Ba-bye

I have been very much over the whole bay area for the last few months. More recently, I've been trying to appreciate this place as my time here diminishes. Today, I had some errands to run in Berkeley (which, I can only hope, included my last trip to REI for a long, long, long time). As I crawled toward the bridge on I-80, I had a wonderful view across the bay to San Francisco. Some combination of afternoon light and hazy fog made the city appear as a smoky grey cardboard cutout - the kind of back-drop you'd see at a high school musical. One building, over near PacHeights, looked like it was leaning at a precarious angle toward its neighboring high rise. Even I had to admit that it was pretty. Then I got cut off by a guy on a cell phone driving a Lexus SUV, sat in traffic at the toll booths, waited for the metering lights and then got buzzed by the Blue Angels while crossing the western span. It was a fine San Francisco day. Strangely enough, I think I will miss this place - or at least I will miss the convenience of stores with food that I recognize, a bus system that mainly works, a population that mainly speaks English and a multitude of friends that are only a phone call away.

In completely unrelated news, from Mr. PressingThoughts comes the following piece of wisdom: East Bay is Pig Latin for Beast.