Desperate for some exercise after a week indoors working from home, we hiked from Civic Center to a deserted Union Square last Saturday, in between blessed, much-needed rainstorms on Friday and Saturday night.
From Union Square, we walked down Second Street to South Park. Even after 40 years of living in this city, I still keep stumbling across fabulous new oddities, like the Gran Oriente Filipino Masonic Temple on Jack London Alley, which is "Dedicated to the Supreme Architect of the Universe."
A block away at the SF Giants ballpark, the statue of Willie Mays is now framed by a Black Lives Matter banner, and no white supremecist Proud Boys have yet ripped it down.
We continued south to my favorite new public space, Mission Creek Park, where I sat on a bench while my partner went to Gus's Community Market for some of the best take-out sandwiches in town.
Across Mission Creek, I noticed a handmade sign in a set of windows thanking SF for their VOTE. We were very close to experiencing the American Nazi Fourth Reich with a Trump re-election, where the daily American insanity would have been exponentially worse. We have dodged that particular alternate reality, but it required a colossally bungled, murderous handling of a global pandemic.
We took our sandwiches over to the waterfront near the ballpark where the views and light were breathtaking.
There is a narrow fishing pier bordering the marina which was empty except for streetwise seagulls.
They were fearless around people...
...and even staged a few sandwich snatching maneuvers that would not been out of place in
The Birds.
While watching the big container ships in quarantine, and small boats offering sailing lessons with everyone being masked...
...we noticed a larger charter boat that was hosting what looked like a stupid, unmasked, company Christmas party.
Continuing our hike down the Embarcadero, we passed by Piers 30-32 where there was a Christmas tree lot...
...fronting a large-scale drive-though and walkup COVID testing site for those lucky enough to have appointments.
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