Sunday, October 17, 2004

Two worlds, one ice cream shop

I spent the weekend of October 9th (Happy Birthday Marl), 10th and 11th (President's day holiday for us teachers) down in Los Angeles with my friend Steve and his friends Tom and Jeff. I went down to get away from San Francisco and to check out the LA scene. We had a great time, ate a lot, partied like rock stars, and barely even left the San Fernando Valley. Yeah, we had a great time in the valley. At one point, I had a landmark moment when I stepped into the Sherman Oaks Galleria, ground zero for the "valley girl" movement of the 1980's. Good times.

I flew back to Oakland on Monday morning and was immediately faced with the reality that I was still in the midst of dealing with my car. The truck of the first week, which I grew to really enjoy driving, was returned to Enterprise. My new rental was to be a Ford Escort and when I got the keys, I got the keys to a Ford Escort. No free upgrades this time. I will say this, driving a Ford Escort does NOTHING for your mojo.

Monday evening I was scheduled to have dinner with my friend Lynn K. Back during my childhood in Seattle, my parents played mah-jongg and socialized with a group of other Chinese families. All of us children became friends as well, even though our ages ranged from high school seniors to elementary school kid. Lynn and I were members of that crowd and as is the case in life, we had lost touch. Our parents were talking one day a couple years ago and they discovered that the both of us lived in SF (Lynn now has moved to Berkeley). Lynn and I reconnected and now do the "dinner" thing about once every three months. This Monday was our dinner. We walked down and had Thai.

My friend Carlos, up from Santa Cruz for a conference in SF, was scheduled to stay with me Monday night. It didn't work out that the four of us (the fourth being Charlie B.) could coordinate eating together, but with a bit of cell phone tag, I arranged for all of us to meet up at Mitchell's ice cream. We then rolled back to my place and had wonderfully all over the place conversations. I remember that at one point, Lynn was asking questions and getting the answers of three gay men and thereby seeing that we all have different opinions about issues such as wanting a baby.

Lynn and Carlos hit is off. The two of them had a wonderful time and all I can remember of their banter was Carlos determing that Lynn's boyfriend Justin is absolutely perfect for Carlos. So I have been mandated to arrange for a time for all us to meet. It's on my list of things to do.





Charlie B., Lynn K. and Carlos P.

No comments: