Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A Great San Francisco Day

So, I know that I rarely post about the more mundane daily happenings of my life, but I had to record this great day. The school always gives us the day before Thanksgiving off so I had a day to run errands and do whatever I wanted.

I woke up to a gloriously sunny, crisp clear fall/winter San Francisco day. After a leisurely breakfast, I hopped on the bus to go down to City Hall. I was there to pay our houses entire tax bill to get a tax certificate to proceed with our condominium conversion. Like a couple experiences in the past that I've had with City Hall, I am continually amazed by the level of great and efficient service I get there. I had to go to three different offices and was in and out in half an hour. What other City Hall can claim this?

From there, I continued up Van Ness Avenue to Russian Hill to go to the surveyors office. Our surveyors are located right on Lombard Street. The reason why you recognize that name is that Lombard, on Russian Hill, is the famous curvy street that is always pictured in SF postcards. Well, being just a resident who needed to get from one place to another, I walked down beautiful Lombard Street. My walk through Russian Hill fed my envy of the place and my desire to someday live there.

After dropping off the tax certificate and updated title report, I moseyed down Columbus Avenue and sat at a cafe and had croque monseiur and a double mocha. Being that this was North Beach and everything is authentically Italian, the mocha came in one of those bowls that you have to use with two hands. I sat there for an hour savoring the drink and finished up my Earl Warren (former Governor of California and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court) biography.

After that, I walked back through Chinatown and popped into Banana Republic to browse. On the sale rack, I found a pair of khakis in my size for $9.97. My entire wardrobe consists of khakis but I couldn't bypass this consumer opportunity. I mean, I paid for a purchase at Banana Republic in CASH. How often does THAT happen.

Being in the neighborhood of Union Square, I met up with my friend Lauren S. for a quick bite to eat. Then I took the bus out to the pool to swim a mile. I've now worked up my stamina to be able to swim the 1600 meters that is equivalent of a mile in just under an hour. I swim this distance three times a week. The other two times I swim, I do about three-quarters of a mile.

Continuing on with my great day, I took the bus (note that I've become quite skilled at getting around the city on public transportation. I'm quite proud of it) back downtown to see the movie called "The Life of Reilly", which is Charles Nelson Reilly (the guy famous from Match Game) doing his one may comedy routine.

From there I went to my Weight Watchers meeting. The last two weeks I've gone, I've gained one and two pounds respectively. Having eaten in the same, not so strict manner this past week, I expected at best to have stayed the same weight or at worst gained back some of the weight I've lost. Instead, a totally pleasant surprise. Somehow, and I think it's because last weeks scale was off, I lost 6.2 pounds this past week. There is NO way. I was so sure that it was wrong, I went to another scale to check and it was the same. So, since Labor Day I've lost 13.2 pounds.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!