Stewart Adventures in the City and Beyond: A little more...

I don't know what it is about writing this blog at 1:00 a.m. Every time I have the chance to sit here and do this, it's crazy late! So, picking up from yesterday's one in the morning entry...

We went from guests to guests. My mom and dad came home with me and the kids Sunday night while Steve slaved away in Sonora, and he seriously does slave away while he's there. Work, work, work... I feel a little guilty about it, and he's having a weird sensation that he's leading a double life, but his absense a couple of days a week is really the only bummer about our adventure here.

So, with Mom and Dad... Monday morning we headed downtown to Public Health (very exciting) for me to continue my shot schedule for Vietnam. Then we did some shopping, lunch, and a little more shopping . It was rainy a ton (our first disagreeable weather since we've arrived), so we stayed in the mall at Union Square mostly and before we knew it, it was pushing 3:00.

Dad wanted to go to the Cable Car Museum which was open until 5:00, so we jumped back on the cable car to head that way. Now as much as I typically am like any other sensible woman and will ask directions without hesitation to save time, be more efficient, not get lost, etc., there is something about being in the City that makes me want to look like the very capable and local City girl... and NOT ask for directions. I truly did know where the place was, but I forgot to factor in the fact that the "outbound" cable car takes Jackson to Hyde and not Washington to Hyde. Then the Cable Car Man did not call out the stops, and before I knew it, we had very certainly passed our stop. Dad didn't want to rush his museum trip, so we decided to postpone for the next day rather than deal with catching another car heading back.

We warmed up and dried off at home for a couple of hours, did school work, and then headed to Pier 39 for dinner. We ended up walking to Safeway and Trader Joe's, then we spontaneously grabbed the cable car at Taylor and took it downtown for hot chocolate and evening fun in Union Square. It ended up being a great evening.

I haven't mentioned our mission to feed the homeless lately, but we are still on that. Havi is super good about making the sandwiches and cookies and bagging them up or heating up the burritos and getting things ready to go. What we discovered is that while some of the people that appear to be in need of food in our area are not so receptive to food handouts over money, the homeless people in Chinatown and Downtown aren't picky at all. They have all been VERY happy and grateful to have a meal. Havi and I are really enjoying serving our local "friends" in this way. I forget who said it..."I can't do everything, but I can do something." It's so true.

We got an earlier start on our day on Tuesday and made it to the Cable Car Museum without any hitches this time. It is a very cool place with plenty of local history and of course, the cable cars. When you see the medley of cables and "sheaves" and pulley looking things that operates this system (and HAS for around 100 years), it is truly amazing. We'll have to go back because I know Steve will appreciate it. It really was a lesson for the kids in local history AND in physics.

We headed over to Chinatown for some lunch and showed Mom and Dad some of our favorite gross-out spots. I still can't get over the bloody phlegm sparrow nests, and there's so much more! Dad's knees needed a break, so we went back home and drove around the City showing them some of our other favorite places to check out. Apparently we were driving/tour guiding for close to two hours. When we pulled back into the garage at our place, the kids were all confused because we hadn't gone anywhere :)

We had dinner at Tiernan's Irish Pub that night. Gaige has been pulling for the place since we got there, and it WAS very yummy. Then Mom and Dad were off.

Steve didn't get home until 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. When we got up, he was back to work on the phone and computer, and the kids were back on school and their "community service/sidewalk clean up" projects. We had to cram in all of the work because Shane, Erika, and Tiersy came out to see us. They arrived in time to walk (Havi rollerbladed) around the area and grab a late lunch. Shane had the best clam chowder he has ever had at Tiernan's (yes, again), and Tiersy was a big fan of it, too. Then we hung out at Victorian Park and watched the kids fly their kite. We also caught up with a new "friend" that we had met in the area a week or two earlier, which was fun. We're so used to seeing people we know EVERYWHERE (literally) we go in Sonora. So, being anonymous in San Francisco is quite a change, and it felt the tiniest bit homey to have someone "know" us. We went back to our place to thaw out a bit and visit more before the Buas were on their way. Since Shane and Erika left before dinner, we decided to just do dinner in and get more school, etc. done. This was only the second time that I cooked dinner since we arrived!! I'm getting super spoiled.

Steve has been wanting us to bike across the Golden Gate, but since the weather was predicted to be rainy still, Havi and I got to have a shopping date instead. We took the cable car down to Union Square and had a blast. We stopped in to Sephora first, and I spontaneously had the makeup artist do some fun "semi-age-appropriate" makeup on Havi. She loved it. She's very much the pre-teen these days...interested in shopping, clothes, make up, music, etc. It's fun :) We shopped until we were bored of it, which came sooner for Havi. She was actually surprised that most of the stores only had things for adults. She expected more kids' stores and was a little disappointed that there just aren't that many. She almost got her ears pierced though. She was literally sitting in the chair (teeth chattering) while I signed papers, when I realized that she can't wear jewelry for her soccer games. Rather than risk needing to take out her new earrings or not play, we decided to postpone. It was bittersweet for Havi. I think she was relieved on one hand, but I know she was bummed at the idea of having to get her nerve up again in the future.

Steve was getting serious cabin fever with Gaige and Ellery back at home. The rain had been coming down, and even though they walked to In N Out in the rain, he couldn't do his typical Daddy stuff in this weather. He gave me a call to see if we could change plans, switch our dinner date with Dede (our landlady) to tonight, then head to Sonora where he could at least get some work done (at least that's what he thought at the time). We were needing to come home on Saturday anyway for Havi's scheduled soccer games. So it was really just a day early. So before heading home, we had an awesome dinner with Dede at Ana Mandara, a Vietnamese restaurant in Ghirardelli Square. It turns out that only the sauces are truly authentic to what we might find in Vietnam, the rest of the menu has a real French/Gourmet California Cuisine influence. Delicious!!

When we got to Sonora, snow was everywhere. We knew to expect this as friends had called us about the next day being a snow day at school. Shockingly, we had power when we got home at 12:30 in the morning, but it only lasted for maybe 10 minutes. That was the only ten minutes we had power the entire two days we were home. ..

More to come on that in the morning...it's 3 a.m. now!