California dreamin' (Part Two)

With Katie and Nancy on top of Coit Tower

You don’t want to use the word iconic lightly. I think though that it’s safe to use it for three places we went in the San Francisco area.

1: Golden Gate Bridge (needs no explanation.)

2: Muir Woods, the National Monument that is a redwood sanctuary with coast redwoods more than 250 feet high and 400 to 800 years old. The East Bay Times summarizes: “ The National Park Service preserves “that singular icon of Northern California, the coast redwood.”

3. Coit Tower, a top of Telegraph Hill. (Just to make sure I wasn’t exaggerating, I looked it up and read, “Coit Tower is an iconic site on the San Francisco skyline.”

Nancy planned a whole itinerary, starting with my arrival on last Thursday, to which we adhered pretty closely except for substituting more time outside instead of the Legion of Honor Museum. I had been to Coit Tower, but this was an exceptionally interesting visit because she booked a private tour, in which our guide explained the history behind the Depression-era murals.

Atop Coit Tower

A sign at the tower explains, “In early 1934, the building became the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), and offshoot of the Civil Works Administration, one of the ‘alphabet soup’ of federal agencies that put people to work during the Depression. (Our guide said it owes a lot to Eleanor Roosevelt.)

…Many of the most important Bay Area artists of the time were hired to create the artwork. The twenty-six project artists worked together to support the unified theme of ‘Aspects of Life in California, 1934′, depicting scenes of agriculture, education, urban and rural life, and New Deal idealism. 

One of my favorites: life in a newspaper office.

Afterwards, we had lunch at the Saint Francis Yacht Club, where Nancy is a member, and walked along the beach towards the Golden Gate Bridge. It didn’t look real, but it was. I don’t know how many times I should say beautiful, but that’s what it is. It was sunny and in the 60s, a balm to East Coasters who had gone West out of the cold.

Lunch in the trees

Our Airbnb was in the town of Tiburon. I got in a jog of two and a half miles, part of it along the water, and met Nancy for coffee. We had a view of the water. I took a video of the ferry coming in. I could do all of that some more.

After checking out of the Airbnb, on the last day, we drove up into the mountains.

Tree hugger

We had lunch on the deck of the Mountain Home Inn, along the Mt. Tamalpais ridgeline, which felt like we were floating in the trees. Then it was on to Muir Woods, and then on to get a snack at the Parkside Café before a sunset walk along Stinson Beach. We found so many perfect sand dollars that my traveling companion wondered if they were real!

The joy of being there was compounded by watching little Goldie’s joy in everything. I treasured watching her and Katie play along the shoreline. Serena is doing such a good job with her. I got a kick out of how she kept calling us Cousin Ronni and Cousin Katie. Little baby Leo is of course cute too of course and seems to be always smiling.

Little cutie

Then it was on to the airport for Katie’s 8:43 p.m. flight and my flight at 10:10 p.m.

It’s hard to believe we squeezed so much into a few days, but we got it all in.

I arrived in Boston at 4 a.m./7 a.m… and was exhausted.

Driving home, I had to stop twice. It took days to get over it. I might not take the Red Eye again. I only slept a little. But if we hadn’t taken it, then we would have missed the magical day we had on Monday. The better way might have been to do what we did last year when we went to Jeremy and Karma’s wedding, leaving around 2 p.m.

Stinson Beach

As I write this a few days later I have finally recovered. I’m sad about it being over and concerned that somehow I got exposed to the Coronavirus. I asked my pharmacist if being on one milligram of prednisone counts as being immunosuppressed, and he said no. For good measure, I asked my nurse practitioner, Melissa, and she said the same. She said she was glad I went to California.

I think that to keep my mind off of it, I’m going to make a photo book. That way I can immerse myself in the love, and the wonder of it all, and look at the smiling faces and try not to get swallowed up in the hysteria. I talked to a friend about the worry and she said it doesn’t do any good to look back. It does good when looking back at the good part but not when second guessing. I have a tickle in my throat and am trying not to go overboard with it. My imagination helps in my writing but not when I apply it to myself and my symptoms. 

