Hanging with the Girls

The girls next door, Leah and Annika, are home for a couple of weeks, and of course I have to rush around and DO things with them while they're here.   Our association dates from 1996, when Leah, age 4+,  appeared at my door with a basket of fruit and her puzzled but obliging mother. She wanted to be friends.  Soon she brought over her older sister, Annika.

Last Tuesday, Annika and I went to the Mission District in San Francisco to look at art galleries.  Which it turns out there are not many of.  The ones we found were in tiny rooms at the back of shops (notably: Gallery Belljar and Needles and Pens, both on 16th St.).  Creativity Explored, also 16th Street, is the SF equivalent of Creative Growth in Oakland, with a nice little gallery.  Paxton Gate, 766 Valencia, is a fascinating shop,of  all things Nature and gardening.   Lunch at Papalote Mexican Grill on 24th Street;  ice cream at the Bi-Rite Creamery at Dolores and 18th.  We walked and walked and WALKED in the hot sun.

On Wednesday, Leah and I drove  to Pt. Reyes, first to Chicken Ranch beach, where we ate sandwiches, then to Abbott's Lagoon for a hike all the way out over the dunes to the ocean. There was an unexpected wall of fog at the ocean, the first we'd seen in an otherwise brilliantly sunny day. Then tea 'n treats at Blackbird in Inverness, a tete-a-tete with a dogsitting friend, and on the way home a stop at Comforts in San Anselmo for take-out Chinese chicken salad.  Then I shamed myself by drinking half a bottle of champagne at their house, while they drank more moderately and talked about Life.

Yesterday we hung out on the sidewalk in front of their house, waiting for Leah's pal Hannah to come and collect  her cell phone, which had gotten waterlogged in the gutter and dried out by Leah in the oven.  Don't ask. 

Sitting out on the sidewalk, waiting for Leah's friend Hannah  to come by.  Why not make the sidewalk your front porch?