Saturday, June 4, 2011

Good Life

It's the nights you don't plan for. The nights that aren't full of drunken debauchery but just sort of silly and ridiculous that end up being amazing. I'm home and in front of the TV at 11 p.m. and still know that tonight was fantastic.



I didn't really have plans. A friend asked me if I wanted to do something but the time I got back to her she had other plans. No big. The 'rents were gonna be out so I had resigned myself to sitting at home eating nachos and watching the last two episodes of Friday Night Lights that I have been putting off watching, knowing there is no way I get through them without bawling my eyes out.

I text my dad because my aunt had said something about being at work and having dinner with my him. I didn't hear back from him so again: nachos and FNL. My dad finally calls me back at around 5:30 and says, no my aunt isn't coming to dinner but if I want to come meet him at work, he'd love to have dinner. I'm not doing anything else, screw it, why not? I sit at the table for a few more minutes and debate canceling on him (easiest way to his work requires going by the stadium but there's a game and alternate routes are kind of a pain in the ass). But I don't.

I walk the dog quickly and get in the car and head out. I'm at that point in the car where I'm only half paying attention because I'm in my own neighborhood. I even remember talking to myself, "That guy's driving like an ass. Wonder if he's a hot ass...Stop it, Lisa!" So naturally I roll the stop signs at the bottom of the hill. I do this on a daily basis, pretty much. I get to the next intersection and finally look in my rear view. Oh! Those are flashing lights! Those are for me! Ahahahaha! (I am literally laughing at this point.) I pull over, put the car in park, turn off the engine, roll down the window. I can see him back there running my plate. I'm waiting patiently. After a couple minutes he turns off his flashing lights and instead of getting out of his car, he pulls up next to me and says, "Are you (mom's name) daughter?" Me, "Yeah." Him, "Can you just stop at those stop signs, mkay?" Me, laughing, "Yeah."

I'm giggling hysterically, I gotta admit. I haven't been pulled over in SF in about four years? And then it was because my ex's car had out of state plates that needed to be changed (which I had been bugging said person about), no ticket then either. The irony of the fact that I was pulled over on my way to visit my dad AT A POLICE STATION was not lost on me.

I make it across town to dad's station without further incident. I, like anyone making a report for anything, have to go to the glass window. Guy at front desk is friendlier than most. When I tell him that I'm there for my dad he lets me in. I text my dad and he says he got really busy so I just gotta hold tight. I'm now just hanging out in a police station totally unsupervised. Your usual Friday night. It's a good five minutes before anyone bothers to ask who I am or what my business is and then they just laugh. I got to see older cop try and work the TV to turn on the Giants game which was comical before cops that I consider my friends walk in and I say hi.

My dad calls me and I go out front to get in his police car. We go check on the anti-scientologist protestors in front of the Scientology building. They wear Guy Fawkes masks. He has a casual interaction with them.

We then have to check on a dead body situation. Or, ya know, my dad does. I just hang out in the car while he talks to one of his guys. There was no actual viewing of a dead body. Typical Friday, right?

We then go to Cafe Puccini for bowls of pasta and watch the Giants game as old guys in there banter about Fisk's homerun in 1976. As we're sitting eating, the lights go out across the street. It looks like just the one restaurant across the street but as my dad's radio goes haywire, they announce it's a lot more of North Beach but really sporadic. The one side of Columbus from Stockton to Broadway, the one side of Grant.

Dad finishes up his tea and we head to the corner of Columbus & Broadway where dad parks his police car behind another police car, lights flashing, and gets out of his car directing traffic while I sit in the police car listening to the Giants game on the radio. It was funny watching him and his guys direct traffic at this hugely busy corner in the city while I just sat there. He got it under control and a couple more of his guys showed up and took over. He gets in and says, "Yeah, I'm good for a year as far as directing traffic goes."

We then drive up and down Grant. Dad talks to one of his bartender friends who asks when the lights are gonna come back on (we knew from PG&E that it would be about an hour). We make the left on Green. I have the window open and my arm hanging out. We're driving pretty slow. This guy on the street, not unattractive, and I make eye contact, he looks at me a little longer and then says, "Hey gorgeous!" BUAHAHAHA! I'm IN A POLICE CAR! WITH MY DAD! AND YOU JUST CAT CALLED ME! No, seriously, day: made.

We make the same loop and then pull up in front of our other favorite Italian restaurant where we go in and watch the end of the Giants game, the last three outs of crazy BWeezy pitching. The owner is amazing and my dad's proud of my swearing in so they're all "Congratulations!" I finally have my first glass of wine for the night. Owner fills glass almost to the brim. So I'm sitting at the bar of a restaurant in North Beach with my dad on duty drinking a really good glass of free red wine as the Giants beat the Rockies in usual crazy BWeezy fashion.

Y'all? Life is good.

1 comment:

  1. Yep. Coolest Friday night! Oh I miss your nachos btw. After the baby I'm coming to the city for a night of Magners and nachos!!!

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