The evening began, for Ira, Joan, Jeneva and me on BART, where we encountered a weird guy who paced around the car until he tried swinging from the overhead straps and nearly ended up in our laps. I was cowering, but Jeneva was ready to kick his ass which is one of the many reasons I'm proud to call her my friend. We figured the dude was probably on meth. We got off BART at 16th & Mission in San Francisco and walked a couple of blocks up to The Monk's Kettle, a really nice bar/restaurant which had amazing looking food and where we would have stayed to eat had we not been on a burrito crawl.
We met up with Steve, Robin, and Annie and had a few beers (Jeneva and I had wine because we're middle aged women and that's what we like dammit!). The place was crowded but we found space at the bar where Jeneva and I discovered we could still get a young man to give us his phone number (OK, I showed him a picture of my daughter and said it was for her - but still...Jeneva and I got game!) Once we established that we were the whole group, we ambled down to La Cumbre and ordered burritos. The shrimp burrito was delish but strangely lacking in shrimp, the chips were good and we were joined by Nancy! After we finished our burritos and used the facitities, we bid adieu to the lady with the big tits in the painting and headed southeast to El Faro with a stop in a really cool vintage furniture store where I could live happily ever after. On the way there, we saw Meth Man from BART, ranting around the street...
Its about a seven block walk between burritos and we were anxiously awaiting our next course. When we got there, we discovered a weakness in our HEAD planning which we will remedy before the next outing. El Faro closed at 7:00. We got there at 7:15. What kind of burrito joint in the Mission closes at 7:00?! Clearly not one relevant to the HEAD Society. Plus, when we pre-burritoed the route, I thought that La Cumbre had a far superior burrito. It was fresher and didn't taste of lard (which tastes good but is kind of a cheat in my opinion).
No problemo! Off we marched to the Homestead (4th oldest bar in SF). We found a table in the back and ordered beers (wine for me and Jeneva) and peanuts. Deb, the bar manager and Ira's twin (separated at birth) wasn't there, but that was OK because the place was crowded and she wouldn't have had time to talk anyway. We ate a LOT of peanuts because most of us had gone easy on the burritos at La Cumbre, figuring we would be eating more at El Faro so we were a little hungry.
It was funny, because the Giants game was on in each of the places we ate/drank, so we got a sort of strobe version of their win (it was a week ago - they were still in the hunt...!) The Homestead is pretty cool, because its old, they have nude pictures all over the walls, and they allow dogs to come in! We met a Bedroom Slipper named Milo, a Border Collie named Zolo, and a Hound of the Baskervilles named Sweet Pea. Honestly, Sweet Pea was a full breed English Mastiff and the most enormous dog I have ever petted and tried to steal. You'd have to use a backhoe to clean up after him, though, so maybe its good I didn't succeed...but still...
We walked back to BART and decided to go to the 16th St. station instead of Civic Center which was closer because it was better to walk through a crummy area than a shitty area. We got back on the train and headed home. Next to us sat a young man with a bag. As we motored along he reached in his bag and pulled out lip gloss and an eyelash curler which he used with more expertise than I ever have. I surmised he was gay and therefore I felt unthreatened so I started talking to him. He told me that he was a nurse and that the guy over there was really cute!
The guy he was looking at was Ira!!! I said that he was talking about my hubby and he laughed. He seemed to think I was kidding. I moved back over to sit next to Ira when the young man (Enrique) asked if any of us spoke Spanish. Joan did so he told her that Ira was so cute - his dream ("El Sueno") and a bunch of other things I didn't understand. On the way out of the car, (in Hayward thank you Lord!) he gave Ira's a shoulder a squeeze. The cool thing about the whole thing was that now we have a new nickname for Ira. He is El Sueno. It suits him.
We made it home and immediately started planning our next outing. We will be checking out the origin if the martini in Martinez (really!). Of course, Jeneva and I like wine so we'll probably opt out of martinis after the first several...or so. Also, we're planning a Christmas Italian cookie walk in mid December. Watch your email and/or Facebook, El Sueno will be in touch...
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