From Haight Street Hipster Haircut to Hydroponics on Hermann Street--A Great Day Off, Indeed!

On Sunday night Aaron and I realized we had the same day off this week and quickly decided to team up and make the great escape from camp to the city for a thirty-hour midweek dose of modern urban civilization. Yesterday night after the 5 o'clock meeting we piled everything into his VW and flew down from the Sierras to San Francisco in under three hours, him the driver and me the DJ, stopping once in Oakdale for gas and ice cream. Powered by A Tribe Called Quest we rolled across the bridge into the city, the darkness long since descended and the fog greeting us with welcome-home caresses.

He dropped me off at Batshir's house where everyone was still up. Bedtime stories, leftovers for a late-night dinner, cozy borrowed pajama sweatshirts and an inflatable bed...I could not have been happier. Once Dean and Renee were ensconced upstairs with Harry Potter Batshir and I got cozy in "my bedroom," a.k.a. their front room and we drank tea and told stories and what can I say? I adore her completely and she is so amazing...

Almost but not quite as amazing was the opportunity to sleep in for the first time in eight and a half weeks. As I looked outside the window upon finally opening my eyes I remembered that in this part of town the presence or absence of sunshine is not a good predictor of time of day, especially in early August when the fog is ever-present and the days move very slowly, at times luxuriously and at time deliriously so. We finally got up and dressed, going out for crepes omelets potatoes salad french toast and coffee for breakfast before parting ways until the afternoon.

I walked down to Haight Street and accidentally got an overwhelmingly priced haircut, then decided to let it go. It's the first in, and likely the last for, a long time. I shopped my usual recycled-clothing haunts for a dress to wear to next Friday night's staff banquet, finding nothing and eventually resigning myself to the fact that despite an entire box of cute frocks in my storage space, I will be wearing Kelly's hand-me-down black v-neck sundress while everyone else wears something spunky and adorable. I *have* spunky and adorable dresses, just not here. Such is life…

I spoke on the phone to Eyal for the first time in about a month, sharing with him my travel plans and trying to wrangle out of him a promise to pick me up at the airport in Tel Aviv when I arrive but no such luck—yet. A lunchtime bagel sandwich at Ali's in our old neighborhood was followed by a bus ride out to the Richmond where I met up with Renee and Yael for ice cream at Joe's and mani-(them)-pedi-(me) indulgence at Sandalwood. OPI colors tell a lot about the personality of she or he who chose them: Renee's new nail polish claims "The Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It". I finally, more than a year later, cast aside Aubrie's bad karma around Lincoln Park After Dark and now have glossy, CLEAN aubergine toenails. Fabulous!

Aubrie herself came over for dinner, Dean came home from work, and I ordered an insane amount of Indian food for the five of us. We had dinner, then all piled into Batshir's (yet another) Subaru and drove Aubrie to Hermann Street, right by that one hydroponics store ("What kind of place is THAT?" Renee wanted to know) to meet her sister before we headed back home, giddy but exhausted, to the curry-colored house on Cabrillo Street.

I could not have planned a better day off, one that was exactly what I wanted and needed, than this had I tried.