Sometimes Parents Just Don’t Understand

My parents visited us over the weekend, here are some of the highlights:

Thursday 03/22/07
I picked up Ed and Joyce along with their traveling companions, Richard and Roxanne at the SFO airport on Thursday afternoon. After wedging the luggage into my smallish automobile, we were on our way back towards the city, with my mother making gasping noises about my driving the majority of the way. I responded by making fun of her for wearing her San Francisco T-Shirt we had given her for X-mas.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and cruised into Sausalito in Marin County. We enjoyed a nice lunch at a little café and checked out the bay. Next we went up Highway 1 into the base of the Muir Woods. I had planned to take them to a nice lookout that was about ¼ mile off of a trailhead off of the highway, but was foiled by the cops. I had entered a closed section of the highway (road construction) and the officers were not amused at my ambitions to drive along that portion of the road. I pleaded ignorance and went back on my way sans any citations, which was nice.

Once back in the city, we took our visitors to their vacation residence. I had found the top floor of a flat a couple blocks from our place. It was a really nice two bedroom affair that had a working fireplace, a rather large television and stereo system, even laundry and a dishwasher. It kind of made our place look drab by comparison.

That night the six of us went out to dinner to Jimi-san’s Japanese Restaurant. We enjoyed several different appetizers and rolls, and everyone was very game about trying new things. My mom even used chopsticks and was close to mastering them by the end of the evening. Jimi-san hooked us up with free desserts at the end of the meal, he’s the best. The evening was capped off by a drink at the second oldest bar in SF, the Little Shamrock.

Friday 03/23/07
The six of us headed over to Golden Gate Park and went to the Japanese Tea Gardens. It was really beautiful in the gardens, with some excellent water features, bridges, blossoming cherry trees and Zen gardens. After that, we headed across the street to the arboretum and checked out some of the foliage there.

Our zeal for plants satiated, we caught the Muni to the Upper Haight Neighborhood. Mom was amazed that someone was actually driving the train, I’m not sure if she thought it was controlled by robots or something else. We checked out some of the shops and took some pictures at the ever-famous Haight-Ashbury crossing. Mom and Dad picked up some Haight-Ashbury hoodies and then mailed them to themselves so they needn’t tote them around the rest of the day.

We dined at a brew-pub called Magnolia for lunch. My father completed what I’d term “The Big Lebowski”, by tasting every single type of beer available in the establishment by consuming not one but two sampler trays of 2.5 oz. beers. Richard also got the new nickname of “Oysterhead”, named after the Stout that was being served at the Magnolia (Richard’s surname is Stout).

Once lunch was completed we took a bus down to the Mission area and wandered around a bit. It was OK, although Mom thought that the Ice Cream Cart Vendors were fanciful homeless people (very confusing logic from Mom here, too much to get into detail). Around 2:30 we headed over to the Zeitgeist, a killer biker/bike-messenger bar that has a huge backyard with picnic tables. We ordered most of our drinks successfully, although Roxanne’s request for a Malibu/Diet-Coke was rebuffed by the bartender (“I don’t have either one of those” he growled). Roxanne ended up with a margarita on the rocks instead. Eventually, our friends Paul, Dan, Newton and Rich all showed up to enjoy the sunshine and partake in a few drinks. Around 5 o’clock we left to catch a Muni back into our neighborhood. Once the train arrived, we packed on with the rest of the normal Friday commuters.

We met back up with the crew to go out to dinner at PJ’s, an Oyster Bar/Cajun joint in our neighborhood. It was a great meal that was enjoyed by most, with the exception of poor Roxanne. Unfortunately, the two Margaritas at the Zeitgeist had done her in. I didn’t really think about it when she was ordering, but the bartenders there mix a very strong drink, and everything is served in pint glasses there. As a result, Roxanne didn’t eat anything at her and Richard’s 5th year Anniversary Dinner, Diana and I felt terrible about it. After dinner, the group minus Roxanne met up with our friends Rich and Cat at the Dubliner for a nightcap.

Saturday 03/24/07
With Roxanne still out of commission from the Margaritas, the rest of us walked around the west portion of our neighborhood. We showed them all of the various restaurants and stores where we shop for our groceries, the highlight being the Sunset Super Market where we showed them the vats of live fish and buckets of live frogs. A clam even spat water out on Mom, which was funny. We picked up some crazy Japanese candy for our nieces and went back towards their flat.

Roxanne was back up and ready to go by the time we got back, what a champ! We headed to Union Square to catch a cable car ride up to Lombard Street. We walked down “The Crookedest Road” and made our way to North Beach. We had a nice Italian meal and then walked a couple of blocks over to China Town. It’s always amazing to be in Europe one block, then South Asia the next.

We caught a street car over to the piers and checked out the sea lions, then we headed a couple of piers over to queue up for our boat to Alcatraz. The day was rather gray and misty, so we didn’t sit up on the top deck, but still had a neat view for the 15 minute boat ride to the island. Since we were on the night-time tour, we had a free 45 minute audio tour. There were some legitimately creepy parts of the old prison, including the hospital and the hallway where the grenades had blown out pieces of the floor during an uprising. I still can’t believe that people had to actually serve out sentences there, talk about “Hard Time”.

We caught cabs back to our neighborhood and went to New Eritrea, a North African restaurant. Although reluctant at first, even Mom got into the idea of eating everything with our hands and using the flat bread/pancake pieces used for scooping up the various veggies and meats brought to us on a huge platter.

Sunday 03/25/07
We went over to the flat to pick up the group and then made our way to Darla’s for breakfast and Bloody Marys. We were delighted to be waited upon by Darla herself and had a delicious meal. After breakfast, we packed up the luggage in our car so they could be checked out on time, then hopped the Muni and went to Ocean Beach. The tide was really low that morning, so everyone had a good time picking up shells and sand dollars and watching the plovers dig up crabs.

We eventually made it back to our place and let Josie lick everyone until it was time to head off to the airport. Overall it was a successful visit that left very few casualties.