August 24, 2001

We met online Boomers Yankee and her hubby Wolfe in Los Vegas, simply incredible people. Yankee is a tiny North Carolinan spitfire, Wolfe is a geek turned teddy bear. We fell in like with them on first glance.

Wolfe, being the rocket scientist he is, was in San Francisco, and invited us up to stay with them at the Courtyard at Fisherman's Wharf. They got off the train in our hot Merced, and we all drove up together to San Francisco, checking into the hotel, we were in rooms 409 and 412.

We are grabbing all our bags before the valet took the car away, and I am asking who has my purple bag with all my clothes in it? No one? Really? I am dressed in Merced 100 plus degree clothes (and new heels) and my bag is on our bed at home. Really. Honest.

We inspect our rooms, Yankee and Wolfe's window opens to an alley with many small shops, people bustling about, sitting at tables with their leashed dogs, and just for one moment, you think you have been magically transported to France.

Dinner at Castagnoga's. The dinner was superb, the waiter must have sat on a ruler.  Again.

Back to the hotel. Our window may have looked out to a construction site, but the mirror was placed JUST right. Off to the closest levi and tennie shops to buy Anne a change of clothes, and we grazed our way through the Farmer's Market for breakfast, buying orchids, tomatoes, and guacamole.

Chinatown: the Pot Sticker for lunch, of course, then a tour of the Fortune Cookie Factory, and a silk Chinese outfit for the world's most beautiful grand daughter. Ok, the fruit. I remember the fruit! There is this fruit in all the Chinese street markets. It looks like an oversize blow fish, smells like heaven and the price, well, it's not in English. I know now it is called a durian. David went to buy one, came back from inside the store looking ever so glum. He paid $40 for it. We all insisted he return it, which he did, and we ran out of there asap.

Off to Andronico's Market for Forbidden rice and crackers, a drive through the park, a stop at the windmills when the winds picked up. Dinner was at Massawa's, then off to the Green Apple bookstore. On the way, we passed a motorized scooter gang, causing us to howl and joke for hours.

At the Green Apple, we had a blast. There was a weirdo following Anne and Yankee around the bookstore, upstairs and downstairs, with his hand in the pocket of his trench coat. How classic can you get? Hint: don't egg Yankee on, she has balls bigger than most men.  I guess the girls scared the guys by dashing across traffic to the care, and we went 'home' to crash at 11:30. Unheard of.

After a nice long leisurely morning (four smiles) we piled in the car and ate breakfast at the Nob Hill Renaissance Stanford Court for an astounding total of eighty dollars, for salmon, Chicken Prosciutto, and Mushroom Sakita. What was it about a fly trap, or the private wire cages?

Off to the SF Museum of Modern Art to see Ansel Adams and many other delights. Construction provided us with a building that had a large arrow pointing up and "Sky" painted on it, another arrow pointing down with "Ground".

Yerba Buena Gardens, then sadly, Anne and David had to return home, leaving Yankee and Wolfe to play another day.

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