Sunday In the City

It was one of those Sundays when there was magic in the air from the first light. When I wake up, a melody replete with chords, downloads into to my brain in the first three seconds of consciousness. I get up and tip toe off to another room to write it down. It sounds like a rollicking Irish ballad and it sets the tone for the whole day.

When I come back to the bedroom my wife, still luxuriating in sleep, is hugging a pillow like a long lost niece with her long blonde hair cascading behind her. I turn on the camera to take a picture but the chirping of the device wakes her up. I crawl back into bed briefly to smooch her into further consciousness.

After a week of rain and gloom the sun is streaming through the window demanding our attendance amidst its glories so I announce that I’m going out for coffee. Soon we are dressed and in the car and winging towards the heart of Berkeley on the freeway toward Café Trieste.

But lo, across the bay, San Francisco is swathed in golden haze and the digital traffic sign indicates that it is only a traffic-free 10 minutes further to downtown SF. Can’t miss this opportunity so in no time we are arching toward Treasure Island and beyond, through the chill shadows and brilliant light of the concrete canyons downtown praying to the parking angels to be merciful. They grant us a boon not too far afield from our destination, the perfect North Beach coffee house known as The Café El Greco, and we find ourselves trekking up past Washington Square full of elder Asians flowing to the silent strains of a Tai Chi Rhapsody into the Italian Quarter.

And here we are musing at the hustle and bustle of Columbus Avenue, foamy coffee drinks, bagels cream cheese and salmon before us with a side of greens. One of those days when the whole world seems to have been plated (excellent presentation!) for our pleasure. Later we go to The City Lights Bookstore and pick up a collection of author interviews from the Paris Review for my dad.

We will walk to Fisherman’s Wharf to visit the pelicans, sea lions and mimes dancing mechanically on milk crates. We’ll tootle the penny whistles at Lark in the Morning, a music store in The Cannery, window shop at Ghiridelli Square, take the cable cars to Union Square (as hip as the city appears to be, it’s really full of squares). At the square we listen to a Hebrew rock and roll band trying to get equal time under the giant Christmas tree.

We buy a few more presents, have sushi in the food court in the cellar of Macy’s while watching old 49er quarterback Jeff Garcia having another fine day with the Eagles, then back on the trolley to our parking place and back over the Bay Bridge to home. Wow, what a whirl! The one thing we didn’t do is stroll to Chinatown to have dinner at our favorite vegetarian bistro, The Lucky Creation Café. Would have been appropriate.