Flip Flop

I suspect like most of us, I am a creature of habit and routine. When I’m home without a school or travel schedule to follow, I tend to stay home all morning. While I’m fresh, I write my daily blogpost, take care of e-mail, work on a book (if I happen to be working on one), play some piano and so on until lunch. That’s when I finally step out the door into the world to walk, bike, do errands, visit friends, what have you. 

 

But it’s always a good idea to mix things up a bit and today, I flip-flopped the usual schedule. I knew I needed to keep up with exercise, but couldn’t stand going out in the afternoon when the Blue Angels would sonically overwhelm me with their terrorizing roar. Meanwhile, my wife’s Sunday morning routine these past 36 years is to go on a bike ride with her “What Café?” group of friends. One of the original founders died back in 2007, another moved away, a few come in and out and new folks have joined and the tradition moves on. Usually all women, but occasionally guest men are allowed to join and today Kevin and I rode alongside five other women, leaving at 8:30 in the morning. 

 

What amazes me is that instead of rotating leadership and taking turns being responsible for deciding where to ride and by what route and “what café” they’ll end up at for brunch, they just huddle together at one of the member’s houses and miraculously, a plan just emerges. So it was today and off we went through Golden Gate Park to the ocean, then north to the Legion of Honor, east down Lake Street to Arguello, north again to Tunnel Top and the newly opened restaurant/café, The Mess Hall. Being San Francisco, there was a significant amount of challenging uphill (all on “acoustic” bicycles), some swooping downhills and pitch-perfect weather with no wind and not a Blue Angel in sight. 

 

The Mess Hall (named for the Officer’s Eatery back when the Presidio was a military base and now gentrified and pricey) served excellent coffee and a unique cheese/egg pastry with an unpronounceable and unrecognizable name (but delicious). There we sat in the sun, thoroughly enjoying the sweeping 180-degree view from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Palace of Fine Arts, following the conversation wherever it led. Which, weirdly enough, brought us to obscure animals like echidna, coatimundi, capybara and more. 

 

One more big hill (Arguello) to ascend before heading south to Golden Gate Park and back home by noon. And now the grand perk of feeling like I fulfilled my exercise quotient and the day is wholly mine to do what I will. The opposite of my usual, but wholly refreshing.

 

So there you have it. On to my day.