When Golden Gate Park becomes a toilet

This past weekend, we partook in a San Francisco tradition of drunken debauchery a 12K run from the Bay to the “Breakers” of Ocean Beach. We definitely did not run this race although thousands of people do choose to run it. Instead, we joined the larger majority of thousands of people who turned Howard St, Hayes and much of Golden Gate Park into the city’s biggest and messiest party of the year. People build their own floats, dress up in the craziest (and often un-PC) costumes and there is always a lot of nudity to go around. In fact, with the warm weather that we had the previous week, I think the nudist were out in full force this year compared to years past.  I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle a few days after the race and it had a pretty appropriate quote:

“Much of the problem at Sunday’s 97th running of the crosstown race was blamed on the early-20s crowd, which has been growing in recent years.

‘They were stumbling around, hammered,” Dennis said. “Peeing. Women with their boobs hanging out. Staggering around Balboa and 31st waiting for a bus to take them home.’”

Well, I was in fact walking with an ‘early-20s’ crowd (despite the fact that Kevin and I are much older than this now). I just couldn’t seem to rally enough of our friends to join us, but, I luckily had a group of co-workers who joined in the fun. We hit the streets in a very tamed set of Luau outfits and my 6 ft. palm tree (see below):

This palm tree was my best idea, btw. In the intense crowd, we lost people in our group multiple times, but, everyone seemed to eventually find their way back to the palm tree. In addition to many other folks dressed in Hawaiian attire, we also ran into many Vikings, drag queens, friends in a “Boca Raton” group of seniors, Olympic torch runners, polygamists looking for their father Warren Jeffs (like I said, not everyone is PC), a group from Caddyshack, adults in diapers, cheerleaders, salmon, fruits, wonder woman and just about anything else you can think of.  There was also just about any contraption you can think of to dispense alcohol. There was no food in site.

The race started at 8 AM, but, by 1 PM, my group (and many others) had not even made it to the end yet. We were in the middle of Golden Gate Park where everyone seemed to be using any corner of bush space to relieve themselves. Its amazing the city recovers from Bay to Breakers every year. As people in my group began to make their exit before the end, Kevin and I eventually ducked out at 30th Ave (about 15 blocks from the end). We just wanted to catch a bus home and get something to eat. We hadn’t eaten since 8 AM! By the time we got home, we showered and passed out on the couch. We got up around 4 PM to eat. I felt like death though. You’d think at my ripe old age, I would have learned when to stop drinking already. Or, maybe my body just can’t handle the same abuse as when we were in our 20s. Its probably been about 5-6 years since I remember feeling this bad from too much alcohol. Bleh. Anyways, after about 10 hours of sleep that night, I finally felt back to normal. It will be a long while before I drink again. Sunday might have been my last pina colada for at least a decade.

Help name a stranger’s puppy

Yesterday I went to an event to help demo my friend’s website. Its a site for collaborating with friends and family regarding naming a new puppy. Really! Its a very targeted audience, but, if you or a friend actually needs to name a puppy, I think its a lot of fun. Or if you have oodles of time at work to look at cute puppy photos, you can name a stranger’s puppy.   The site is at: http://namemypuppy.net/

Seeing as I’ve been doing quality assurance for software for years now, I can honestly say that I like this site, its clean, very usable and gets the job done. You can upload a photo of your pup, give it a description and then send it out to friends for voting. People can vote on names, suggest a new name and browse other dogs to name or puppies that have been recently named.

A lot of people wanted to know the revenue model for this idea or whether there would be a namemykitten.net or even namemykid.net   But, I think my friend just did this as a side project for when he wanted to name his own puppy (who happens to be the poster dog for the site). For now, its just fun. If it gets a bunch of users, I’m sure there is money somewhere.

Why I live in San Francisco

It is ridiculously hot today for San Francisco. It was about 85 degrees during the day and while I was on the dingy 19 bus that passes the meth clininc, my allergies were also flaring. I was on my way to yoga, but, felt a bit miserable. I wanted to just go home and curl up for a nap. But, I motivated myself (with the thought that I just shelled out a lot of money for these classes) and I went to class. Afterwards, I was so relaxed and feeling amazing. The teacher focused on poses that opened up your sinuses and helped with allergies. She even helped me do my first modified head stand. I left yoga feeling renewed.

