I’ve been to San Francisco more than two dozen times and each one has been special in its own way. One of my oldest and dearest friends and her husband moved there in 1986, after a stint in the Peace Corps, and never left. She’s a musician and the scene is thriving with just about every kind of music played somewhere. They are the perfect examples of people who bought a home in a city when a middle class couples could still afford it. Also they have money because they never had children.

In November, the weather is often foggy, rainy and cold but my first day was 60 degrees and sunny in that blinding California way, so we headed to the Lands End trail near the Presidio for a 4.5 mile hilly trek along the Pacific. The hometown company has renovated and kept this trail in pristine condition. At its end, China Beach, a grey sanded strip where San Franciscans, grateful for the sun, bring their children, picnics marveling at how lucky they are to be alive. It’s that kind of vibe. For me it was just a deep breath of life can be better than what it is now.

Did I mention that from many vantage points you have a perfect view of the Golden Gate Bridge? Icing on the cake.

If you have knee issues, and I had one replaced a year ago, there is a strip of trail where you climb stairs until they throb but the views are worth it. There’s the obligatory rock claimed by seabirds, jutting towards the sky with a majesty that few things covered by poop can reach. Better to see it from a distance.

When San Francisco is Grey we go to Sausalito

The next day the weather couldn’t decide, at dawn (yes there was jet lag), the sun hinted at a perfect day, but by 11:00 am it was toying with us and the ride over the Bay Bridge was grey. Susan swore it would be sunny in Sausalito and I doubted her until we crossed the bridge, and there it was a long strip along the water, illuminated with sunlight and clouds.

On a Thursday afternoon in early November Sausalito was not in peak tourist time. We drove around for 20 minutes and found a spot on the main drag.

We walked and walked and walked - her GPS saying she walked less than I did because despite the fact that she is under 5’ tall she is in much better shape. They were not pandemic only walkers, they have kept it up and can literally skip up hills.

Then came the saga. We kept walking. We passed a place that looked perfect but she said it was not ours. When you’ve down someone since you were 17, and were told the beer was in the bathtub at your first freshman party in the dorm, you cut each other a lot of slack. It’s just a bit further,” she kept saying and we did a U-turn and found it on the way back- Salitos’s Crab House, the place we had passed and she said was not it. The view was worth it, expansive with hints of San Francisco as a backdrop, an expansive view of the Bay and a back porch that worked as well as a yoga class for a calming moment. The food was good -we weren’t that hungry. The fist was caught that morning.

The Dinner Party

My friends live in Sunnyside which has an expansive view of the city and generally presents San Francisco in a warming, friendly way. Cities are so often dominated by the young who want to do everything out, but the 60 plus crowd that I spent time with was far more interested in holding dinner parties. This was not surprising considering how incredibly expensive food was - far more than DC whose prices are up by 30-50%. It reminded me of a much more relaxed version of the parental dinner party I grew up with - carefully selected guests, potential topics of conversation discussed beforehand.

We used paper towels as napkins. For a moment I thought they had turned into our parents as the men headed for the kitchen and shots of tequila and we stayed near the gas fire with glasses of red and white wine.

The dinner was quite good, the husband became a pandemic cook and made chicken tanginess with rice and vegetables and she, a panacotta dessert topped with raspberry coulis that someone remarked had alcohol in it. I couldn’t eat the chicken but I managed to eat the side dishes. The smell of spice lingered over the meal for hours, as did we. And the drinking - one member of the happy couples got really drunk and the wife got more and more annoyed. Evidently they did not cut off the wine and the husband really likes to drink. The second couple was much happier - she worked in healthcare and he taught tech in schools, there was a dynamism and solidarity about them that spoke of mutual respect and a lot of kids who were now old enough to take care of themselves.

We never talked about teaching schools. I told them the story about the Bellevue escapee who stood in front of me right before the NYC subway reached Astor Place, and took off all of his clothes while others left the car.

They left by 10:00 and we sat up talking until yours truly fell asleep on the couch.

Jazz in Jesse’s Basement

The first Saturday of each month an old friend of theirs who teaches and performs, invites in a local jazz ensemble, to perform in a basement that holds about 25 people. The intimacy of it is was like going on an adventure with people you didn’t really know but felt very comfortable with. We had seats in the front row. The room was cool and dark and Jesse’s wife sat next to me. I paid $25 in cash at the door.

The star of the show was a base player, an older Asian woman who straddled the giant instrument like a practiced contortionist. Her joy in playing that instrument was palpable. I could feel it as I watched her and her hands were magical as they talked to the strings. Could I tell you what they played - not exactly. Several variations of early 20th Century jazz whose melodies were vaguely familiar from records my parents used to have. Just the act of being swallowed by live music without getting pushed around was worth the entire trip.

At the break, I sat and ate fried shrimp and a couple of other things. People were welcoming.

Crazy Korean Massage

The Imperial Day Spa was described by one of the women at the dinner party as a “car wash.” When we think of spas we think of luxuriating under fluffy white towels, spritzing ourselves in the sauna, a choice of fresh-squeezed juices and a hot tub. That’s not what this is.

You enter, strip naked, lie on a tatami mat with other naked women and breathe in Himalayan salt which clears out all the stuff that you want gone. They give you a single large towel which you toss on the mat and lie down on. About 20 minutes later it’s enough and there is a hot tub, a cold pool and what I chose, a frigid shower. No clothes anywhere.

They were late in getting us so we got time to enjoy the pre car wash festivities. She had taken me once before to Kabuki so I was expecting it to be rough but I didn’t expect this. We follow a woman up the stairs and she separates us - I go to a table and she throws hot water all over it - spend much of the time wondering whether I will fall off. But the Asian woman in a black top and shorts isn’t going to let that happen. She throws more hot water on me and then gets what can only be described as a scrub brush - the kind you would use inside a toilet - and remove layers of your skin. I wince and breathe my way through it.

She also pounds on me at various intervals and manages to turn me over without sliding off the table. I will never forget of all the black stuff that was on the table - the dead flesh that has been peeled off my body with some sort of dark scrub.

This continues for about 30 minutes and then there is the not at all soothing massage which is essentially pressure point therapy with no thought to the sensitivities of your body. They wrap you up in a robe and send you on your way. My skin was as soft as a newborn baby’s afterwards.