October 25-27
After I sent my last e-mail, we headed out to Foley’s for dinner.
We sat at the bar, and met a lady from San Diego who was watching the World Series. She was very happy. She comes from Cleveland and has lived in Chicago. So she was rooting for the Indians and the Cubs.
That was game one, and the Indians trounced Chicago six-nothing.
I’m not sure how it came up, but I mentioned my connection to Mechanical Engineering magazine. Everything I know about engineering I have learned from Samuel Florman’s books and from working on the magazine.
She, however, has a technical background and has written computer software of different kinds.
She told us, though, that when she started out there were few women engaged in information technology. There are fewer now, she said.
I was surprised by that at first and am not sure that she is accurate. But I remembered stories about women being driven out of jobs by the boys’ club atmosphere of many engineering and IT departments. I wouldn’t know first-hand if that was a widespread problem either.
She was drinking red wine and well ahead of me, so she was feeling no pain when she left.
A short time later, a business group of some kind took over the end of the bar.
One guy was not only uninhibited but also limber as hell. He wound up winning a blond away from a guy who just wasn’t as hip.
After a few minutes, they were doing dips and catches as if they’d rehearsed them. Maybe they had.
By that time, I was feeling reckless enough to try dancing. I had no idea what I was doing, but sometime well after I turned 40, I think, I learned how to move my knees to rock my ass. So I was able to fake it.
Tried something that resembled a merengue.
Joanna really knows how to dance and could follow whatever I decided on the spur of the moment to do.
I may have faked it pretty well because we got a few fist bumps when the music stopped. I mean, how often does anyone get to see geriatric clinch dancing?
One guy even said he wanted a hair-cut like mine. I told him he’d have to stop cutting it.
I looked at the check the next day. I had signed it at about ten to one in the morning.
Wednesday we asked the desk for some directions. We walked a block up Powell to the corner of Geary and took the 38R bus toward Land’s End.
The route went West on Geary, a trip that included an endless climb. It was like cable cars half-way to the stars and all that.
We got to see plenty of the city on the way. Churches and squares and confusing intersections. The Victorian wood houses known as painted ladies. Lots of cars and a few pedestrians.
We needed to change to the 28 line. I asked the driver about making the transfer.
Bus drivers are very friendly here. He told me the cross street we needed was called Park Presidio (I had the name wrong). He also told me when we got there.
The second bus took us north through the Presidio to the visitor center at the Golden Gate Bridge. I was going to test my vertigo.
We oriented ourselves at the visitors’ center, where we bought a refrigerator magnet shaped like the bridge, and then we went for a walk.
There was information posted in a concrete pit that once held a large antiaircraft gun. There were also three model suspension bridges on a table.
Each model had towers of a different height. You pull on a handle to test how much pressure you need to apply to tighten the cables. The taller the towers, the less pressure.
When the bridge opened it was the world’s longest single-span suspension bridge and also had very tall, maybe the tallest, towers. The design allowed the safe use of a lighter cable.
The bridge starts over land, indeed soars above an old fortress, and by the time you get over the water, it must be several thousand feet high. I say that because the altitude made me light-headed.
This walk wasn’t as bad as the time Jack T. and I crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos in a high wind. That day, I expected to be lifted up and dropped a million or so feet into the river.
Crossing the Golden Gate, though, every time I stepped to the railing, to take a snapshot or to look at the birds and boats in the distance below us, I got wobbly.
I had to walk a few feet away from the edge. I felt better when I took my hat off instead of trying to hold it on my head. There was no heavy wind, but a stiff breeze up there.
But it was well worth the effort. The bridge crosses the strait at the head of the bay. On one hand you see the City of San Francisco and Alcatraz, and on the other the Pacific Ocean.
This was my second visit this year to an Alfred Hitchcock shooting location. I was at Mount Rushmore in July.
Appropriately enough, the Golden Gate Bridge appears in “Vertigo.”
We got as far as the first tower and decided it was time for lunch. There is a cafe back on solid ground. Not much to choose from, but I had a hot dog so big and full of sauerkraut that I had to eat it with a knife and fork.
Joanna had more clam chowder. The stuff is everywhere out here, and so far has always been very good.
It was terrific to sit by the window and watch the soaring bridge and the traffic on the water. The small boats get quite a rocking when they pass the strait under the bridge.
The supports of the bridge may have someting to do with that. But it’s also the narrow where the ocean meets the bay.
Besides ferries and small sailboats, there are windsurfers and container ships crossing each other’s paths.
When we got back to the Union Square neighborhood, Joanna remembered a nail salon on Powell Street, so she went there to have her nails done.
I killed some time with an IPA at Bartlett Hall. It was the house brand called Tropical Yacht.
It reminded me of Lagunitas, with a hint of fruit sweetness, probably from the choice of hops rather than the addition of fruit to the brew.
With her freshly manicured fingertips, Joanna was ready for dinner. We went to Cesario’s, a short walk from the hotel on the corner of Mason and Sutter.
Joanna had penne with Bolognese sauce. I had penne with a sauce that included spinach, eggplant, and olives.
The wine was also good. I had a Chianti and a nero d’Avola. I also finished the last half of Joanna’s nero.
After half a glass of wine and a plate of pasta, Joanna was starting to get drowsy. We walked to the hotel where we said good night and I went down to Foley’s for more wine.
I was trying to behave. At least, I made it back to the hotel before 11.
Thursday was a day of frequent drizzle, so we sheltered at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park.
There’s a transit hub a couple of blocks from the hotel at Powell and Market where you can get trolleys, buses, or subways to take you anywhere. You can also get a cable car if you want to waste time standing in line.
The route to the museum, in the Golden Gate Park, was easy. The No. 5 or 5R bus takes you directly to the park. You get off at 10th Avenue and stroll a short distance into the park to the museum.
Cars here actually stop for you when you come to the crosswalk. So crossing the park road was not dangerous.
The museum has several collections, including a Mesoamerican section and another on the art of Oceania.
The first floor has an exhibition of sculpture, much of it glass. One piece is the figure of a woman wearing a simple dress. It’s a little smaller than the Infant of Prague.
The entire figure is translucent and under the folds of her skirt are the hints of legs. I have no idea how that illusion was done.
Some of the others were downright funny, like a scowling giant in a multicolored suit.
The largest area that we visited is devoted to American art from Colonial times to the present.
Most of the Colonial painting is portraiture. Landscapes take over in the 19th century. Many are the Romantic scenes of towering trees and mountains with tiny people somewhere in the foreground. I love that kind of thing.
The later 19th century and early 20th show the influence of the Impressionists.
There are Copleys, Whistlers, and Homers. But the big hit of the painting galleries is a take on Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of George Washington.
The painting is very similar to the Gilbert Stuart portrait used on the dollar bill. It is hanging on the wall near the elevator on the second floor.
Next to it is something much newer, by an artist named Ray Beldner. It is a reproduction of the Peale portrait rendered in stitched-together dollar bills.
We took some minestrone in the museum cafe and stepped outside briefly in the drizzle to look at some of the installations on the lawn.
We came back to the hotel for a breather. We didn’t want to walk far in the rain, so we went downstairs to Foley’s for dinner.
Nothing spectacular: crab cakes, bangers and mash, a few familiar ales.
Life is good.
Love to all.
Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment