New Name, Refocus

I finally am going with the name for this blog I've had floating around in the back of my head for months: "Waiting for the J". If you live in SF, you know what a pointless exercise this is: the J train is one of the most notoriously-late lines in the entire San Francisco Municipal Transportation system.

I made this mistake twice this weekend; Friday night on the way to Burgermeister and Lucky 13 for for dinner and drinks with Laura and Jeremy, and Saturday evening while taking friends-from-high school Jenny and Melissa over to the Financial District to watch the Chinese New Year parade. In both instances I ended up walking in frustration, making it to the bottom of Dolores Park (about 3/4 of a mile down the line) before the train finally caught up with us (after already being 15 minutes late). Good for my butt and legs, at least (except for the fact that we used that opportunity to stop by Bi-Rite Creamery on the Saturday trip ... yum).

My last post to this blog reminds me of just how much I've been running in circles this last year. Another pointless exercise.

At any rate, despite my resolution against trips this year, it seems I'm fated to travel nonetheless. Two excursions in mind for this year (so far):

At the end of March I head to Europe for a week and a half; my mother offered to pay for my plane ticket, since this will likely be my grandmother's final year in Belgium before she (finally) returns to the US for permanent. It's been over 8 years since the last time I headed anywhere internationally, and my friend Emily has been trying to drag me out there pretty much as long as she's been living in Bruxelles (about a year and change now). Having half the costs pre-footed makes this trip finally affordable. Flying into Amsterdam for a couple days, then taking the train down to Bruxelles and I plan to alternate between hanging out around town with Grandma Stella and doing day trips with Emily (and possibly Grandma). Then I train down to Paris for four days to meet up with my mom and sister, get fat on éclairs, and practice mon français on hot French boys before I fly back to the US in time for a 12-hour nap before work.

In July, I've already reserved a week off work for the Fourth, and I'm making it official now that I'm going to spend that week on another pilgrimage to Portland and the Northwest. So this is your warning, my friends up north. I'd like to do a little wine tasting (in other words, resupplying my booze cabinet), attack Powell's, take a drive back up to Seattle, and maybe even do a day again at Cannon Beach. We'll see. Who'll be around for that?

And finally, for your viewing amusement, this week's Creepy Photo of the Weekend:



Now wasn't that exciting?