Alas, here I find myself on the eve of a new semester's beginning at Sac State, the start of my 25th year on staff. Also the eve of my mother's 75th birthday. Quite a milestone! And the eve after the day of my return to San Francisco, after a long hiatus, an absence of what felt like many months after my most recent past of fairly regular visits. Indeed it had been just over four months since my last visit. Too long, too long. I am also near the end of August, having not written here since the beginning of July, and I suppose it's close enough now to call it the virtual eve of September, the long awaited month of Fall and cooler temperatures.
It seems like the current place I am in is at the crossroads of many eves.
But I have not been entirely idle, not with my son starting competitive soccer this summer and I conducting the comic operas of Gilbert & Sullivan, specifically Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer. The first time in seven years I had conducted anything! And before all that even, with what must seem like an annual pilgrimage over the rollicking seas of the Pacific Ocean to Alaska, as discussed in my previous post. And even a little overnight stay in Santa Cruz, just me and the boy, playing in the surf and collecting seashells and riding the rides of the Boardwalk.
And this picture is from yesterday's sojourn to San Francisco, specifically from the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, a place I had not visited in many years. And while I am not a tea drinker per se (at all, really), it certain seemed apropos to engage in such activity when one is in such a serene and fantastically exotic location as this. And so I drank. Jasmine tea, to be precise.
And Strawberry Hill was visited and Land's End, with Mile Rock Beach and the ocean lapping at the shore in a constant hypnotic drone. Peaceful. And lunch was had at the Sea Breeze Cafe just south of the windmills of Golden Gate Park. And all of this in the delightful company of one of my oldest and dearest of all friends. Such good times!
I did not go to Ghirardelli. Or anywhere on or even near the Embarcadero. I didn't even consume one single adult beverage. Too much to do and see, and too little time! I guess I'll have to go back again...
But no, I do need to retire so I can do this sort of thing more often. Who wants to pay off my mortgage? I've been trying to coerce the Publishers' Clearing House to handle this small detail for me, but they seem disinclined to select mine as the winning number of any of their sweepstakes.
So, back to work I go. Year 25! It seems like only yesterday I was a young, bright eyed, enthusiastic youth having recently graduated from college and embarking on this new journey of adulthood. Or a youth in relative terms anyway; I'm still a youth compared to some and yet so much older than the students I see every day wandering the halls. I mean of course, I've aged a whole quarter of a century and they have remained as young as they ever were! I suppose I should now get to sleep, though it is only just after 9:00pm, yet I find myself tired after a long weekend of frolicking about.