Now, let me explain my walk home from yoga class. My class is on Hyde and Pacific. Hyde is a beautiful tree-lined street that the cable car runs along. You actually won’t find a homeless person asking for change anywhere. Because the weather was so amazing, most of the restaurants on Hyde had put seating outside on the sidewalk. What is normally a quiet walk home, was loud with cable car riders singing, and hundreds of people eating dinner and sipping wine out on the streets. It was fantastic. The sun was setting and I felt like I was in a movie. Kevin and I ended up joining the folks out on the sidewalk for dinner in North Beach. We ordered a mezzo of red wine and had our pasta while watching so much life (and skimpy clothing) pass us by. Then, we went to the Irish pub, O’Reilly’s, for the second warm night in a row.

These warm days in San Francisco are few and far between, but, the amazing sunset seen from our apartment and the life in the city (just blocks from our home), remind me of why I live here.

By the way, if you ever wondered, the picture at the top of this blog is a view from a window in our apartment.

Turning 29 again

One of my co-workers said that all women over thirty and under 40 say that they are 29, so, I guess I turned 29 again. Looking back at past birthday, I am realizing that the birthdays where friends would buy you drinks until you couldn’t remember that it was your birthday, much less your name, are now long gone. I actually can’t remember the last time I drank too much on my birthday that my head hurt. That was probably my 24th birthday which is only clear to me because my friends retold many stories the following weeks.

For this year’s birthday, things started off with a few surprises from coworkers. In the tradition of my team, my cube was trashed with balloons, signs, random crap from the cafeteria or around the office and lots of well wishes. Here is a photo:

There were probably a good 25-30 pink balloons in my cube. Some of them were filled with stuff like pistachios, salt, pens, markers, relish, hershey’s kisses, cough drops and even a dollar. One of my coworkers was kind enough to even pick up my favorite Chinese white cake with fruit and whipped cream as a special treat. (Thanks JC).

On Saturday, we celebrated my birthday with a few friends in the Golden Gate Park. We lucked out with some seriously sunny weather (a bit off beat for SF). Kevin organized the whole deal with sandwich fixings for everyone and other people brought drinks, desserts, and other snacks. Before heading out to the park, I decided to go to Walgreens to pick up some necessary picnic games. I bought a copy-cat Aerobie frisbee, some bubbles and a Finding Nemo kite. The frisbee and kite were HUGE hits and so much fun to play with. Here’s some pictures of our kite flying:

Everybody really needs to fly a kite again! I probably haven’t flown one since I was a pre-teen. This was the first time that some friends flew a kite. It was certainly the first time that I’ve flown a kite and it didn’t either get stuck in a tree, or broken. So, I’ll definitely be flying this kite again soon.

Lastly, on my actually birthday, which was also Mother’s Day, Kevin and I tried a new restaurant in SF called “Anchor and Hope”. It opened in late April by the same people who own “Town Hall”, one of our SF favorites. This place had a beautiful interior and an interesting selection of seafood (Its supposed to be a classic fish house). While we both enjoyed our meal, I probably wouldn’t rush back. I had a soft shell crab dish which Kevin was a bit freaked out about. I don’t think he likes what still looks like a little animal on your plate. He had a sea bass dish. We started with a beet, watercress and hazelnut salad. The restaurant also allows you to order individual oysters and crab legs. I had one oyster and Kevin had one crab leg. Oysters are pretty new to me. I’m usually not down with anything raw. After eating the oyster, I haven’t changed my policy on raw seafood. Bleh!

All in all, I got a lot of cards and well wishes from friends and family on the phone, mail, Facebook and email. Thanks Everyone!

Running 100K … really

No, no, no, I wasn’t running 100K, but, this past weekend, while hiking to Stinson Beach in Marin, we were passed by a bunch of runners who were running along our trail. We asked one of them how far they were running. The gentleman, likely in his 50s answered “100 K”. The four of us in my group thought… “no way, this guy has got to be pulling our chain”. So, we asked the next runner who passed us how many miles he was running. He responded with, “62 miles”. Holy moly… this really was a 100K race that we had infiltrated. Apparently, this was the Miwok Race which had started at 5:40 AM that morning. When most of these runners passed us, they were on mile 23. After we hiked 3.3 miles down to Stinson beach, had lunch, strolled on the beach and then hiked back up a 4 mile trail, we ended our day at the 2/3 point in the Miwok race. It was about 3:30 PM and many of the runners were about 2/3 of the way through their race. Can you imagine running for about 14 hours? This makes my 10K run look like child’s play!

Anyways, here are a couple of pictures of our wonderful hike along the Dipsea trail and a couple of other trails in the area. It’s funny because Kevin and I have spent so much of our time off / vacations outside of the U.S. We haven’t even been to some of the most beautiful areas of Northern California.