When I started Friday afternoon dancing in the Bart station, I had a feeling it was going to be an alright escapade. In the past two weeks as I've settled into a commuting routine, I've come to enjoy the rhythms and motions of the back and forth from the two ends of the line. The coming and going of each train, the off and on at various stations (and people at Glen and Balboa Park are not messing around) and most of all the motion of the car, which I need to fight from putting me to sleep. The mornings or afternoons following a late night are for napping, and the rest is split about 80/20 between books and music. On a good ride I'm getting around 100 pages done, which is a fantastic turnaround from my previous reading diet of 0 pages a day for longer than I'd care to admit.
But in between stops, the music is just low enough to let the wind of the tunnels and the clatter of the trains seep through like an additional instrument. The too-loud phone conversations or murmured parental instructions from a nearby seat are transitory cameo vocals. The people watching is fantastic between reading material choice, wardrobe, make-up application and mental pre-occupations. When I get home, Gavroche volunteers to DD for the evening. I meet some neighbors from down the street for the first time and we're off.
We start in the Marina where we part ways, Gavroche heading off with Vic as I make my way to Topher and ChengJ's place where they're embroiled in a new drinking game they've started called Democracy. It's a mash game of Beirut, Flip Cup and Kings. It's interesting to say the least. When we finish, they head to City as I get over to the Cloud to see E where he's been working for a few weeks now. Now, I'm in a pretty nice cloud by the time I get over there, and the rum and coke I'm handed contains a few promises of more to come. Of course, with E, heated conversations are the norm and before long we're going back and forth. So he's obviously surprised when one of the other workers at the place comes up to interrupt our conversation and ask him why he's holding an underage ID. Now I feel horrible because I feel like I might end up costing him his job due to lack of attention on the door while I engage him in vibrant discussion.
I leave promptly after and head back up the block where the groups of Gavroche and Vic and ChengJ and Topher have briefly merged. It is brief though as most of the group has vastly different ideas of where to go. A stop at Eastside a moment later and after last call it's into the car for crepes. I wake up Saturday morning, in my jeans on the bed, and still buzzed. Gavroche picks me up for Nini's where Katie again surprises me for breakfast, and contributes to the start of a ridiculous Saturday by rolling me out of there with four Mimosas. By the time we get home and get ready, it's time to pack road drinks and we're at Caltrain heading up to the Giants game. For some reason, it takes forever due to some strangely long delays at stops. On our way to the stadium, someone decides to throw something out of their window and damn near soaks Gavroche.
First home game of the season for me, which is odd considering how many games I usually get to in a season. Odder still that I've been to an A's game first. Za hooked these tickets up and we meet up with her in the bleachers before meeting up with Marc who brings down other tickets to get us into the club level where Topher and ChengJ have already made themselves at home. We've got two flasks in the backpack, which beats the hell out of paying 10 bucks for a watered down cocktail. Because we've taken the train, we've already agreed to make it a Mateo Stumble Crawl kind of evening.
After the game, I'm convinced that we need to get on the Express train because it bypasses every station from the city to San Bruno. We get on, only to find out once the doors have closed that the first stop is actually San Carlos. Big win for me. Off at San Carlos and back on to San Mateo, we head back to the house and play a few games of Beirut before heading out. It's on our way out the door that we run into Hosin and Jamie who are coming back from a late dinner, so they join us as we make a tour of bars that are sadly a bit on the dead side for a Saturday night. McGovern's is mildly dead, Mr. Pizza Man isn't any better, and I have to salvage losing 10 bucks to Gavroche (who made me bribe him to go out.)
On to Glow where we cap off the night in fine fashion by deciding to hand me, already going strong since breakfast, more cocktails. Nice show, that, because it leaves us walking home with me whistling. Now, I enjoy my whistling. Especially late at night, on an empty street, at 2 in the morning. Which is all well and good until a cop drives by and thinks I'm whistling at him. He makes a U-turn and drives up to us. "You need a taxi or something, why were you whistling at me?" He's none too pleased with me. I know it's not a good idea to say, "Is whistling illegal?" and I'm only saved from doing so when Gavroche jumps in and tells him, "No no officer, my friend was just whistling, it wasn't at you." He drives away, but it's a close call and gives me another reminder not to backtalk to police officers no matter how innocent your transgression.
So there you have it. A city outing and a Mateo shit show sandwiching crepes, Nini's and a Giants game. Pretty good. Preeeeety preeeeety preeeeety. Pretty good. Obviously from the pictures, I was feeling the sepia and B/W. Up next? Birthdays, Union Street Fair and ideally, soon, a bit more Lake.
No comments:
Post a Comment