in a fog

...checking for many days the weather pattern predicted for this week. Not good. The Midwest is riddled with storms. Why did I pick such a tight connection to San Francisco? A thirty minute layover in Detroit?I'll never make it!

I wake up at 4 (my automatic alarm, the one I was born with, never fails). I look outside. It may be dark still, but I can tell what's out there: fog.  My computer says: 0% visibility. Damn.

Rush now. It will take twice as long to drive (or be driven) to the airport. And delays. There will be delays.


Would you believe it: there are no delays. Flight to Detroit takes off early.

From Detroit, flight to San Francisco also takes off early. Shocking, considering.

I fight off tiredness and grade exams all the way to California.






My flight lands in the dense fog of a San Francisco morning. Pleased and tired. all at the same time, I stumble to the Bart (train) station.


At the downtown SF hotel, there is a mascot of sorts, a greeter, a welcoming dude. Here he is:






I can't quite afford the view I had last time I was in this city (especially since thoughts of retirement loom large), but I love the fact that when I asked (as I always do when I book places) for a room with a pleasant view, they tried, they really tried. (Looking out now, I see Apple, Target, Nordstrom.....)

I take the BART to Berkeley to meet my mom. We go out to lunch at our very favorite Berkeley lunch spot ("Slow").






It has only been two or three months since I've visited last and indeed, the weather is hardly different now. Stuck in that Bay area predictability: cool mornings, warm days, cool evenings.







When I am with my mom, I know that there is much that needs to be talked through and worked over. At times I think I open doors for such long, reflective reviews and that this is a good thing, at other times I think she must surely need a very long rest after I'm gone.

Paper work. We have that to work through as well.

And then it is evening. Dinner at a tiny Vietnamese place, empty now that the semester at UC Berkeley is over and the students have left town.





...and then I ride the Bart back to downtown SF, tired, so tired that I almost sleep through the stop where I'm to get off..


Luckily in life, there is always another chance to get off and set your course right again.