A Multi-Coastal Update

Occasionally I email updates to the extended family. I’ve decided to archive lightly edited copies here. This one is from Sept 16, 2014.

I am currently sitting on Parnassus Avenue, midway up a hill that forces vehicles of all sizes to rev their engines, particularly when all you want is a second nap.

In any case, I made it. I’m officially a San Francisco resident. It didn’t happen without its woes. I’ll belabor those shortly.

For those of you who aren’t clued into the family gossip, my special lady and I “mostly” decided last fall to move west around this time this year. We “fully” decided in March when she accepted a teaching job offer.

So she’s midway through her second week at the new school teaching 3 and 4 year olds. What is special about this school is they spend 1 day per week in the “natural classroom.”

A natural classroom is a park. It is unfair how much extra time those kids’ childhoods will involve using sticks as weapons. At this point I should remind you that the accuracy of my interpretation of things is rarely perfect.

I’ll fast forward you through the summer:

A. 7 Weddings

B. Trip to Brazil for the World Cup. Saw the US beat Ghana. The only better sporting event I can imagine is a Packer Super Bowl.

Anyway, Mal got out here in early August for work and served as boots on the ground in our apartment search.

The apartment situation out here is brutal. BRUTAL. But we had good luck and locked down a solid spot in about 2 weeks. It’s in a wonderful location that includes the aforementioned mechanical choir singing from the hilly intersection 8 feet outside our windows.

Coming from NYC metro, I’ve chosen to take comfort in those late night sounds of buses accelerating uphill. (I wish I knew more about engines so I could make that sentence really come alive with emotional weight.)

I moved out of my apartment at the end of August. Meaning for the 2nd half of August I was gloriously bi-coastal. Moving taught me many things, but I’ll spare you those for now. (I did in fact write them down.)

After tying up loose ends, I got to SF on Sept 7 via Michigan for a wedding, which was a rib-breaking good time. That’s not a joke. The bride broke a rib falling off a horse.

She didn’t know until Monday, so it wasn’t serious.

Quick: what’s the first thing you do after moving across the country?

If you answered “fly back to the other coast,” then you were correct. That’s the result of A) a conference and B) exquisitely poor planning.

On the plus side, I had a few flights to check several bags for free (Southwest and JetBlue). No other plus sides.

So I officially moved here Saturday night, Sept 13. Turned on my phone and Hark! Peebles offered to pick me up. We had Indian food and then went to an empty bar, the same bar we first patroned during my first visit. Then I needed the kind of sleep for which our bloodline is renowned.

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