We're Leaving For The Beach In An Hour

Yesterday Ms Cassie and I hiked to the second waterfall at Elliot. It’s an amazing trek with spectacular vistas and I just love coming out of the thick dwarf forest and descending on to the valley with the second waterfall. It’s like a moonscape and there are these little oasis’ of waterholes, tadpoles abound in the stream and little baby frogs, smaller then dimes, are kicking about. The wild tigerlilies have stalks and huge green buds that emerge past their bloom - recovering from bursts into brilliant splays of orange.

Secret loves to swim. We’re going to Bolinas today. It’s supposed to be 105 degrees inland – which either makes the coast a perfect idea or a mad disaster. The microclimates in The City are amazing. The temperature can vary greater than 10 degrees from one neighborhood to the next – less than a ten minute walk. The Avenues are nearly always socked in with fog while if there is going to be sun anywhere in The City on a given day it can be found in the Mission. The Mission was about a ten or fifteen minute walk from where I used to live, on Haight Street, which was invariably a cold windtunnel of fog straight off the ocean. You could turn a corner from a side street on to Haight street and just be slammed with a woosh of cold, wet, damp air. Ah.. summer in San Francisco.

Oh wait, I wasn’t here to tell tales of the weather. We’re going to Bolinas today (I’m not driving.) Perfect idea or mad disaster.. right then. The hotter it is inland, the more likely the coast will be cold and foggy. This is why The City is so cold all summer while the Central Valley swelters. So while it’s all well and fine to escape the heat by going to the coast, it’s common to walk out of 105 degree heat onto a 60 degree beach, socked in with fog and a bitter, fridged cold whipping wind. So we pack up as the heat of the day descends and it’s strange to be bringing extra blankets, sweaters and jackets while the back of your neck is being singed and the sun beats cruel, pitiless and relentless. But then we might strike that balance of heat where the fog is somehow kept back off the coast a bit and burns off every time it tries to get near shore. Or there are those days when it’s a battle.. this moment cold and overcast, the next hot sun beating back the sky. It’s very surreal and beautiful and strange.

And we go to this place well known to be one of the feeding grounds of the great white sharks – cool, murky, seal-laden shore waters of the pacific. It’s where we go to play, in these dangerous places.

After the weeding and the whatnot I showered and readied for an event in The City, a Best of the Bay party, honoring the Bay Guardian’s picks for Best of the Bay and Local Heroes and the whatnot. I went as the guest of a Winner (Are you with a winner? The Bay Guardian staff inquired at the reception sign-in desk. I’m not a winner, but I’m with a winner. Story of my life??) Also, Cassie exgirlfriend was a winner too, for the most tawdry stage act, and she was there with her crew, dressed in festive pink and sparkles and more sparkles and more sparkles – very fun. I said hello but didn’t linger. We didn’t stay long.

Back at home I took the Honey Bee to the park and tossed the ball until night fall. The stars were brilliant. Jugglers juggled, teenagers showed off for one another and giggled and shook their tale feathers, children picnicked with their parents – we shared our blanket with a little girl and her mom. And when the world went to sleep we were snoring softly with her.

And today, today is a new day.. and we’re leaving for the beach in an hour.