miss-placed a 3 hour time difference but worlds apart

Oh how I love the bus system here:

Get on overcrowded bus this morning and first thing driver says: "I've had a tough morning, we've had two electrical fires today so most of the buses aren't running and lots of them just lost power completely in the middle of driving."  Super.

Second thing she says: "Plus, my brakes aren't really working today, they keep trying to give out on me but I'm not giving up yet, so just make sure you hold on tight.  If you feel even more jerking now you know why."  Um, is that legal?  Not exactly what I wanted to hear as I am the first one standing at the front of the bus and would definitely be the first one to go through the windshield.  The sad part?  I actually stayed on the bus despite all this, so I guess I probably would've deserved to go through the window at that point.

This is why my parents, or more specifically my mom, will never understand what I do for a living -

Scene: Me working on my computer at home in Miami while my mom tries to look over my shoulder and read my emails, or as she puts it, just look at the pictures.

Mom: What's PopSugar?

Me: Um, our flagship site, the parent company that I work for

Mom: Oh, I thought it was some kind of men's site

Me: Really, how so?

Mom: Cause it says "Pop" as in "Dad"

Me: Wow mom, I'm pretty sure that's a first

P.S. - Yes I will always use any excuse possible to work Will Smith into any possible post/conversation/life event that I can

P.P.S. - She still has no idea what PopSugar is

This weekend marks my two year anniversary of moving to San Francisco.  And after hearing at first it takes 6-9 months, then a year, then 2 years to love it here, we are unfortunately not very much closer to that so called lovefest with this city I keep hearing about.  Maybe its more like dog years for me, which if the average is about 2 years to love means I only have 12 more to go.

With that said, there are a few small signs that I am adapting to life here and that this city is slowly accepting me, bitterness and all:

- Within the past two weeks, I've had two people stop me on the street to ask me directions.  One I pointed in the right direction, one unfortunately I did not - unbeknownst to me (and them) at the time obviously (ok, kind of unbeknownst to me).

- In NY I actually went out to dinner in the summertime carrying a scarf.  Even worse, I actually wore the scarf.

- I had a friend come visit who clearly hated San Francisco more than I do and I found myself almost (almost) trying to defend it. Ken's point, she doesn't have to live here, I do.

- I was in shock when a friend reminded me that NY only sells wine in actual liquor stores.

And then while I was in NY last week I overheard the following comments reminding me why I love it there so much.  Words never uttered in SF:

- NYers aren't rude they just have shit to do.

- Do you know if this yogurt is kosher?

- We don't have anything available at 9 pm but we do have an 11:30 pm reservation if you'd like

- We got home pretty early last night, it was before 2 I think.

- How long will it take to deliver? 15 minutes. I'm sorry 50 minutes? No 15.

- I just found a dreidel in my pocket (this one was actually me).

And to end it, Ken so very kindly sent me this wonderful billboard he saw on the street in NY which I think sums up my feelings perfectly:

What's the etiquette on throwing something in the garbage can when someone is digging through it?  My guess was that its probably not appropriate, so I kept on walking.  But then it happened three times in a row, and no I wasn't at a trash & recycling center, I was in the Marina.  I was tempted to just hand it to the last person with his head in the can since I figured whatever he was digging for was probably what I had in my hand but then thought better of that idea too. So I ended up carrying my trash home with me and probably should've recycled it or composted it or melted it down and molded it into a reusable water bottle but I just threw it away in my plastic garbage bags.

PS - For two days in a row now I have seen people on the bus wearing mittens.  I wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or ask to borrow them.

I should've been born Japanese.  Skinny with stick straight hair (two things I spend way too much money and time on now), neurotically on time, fondness for weird food (particularly seafood and sweets), and constantly shopping in convenience stores.  The only part I am probably missing is the politeness, but I guess it couldn't hurt to learn.  Before I came here Ken said Tokyo is like 5 Manhattans in one city.  He is wrong, its like 5 Manhattans multipled by 12 add 100 and then double it.  Its insane.  If you took every single person in San Francisco you still wouldn't have as many people as were inside the food halls of Takashimaya.  And with all these people I've seen one homeless man.  One.  The city is so clean the taxis have doilies for you to sit on and the subway system in Japanese is easier to figure out than the Muni.  The only thing that Tokyo could learn from San Francisco (yes I am saying someone could learn something from San Francisco) is the need for signs to major attractions, preferrably with pictures.  You know how you see a picture of a random crab when you're headed towards Fisherman Wharf (and I've totally made fun of these before), well it would've been nice to see some kind of picture of a temple when I am trying to find the temple instead of having to make hand motions depicting a temple (you can imagine how well that went over).  But the people are so incredibly nice they go out of their way to figure out directions for you even when they have no idea what you are talking about (I'm pretty sure by now I've asked 5 people if they want to buy some billygoats when I've been trying to ask where the cherry blossoms are).  And they don't stop bowing which makes me start bowing uncontrollably and then its this constant bowing for 10 minutes before I'm able to walk away.  I love it here.

