The Cops Showed Up

I typed for about an hour and when I gave up I left.  I went to MV.  The ride to DC was uninteresting.  I got the bike and caught the train to 16th and went to the bank and on to my friend’s.  She was in the living room working.  There I initially wanted to just melt into the house but I ended up interrupting her interaction with her roommate.  My friend told me not to go shopping but later admitted that I should.

I left for the store while the girls were talking.  I looked through my list finding what I wanted but had trouble near the end.  I also noted that my interactions there were not like at my local store.  I was buying miso soup ingredients but passed on the wine though it was on my list.  When I returned it was clear that we were behind schedule.

I had texted my riding partner about the start of Bike Party and then started making food.  The girls organized the kitchen then and my friend made me a cocktail.  My riding partner responded almost the moment we decided to look up the party stop and plan our evening.  My friend’s roommate offered to tidy up as we got ready to leave.

We walked up to the Wiggle and then took it easy on the way to the Park since we knew that the cops would be looking for us.  However, we really started moving at the Panhandle.  We were following a big bike and some others going to the ride.  At the Bandshell we bumped into my friend’s old coworker.  He had quit to make music and was working on a new synthesizer.

The ride left around then and we snaked out to 10th and took Cabrillo to the Sutro Wiggle.  We encountered a lot of traffic and crazy drivers on the way because of Outside Lands.  At Sutro Heights there were guys setting up to sell drinks but when we had finally managed to get to the overlook the cops showed up.

We bumped into my riding partner on the way out and the group headed up Geary to the top of the hill.  Then we returned to the Playland area and over to the beach.  There I left Charlie alone for a bit and when I got back the guys were there.  I introduced them to my friend.

When the ride left we went up JFK and then MLK to Chain of Lakes and Irving.  I noted that there were a lot of revelers waiting for Lyft and drunk.  It was hard to make it through 19th because there were so many people.  I had to urge my friend to cross there because the traffic was really thick.  We said bye to one of the guys then and very carefully rode down page where, on two occasions, we had a car act really terribly.

We had a drink and talked about our coming trip to Davis.

I got up at 515 and my friend and I went to catch a train.  I had not packed properly when I had left the house so I had too much in my bag.  The train came easily enough though and after the transfer at 19th we went to Richmond.  At first we thought we would get coffee but gave up on that idea when we discovered it was out of reach.

On the train we talked a lot and I didn’t have a pen. There was Wi-Fi and the conductor was a bit strange.  When we got off we interacted with another cyclist.  We found a passable coffee shop nearby called Pachamama.  Then we checked in and left stuff at the inn before heading to a bike shop and a thrift store near the station.  That was when my cousin texted me and we made plans to meet at the farmer’s market.

We returned to the bike shop and also looked at some other things before going to the farmers market.  She got lost and called me and then I went looking for her but found her where she had left me.  She told me about her bad Thursday and how she had seen her grandmother.  We ate fruit until my cousin showed up on his old Raleigh.

We went to Brews and Burgers and the waitress messed up our beer so we ended up with five glasses of beer for the price of three.  My cousin told us about his life.  He said that his teenage daughter was an accomplished violinist and had expressed interest in going to Reed but he wanted her to go to Berkeley.  He told us that he had just completed a Library training tool.  He asked about my career.

My cousin took us to a couple of other thrift stores then and while we were riding through the city he told me about his bike.  It was from the seventies and had a different type of brake than what I knew.  We took eighth to a Goodwill but he said another place on fifth was the better choice.  I found a spider on my arm while trying one jacket on and in the consignment shop next door my friend found me a jacket that looked nice.  After that we took photos and said bye to my cousin.  He made nice comments as we were leaving.  I think he was tired.

After that we rode to Sudwerk and had okay beer.  Up to that point we had been really connecting and we talked about how high school buddy and her had missed each other by an hour when the time my friend had visited her grandmother.  We rode into town after a beer.  She checked her peddles at a bike shop and I looked at a couple of stores for a thing to get as a present.  I got cards at the University Bookstore.

Back at the Inn we headed to the track for a run and I forgot we were doing eight laps and quit at six.  Then returned to talk about dinner.  We saw a guy from the track was staying at the Inn.  We ate at a Ramen place that was ok and then we went to the Irish pub up the street.  I learned that there is no “proper” bar in Davis only restaurants.  We talked about Dune, schizophrenia and self.  We made it to the inn around nine and I started writing.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.