All hail Bob Webber who has sent me a delightful book called Paris Inside Out, a cultural guide to the City of Light. It has many fine features, and I am going to take it into work with me to use as a reference book. Only today I was bemoaning my lack of a Paris guidebook as I tried to choose hotels in certain areas for a client. My mental map of Paris is peculiarly full of holes, so I sometimes forget the relationships of various tourist sites and arrondissements. Personally, I prefer either the Marais on the right bank, or something near the Musee Cluny on the left bank.
I am a crispy critter today, having sat out in the sun for four hours at Candlestick (okay, 3Com Park) yesterday without benefit of sunscreen. The Giants won, rah rah go team, but it wasn't a very exciting game until the fourth inning when Ellis Burks hit a two-run homer. Armando Rios did the same thing in the seventh, and the Giants retired victorious, 7-6 over the Rockies. Two guys sitting directly behind us who'd been hitting the beer pretty hard spent a lot of time shouting abuse at the Rockies' outfield, the perfect example of why ballparks stop serving beer after the seventh inning stretch.
Then it was off to see the very funny and charming Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald with Sei at the San Francisco film festival. I laughed out loud through most of it, something I very rarely do. It's a Japanese comedy about producing a live radio drama, and if it gets a distribution deal I highly recommend it.
Afterwards, we walked up Fillmore St. to get a cup of coffee, and nostalgia washed over me since I used to live just around the corner from the Kabuki Theatre in 1985. My brother and I shared an apartment in a beautiful old house on Bush St., and I always enjoyed the 19th century architecture in the neighborhood as I walked around on various errands. At that time, the Fillmore district across Geary was still nasty, poverty-stricken, and unsafe after dark, but we lived in the lower Pacific Heights, and it was a totally happening place to hang out. It's still tremendously hip, but the real change is across Geary. The Fillmore District has been gentrified almost out of recognition. No more housing projects. Of course, no more community gardens, either. Now it's block after block of San Francisco-ized condos and apartments (the local building code extends to the look of the exterior and most new buildings look like stylized Victorian row houses minus the charm and the gingerbread). I'm not sure I admire the change.
Sei and I chatted for an hour at the cafe, enraging a fellow patron with our self-indulgent pop psychology. Too bad, you know? If she'd wanted quiet she should have gone to the library. I received my Christmas present from her (hey, what's a few months between friends?) which turned out to be delightfully apt for a sunburned paleface: a bottle of milk bath! She also gave me some Japanese anime videos which I'm looking forward to. The only other anime I've seen is Totoro, so I'm psyched to see these.
Twenty four hours later I'm still pink as a lobster around the ears and neck, but my hands have gone brown so I guess I'll survive my unexpected sunburn. Who'd have thought Candlestick would bring such weather? We were prepared for cold and wind, not summer. I had a really good time; I want to go to more games, for sure. But not until my next paycheck, boy. My outing to the park cost $21 for the tickets (lower box), $22 for the super cool Giants cap that probably saved me from a more severe burn and was therefore worth it, and $12 on two hot dogs and a medium coke for sustenance. I can't afford any more fun for a while.
Now I'm off to soak in my present from Sei while reading my present from Bob. Thanks, guys.
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