carry me my wayward son

2009-08-21 9:24 p.m.

Two days back to back of San Francisco hills in impractical plastic jelly shoes have taken their toll. I'm crippled, truly. The only time I've been downstairs today was around 6 when I finally succumbed to hunger and had to get dinner. Even then I had to scoot down the stairs on my butt, careful not to stretch my calf muscles in any way. My calves are absolutely massacred. Before that, I kept walking to a minimum, only between my room, my mom's room, and the bathroom.

Thai and I tried to get into the California Academy of Sciences on Wednesday, but because it was a free day, the line was ridiculous. It wound around to the back of the museum and out of the park - and Golden Gate Park is huge. The line would have taken us more than a couple of hours to wait, and it seemed unlikely they would let us in anyways. Maximum capacity, fire safety standards, that sort of thing.

Somehow, I always end up in Chinatown every time I go to San Francisco, whether I want to be there or not. For lunch, we had dim sum, then wandered in and out of dirty/dusty bargain shops. Thai couldn't find parking anywhere nearby, and had to go to the top of a hill far away, not even in the same neighborhood. We also walked over/up to Lombard Street to see the Candyland decorations. It was lame, and I was upset that I had dressed up (green apple tights) and labored up the hill for such a disappointment. At the bottom of the hill, we ran into a family on their way to Lombard too. The mother asked me how it was, and I wanted to spare her children the fatigue and letdown. When I was honest and told her "it sucks, don't do it!" Thai hit me and lied to the contrary.

The second day in San Francisco, we had to go to the airport to drop off the Korean. He stayed here an awfully long time, nigh on a month and a half, yet we didn't get close. The longest conversation we had the entire time of his stay wasn't until the night before he left. It was about ghosts. His last day here, we didn't do anything special. I took him out to get his last cup of pearl tea (he was a huge fan, like me) and then up to the only interesting part of Milpitas, Marsh Road. It's the standard suburban legend spot.

I didn't even say bye at the airport, just drove off while Thai got him through security and settled.

Julie and I decided to make a day of it in the city, because Thai told us that the Museum of Modern Art would be half price. He neglected to tell us that the deal starts at 6. Julie and I had six hours to waste. We had a greasy but thrifty lunch - dim sum AGAIN. We were typical vietnamese women, lamenting that we hadn't brought ziploc bags or anything to properly hide food in our purses with. We ended up stealing a couple of pastries each for munching on later.

I started to feel the pain in my legs, and convinced Julie to sit in Borders with me for an hour and a half to rest. We read magazines, particularly Cosmo, aloud without regard to the alarmed elderly people sitting across from us. "50 ways to touch him down ther: read number 23, it's my favorite!"

With the last couple of hours of wait, we went into a few stores in Union Square and two happy hours. I persuaded Julie to go to an Irish pub and have a pint!

At last, the MOMA was open for half price. I'm not an art aficianado by any means, nor do I care to seem pretentious. $4.50, that was the reason I went. It also seemed like a great exhibit was being featured this month: Georgia O'Keefe, Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon. Of course, when I found out that it was an additional $5 I opted out. Julie and I did decent service and went through the exhibits pretty thoroughly. Some things though, we just couldn't appreciate. Just because you put a plaque next to it that describes the "piece" as "evoking complex stirrings in the observer" does not mean that randomly arranged white boxes on the floor are worth $200,000 or warrant display.

Because we had dinner afterward with my cousin Han in the terrifying Tenderloin district, we didn't get home until 11.30 pm. I shakily got into bed and surprisingly fell asleep just after midnight!

It wasn't until this morning thatI woke up at 9 with an insistent pain in my legs, and realized I was an invalid.

I would update with pictures if my USB cord and camera were within reach, but since not, I won't.

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