Thursday, May 30, 2013

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.


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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:


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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").


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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.



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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.


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...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.