scott, "are you bringing the jar wine?"
me (idiot, completely serious) "should I? Is that tacky?"
I once excitedly asked my friend Hannah, when she had mentioned Boston, "you've been to Boston?!?" She laughed at me and said,"Rachel, I'm from new england. That would be like me asking you, 'you've been to San Francisco?!?" Well played.Indeed, that beautiful,prohibitively expensive city is just a stones throw from my hometown. It's where I am waking up today, in my friend's fancy company paid for temporary apartment as he works on an assignment. It's the day of bay to breakers, and moments earlier I was watching spectators stream outside of scott's second story window in where's waldo costumes.
Last night we went to the Castro, where we learned that a woman can be harassed and nothing done to the offender because, "it's a man's bar" (in retrospect it was interesting to complain discrimination to a gay man), and then I think we were in the mission (so hip! I don't know), where we had the luck/opportunity to meet up with Duncan, one of my favorite people who has moved to the bay. I would have liked to harass more friends come migrants to the city,but there was just no time and traveling as a group for britney's birthday made it impossible.
I love this fair city, although I can claim no special knowledge or familiarity with it. Fun fact for all of you identity stealers out there: I was born in the bay area. In penninsula hospital. My mama moved all of us elsewhere when I was still an infant because the bay area was too expensive. I have always wanted to live here now that I get to decide where I go/don't have three small children to pay for feeding and sheltering like she did.
My nana lived in south city for over twenty years and when I was a kid we would come out and visit her a couple of times a month. I remember thinking the car ride was so long and tedious (it was usually less than two hours). I love/d her apartment, which now only is a memory. Nana is still with us, but she has since moved about a a mile away from my parents house. Her apartment had shag carpeting and a long mirror that was cracked as a result of the quake of '89. She kept sodas in the spare bedroom for when we visited and had legos and barbies for us to play with, my brother getting priority for the legos (he had the power to tell me that he was playing with them and I couldn't). My nana kept a few special barbies that she said I could have one day if I ever started keeping my room clean. I never got those barbies.
Memories associated with south city include weighing myself on the bathroom scale (because it was fun) before I was even conscious of my weight as an indicator of other things (we didn't have a scale at home). I remember waking up to smells of bacon and eggs and drinking orange juice on the small round table in the space between the small kitchen and living room.
our sleeping arrangements were that I would usually sleep in the bunk bed in the spare room, while my sister would either join me or would sleep with nana(who snores) and my brother would sleep on the fold out couch in the living room. Sometimes, I would stay up late with him, watching tv until he kicked me out to go to sleep.
Nana lived by sign hill, which we once climbed. We would go to church with her (we only ever went to church with nana... a few times uncle john too) and sometimes get rolling pin donuts afterwards.
There was a jade plant in the lobby, and a little further back a washing machine and dryer that nana said she could have paid for over the years with quarters. It was a small unit. I like the memory of the big picture window in the living room and the ocean breeze that we would gulp in after emerging from the car upon arrival.
In the single hallway nana hung painted portraits of all of her five children that must have been drawn in the sixites or seventies. my mom's was done the latest, and was the only one done out of chronological order. My uncle john was a baby, and my mom, younger than him, was drawn as a child. A little further back, next to the spare bedroom, was a glass case filled with a menagerie or glass figurines. further back was my nana's room. I hardly ever went into that part of the apartment and would sometimes get scared by the portraits on the walls, and especially if the light was turned off.
In the spare room there was a detailed map of sixties era disneyland, and stuffed animals for us to play with.
People are waking up now and I need to end this walk down memory lane. love, rachel
p.s. the mexican restaurant in south city, la tapiata (I think it's called) has the BEST salsa for sale. I'm in the mission and the sheer volume of mexican restaurants makes me want to weep with happiness.
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