back on the high road: rainbow pinwheels and world series rewinds
Yesterday was a very sweet return to the rhythm of Chiswick. Everyone slept in a little and took it easy, with lots of lazy morning screen time for the boys who had so missed having good wifi. To their credit they also wanted to take breaks and get out, so Ben ended up spending most of the day with his friend Sully who he hadn’t seen in weeks. They went all over the neighborhood sending hilarious updates to the group chat as they went: eating burgers, sending thuggish selfies, and hanging out at Ravenscourt Park.
James was surprisingly willing to step away from his gaming for a random walk on the High Road with me, inventing an errand to Sainsbury’s to give us a destination. There were so many tree-lined streets bursting with green as we walked, under a classic gray sky. We ducked into some random stores along the way, including Flying Tiger where I impulse-bought a pair of rainbow heart sunglasses and two iridescent pinwheels. We ended up doing a surprisingly big grocery run to M&S, but just before we got there we ran into my favorite former M&S cashier on the high road who just happened to be out with her baby.
This sweet cashier was one of the first people to welcome us to the neighborhood, and as a native Spanish speaker she always chatted to me and the boys in Spanish which reminded us of home. I watched her belly grow over the passing months and counted down with her to her maternity leave. We had exchanged contact info so I even got photos of the baby and she texted me a random hello just last week, so it was a particularly boisterous reunion with lots of hugs and fortunately James was happy to take a photo. To my delight he looked at me in all of my absurd colorful accessories and bouquet of rainbow tulips and declared, “you look like if San Francisco were a person.”
Later in the afternoon I met Gina at the Roebuck for a catch-up on all of our recent travels, and it was such a good feeling to walk into a pub feeling like a regular again. We even sat outside since the weather was mild, other than a brief light shower of rain. Then we parted ways before we see each other multiple times this coming weekend. Bill had made a great dinner of salad with halloumi cheese, and then Ben went to work on his Shakespeare memorization for school while the rest of us watched the Giants’ 2010 World Series Game 1 which turned out to be available in full on youtube.
When I got ready for bed around 2am I was shocked to find James still awake with a bad stomachache. I sat with him for a bit and he tried to fall back asleep but couldn't until 5am, so he stayed home from school today with his stomach returned to normal but exhausted from the lack of sleep. While he rested and revived I did two outings, one to Victoria to grab some camping gear for my Burning Nest trip at the end of May, and a big walk with Bill along the Thames far into Fulham and back via Hammersmith.
With no other plans and James needing a break from gaming, we watched the Giants’ 2010 World Series Game 2, because as Bill said, why not watch the World Series in April? One of the fun parts of watching old Giants games with James is seeing his reactions to commercials from 15 years ago. He cracks up at the “Windows Phone” but what’s funnier to me is actually how little has changed: still familiar names like Geico, Taco Bell, State Farm as sponsors. And, what a surprise, a Giants win!
We were so into it that we ended up turning on a brief documentary about Matt Cain’s perfect game in 2012, and then we noticed Lou Seal on the field at the end of that game, who’s the Giants’ mascot and has been brought to life since 1999 by our acquaintance Joel Zimei. He’s a fellow school parent and his kids went to the preschool I ran, so we crossed paths with him often and he made a special appearance at the Giants game I organized through the PTA. I was reading an article to the kids about his insane record of missing no home games, even the one the day his second kid was born (fortunately it was later that day and he only went for a bit).
Reading about how Joel spelled out his new daughter’s name in the dirt got me choked up because I had such a great connection with that spunky kid (Iris) and it made me realize how long it’s been since I left. But thanks to the powers of modern technology it was wonderful to immediately connect with those people I miss: James and I called Steven to ask him questions about Spring Training, and texting with Joel’s wife Sierra (a kickass fellow PTA mom) just to say hi. Felt good to start looking into some tickets for summer games – I’m going to stay as present in London as I can, but it doesn’t hurt to have some good times ahead to look forward to in SF.
