Meanderings: September 2, 1999

Thursday,
September 2, 1999

Now today was MUCH better. It also helps when one has the intelligence to request extra pillows and such from the hotel management.

Today was Lyndon's day to go off to Berkeley and check out the gaming shops there. Apparently this is the first week of school, so there were tons of new students wandering around, buying books and looking a little lost. Lyn said that he felt like he was back in school again (it doesn't hurt that he really, REALLY likes Berkeley. And apparently there are a whole bunch of crafts stores and such, so it looks like I'll be heading back myself at some point, heh, heh.

So what did Mellie do when she was alone in San Francisco? Why, go to Good Vibrations, of course. Good Vibrations is a woman-owned sexuality shop on Valencia, near 23rd Street, and it is just the most awesome shop imaginable -- clean, well-lighted, friendly and knowledgable staff, and a spectacular selection of vibrators, plugs, straps, harnesses, manuals, videos, sex toys -- think Toys 'R' Us with dildoes and you have the right idea. They also used to carry Circlet Press anthologies, so I thought I'd browse around and see if they had anything I could sign. Unfortunately, they didn't, but I did spend some time admiring the new range of jewel-colored jelly dildoes -- very pretty.

After that was a fast bus ride to North Beach, the Italian area of SF, and a meander through City Lights, the famous bookstore founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Purchased a time travel comedy there (for reference, of course -- gotta see what the competition are up to, dontchaknow), and then -- be still, my beating heart -- lunch at the Stinking Rose. This is a restaurant dedicated to that most pungent of vegetation, the garlic bulb. Everything in the restaurant has garlic in it, from mild doses for those who are weak of stomach, to hearty great whopping slabs of the clove for aficionados. Considering that I'm waxing eloquent about this place, I think you can guess which camp I fall in, yes?

So, lunch -- a starter of bagna calda (roasted garlic cloves simmered in warm olive oil and a dash of anchovy paste -- the cloves are soft and sweet, and perfect for spreading on fresh warm foccacia rolls), then a small pizette of smoked mozzarella, Roma tomatoes and garlic, and the house salad with garlic dressing. I may have stunk to high heaven when I walked out, but my tummy was saying "Thank you!" I have GOT to take someone else here before I leave, just so that I have a good excuse for going back.

The rest of the day was spent back at the room, perusing my book and doing a little writing of my own. And then, of course, we ran into a bit of a snafu -- see, we were supposed to check out tomorrow and stay the weekend with my friend Lisa Beard. We also have three great horking bags that we did NOT want to lug around San Francisco tomorrow while we waited for her to come home. Add to this a dinner engagement with some of Lyndon's friends at the Cliff House.

So, the plan was this -- we would do some fast laundry, pile everything expect a change of clothes and assorted toiletries into the big bags, hump them over to Lisa's for safekeeping, then head on to dinner with the friends. Except that we DIDN'T count on running into a desk clerk with a sweetheart cab deal and the general dearth of SF cabs. We're supposed to drop off the bags at Lisa's at 7:30 pm and meet Paige, Greg and Michelle at the Cliff House at 8:00 pm. The laundry is running a little late, and it's 7:45 before everything is dry enough to pack. No problem, we think -- we brought the big bags down to the laundry room, and can leave directly from there as soon as everything's dry. So while I'm folding up the last little bits, Lyndon goes to the front desk to request a cab. Aha, but the desk clerk won't let Lyndon see a Yellow Pages or make the call -- he insists on calling a company himself, and says that they'll be at the motel in 20 minutes. Which is not good, as twenty minutes would make it 8:05 pm and we still have to drop off bags at Lisa's and get across town to the Cliff House. But we don't have much of a choice at this point.

So Lyndon says okay, order the cab, and then goes to wait on the street and see if he can flag down a cab. And for some reason, every bloody cab that went past was full and ignored him. By the time I brought the bags out, it was 8:15pm, the ordered cab hadn't shown up, and there were no hailable cabs in sight. Lyndon, understandably, doesn't want to be late and is getting extremely agitated about all this -- he storms back into the office and asks why the cab hasn't shown up. The desk clerk calls again and says that it'll take another 20 minutes for a cab to arrive. This is the last straw -- Lyndon charges out, we grab the bags, and drag them up the hill to Van Ness in hopes of snagging an empty car there. As luck would have it, a cab was waiting for someone at the Comfort Inn who never showed, so we were able to grab that one and head over to California, where Lisa lives.

California runs over Nob Hill, which is a steep patch of dirt. The cabbie, who was a sweetie, parked up and didn't charge waiting time while Lyndon grabbed both bags and charged into Lisa's building. And came out five minutes later, drenched in sweat and gasping -- Lisa lives on the third floor and the building doesn't have an elevator. Lyndon had effectively carried more than his own body weight in luggage up two flights of stairs at a dead run. Poor baby.

So while he's puffing and gasping, the cabbie runs us over to the Cliff House. By the time we get there, it's 8:45 pm, and Lyndon is convinced that the gang got fed up and left without us, so I pay the driver while he charges into the restaurant looking for them. Of course, being San Franciscans they're perfectly aware of the cab situation and reassured us that it wasn't a problem. Blessed people. So we had a lovely seafood dinner overlooking the rocks at Seal Point, laughed a lot, and topped everything off with my first Baked Alaska -- ummmmm. Fancy baked marshmallows, actually, but extremely nice.

Tomorrow -- a day with an overnight bag, and Lisa's.

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