Some days you need a chubby little kitty to cuddle and kiss. Thank goodness for squeezable marshmallow kitties with velvety soft noses and scrunchy little faces. You can call me crazy all you want, but I just love this little buster.
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Like moths to a flame we were unable to resist the pull of our former stomping grounds and returned to our old neighborhood, Glen Park, the first moment we had a chance. Back to Tyger's Coffee Shop, our favorite local diner that was just two blocks downhill from our old house. Back to the place where we spent every weekend (usually both Saturday AND Sunday) when we were in town. Back to the place of countless plate-sized blueberry pancakes and heaping scoops of corned beef hash and bottomless cups of coffee poured into those perfect white diner mugs. Back to *our* go-to spot, *our* diner, *our* place.
It felt strange walking around our old neighborhood after being gone for so long - a sort of unsettled feeling that something was just not quite right. Familiar (older) faces were replaced with a gaggle of 20-something year old girls in impossibly short skirts (weren't they cold?) talking loudly by what I'm guessing was the door to their shared flat. The first thought that crossed my mind: when did THEY move here? And then: well there goes the neighborhood. Glen Park as I remembered was a family neighborhood, a quiet and un-trendy place with lots of older people well-suited to Grandmas and Grandpas like us. Where was everyone? Who were these people? How dare these young trendsters try to make the neighborhood cool. There was a brief moment of panic, a disjointed sensation from not recognizing anyone. From thinking that two years after we left the whole world had gone down the crapper. We were on the same set, but the actors had all been replaced. I ate breakfast in reverie (as noted in the tired, sullen and pensive photos above. Note to self: wear make-up next time). The food tasted exactly as I expected it to taste. The diner still looked as hole-in-the-wall as ever. Brightly colored prickly squash and fake Autumn-colored leaves decorated the windows like they did every Fall season. Everything was the same. Everything was different. After breakfast we walked back to our old house as if we were a long lost dog in search of its owner. We were now *those* people: the creepy couple standing on the street staring (and me photographing) a house where we no longer lived, pointing and saying things like, "remember when we used to..." and "look that is still there," and "nice to see they finally landscaped the front," and then eventually, more quietly, "I wonder who lives there now..." The weirdest, most comforting thing about seeing our old house was how much it looked exactly the same. Just the way we left it. The bushes were still wild and overgrown, the curly white gate still had the dinky bell attached to a Masterlock, attached to the metal grate, the stupid plastic Christmas wreath was still hanging mysteriously on the side of the house, a left behind memory of the occupants before us. The street that we had walked on a million and one times still felt like our street. The house still felt a little bit like ours too, like if we walked up those garish "grass"-green painted steps and put our keys in the door that they would still fit. It was still our home. And it also wasn't. more:
It has taken me a while to post photos of our trip to SF last October in part due to last year's end-of-year craziness, but also because writing about and seeing photos of our former home still tugs on my heartstrings just a tiny bit. Sometimes it's hard looking at photos of SF and realizing that I don't belong there anymore.
We moved to the DC area two years ago for a many reasons: Sly had a great job opportunity, we would be closer to both our families, we both wanted a lifestyle change, etc. It was hard to leave, hard knowing that someone else would occupy "our" house, hard thinking that people came and left SF every single day and that we were now one of those people that 'left.' I didn't like thinking that the SF I knew was already different than the SF of today because so much changed in the past two years out there. And so we left and never really looked back. We planned new adventures, explored the East Coast, camped and hiked and ate without really ever thinking once about returning to SF. SF became my ex, my ex-home, and I didn't want to see it in the same way that one doesn't want to see an old ex-boyfriend. Because good or bad, being in his/its presence will always stir up old out-of-context memories and trigger those pieces of a younger self that belong to a particular, often rose-colored, time and place. I didn't want to go back because I didn't want to feel like a visitor--a frickin' tourist--in a place I had called home for nearly a third of my life. I didn't want to go back because I had finally moved on. With these thoughts swirling in my head I wasn't looking forward to visiting even though I was looking forward to seeing my friend get married (the reason we were traveling back to SF). But as was often the case, all that worrying and over-thinking and living inside my own head was for nothing. The moment we landed muscle memory kicked in. It felt as if we had never left. Yes, things were different, but they were also very much as I remembered. Our first order of business, after being randomly upgraded to a white Ford Mustang (and nearly getting killed on the 280) was, of course, In-n-Out followed by 'dessert' at Beard Papas with coffee from Peet's. It was the beginning of a week of non-stop eating. Some things never change. We roamed around down near Union Square, a place that I frequented nearly every lunch break to escape from work. Is it weird that I felt so comforted by all the retail stores where I once shopped? They greeted me like old friends and made me feel right at home. The old DSW was now an overcrowded Uniqlo but my best friend Macy's was (and probably always will be) still there, the views from its windows as magnificent as ever from the upper levels. We mostly just window-shopped, ran into some of Sly's HS friends who were also in town for a different wedding (random), and then made it back to our friends' house just in time to catch the sun setting over the Pacific from their window. It felt good to be back. It felt good to be home. moreThat's right, Grandma + Grandpa A (us) went nuts again this Friday. Some of our crazier moments included:
And then of course there was this (below), which was way more entertaining than it should have been. And yes that is a chubby stuffed koala bear with a yellow bandana tied around his head. I'm not sure who should be more scared, you or him. By the looks of this photo, I'd say him. And no, we were not drinking or doing drugs (although imagine how much funnier the koala with bandana photo would have been if we were). Just a normal day in the life of Grams and Gramps.
Hoping to avoid the crowds, we joined our geriatric friends for a 5 o'clock seating at Hot Spot -- a Korean hot pot shabu fusion restaurant. It's one of our favorite places to eat around here. Turns out we didn't have to rush to get there that early, but since we were starving it gave us that much more time to eat.
And boy did we eat. And eat and eat and eat. Definitely got our money's worth on this trip. I was originally dead set on trying out a nearby Asian bakery for post-dinner cupcakes or crepes, but that never happened. All we could do after force-feeding ourselves multiple plates of food was waddle home, lie on the couch and stare absentmindedly at the television until food coma set in. We passed out on the couch well before 10pm, surrounded by our fuzzy babies like the Grandma and Grandpa we are. It was the perfect Valentine's Day. |
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