Day 16 - June 4, 2006 - San Francisco

We got up in time to head to the corner diner, Mel's, and I secretly picked out hotel based on their breakfasts so it was good to sell Doug on the place since he preferred the other local chain, Lori's after yesterday. Feeling adventurous, and reminding ourselves that we are on vacation, we have banana cream pie after breakfast before heading out on our plans for the day.

Twenty blocks straight down Van Ness is the edge of Fisherman's Wharf. It's a long walk, but the route is mostly flat, which makes it not too bad at all. We walked, hugging the water, around the marina, Doug smoking and taking pictures and complaining about being touristy. We went to see if we could get on a tour to Alcatraz today, but it was sold out, as I predicted it would be on a Sunday, and we got tickets for the next available tour, noon tomorrow. And since we were already there, I dragged Doug around Pier 39, going into every store without buying a thing.

As my punishment, we went to the Wax Museum, which Doug's into, though I could take it or leave it. I can't remember ever having been to one before, and this is probably because the whole experience doesn't thrill me the way it does Doug. He goes on and on about his trip to London, and manning the camera, he took a ton of pictures - what seemed like one of every model- the security sensors wailing with the flash of each shot. I imagined the place on fire, the faces melting distorted down to the ground like tiny mountains.

Afterwards, with time still to kill, we went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, another thing that I probably would have bypassed if I were on a cash budget, but having credit cards and no solid plans for the day, we went. A few exhibits in, Doug and I get in the biggest fight to date, or rather, he gets furious at me, probably rightly so. The reason: there was a machine that takes a picture of your face and flips it, switching the sides, duplicating. The point is to show how the two sides of your face are different. I went first, with semi-hilarious results, but when Doug went, it was a totally different story. You don't need a machine to be able to tell that the two sides of Doug's face would not line up as mirror images, and when the sides were duplicated to match, it was like another person. His all left-side face was absolutely gorgeous, and I said so, perhaps overemphasizing the difference. The image showed what he would look like if he didn't have a ptosis, which is the one thing he is self conscious about above all others (the product of childhood torment) and my comments hit a sore spot with him. He took it to mean that I wished he looked different, which wasn't what I meant, but it's what he thought, and so he ignored me, silently fuming, fleeing as soon as I got close enough to touch him. It was like being in the museum by myself but weighed down by the anticipation of the drama this would cause later in the day. I apologized, he had a cigarette, and things were fine.

We took photobooth pictures and went back to Pier 39 for coffee and postcards and taffy and magic tricks. Doug is particularly excited about using the snapping gum he got there, sure that no one will see it coming because, "why would a 27 year old be carrying around a pack of trick gum."

Planning to go out to the movies, we went back to the room, and ordered a pizza for dinner. I am always a thousand times more ambitious before I eat, because once we were stuffed, I didn't want to move, let alone leave the room. "Tomorrow," I promised, before going to sleep.






Doug's got a thing for Frankenstein


When he was still mad, he was trying to take pictures of himself, but I kept getting in the way:


But once I was out of the picture, he was happy.