On Thanksgiving Away from Home

A Letter from RLP to ALV:

Erin's parents live on a golf course about an hour from SF. It has a gate that is lifted when a guard in a guard house presses the button after taking your name and quizzing your motives. The new Smith family residence is by all measures beautiful and modest at the same time. "Much smaller" said Mr. Smith than the place where Erin and Abby and Chad grew up in Moraga after I commented on how much I liked it.
There was booze in my hand immediately, poured from an open, half drained bottle of Bogle. It was somewhere around 1pm. The Smith's.
Then it was a flurry of new faces as I met Mr. and Mrs. Smith the elders, the ones from Monterrey. Amiable sorts to be sure and like all good Grandmothers, she had soon pressed food in my free hand and told me to eat up so she could make room on the platter for more.
We watched football, the Grandfather and I, as everyone else was content to be talking or something. They did not have the same grasp on Thanksgiving as I and he. That is, back in NH the day is about Mass first, then Football. Sometimes live football watching my prep school get whalloped by the local public school. Never fair, those public school defensive lines. 25 year olds. You can tell by the growth of beard.
But in the absence of live pigskin, the tube is on and blaring as it was on that day. Mr Smith the elder was drinking Scotch and I was on glass number two and then I found myself talking with Erin's Dad about biotechnology and business cycles. Incredibly gentle fellow, Erin's Dad. Super bright to be sure, a geek like you and me and I was instantly comfortable.
Soon it was time for Turkey and the spread was mammoth. We ate a ton after a prayer was offered by Erin's Dad as we all held hands. In that moment it was crystal to me why Erin is how she is. Like all of us she gets caught up in moments but her grounding is so solid and earnest that she never loses touch or the ability to reach out and understand. She's very much like you in that way.
When dinner was done there were games to be played. Dice, in fact. I'd never played dice but I learned quickly and won the first round. Then, it was just me and her Dad and the Grandfather and he wanted to play "liars dice" and that was outstanding. Sort of like Bullshit. Fantastic. The game deteriorated quick as a whip when the word dessert was heard. More drinking. More Eating. More carrying on.

I stayed the night because if I had tried to drive I would have ended up in the Bay. Needless to say it was a good occasion and I was indeed very thankful for the place to be, so far from home.

Pacifica

One eye was closed against the glare of harsh sunlight and I wondered why. I looked around me and it was clear I was not in the Sunset but had woken up at my friend's apartment in Pac Heights with a high rent hangover. It was another Saturday morning where the prior night's events had gone from ill remembered meetings to ill considered choices. There had been a fight over a cab but neither myself nor my friend lying next to me in bed could determine who caused it. What's more, she recalled shrill fighting words in the wee hours that eminated from down the hall. The whole thing was a little hazy and we figured out in due course that it was just Friday night taking it's toll on another relationship. This particular one between our other friends: her roomate down the hall and his girlfriend. Fighting is what they do. If they did not have that then they would not have much, it seems to me. At least that's the public face of the thing. Closed doors obscure the whispered words and light touches.
Then there were the feet, shod in black Chuck Taylors and attached to legs that mockingly disappeared under a blanket on the living room couch. No idea who the feet and legs and Chucks belonged to. It was a moment of dysclarity, like many very early on a Saturday morning when you're not quite drunk but certainly not sober. I was in search of the bathroom and stumbled on this mystery along the way.
"Who slept on the couch?" I asked while there were people awake to ask. No one knew. The door was locked though and everyone seemed confused. The high level of vibration was made worse by Round Two between Ben and Amanda as Ben's car had evidently been unceremoniously carted off to the impound lot. The door to the bedroom was open a quarter of the way and they had moved into the hallway. We tragically now had front row's.
"I told you not to park there!" he hollared at an agitated Amanda who should have been tapping her foot but probably feared a resultant escalation. The rest of the dicussion faded into the background as I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my eyelids.
"We need to get out here" I said to my friend who then rolled out of bed and fell to the floor grasping for pieces of clothing. All of this in one seamless move. An althlete, I thought. No doubt about it. Clearly she was on the same page.
Car keys, glasses...where are the glasses? Mantle. Living Room. Wallet. Car Keys. Right, no left pocket.
Staggering out into the sun of sometime past noon we found my un-towed car and lit the engine and pointed the front end West. Then South.
We needed a cure for this thing, as both of us were staggering in place and hoping to hold on to some semblance of conciousness for the ride to Pacifica. They had food there that would sooth. There was sand and breeze heavy with ocean. Somehow the amplitude and frequency of the waters neutralizes or maybe meshes with whatever is going on in the sour stomach and makes that seem normal, natural, OK.

Photo Journal: SF One

Images tell the story better when the words just aren't flowing. This is the situation today as I post some of these for posterity, or what poses for such in the digital age.