November 19, 2012
As a general rule, I avoid going into the city. No offense to the city of San Francisco, although I do hate driving in or having to find parking there because let’s face it – Market Street mixed among other wackadoodle streets and city parking are the pits, but this homebody is far too easily fatigued and thus unmotivated so can easily push off any single errand to SF until there are at least several things to do or someone’s come to town.
We had such a confluence this weekend with mutual friends in town so PiC and I had a bit of a lark. With nearly 12 hours of sleep under my belt, I had my fingers crossed I’d make it all the way into the evening. We had one errand each, and then an open-ended “we’ll meet with you for ….. ”
We had Clipper cards with varying amounts of money on it for travel, but his card required an agent to work some kinda something on it to make it work again.
My travel: Free.
His travel: $3.55, no agent at the booth and I’d accidentally left behind my backup Clipper card in case his didn’t work. Whoops.
It was a surprisingly long two-thirds mile trek through groddy-town to get to Hayes Valley. Disturbed flocks of pigeons there, along with all the smells of back alleys, discovered a freeway entrance where one didn’t seem to belong and then found ourselves suddenly in an utterly too-nice nice neighborhood. I guess this is how gentrification works/worked in San Francisco?
My errand: his belated birthday gift, a secret thing, a coffee, $42
Back again, through the puddles and the pigeons, and ponderings if we should just walk all the way to Union Square. Pondered all the way right back onto Bart. Hopped on, hopped off.
Meandered up and out, moved as part of the crowd up the way toward Powell, toward, Geary, toward Post, toward all the major landmarks of the Square. H&M (one of three), a new Uni-Glo, Bloomingdales looming(dales), Macy’s. The tree was up, the ice rink was out and holiday crowds were out in force. Oddly, I was ok with this.
His errand: a shirt, value, $80. Free with coupon.
Unscheduled stop, H&M: poke and pruned until we find a blouse, $30.44, with 20% off coupon. Still a little steep given my ambivalence (oh and I forgot to try it on), and btw, I was stung by the 10 cent bag fee, thanks a lot, forgetfulness!
I was chilled, nibblish and shaky by 2:30. We’d only been out and about for… an hour? Yeah. Stamina, spamina. The food and sugar kept me going for another several hours so even though I rarely buy random street food like this around home or go to Starbucks, we made a beeline for the first one we saw. NOM. There’s something delicious (pun intended) about just getting what you want.
Street dog: $4.25
Starbucks venti Hot chocolate: $3.15, free with coupon
We settled into the Westfield for a while to wait for friends who were, in fact, much closer by than we had expected, I caught up on some Twitter and PiC snagged a free Ghiradelli square. Jealous. It was peppermint. Less jealous.
Dinner was a non-glamorous booth affair at a standard chain restaurant with children clamoring and clambering all over the place. Crayons only held their attention for as long as they could race to an ungainly win, assisted absentmindedly by one adult or another; I was starting to see how the mom was so keenly aware of the judging stares of others when they went out. As normal as it is for kids, and boys at any age if I remember growing up with my cousins rightly, to be unruly, attention hungry, wound up or full up with energy, these fellas were like sprung-loose jack in the boxes, wound up and loosed to wreak havoc. It took fast thinking to talk them down from, off of, out from under, apart, or back from wherever they’d gotten to and that was entirely apart from the chattering at hypersonic speed and three decibels higher than an inside voice. Oh, kids. It was entertaining until we started becoming public nuisances, then we had to start clamping down. Gently and teasingly since they’re not ours but still. No one around us was amused when they stopped up the doors.
We trekked back, exhausted, quiet and sleepy, late.
Through heavy lids, we watched my joints puff up like wee sausages on the ride back. Cute. Chasing down and hefting kiddies was fun but more than a little strenuous.
All in all, not a bad day.
October 29, 2008
(Yes, I’m very exclamatory lately.)
Because not everything is doom and gloom around here, I finally got my memory card to cough up some photos I’d taken a while ago.
The birthday purse! With this, I’m set for just about forever on handbags:
Don’t you love how the top closes? Very clever, very functional.
