Last week was Fleet Week, and, more importantly, it was the first chance I had to visit San Francisco since my baby shower in January. Dad, Jill, and Rocket got into town on Sunday even though the Fleet Week party wasn't until Saturday. Clara and I drove down Monday to join them, but Jack had school and wouldn't be able to come until Friday.
It was great getting back into the city. We spent all but one evening on the roof watching the sunset, and it was gorgeous.
I'm also grateful I can do paid work from anywhere I have access to the internet...and to someone else to watch Clara. Jill was particularly helpful in that regard, taking Rocket and Clara to the playground for a couple hours on a couple different days so I could earn some money. Once Everett got into town (Wednesday night) he took turns helping with Clara too, and so I was able to visit family and SF for longer without taking a hit on our income. When we'd first arrived Clara seemed unsure of everyone except Papi (Dad) and would cry if people looked at or spoke to her direclty. But after a day or so she was over it and interacted happily with everyone for the most part.
Another pleasant part of the trip was how Rocket seemed to have done an about face as far as Clara is concerned. Here are statuses I wrote about him: one from our trip to visit them in June and one from this Fleet Week trip:
I didn't mind how he felt in June. He's just a little guy. But it was still nice when he seemed much more open to her this last trip.
It was also sweet hanging out with Rocket in general. We played Battleship, which he was very into. It's good practice for him because he's still learning his letters and numbers. I wouldn't let him look at my board (apparently Dad lets him) but I would give him hints whenever he hit one of my ships on where to guess next. He never says "you missed," opting instead for "you hit the water!" Sometimes if you hit one of his ships, he'll pick the whole ship up to show you where the red peg went in, but then he'll accidentally put the ship back down in a new spot and you'll have to find it all over again. I guess that's a lot more like how real ship hunting would work anyway. :-P
We also spent a couple evenings spinning the wheel in the living room and trying to guess which spot it would land on. The wheel is off balance so it lands on so me spots a lot more than others, which means when it
does land on a spot it usually misses (e.g. "the pen Ed stirs his coffee with") it's kind of exciting, haha. One night Kale came over to visit and he and Rocket (and Clara) and I just sat in the living room guessing and cheering. It was fun, especially since Rocket would get so into it.
Of course I took Clara all around the house and there was tons of new stuff for her to explore. She especially loved the double mirrors in the bathroom adjacent to our room, and by the end of the week if I even carrier her toward the bathroom she'd start getting excited and laughing/cooing. We also spent a lot of time in the kitchen, where she played with the farm magnet toys, and some time on the pool table where she examined the overhead lamp and the pool balls. Many times I thought about all my past memories in Jefferson, never imagining what it would be like to have a child, much less imaginging that child crawling all over the very same house.
Jill had a pack-and-play for Clara to sleep in, but I think the unfamiliarness of it (the feel, the smell) made her wake up way more often than she does at home. The first night or two I'd have to get up maybe a half dozen times a night just to pat her butt back to sleep, and it was really exhausting. On the third night I let her sleep next to me in bed and just lined some media room couch cushions on the other side of her. That worked much better. She would still start to wake up but I could pat her without getting up myself, which was easier and faster and she'd fall back to sleep quickly. She'd also roll over and scoot up against me like a little, very tiny spoon, and that was really sweet. And she'd wake up in the morning, not crying, but just cooing and touching my face.
It was pleasant getting to visit Dad, Jill, and Rocket (and then Everett, and then Neil) throughout the week. We had several evenings on the roof, which were really nice, and on Friday, Jack, me, Dad, Jill, Sarah, and Paul and Jennifer all went bar hopping. We went to Top of the Mark, which had an amazing view, and The Saloon, which had a great blues band, and we drank and danced and joked and it was a lot of fun.
Soon it was Saturday and we had the actual party. As Fleet Week parties go, this was one of my favorites. It was the right size crowd--enough to feel like it's happening, but not so much that it was standing room only and a lot of strangers and polite chit chat. In fact I think nearly all the guests were friends of mine (as opposed to friends of Dad's) and it was great to see them. Even Dan and Stephanie made it for the first time since I started inviting them three years ago, and Dan loved it. He used to watch the Blue Angels when he was a kid but hadn't seen them since, so he was pretty into the show, the view, and the country music. And I enjoy talking to Stephanie about mom stuff, as they have a son just over a year old.
Of course Henry and Kale came, tried and true, and so did several of my friends from my grad program who have since moved to the bay area. After the show Henry, Kale, and Fitzy stayed and played games the rest of the day and night. Jill got us to all play several round of the paper game, which were hilarious as usual.
[Side note: Henry is a total sweetheart. He offers people food and drink and takes videos with my camera because he knows I'd like more of them and like to be in some of them. He's just generally a go-to, helpful guy. At one I was feeding Clara during the Blue Angels show and Henry made a point of standing such that his shadow fell on her so she wouldn't get too much sun. Seriously, how thoughtful is that??]
I took a turn while Jack watched Clara, and then we switched and I gave Clara a bath, which she was very happy about. She needed it too, after so many applications of baby sunscreen throughout the day. After she fell asleep, the others stayed to play more games, but Everett and I took a walk down Marina Blvd to the water and sat at the edge of the sand, watching the Golden Gate at night, and Alcatraz, and talking and smoking cheap cigars. That had been Everett's idea which he suggested before he even got into town, and I'm really glad we planned it because it's nice to get some one-on-one visits amidst the chaos of such a big group. Plus Everett and I have sort of made a tradition of smoking cheap cigars together and talking and I like that. Previously we'd mostly done it at a bridge over a creek behind a neighborhood we used to live in, in Missouri, so now we joke that we have to have cheap cigars near bridges only (old neighborhood bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, haha). Anyway we had good talks and might have stayed out even longer except I had to go home to pump. I was exhausted anyway.
It was great to get to see Neil too, but between all the school work he needs to do, all the work he had to do helping prep for and clean up after the party, and the shorter trip he had, I don't feel like I got to visit with him as much. We did get to talk the first night he got in town. He came up to my room to see Clara (even though she was asleep) and we chatted quietly for awhile, and that was fun.
Anyway, the day after the party was everyone's last day in town and Everett had a list of SF-based things he wanted to do. We walked down Chestnut St, stopping at Barney's and Marina Deli. That evening he, Neil, Jack, Mike and I all went to Poop Island to see the sunset (Jill graciously volunteered to watch Clara again). We hadn't been in so long we weren't entirely sure about how to get there but it came back to us. The parking lot we used to go to was closed off and we had to park further away, but it wasn't too much of a walk and it also meant less other people around. We still got there in plenty of time to see the sunset and take lots of pictures. The pic below is the four guys running to the lookout spot.
I can't help but think about how none of our family lives in the bay area anymore (Ellen moved for med school, and she was the last remaining one) and how it's likely Jack and I will leave the state in a few years to go somewhere cheaper. Maybe Dad will keep the house and we'll have many more visits to come over the years, or maybe he'll sell it and we won't ever really come back. That uncertainty makes each visit even more nostalgic and, in a way, more intensely enjoyable.
