Get a cuppa coffee first... this is gonna be long
My younger sister just turned 37 a few weeks ago—I made her a sweater (some day I’ll take a picture of it and post that picture over on the knitgeeks blog. But not today).
I hope she likes it, although if she doesn’t, I’m sure I’ll hear about it in some round-about way. She’d never be hurtful on purpose, but I might hear something like, “It’s really pretty and if it wasn’t so short I’d probably wear it all the time.” I don’t know. I’m making that up.
My older sister Kate—now if I made her a gift she didn’t like, she’d be right up in my face with what’s wrong and then she’d help me figure out a way to fix it for her. But on our perfect Saturday (a week ago already!), as I was finishing the sweater for Teri, Kate pointed out that we can’t make people like the gifts we give them, we can only give and hope they appreciate and maybe even enjoy them. So on Monday I’ll mail the sweater to Teri. We’ll see how it’s received.
I’m not sure how I digressed so far—I haven’t even really started. I wanted to tell you about my perfect Saturday in San Francisco with Kate. Frankly, after having promised it to you for the last week and not being in a position to deliver until today, I find myself feeling very selfish about the memory and not entirely sure I want to share it.
See, Kate and have always had a really special closeness. I mean, once she and Teri stopped ganging up on me, trying to convince me I wasn’t really their sister, and beating me up. Yeah—good times. Once Kate discovered smoking dope and Teri discovered higher-mathematical functions, the tables turned; Kate and I became virtually inseparable. (Hey Kate, remember that time we were driving home from Turner’s house after a few bong-hits and it took me like 3 blocks to convince you that we really weren’t in Europe anymore and you were supposed to be on the OTHER side of the street? Hahahaha—that was funny!)
Ah, but I digress again. Tell you what, I’m just going to give you the photojournalist blog entry, ok? I’ll add commentary sometimes maybe, or perhaps not (what? You can’t do a thing about it—it’s 11:45 and I JUST GOT OUT OF BED! I’m feeling all powerful right now!).
Please note, every single one of these pictures was taken by Kate. I forgot my camera.
Ok—first we went for breakfast. Couldn’t get the damn digital camera to work. So annoying. We even bought new batteries. Still, nada. So you get no pictures of our cute selves walking about in the Sunset District, oohing and aahing over the AWESOMELY CHEAP fabric stores we stumbled into!
Then, after sheer will of force (and a lot of fucking around with the batteries), the camera began to work, and I began to drive. I think first we went to the Financial District area. Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that. Or maybe not. Anyway, here’s a picture of Market Street, taken either right before or right after we spent too much time in a book store having a sale:
Did I mention that we found an awesomely excellent parking space while we were in that part of town? Oh yes, we were mighty!
(Click on picture to enlarge. Seriously—can you see that you’re not supposed to park there after 11:00 on a Saturday? Neither could we. I’m so contesting that ticket!)
Anyway, parking woes aside, we HAD to go check out this exhibit at SFMOMA. Seriously, who puts a museum in an area where the parking meters only go to 30 minutes and they cost 5 cents a minute?
After dropping $1.50 in the meter for our half hour jaunt, we rushed up to the museum line only to discover the entrance fees were prohibitively expensive, so we went across the street to the grounds of the Yerba Buena Gardens. All the buildings were closed, but the grounds are SO BEAUTIFUL, it didn’t matter. Here’s SFMOMA from across the street:
And if you turn 180, this is the view:
And just near that one is this:
Pretty, huh? By this time, our meter had run out and our feet were getting sore. Besides, we were supposed to meet our dad downtown in an hour or so, so we headed to North Beach to have a cuppa while we waited for him. Driving toward North Beach--Beautiful view of the Bay Bridge:
For those of you who don't know, North Beach butts right up to China Town (creating an creating an odd cultural mix--like chinese restaruants serving tiramisu for dessert. But again I digress...) Who knew it was freaking Chinese New Year and there would be NO WHERE TO PARK?
We made our way though the masses, such as it was (we actually drove straight down Broadway and into a parking garage to avoid the masses!) and walked over to Vallejo and Columbus to get some delicious lattes.
(If you look there, you can just see the edge of the sweater I was making for Teri--it's the orange bit in the background.)
Alrightie then. That brings us full circle. The rest of the day contained segments that made us each angry and sad (but not at each other), so I'm not going to write about them. Suffice to say, we are both looking forward to another day together without children or responsibilities--but next time we'll do things just a little differently. And we won't wait for ELEVEN DAMN YEARS!
Kate--I love you.
I hope she likes it, although if she doesn’t, I’m sure I’ll hear about it in some round-about way. She’d never be hurtful on purpose, but I might hear something like, “It’s really pretty and if it wasn’t so short I’d probably wear it all the time.” I don’t know. I’m making that up.
My older sister Kate—now if I made her a gift she didn’t like, she’d be right up in my face with what’s wrong and then she’d help me figure out a way to fix it for her. But on our perfect Saturday (a week ago already!), as I was finishing the sweater for Teri, Kate pointed out that we can’t make people like the gifts we give them, we can only give and hope they appreciate and maybe even enjoy them. So on Monday I’ll mail the sweater to Teri. We’ll see how it’s received.
I’m not sure how I digressed so far—I haven’t even really started. I wanted to tell you about my perfect Saturday in San Francisco with Kate. Frankly, after having promised it to you for the last week and not being in a position to deliver until today, I find myself feeling very selfish about the memory and not entirely sure I want to share it.
See, Kate and have always had a really special closeness. I mean, once she and Teri stopped ganging up on me, trying to convince me I wasn’t really their sister, and beating me up. Yeah—good times. Once Kate discovered smoking dope and Teri discovered higher-mathematical functions, the tables turned; Kate and I became virtually inseparable. (Hey Kate, remember that time we were driving home from Turner’s house after a few bong-hits and it took me like 3 blocks to convince you that we really weren’t in Europe anymore and you were supposed to be on the OTHER side of the street? Hahahaha—that was funny!)
Ah, but I digress again. Tell you what, I’m just going to give you the photojournalist blog entry, ok? I’ll add commentary sometimes maybe, or perhaps not (what? You can’t do a thing about it—it’s 11:45 and I JUST GOT OUT OF BED! I’m feeling all powerful right now!).
Please note, every single one of these pictures was taken by Kate. I forgot my camera.
Ok—first we went for breakfast. Couldn’t get the damn digital camera to work. So annoying. We even bought new batteries. Still, nada. So you get no pictures of our cute selves walking about in the Sunset District, oohing and aahing over the AWESOMELY CHEAP fabric stores we stumbled into!
Then, after sheer will of force (and a lot of fucking around with the batteries), the camera began to work, and I began to drive. I think first we went to the Financial District area. Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that. Or maybe not. Anyway, here’s a picture of Market Street, taken either right before or right after we spent too much time in a book store having a sale:
Did I mention that we found an awesomely excellent parking space while we were in that part of town? Oh yes, we were mighty!
(Click on picture to enlarge. Seriously—can you see that you’re not supposed to park there after 11:00 on a Saturday? Neither could we. I’m so contesting that ticket!)
Anyway, parking woes aside, we HAD to go check out this exhibit at SFMOMA. Seriously, who puts a museum in an area where the parking meters only go to 30 minutes and they cost 5 cents a minute?
After dropping $1.50 in the meter for our half hour jaunt, we rushed up to the museum line only to discover the entrance fees were prohibitively expensive, so we went across the street to the grounds of the Yerba Buena Gardens. All the buildings were closed, but the grounds are SO BEAUTIFUL, it didn’t matter. Here’s SFMOMA from across the street:
And if you turn 180, this is the view:
And just near that one is this:
Pretty, huh? By this time, our meter had run out and our feet were getting sore. Besides, we were supposed to meet our dad downtown in an hour or so, so we headed to North Beach to have a cuppa while we waited for him. Driving toward North Beach--Beautiful view of the Bay Bridge:
For those of you who don't know, North Beach butts right up to China Town (creating an creating an odd cultural mix--like chinese restaruants serving tiramisu for dessert. But again I digress...) Who knew it was freaking Chinese New Year and there would be NO WHERE TO PARK?
We made our way though the masses, such as it was (we actually drove straight down Broadway and into a parking garage to avoid the masses!) and walked over to Vallejo and Columbus to get some delicious lattes.
(If you look there, you can just see the edge of the sweater I was making for Teri--it's the orange bit in the background.)
Alrightie then. That brings us full circle. The rest of the day contained segments that made us each angry and sad (but not at each other), so I'm not going to write about them. Suffice to say, we are both looking forward to another day together without children or responsibilities--but next time we'll do things just a little differently. And we won't wait for ELEVEN DAMN YEARS!
Kate--I love you.
posted by Aimee at
2:05 PM
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