Monday morning came like an unwanted solicitor on the front porch.  I was exhausted  from the busy weekend, but still wanted to do something special with GiGi before we left the tall, tall buildings and traveled back through towns with two stoplights.   I sprang to my feet over the course of 5 minutes and took a shower first, then the babe. 

Around 9:30 am we made our way to a great little punk rock café in Emeryville and had eggs and toast.  It was a seat yourself kind of a place so I chose the back of the restaurant and watched the faces of flats and mod dresses look up at me with mild horror and discomfort.  A hip joint like this doesn’t appear to be swarming with the 2 and under crowd.  No one was rude exactly but the vibe in the room seemed to be muted once GiGi started banging her toy hammer on the table and chanting “MA-MA-MA-MAMAMA-MA!!” 

We snacked merrily and I was delighted when a cute couple walked in with their two little girls.  The noise they were smacking up halted my little destructo mid-hammer-swing, and I glanced over to the couple.  They quickly scanned the room with an apology hovering over their eyes like a flimsy visor, and when they got to me I handed them an eye-catching Hi-Five.  I tend to applaud parents who let their kids be kids while they take in an omlette, french toast, and bottomless cup of coffee.

( Here is my little cup eater. Evidently pancakes aren't as tasty)

I thought a great after breakfast venture would be the Haight in San Francisco. The last time I was there I didn’t get enough of it so another trip was needed.   I dialed the music up and hit the non-trafficked freeway with the windows down and my sunglasses on.  I could see GiGi in my rearview mirror and she had the same pleased look on her face that I get when I have no place to be except the place where I’m at.

(GiGi and I seeming quite touristy in the Haight) 

It’s always nice to go shopping in the city when everyone else is working the 9-5 gig.  Parking is plentiful and the elbowing on the sidewalk is totally manageable.   Even the crazy homeless folks who are fighting on the street over whose turn it is to push the empty wheelchair aren’t so bad. 

We weren’t shopping for anything in particular so we walked around, GiGi in the Ergo and me on foot, and peered through windows.  In a window  with no store name visible, I saw a Tano bag that had a small speaker on it.  I mean, it must have had a speaker, because through the Italian leather, even through the front window, I could hear it saying, “Take me home with you.  I promise I’ll be good to you in my vibrant pool color and shiny charm. Marry me and make me yours!  If not marriage, at least take me home and have a little pinch and giggle with me.  Get flashy with me and throw me over your shoulder, tossing your head wildly in the air and searching for a floor length mirror to catch a glimpse of me, if only briefly, and how I look resting on your ass.”

So I stood there, pretending to rock GiGi to sleep, all the while daydreaming of my future love affair with this handbag.  This twiggy woman and her mother walked up, breaking the staring contest between Tano and I, and they began to talk about how great the store was and how it sucked that it wasn’t open on Mondays.

F*ck.

There goes that fantasy.

I was completely bummed about the bag so I walked back to the car, kicking a burrito wrapper and whining about the stupid store hours under my breath.  The only good thing that had come out of waiting in front of the store for 30 minutes was my fast asleep child.  I crossed the street, and saw the same wacky homeless woman from earlier, minus the wheelchair.  She was actually doing the full grown pee-pee dance and semi-running up the hill where I was parked.  She hopped off the sidewalk and cut between my car and the van in front of me.

“What the hell is she doing?”  - I thought to myself.

I was still walking up the hill to my car and searching for my keys which I always seem to lose in any size purse.  The homeless woman began to tug down at her wine colored sweat pants, revealing two other layers of pants/shorts/underwear/what-have-you’s.  I yelled out before I could think “EXCUSE ME MA’AM!”    She cut me off and said “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” and began to pee half on my car and half on herself.  I couldn’t look away. All I could see where two layers of obviously unwashed clothes being soaked with urine.  I stared still.  All I could find the words for was “Dude! Come on!”

She pulled up her piss pants and just waved her hands while she walked away, hunched over, muttering “you gotta go, you gotta go” over and over again.

Just when I thought I was missing the urban life, my car gets pissed on.  The only thing that I presume could be odder than watching a woman pee on a car, is watching the owner of the car totally let her, and then snapping photos of the event.

We left the Haight Street wackiness  and moved on to an awesome little park close by. More on that to come…

(Note: Isn’t that a lot of pee for someone who isn’t getting her 8 glasses of water a day!)

(GiGi is nice and awake after mommy asked the nice homeless woman why she was peeing on her car)