Its Thursday, so I headed downstairs to the Farmer's Market at lunchtime to visit the German pretzel bread man as I do every week.  After asking for my usual pretzel bread sticks the man put them in a small paper bag that just barely covered the bread (similar to my all time favorite no-grip Walgreens bags) and out of the corner of my eye I saw that he actually had plastic bags (a rare find in SF that always makes me unnaturally happy when I find one). And since I naturally forgot my I'm Not a Plastic Bag bag, I thought it was ok to ask for one.  He looked at me for a good 10 seconds as if I just confessed I shot his mom.  And then said to me "are you going to throw the bag in the Bay and kill some whales with it?"  Yes, yes that is exactly what I planned on doing with the bag, how did you know?  Right after I planned to strangle dolphins with the plastic from my 6-pack of diet coke.  I then received a 20 minute lecture on recycling or composting, or whatever it is I was supposed to do with the bag that I obviously wasn't paying attention to and was just concentrating on my secret plan to kill marine life.

On my way to the gym this morning, 6:30 am walking by two men on the street:

Homeless man 1: Do you have any whiskey? I need some whiskey

Homeless man 2: Sure, I got some whiskey for you, just come on over here.

It is 6:30 AM, are we questioning why you're homeless?  And Ken wonders why I refuse to give them any money.  Its really a super way to start the morning.

On a totally separate subject, Ken made his first purchase from Lululemon this weekend. Apparently he is taking this whole move to San Francisco thing pretty seriously.  He tried to get me to do the same but I was too busy making fun of him to do anything productive.

Sorry (mostly to DK), I've been in sort of a ranting mood lately.  So here are a few things I don’t appreciate, am tired of, or am just over in general...

Having a fever for 7 days in the middle of summer and not knowing if the constant switch between shivering and sweating is because I’m sick, or because I live in San Francisco and its summer.

People who are late for an appointment and use “I take muni” as an excuse.  I lived in NY for 5 years and never once did someone who was late for an appointment say to me “Sorry, I take the subway.” You know you take the muni, you know muni is always late, wake up 20 minutes earlier. (sorry sabs, I swear this is not directed at you, I fully support your abusive relationship)

Visitors who say if they lived in SF they would be in great shape.  I live in SF and I am not in great shape.  I live on a hill and I am not in great shape.  I climb the hill once a morning to go to work and that’s it.  I don’t run up and down it for fun or to get in shape, and if you lived on it neither would you.  I was in better shape when I was in NY and lived 1 flat block away from my gym, not a 40 minute bus ride.

Feeling the need to take both dramamine and febreez on the bus with me every morning.  Is it really that difficult to drive a bus without slamming on the breaks? You see people holding on for dear life, flinging backwards and forwards (on to smelly people they would rather not touch), what is so hard about easing into a stop sign.

Hearing that if I want a summer I need to move to Marin or the East Bay or some other suburb of this city where its warm.  You know where else its warm in the summer?  EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE US  

In other news, my dentist today asked me if I’ve ever taken ecstasy, right after he poked me in the mouth with novocaine.  So on the bright side it appears that San Francisco has better dentists.

When I arrived in NY on Friday it was miserable outside. Pouring rain, 50 mph winds, freezing cold and all around terrible. I broke two umbrellas and basically showed up to my hotel looking like a wet dog. I thought it was San Francisco's way of saying, you don't like me? Well I'll show you.  Naturally the first thing everyone said to me was, see now don't you love living in San Francisco?  Aren't you happy you no longer live in NY?  Obviously not, but I wasn't helping my own case.

And then on Tuesday my city decided I had suffered enough and it turned in to one of the most beautiful days ever and has continued through the week.  Bright blue skies, warm, sunny and all around gorgeous outside (and obviously warmer than San Francisco's summer).  I knew my city wouldn't fail me.  If I accidentally on purpose miss my flight today I'll see you all in a few weeks. PS - Apparently I wasn't exactly supposed to take these pictures because the company owns the air space or something ridiculous like that?  Oops.  So there may be a valid reason I have to stay in NY afterall.

No, I didn't mean to write cougars, I do actually mean coyotes.  I heard on the news today they are now invading Russian Hill and just hanging out in the park (and you wonder why I prefer to live in a city without any grass or trees).  They've so far eaten a cat, which I can't say I am that upset about, but its when they move on to humans I start to get a little worried.  Apparently homeless can't climb hills (except for one man who does hang out at the top of the hill but I am pretty sure he just made it to the top one day and has never gone back down for fear he will never make it back up again), but coyotes do.  Super, so now as I not only concentrate on not falling down my hill in the dark and not getting mugged, I now also have to worry about not getting attacked by a coyote.