Taking it literally one step at a time

It's not often that people use the word literally correctly.

They might say, "I was literally freezing to death," and you think, "Really?" or perhaps, "I was literally at the end of my rope," and you wonder, "What rope"?

I am happy, therefore, to have this opportunity to use the word correctly, because I am literally talking about steps.

Going up or down without a handrail has remained a challenge. I thought of this over the weekend when I was at a graduation party at a house with two steep steps – with no handrail – leading to the deck. I probably could have ventured up, but instead I asked for an arm, just to be sure.

During my trip last year to visit my cousins in the San Francisco area, I was happy to successfully climb the 378 steps (plus or minus) to the landmark Coit Tower. Luckily there were handrails most of the way up, and for the other parts, one of my cousins offered an arm.

I haven't actually tripped down a flight of stairs, although I did actually trip up the stairs in the Paris Metro after having the fool-hardy urge to catch an incoming train. I bellyflopped onto the train, scaring the living daylights out of Katie and earning a shocked look from the Parisian at whose feet I had landed.

Knowing my tendency to fall (which I haven't done lately, knock wood), Joe once reprimanded me for throwing a pair of sneakers down the stairs when my arms were otherwise full. He was afraid that the clamor had been me.

The New York subway, which I plan to take during my visit to the city next weekend, is not the easiest place to need a handrail, because sometimes you have to push your way through to get to the side.

But the stairs leading up to the post office in Holyoke are just right. I had to be in Holyoke for something else, and I decided to go to the post office there rather than in South Hadley, because for some unfathomable reason, easy access to the entrance was eliminated during a highway widening project some years ago.

Rather than go to one side or another so I could use the handrail, I walked up the seven or eight stairs in the middle. I kept my balance. I walked up without tripping, and I walked down trippingly.

Literally, a success.

Back to reality

After taking the red eye from San Francisco to Boston Sunday night, I basically sleep-walked through two appointments in Boston yesterday.

I started out at 10:30 by seeing Dr. Goguen about the spot on my tongue that she had been treating for a fungus. She said it had gotten smaller but was still there and offered me the choice of (A) two more weeks of "swish and spit" and dissolving a medicated lozenge in my mouth, or (B) getting a biopsy which would hurt enough to require pain medication.

I chose A even though the medication is gross. I need to go back in two weeks for her to check it again.

Then I walked from Dana-Farber though the connectors to Brigham and Women's, grabbing a bite to eat at Au Bon Pain and then going across the street to catch the shuttle bus to Mass General...and promptly falling asleep.

I woke up at my stop to cries of "Miss, miss!" – and an empty bus.

Next I saw Dr. Neel about the squamous cell cancer on my lip. He voted for taking it off with a Mohs procedure rather than possibly waiting around for a face fry. He said I'd only lose 1/10 of my lip, and he'd stitch it together so that after it heals, it would only look like a wrinkle.

Hip hip hooray for another wrinkle!

I especially dislike the thought of getting cut on my lip, so I'm already planning on taking an Ativan.

Actually, I'll be glad to get it done because it stings most of the time.

It was a beautiful day here, with our rolling hills starting to turn color. I loved San Francisco, but it is nice to be home.

Made it!

The Berkeley Marina

The California jinx has been broken.

I arrived safe and sound at the San Francisco airport today after half-wondering if I would get here.

Looks like the third time's the charm.

I had been to California many years ago, but things did not work out well in the first more recent attempt. That was in 2007 when I had bought airline tickets and made hotel reservations for the kids and me to visit California. I relapsed and went to the hospital instead.

Then in May, when I was supposed to go for my cousin Nancy's 60th birthday bash, I ended up back in the hospital with pneumonia.

I'm so glad that I finally made it.

I'll be spending time with cousins, catching up and seeing the sites. Today I stopped in to say hi to my cousin Nancy's son Jeremy, who works in a restaurant at the Berkeley Marina. What a beautiful place. It's 9 p.m., but my body thinks it's midnight, so I'm f-a-l-l-i-n-g a-s-l-e-e-p.....