POST 100 - Ma & The Younguns Take on The City - Day 2

What do you do when you find yourself in need of a hotel room for the night and you haven't prepared with silly little details like packing? You count on "MacGyver" in the form of your teenage daughter to come up with ideas.

"Hey, that cat box we just bought is still in the trunk. We can throw our junk in there and use it for a suitcase," intones said daughter.

"I'm not walking through the lobby carrying a CAT box," I protest.

"Who cares? They'll never see us again. Who'll know?"

No one, I'm sure.

So here's a picture of our Samsonite Luggage Cat Box. It carried all our c-rap and we put a pillow on top - oh yeah, we had a pillow for the car - and schleped it right through the lobby like the back water, two teeth sportin', overall wearin', knuckle draggers we are.

And if you wanna go to the beach, don't buy pretty little sand and shell buckets. Just use the containers your kids ate their healthy french fries in.

No beach towel for the ocean? No problem. Plant your posterior on a floor mat. It indents pretty little patterns on your backside as a bonus and you'll look like your buns were grilled on a bonfire. That's sorta beachy don't cha think?

When it's time for dinner, go here. Polker Burger is our favorite neighborhood joint in San Francisco. It's on Polk St. if you're ever in the area. Great prices and food good enough to slop down the front of you when you don't have a change of clothing. Anyone who's known me for very long knows I can't eat ANYthing without spilling it on myself. Why not all the more so when what you're wearing is what you will also wear tomorrow?

Shampoo supplied in the room makes great laundry detergent for all your washing needs and the blow dryer works well, too. Kiss yourself right on the lips as you look in the mirror for thinking to wear two tops. Even though one is open and has buttons, the under one, once it's dry, can be slept in. Try to lay really FLAT all night long and maybe no one will know the difference the next day.

Hike the hills and take pictures of places like these. Don't linger too long with your dinner down your front. They'll take you for vagrants and have you hauled off. That might not be bad though. You get three hots and a cot for free.

Have your children, in this case Hannah-Bo and The Wild Man, sit on someone's stoop and look like they live there. We did. But some ultra-fit bicycle metro-sexual dude in his skin tight high-dollar bicycle outfit started scoping out Hannah-Bo. Kept turning around and eyeing her while nearly falling off his bike. We left before she caused an accident. Though it would have been fun to watch.

"The Thinker" here (aka TWM) was actually very close to the Legion of Honor Museum where they have an incredible Rodin exhibit. This happened to be on the deck of the hotel that Grizzly found for us online.......for $87.00. In San Francisco. On the spur-of-the-moment. It's good to have a husband who has worked a lot in this city and knows exactly where to send a stranded wife and kids. If you look really closely - or enlarge the photo - you can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

This sculpture is in front of the building I go to at UCSF. We love the convoluted angles because everything that happens to me here is convoluted.


And don't these buildings look like they're falling toward one another into the middle of the street?

Welcome to the newly rebuilt Museum of Natural Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Now get out.

We weren't here very long when they evacuated us all. About 2,000 of us were escorted rapidly out. Why? We never knew. But I had a jaunty time visiting with the cutest kids from a Chinese private school. They wore plaid skirts (the girls, not the boys) and bright red sweaters. We chatted each other up like old friends and I found out all about their likes and dislikes, school projects, and why they hate uniforms. They didn't even mind about my backwater ways and two teeth (one on the top and one on the bottom fer good chewin'). I would have taken a picture but their parents weren't there to give permission and I'm funny about that with my own kids.

Back inside we visited the aquarium, sat through the MOST amazing Planetarium film, a 3-D movie on the life of bugs, and wandered through a green biosphere filled with birds and butterflies.


These choppers (below) were interesting. I think I should have a big blow-up of them to hang out in the entry way to my study when I'm feeling crabby. That would serve as a warning to all without the use of words. My kids would appreciate the signage, I'm sure. I could have used this warning sign after we visited the museum cafe. Mind you, my only possible carrying case was the Samsonite Cat Box which I truly DID refuse to carry through the museum. Consequently, we had nothing to pack our own lunch in. We were at their mercy.

I do not lie when I tell you they charged NINE.DOLLARS.AND.FIFTY.CENTS for a hamburger bun with cheese and turkey on it. No fries. No anything else. Chips were $2.50 a bag. I am feeding two teenagers here, for Pete's sake. But I wasn't about to be extorted three times over. I cut one sandwich up into three pieces, we shared two bags of chips, and, out of the goodness of their teeny tiny museum hearts, they gave us free cups of water. Then I lectured the kids on the evils of highway robbery, told them to buck up (you should know here.....they had each eaten their weight in free pastries at the hotel continental breakfast not many hours before), and promised to feed them again at a more financially prudent time.

What do you think this is? I have no idea either. But I like the color, shadow, and lines.

We left San Francisco headed east on the Bay Bridge. Halfway across we stopped at Treasure Island. I've always wanted to do this but it's been a Naval Base. It was recently decommissioned which opened it to the public. Every time I pass the exit I say we should stop and investigate. Someone told me you can even camp out there. We took the exit this time (it feels REALLY weird to exit a bridge in the middle of the ocean). As we headed down it became quickly apparent we weren't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Criminal types cruised around and looked very scary.

I was thrilled when I saw two police cars with someone pulled over. I stopped and asked the least busy one if it was safe out here with just a woman and two children. He looked dubious and then added cautiously, "Should be okay as long as you don't drive through any neighborhoods or stop the car." Feeling safe and welcome, we left.

But this view of the rest of the Bay Bridge connecting into Oakland was taken from the waterfront area. I don't think we'll be camping here just anytime too soon. But if YOU should decide to, bring your Glock. (Just kidding City of San Francisco! I know you have wonderful prohibitions against law-abiding citizens possessing handguns. Only the thugs of your lovely metropolis and now, apparently, Treasure Island as well, are permitted such favors.)

And when you exit Treasure Island and re-enter the Bay Bridge, you will merge immediately onto the bridge. You will have to go from a dead stop at a stop sign and you will have no merging lane. Traffic travels at around 170mph. Good luck. Plan for this to take two hours to get the guts to take off, and another hour to find a spot to fit into.

Thus concludes our tour. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial on survival and site-seeing in San Francisco. For all it's faults, it's still my favorite city in the world (so far). I hated to say good-bye but I knew we would be back. And maybe next time we'll bring the deluxe, COVERED cat box with the handle on top.

(All photographs courtesty of Hannah-Bo, except where she appears.)

P.S. In my last post, a few of you thought I was asking God to take me home. I really just meant I was ready for him to take away the migraine. I do feel death, in this situation, might be too permanent a solution to this temporary situation. But I'm glad to hear you would miss me!

P.S.S. This was my 100th post in the four months I've been out here. I am amazed that I have yakked on so much and still have so much to write about. Not a lot to SAY, mind you, but a lot I'll be writing. Thank you ALL for hanging with me this long. You're the BEST!

Copyright 2009