Quit Yer Bitchin', you Big Ol' Baby!

Brunch at Saint Francis Fountain

Ok, here's the deal. I'm fucking cranky. I've had an exhausting two weeks and though I keep trying to look at the bright side, I'm irritated. 

Why, you might ask? 

The dude I'm desperately trying to get over keeps sending me really fucking adorable pictures of himself, pictures of us, pictures of him with my damned dog.

I had a stalker experience, in which I was being harrassed by three different telephone numbers, actually, totally 100% freaking me out, only to find out that those that were "stalking" me were actually friends. And I'm supposed to go sailing with them on Sunday.

My job sucks.

Our adventures are still ruined by the damn curse of Mondays.

Billy Goat Hill

And when you go out for the remedy cocktails you so desperately need after such a shitty week, you wind up with really, really expensive bills. 

But if you know anything about me, you also know that I'm pretty fucking funny when I'm angry. And that the more upset I get, the more fun I seek.

My retaliation? 

I found the perfect motherfucking rope swing.

It's called Billy Goat Hill. You have to hike through the wild underbrush to get there, but once there, crack that damned champagne, kick off your shoes and swing to save your life. 

That's a win.

Or you could try the Seward Slides in the Castro, except on Mondays, when the slides are FUCKING CLOSED. I'm not joking. The city actually puts three gates on the slides, and according to a bystander, you can get slapped with a $200 ticket for sliding.

This was a fail.

You can go to Beach Chalet and sit outside on a lovely, hot February afternoon and eat their amazing chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream and drink cocktails, but that bill is enough to break the bank.

This was a delicious fail.

Or you could take Krysten's advice and cross the bridge to Sausalito to see a model of the Bay. This place was insane.

Built in the 1950s to test John Reber's idea to build two dams to keep the fresh water separate from the salt water, the Army Corps of Engineers built a full model of the bay. This hydraulic model is gigantic and takes forever to walk its entirety. A day here passes in fourteen minutes, meaning that if you watch closely enough, you can see the changing of the tides. 

Though clearly obsolete now, the place felt like a Cold War Mausoleum. I kept expecting people to show up wearing lab coats and to find the place totally bugged.

This was creepy rad.

delicious

But then, hungry, we went to this restaurant on the bay, The Trident, a place I had gone to over the summer at the beginning of my birthday week. I had remembered it fondly, until we sat down. Good lord, the place was expensive, and worse, our stupid server totally upsold us, presenting us with a gnarly bill, accompanied with the quip, "my customers are so smart."

She was opportunistic, to put it nicely. We are never going back, though the fish and chips were incredible.

our view from the Trident

And I'm irritated. 

opening day, May 21, 1973

I wanted to talk about how cool it was the the Seward Mini Park was created out of protest in 1966, that a group of hippies did a sit in and changed city planning. But what good is that when you can't go there on a Monday? And what's so wrong with this city that they would bar cement slides? What harm could possibly come from this?

Sausalito

good guy Lincecum

Otis "the shit" Redding

And then, I wanted to talk about some cool people that lived in Sausalito, how, back in the day, it was a major spot for bootlegging. But then I started reading the biography of one notable character, the American gangster, Public Enemy Number One, Baby Face Nelson. That guy was a murderous peace of shit.

This guy bums me out.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

But you know what, I also had a really fucking good time. There is nothing in the world to compare to a rope swing, let alone one tied to a eucalyptus tree overlooking San Francisco. Though we could only ride half those slides, they offered promise. And in between all the things seen, I got to hang out with some of my favorite people. 

Here are a few other highlights from this week: the guy I'm trying to get over isn't letting me. And did I mention he's a babe?

I made a new friend when some old friends came to visit, and we spent countless hours on my roof drinking French 75s. 

The girls and I did some alley drinking while I schemed on a mural I'd like to do.

It rained for days, meaning that the desperate drought we're in might not last forever.

Oh, and the sun's back out in the Mission.

I'm just going to leave you with some photos for you to decide. 

I've got a fish on my head!

 I'm a big ol' baby and I absolutely adore this city. You can find me swinging until my temper tantrum fades.