March 27, 2008
Celebrations:
C1 has a birthday today, and she’s invited the ‘mates to a karaoke bar for the evening. She has Friday off, however, and we don’t, so that could be a touch dodgy for us toilers. Or painful. Transportation’s always iffy when it comes to weeknight partying as well. The car’s still in the shop, and I hate to drive the gas guzzlers more than 10 miles, given the hundreds I’m already shelling out for gas. Still and all. It’s her birthday. As she’s reminded us every day: she’s “getting old.” Maybe I’ll gift her some Centrum Silver and wish her well on the kar-a-o-k-e-ing. 🙂 Lord knows I just want to giggle at the drunken karaokiers, singing in public’s a no-go for me. I know it’s “just one night” but that’s one night after a few outings this month. The car shop said they’d call me if the car was ready earlier than Friday. Must … decide ….
Free Stuff:
Boy Coworker normally picks up my train pass for me as the transit lady knows us, and will send our ticket with whomever to save me a trip. Sweet, but it also gets me out of a walk, so I told him not to ask for it, but take it if she offered. No need to be rude, after all. He turned it down when she offered anyway, because they’re doing a giveaway for people who fill out their survey and buy a transit pass for the month of April, but that means you have to go over to her office. Whee! I grabbed pouting C1 (“but, what about me? I buy a yearly!”) immediately and we trotted on over to get our free $15 Starbucks gift cards. We both got our $15 gift cards with nary a problem, and now I have a Starbucks cushion for when coffee drinkers or friends want to meet for coffee. As I don’t love Starbucks and don’t love coffee, I always grimace at the idea of giving them my own, real money.
I didn’t bring lunch yesterday, but we had leftovers from ordering in last week, and I’d still a bit from the weekend. Today, we’ll be having birthday lunch so I didn’t have to pack anything last night, and Friday’ll be leftovers again. I love having free lunches that I don’t have to think about.
Frugal Eats:
Oh! And my grocery shopping last weekend saved dinner last night. I’d picked up a few packets of Indian food from Trader Joe’s, but left it in the cupboard since we still had fresh groceries. Since I walked home from the station, PaDucky didn’t come home to make dinner until after I’d already cooked a new pot of rice. He walked in, stumped about what to cook, whereupon I produced the two packets of yellowfin tuna curry and a potato and vegetable mixture, the name of which escapes me, and voila! Dinner! Dinner for about $5 and in about twenty minutes, all told. PaDucky usually doesn’t like what I pick for dinner, preferring to cook some sort of Chinese or Vietnamese food, but he actually seemed amenable to my selections this time.
The night might have been marred by the discussion with my brother but rescuing dinner, as I so rarely do, redeemed it. It’s really the little things in life, folks.
October 18, 2007
Poor hostess that I am, it just occurred to me that I should treat for the steakhouse dinner for BoyDucky’s birthday. His bro/sis-in-law are flying up and bought everyone tickets to the football game which I KNOW cost a bundle even if she won’t admit it.
I assume we’ll split costs on everything else, but one big thing should be matched by another, (yes yes, I’m SO very Asian), and this will be the least burdensome, most equitable event. I’ve already ordered $200 worth of gift cards, but there are 4 of us and they’re … foodies. Very much the appetizer, drinks, salads, entree and dessert types, while BoyDucky and I go straight for splitting a salad and entree with water on the side. We’ll likely go the middle road by sharing an appetizer and both couples will probably share actual entrees, but I’m betting wine will be involved.
That said, I wonder if $200 will be enough. Should I just over-order cards? Either risk coming up short and paying out of pocket, or be left with up to $100 worth of gift card to a restaurant we only frequent rarely. And sort of waste a whole lotta Citi Thank You points. Hmmmmm…..
September 4, 2007
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Mine was packed with fun and excitement. I feel like we played road trip Monopoly, only without buying property, just talking about it. I see that everyone in blogland has blogged up a storm as well, so I’ll have to take some time and catch up on my reading.
This Saturday was my best friend’s 25th birthday so she and I spent the day with her family up north (two hours away). At 6:30 pm, we jumped in the car and headed for San Francisco. She insisted on driving the whole way, and also paying for gas so I can’t really include gas in the cost of the trip but on the way back we bartered labor for gas. Er, BoyDucky’s labor, not mine. 🙂 She bowed to his need to do his Man Duty of driving us home on Monday after we’d eaten lunch in the car. And he managed to win the fight at the tank to pay for one fill-up as well.
As for the trip itself: BF paid for our dinners at Carl’s Jr. in the world’s smelliest town. I’m serious. That town, (Harris Ranch?) smelled to the high heavens and beyond. Even though we’re city girls, we’ve also had our fair share of Cow Town experience, and mucking out stables. This smell was unbelievable. It was so bad that we rolled down the window approaching the order box, rolled it back up gagging, and refused to roll it back down to order for at least 5 minutes. I’m sure the person taking orders must have been annoyed, but she couldn’t possibly have been surprised!
We got into BoyDucky territory by 10:30 pm, so we’d made decent time. The next morning, she and I walked up and down the length of the Small Town Art and Wine Festival in search of some Killer Brownies and snagged a bag of Ends & Edges ($7.50). A stop at the Small Town BART station ($14.80) and off we went to 16th & Mission. Um, why didn’t anyone tell me that Mission District is quite seedy and smells of urine? And is NOT the most efficient way to get to Haight-Ashbury on foot? Well, we never got to Haight-Ashbury. We got as far as Mission & Market Street and gave up on Haight. Instead, lunch somewhere towards the downtown area was sounding really good, so off to Civic Center we went!
I tried to treat us to lunch at Nordstrom’s Bistro (I know, it was no hole-in-the-wall, chock-full of character restaurant, but I needed clean and comfortable after Mission Street) but BF beat me to the check after a glorious white chocolate bread pudding. Little did she know that I was going to get the dinner check. Hah! Lunch: ~ $30.
We wandered for hours, shopping and sightseeing. I played mock tour guide at first, but it was actually a great way to really learn my way around, I’ve only been in the city alone once before and otherwise BoyDucky always navigates so I’ve felt more than a little handicapped.
For a joke, we popped into the Tiffany store in Union Square to take a picture of rings to send to her hubby; he one-upped us and sent back a picture of a receipt for a ring with strategically placed “glare” spots. To add to my authentic aura of a tour guide, she wanted to go the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa and look at a price menu. For those of you who’ve been there, (or not), the sign is prominently placed over the door, but you have to go into an empty lobby/hallway to an elevator and go up a few flights. Stepping through the glass doors, I immediately noticed the signs on the wall with the various businesses and the floors they were on, but BF hadn’t. Not knowing this, I pompously announced “Red Door Spa, Fourth Floor” once we got into the elevator. She was floored.
“You DO know where everything is around here, you’ve been everywhere! How can you say that you don’t feel at home in this city when you know where everything is???”
“Er …. I didn’t. It said, it said on the wall.”
“……..oh.”
Our foray into Macy’s yielded a brand new wallet for BF with my coupon and a sale, the wallet was $22 from $34. I like getting people presents they want, need and will use. Forever 21 had a nice pair of brown (real brown, not the brown that turned out to be gray like my pants from Banana Republic), stretchy work pants ($20), and Ann Taylor had a lovely brown/white patterned halter top in XSP. Mine! Unfortunately, BoyDucky distracted me at a crucial moment, and BF beat me to the cash register with my goods.
Parking in Union Square for an hour was $2.50; BoyDucky was kind enough to come pick us up and drive over to the Embarcadero and Osha Thai for dinner so that we wouldn’t have to BART to Embarcadero and back home. I treated BF and BoyDucky to dinner as it was her birthday dinner and I rarely treat BoyDucky, $71 with 3 entrees, 2 drinks, and 1 side dish and parking was validated for 3 hours, so: Free!
BoyDucky got our round of drinks and pool at the local brewery, and our 4-miles-walked day ended at 11 pm. Actually it didn’t, BoyDucky also drove Oakland friend back to Oakland because we didn’t want her to BART home alone at that time of night. She has a lovely apartment in Oakland, and an even lovelier popcorn popper; we got home at 2 am.
Monday was our day of travel. Other than gas, and a couple bottles of water because we were dehydrated ($2), we spent very little else. Eight hours later (thanks to an hour spent in traffic on the 152) we ended Operation: Mini-vacation and BoyDucky retrieval!
All under $200 including lots of yummy food and presents. Not bad, eh?
