February 2016 marked six years of me living here in San Francisco. It’s hard to believe that much time has passed, but at the same time I feel so at home in my latest adopted city. I sometimes find myself struggling to remember what it was like to live in the suburbs, drive every day and not be able to just walk to the dentist, or take in the beautiful sights along the Embarcadero as I go for a run. I’ve grown accustom to the weather and seasons (or lack thereof), and barely think twice when making plans. Of course the weather will be beautiful!
I love you, California, I adore spending my time on The Dock of the Bay.
Our travel schedules this year have been a bit crazy though. I just returned from my second overseas conference of the year on Monday and MJ has been spending almost half his time time traveling with work. We’ve tried to plan things so that we’re not out of town at the same time, but haven’t always been effective. Plus, being out of town the same time is great for the cats and our need for a pet sitter, but it’s less great for getting time together. We ended up celebrating Valentine’s Day a day early, on February 13th, in order to work around these schedules and MJ’s plan to leave for a trip on Sunday.
It was a fabulous Valentine’s Day dinner though. We went to Jardinière over in Hayes Valley and both ordered the tasting menu, and I went with the wine pairing since I didn’t have a flight to catch the next day. Everything was exceptional, from the sea urchin to the beautifully prepared, marbled steak that melts in your mouth. I hope we can make it back at some point.
With MJ out of town I’ve had to fight the temptation to slip into workaholic mode. I definitely have a lot of work to do, especially as my for-real-this-time book deadline approaches. But I’ve grown appreciative of the need to take a break, and how it untangles the mind to be fresh again the next day and more effective at solving problems. On Presidents’ Day I treated myself to an afternoon at the zoo.
More photos from the zoo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157662402671763
I’ve also gotten to make time to spend with friends here and there, recently making it out to the cinema with a friend to see the Oscar Nominated Animation Shorts. I grew to appreciate these shorts years ago after learning my beloved Wallace & Gromit films had been nominated and won in the past, but it had been some time since I’d gone to a theater to enjoy them.
While MJ has been in town, I’ve reflected on my six years here in the city and realized there were still things I’ve wanted to do in the area but haven’t had the opportunity to, so I’ve been slowly checking them off my list. Even small changes to accommodate new things have been worth it. One afternoon we took a slight detour from going to the Beach Chalet and instead went downstairs to the Park Chalet where we had never been before.
High Tide Hefeweizen at the Park Chalet
While on the topic of food, we also finally made it over to Zachary’s Chicago Pizza over in Oakland, near the Rockridge BART station. I’m definitely a New York pizza girl, but I hear so many good things about Zachary’s every time I moan about the state of California pizza. We went around 2:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday afternoon and were seated immediately. Eating there is a bit of an event, you order and wait a half hour for your giant wall of deep dish pizza to cook, I had the Spinach & Mushroom. The toppings and cheese are buried inside the pizza, with the sauce covering the top. It was really good, even if I could barely finish two pieces (leftovers!).
After Zachary’s I had planned to take BART up to downtown Berkeley to hit up a comic book store, since the one I used to go to here in San Francisco has closed due to increasing rent. I was delighted to learn that there was a comic book store within walking distance of where we already were. That’s how I was introduced to The Escapist in Berkeley, just over the Oakland/Berkeley border. I picked up most of the backlog of comics I was looking for, and then hit up Dark Carnival next door, a great Sci-Fi and Fantasy book store that I’d been to in the past. I’ll be returning to both stores in the near future.
And now it’s time to take an aforementioned break. Saturday off, here I come!