been a while.

I am not sure if I have been getting used to California again or if I have just become accustomed to the Summer Vacation Lifestyle of staying at my mother’s, in my childhood and adolescent bedroom, watching TV and sitting around the deck. Now with the addition of a bottle of beer.

Maya with electric lines (or whatever)

The view has gotten better. They have cut down the trees in front of the house and now the only thing marring the strangely enticing view of the freeway and the bay is the collection of thick, low-arching electric lines. Electric or telephone, I guess I don’t know, but they are definitely there.

I have been escaping quite a bit, to San Francisco and Oakland, Santa Cruz and Monterey, a fledgling music and cabaret festival on the Russian River. I still have a lot of friends here. Last week I made myself stay home for ten days, telling myself that I had to get down to good old brass tacks, send off thousands of resumés and get moving. Also I spent ten dollars on a promotional ten days of Bikram and Power yoga in order to force the issue. I bought a new yoga mat that my mother laughed at. It’s brown and she says it looks like poop. She is a bit obsessed with poop. She also says my cat, who has an asymmetrical spot on her muzzle, looks like she has been eating poop. I always said Nutella, but mom won’t let it go. 

Dolores Park, on a day without bubbles but with Mime Troupe

The other night I was in San Francisco with my friend Charlotte, we ate take out in Dolores Park between some hippies from Denmark in neon green jumpsuits and multicolored dreadlocks and some homeless guys with an all-terrain skateboard and a dog that tried to eat Charlotte’s falafel. There was a band with a battery-powered amp and someone with a bubble machine. When it got cold and we got tired of posing for a modern-day Maupin novel, we walked to the apartment Charlotte was subletting between circus contracts and she made us tea. We laughed a lot and very hard.

Charlotte and I have a relationship that started when I first moved to France, she was taking time off from a math degree at Berkeley, doing modern dance and sharing an apartment with a French ballerina-type. There was a sheet dividing their rooms if I remember correctly. I had known her ex-boyfriend back in Santa Cruz and we shared many a vegan mush dinner. She returned to Europe after completing her degree, this time to Brussels where she studied handstands 8 hours a day. We’d see each other at least once a year, when she came through on a field trip or a contract, or when I had a visiting friend who wanted to take a train ride out of France, but not so far as Amsterdam. We hung out in Paris right before I came back to California. Last week’s festival- Charlotte was my in- was the first time we had seen each other on this continent.

Charlotte, waffle-ironing.

So yeah, we laughed a lot. The place she was renting had a fake mural on the wall of the kitchen and a fold-out ironing board. I took pictures of Charlotte posing with a waffle iron (we couldn’t find the clothes kind). We talked about our love lives, our work lives, our plans for the future and our lack of plans for now. We talked about things we had done and she reminded me of conversations we had had (somehow I am never the one who remembers). There is something so nice about knowing someone for so long. It was very hard to leave her behind. If I remember correctly, we refilled the teapot six times.

I have been getting this feeling a lot lately, the feeling of sharing life by sharing time. Everyone is becoming an old friend and the bar is getting higher for meeting new people. If I haven’t known you for an approximate decade, you had better be really interesting or attractive, or there is little chance that I will remember your name. I met one girl three times last week. I felt pretty guilty, until I found out she is a twin, then I figured she was probably used to it.

I am definitely going to become crotchety before I hit 35. Maybe the Summer Vacation Lifestyle is really just a glimpse into Retirement.

(While writing this entry, my mother began talking about our genetically high insteps and their relation to loose joints and hip problems. I told her that, as of yet, these are not problems for me. Her words: “Well, you’re a child.” So I guess I’m complaining about nothing. I take it all back.)

Fog

It is very foggy in the Bay Area.

You would think I would remember this, that 8+ years living away would not have wiped my memory of this integral fact, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks. The window that looks out onto the bay from the dining room at my mother's house here in Mill Valley is white with fog, criss-crossed with telephone lines and bordered with leafy green. And red. And greygreenred.

I went jogging today on the bike path that runs under the freeway, to Sausalito and San Francisco, and was almost trampled by a woman with an industrial-sized baby buggy and golden retriever.  They came out of nowhere. Manifested out of the white. I dodged them, barely. Must remember the sporty yuppy factor when in Marin. Not so much a problem back in Paris. In Paris jogging threats were mostly limited to guys overexcited about the idea of a woman with stamina. Or people picnicking on the canal. Or my own incapacity to multitask (unzipping my sweatshirt, changing my music, and keeping my feet going on uneven terrain having ended in bloody knees on more than one occasion). Here it seems the fog can hide all sorts of forgotten threats.

In the strong visibility of of the living room, my cats are having a face-off. Paris trying to gain terrain on California. Shady, so named by one of my college housemates for her ability to sneak around and grab at people's ankles from under beds and tables and couches, is trying to hold her home turf. Her low-pitched threats sound impressive, at least for a cat protected by the slats and legs of the piano chair. Shady is the matriarch. I left her here with my mother in 2003, when I went to Paris "for a year or so" to check things out. Shady has since been joined by Kittyton, the lumbering star of my brother's youtube channel, and now Maya, straight off the plane from France, has come to rattle the delicate balance. Right now Maya is lying on the floor, about five feet away, watching. Every now and then she sneaks closer, bridging the gap, working on reducing the space between them. 

I imagine them outside, in a ring covered in white fog, darting in and out, circling and hissing, until they decide it's not worth it and lie down in a dogpile. Well... catpile.

While the cats try to get used to each other, my brother is lying on the couch, watching baseball. He and my mother are teasing me for my lack of player and stat knowledge. I tell them that it's not that I am not a fan, I just don't particularly care. My mother says it's only a matter of time. That soon enough I'll be sporting orange and black, shouting at the TV and refusing to go to the kitchen to replenish snacks when it's my turn. Maybe so. 

But for now the fog is too much for me.