Tuesdays with Madeleine

Heckled by the French

Today I drove up beautiful highway 1 to San Francisco, where I had a quite fabulous day with my little cousin Madeleine. First we waited around in the French consulate for a couple hours where I got my (free!) visa for France, but only after getting heckled by a French woman. Apparently the last time I went to France I stayed 2 months longer than I was supposed to, and SHOULD have applied for residency, but didn't...hence I had been illegal! I better not be pulling that shit again. ...She said to me dryly. As she handed my passport over. We've all got to get our jollies somehow, I guess.

An Object Lesson: Wine Glass Half-Full, or Half-Empty?

Then Madeleine and I bumbled our way through the city to Fisherman's Wharf, where we had a delectable lunch on the 3rd floor of some building, where we paid twice as much for the same food that was being served down on the street. BUT, we had a view of the Golden Gate bridge, and a tablecloth! When my glass of house Pinot Noir came, Madeleine was shocked that it was half empty. Upon which I had to explain that the way Aunt Robin and I do things at the house (i.e. fill wine glasses to the brim) is not exactly "the norm" or "proper etiquette" everywhere. Later, Aunt Robin pointed out that the a full wine glass is A. perfectly normal for home-drinking and B. completely depends on which restaurant you go to (Upper Crust, the local pizza joint, fills the glass)! Touche, Aunt Robin, touche.

The End is the Beginning

After buying a loaf of sourdough bread in the shape of a turtle, Madeleine and I headed to the next item on our list: shopping! Of course this meant that we set out in the general direction of Union Square, which consisted of me navigating up and down ridiculous hills, Madeleine attempting to read the map, and one near-death experience (only one?!? I'd say we did pretty damn good). In our frazzled search for parking, we ended up parking a block and a half away from Union Square in...the very same parking structure we had parked in this morning, directly across from the French consulate. Wow. All in all, we spent $28 on parking today. Whatevs, I got a free visa, and 3 Mormons going to France had to pay $465 for theirs all told, so HA!

God-damned Christians!

A very frazzled and upset me headed to Union Square, hoping to find H&M and DSW (shoes!). Instead, I heard some live music. 'Oh that's nice!' I thought. But no, some youth group from Southern California on their mission trip performing some High School Musical-esque song-and-dance numbers talking about how great Jesus is. I'm sure the only people who were enjoying it were already Christians, hence already saved, and I'm also betting they were shopping and ignoring homeless people just like me when they weren't deluding themselves into thinking that their little performances were doing God's will. Some people build houses on their missions, some people sing and dance. Work it out. They didn't make my day better, so HA!

Thanks, Cheesecake Factory Lady!

Macy's was overpriced, and the kindly concierge of the Cheesecake Factory pointed us in the direction we needed to go. On the way, I found a FABULOUS jewelry store, 10 times more fabulous, in fact, than the silver store where I'm currently employed (and, consequently, 10 times more expensive). There's this one necklace I may decide is necessary for my life to go on...we'll see... H&M was everything I remember it to be (I bought a maroon vest and a black jacket, woot!) and DSW was a pretty great shoe store (Madeleine bought some sweet little Rocketdogs). Then we fueled up at Starbucks and hit the road, which consisted of a couple rainbows and a rad sunset. So all in all, a win-win-win-win-win kind of day.