at Damiana’s 6 May 2022

Wheeling ourselves across San Francisco with only a couple of interesting glitches. 

First up, Zazie, a French brunch on Cole, a favorite from previous trips. Proudly tip free; one's check explain that no tip is expected, that the food prices full fund medical, dental, a matching 401k, and profit sharing based on sales. Zowie! Delicious Eggs Bennie ala Albert and Cappuc'. 

Then downtown to park at the SFMTA parking garage where we were able to plug in and recharge!

And walked two blocks to the MoMA just after it opened. No screaming kids!

The MoMA experience was very different from yesterday's museuming. Seven floors, and we worked our way down from the top. Very different textures on each floor, and unexpected imagery and sounds. Where yesterday's Alice Neel was a full course steak dinner, this was a varied buffet.

Downtown San Francisco is, for this old timer, a shock – a blend of very new and some old familiar (but somehow changed, a terrible beauty is born.)

Walked to Yank Sing. Yum.

Walked back and picked up our fully charged car. Got into traffic and dove down Minna Alley. “How'd you know to do that?” asks Rochelle; just then, we see two Uber cars coming the wrong way on the narrow one way (our way) street. Beside us a good lookin' guy in a yellow construction vest and a red construction hat sitting on top of a 40 foot bucket loader. 

“What's the matter with those people?” he asks when I roll down my window. We're in a Mexican standoff, nobody willing to back up, and at least three of us not obliged to and in no hurry. Mr Red Hat and I exchange puzzlements. “But we're on a schedule,” says he.

“That's the boss's worry; you're on hourly, right?”

“Yup, long's the money's comin' in, I can sit here all day!”

Then the passenger gets out of the wrong-way Uber and starts to ...who knows what? Mr Red Hat jumps off his rig and officiously waves her back in her car and yells at the driver (probably some poor new non-English speaker recruited to drive Uber in downtown SF), motions (in no uncertain terms) him and the guy behind him to back up, bullying them, really, but when they backed onto New Montgomery, he walked out and stopped traffic so they could get pointed in the right direction, then dramatically called their attention to the DO NOT ENTER sign. Duh.

Then the Friday afternoon early getaway mess on the Bay Bridge, but pretty soon, miraculously, at Damiana's quiet house on a hill.

Dinner at Shakewell, another delicious meal. Matt (“I'll be your waiter tonight”) said “this is the busiest Friday we've had in a looong time.”