Vanishing Act
Feb. 1st, 2005 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Today is my day to be fairly invisible. Well, for awhile, anyway. I'm going to the old office, just before it moves forever to a new location, for lunch with my old coworkers. This should be interesting, as it's a place I spent a decade of my life in, and when the company leaves, the building will be essentially gutted. That chapter of my life will be closed for real, even more than last year when I left. Time marches on, etc. Anyway, one more day in the old neighborhood, with the old crowd, as it was.
Toys is back in class today. He's been totally overloaded with freelance work lately, and now has an 8:30 class to look forward to - not a good match for Mr. Nite Owl, I'm-Not-Awake-Before-11:00-Plus-Coffee. He's been making terrible piteous noises, despite my best coddling, poor thing. He'll accept sympathy from one and all.
Went for a looong walk yesterday, just because the weather was finally beautiful and I needed the exercise, big time. I've decided the Presidio is my new favorite place in the city. The Nat'l Parks Service is redoing huge tracts of the area in a reclaimed-nature style, preserving the more historic army base buildings, but giving the whole setting more of a wilderness feel than it previously had. (I actually saw a gray fox prowling around in a sunny square flanked by old barracks, looking for rabbit holes, presumably - quite the sight.) The old Crissy Airfield has been redone as reclaimed wetlands, lovely for walks along the shore, and hiking around the old military areas lends up some great sights, like the old artillery command HQ, with its front door flanked by Howitzer shells, and the base "Pet Cemetery." I'll have to go back and take photos sometime.
Last chapter of the William fic coming soon.
Toys is back in class today. He's been totally overloaded with freelance work lately, and now has an 8:30 class to look forward to - not a good match for Mr. Nite Owl, I'm-Not-Awake-Before-11:00-Plus-Coffee. He's been making terrible piteous noises, despite my best coddling, poor thing. He'll accept sympathy from one and all.
Went for a looong walk yesterday, just because the weather was finally beautiful and I needed the exercise, big time. I've decided the Presidio is my new favorite place in the city. The Nat'l Parks Service is redoing huge tracts of the area in a reclaimed-nature style, preserving the more historic army base buildings, but giving the whole setting more of a wilderness feel than it previously had. (I actually saw a gray fox prowling around in a sunny square flanked by old barracks, looking for rabbit holes, presumably - quite the sight.) The old Crissy Airfield has been redone as reclaimed wetlands, lovely for walks along the shore, and hiking around the old military areas lends up some great sights, like the old artillery command HQ, with its front door flanked by Howitzer shells, and the base "Pet Cemetery." I'll have to go back and take photos sometime.
Last chapter of the William fic coming soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 10:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 10:46 am (UTC)great sex- sorry, brought my own, now that I think on it. *g* Go.(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 04:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:34 pm (UTC)...or, rather, at least I don't think so. ; )
But anyway, he just beat me to the invite because he got home first. So again, consider yourself encouraged! We love showing off the city. We're giant show-offs.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 11:07 am (UTC)Those cliffside trails weren't for the vertiginously-inclined, though. I was always amazed a good rain didn't simply wash them away. Nostalgia...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:56 pm (UTC)I did stay overnight at a friend's house in the Sunset in '98, but didn't visit any old haunts.
*sniff* I loved that town so.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:41 pm (UTC)shucks, I moved away before it stopped having a working army hospital.
It's all shut down now. Quite sad, actually.
Those cliffside trails weren't for the vertiginously-inclined, though.
No joke! When I first moved to the city, I used to climb just about everything, including the trail up to Coit Tower, which is almost vertical... but the older I get, the more nerve I lose for the serious cliff-climbing...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 07:13 pm (UTC):( Tempus fugit. I was living in SF when the flatulent-but-fabulous sea lions first moved into the anchovy slips at Fisherman's Wharf. The merchants raised a terrific ruckus -- until they realized the sea lions were attracting more custom, at which point everything got nice and matey. Except for the displaced anchovy guys. I never did hear where they ended up.
Are the sea lions still about?
I used to climb just about everything, including the trail up to Coit Tower, which is almost vertical
Ooh, Coit Tower. Good times. That was one of my first things too. I remember they had a contraption there, a machine that squished pennies. You put in your penny, and the machine ran it through a sort of mangle, and it came out wafer thin. One side was stamped with a tiny Coit Tower. I wonder if it's still there. The machine, I mean, not my penny.
Another rambling reply. Heh. I've been battling the deadline dragon, and it's really doing my head in. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 07:32 pm (UTC)I've haven't been up to Coit myself years - it was open the last time I was there, and I was fortunate enough to see the Diego Rivera murals, v. gorgeous. (There's a similar, but lesser known set up at the SF City College theater.) I'd expect the machine is still there, or at least there's a representative of its type at the Museum Mechanique, which used to be out at the Cliff House (finally being remodeled, and the new version looks gorgeous with modern Deco lines and lots of glass) and now takes up a big pier shed at Fisherman's Wharf. All antique amusement machines, plus the old Playland "Laughing Sal."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 08:41 pm (UTC)(Wow. No cell phones. I'm going to go off and reel over how long ago it all was.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 09:11 pm (UTC)One of the sale reps at the old photo lab I worked at had a cell phone that she let people call home with. It was the kind you kept in your car, the big ones. I spent the next few days after that in Berekeley, where a friend of mine lived, because the East Bay had power. But that first night... aftershock-o-rama.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-02 07:55 am (UTC)After the tsunami it occurred to me, when a great natural disaster strikes, people across international boundaries respond with a generous outpouring of concern and aid, but when the disaster is inflicted by humans upon other humans, most people don't want to know.
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Date: 2005-02-03 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-02 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-03 01:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-03 07:24 am (UTC)Me too. Who knew that within two years after I left the cost of living there - always among the highest in the country - would have shot so quickly to such dizzying heights that I became effectively shut out from returning if I wanted. Going back for visits is bittersweet (high on the bitter, low on the sweet). I lived there nineteen and a half years, and returning as a visitor is hard because I'm there on streets that used to be mine but are no longer. Always too sensitive for my own good - since I left - I kid you not - I can't even read books or watch TV or movies set in SF. It's too depressing.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 04:38 pm (UTC)What does it say about me that it took me a few seconds to remember that this is the correct spelling?
Nothing you don't already know, I'm sure. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-01 06:46 pm (UTC)