The wonderful Ms. Ruth and the stalwart Demi offered to work the shop for me. With a long-awaited Stanford appointment scheduled for Monday, I had to be on the coast — or near enough — so I took myself out to dinner in Pacifica.
My Airbnb host recommended the place, mostly for the view. He steered me right on that score. The food claimed to be Peruvian, but I’ve had better 2500 miles due east in old Overland Park, Kansas. But one glance out the windows as I approached my deck-side table delighted me. Such majesty we do not have in the Heartland, and never will, unless I can get some traction on my idea to flood the plains between Topeka and Denver.
Bland food and spotty service could not mar my pleasure at gazing over the ocean. Not even the sad little ramekin of half-inch wide packets of generic iodized salt (3 to a customer, since Covid, ma’am) rattled my calm. With a book and a cold passionfruit drink, I occupied that chair for more than an hour, nibbling on the under-seasoned quinoa that had been touted by the server as “basically Peruvian fried rice”. Neither fried nor particularly tasty, nonetheless the cold dish came home in a box with the similarly boring plantain chips. I’m frugal even in my excesses; besides, I have salt in the cooler and that dish will warm nicely in the microwave for tomorrow’s dinner.
My hosts left the windows open. Cool air tinged with fog drifts through the room. Pleasant paintings of beach scenes adorn the walls. The sight of them pleased me; most of these temporary digs have boring prints or tourist posters. The husband of my host couple described the suite in which I’m staying as having been designed to house his visiting parents in their early retirement. He looked a bit wistful as he admitted that they don’t come much these days. His mother did the paintings. She has a deft hand and a keen eye. I can hear the song of the sea as I gaze at them.
Tomorrow I will make breakfast in the tiny kitchenette, toast with avocado and some nuked scrambled eggs since there’s no stove-top here. I brought my own coffee. I forgot to ask if the tap water drinkable but I’m going to take my chance. I had to park a half a block down the hill, and I didn’t feel like hauling the jug of water that we Delta dwellers always seem to have in the back of our vehicles.
With a full day between now and my reckoning with Stanford’s Infectious Disease department, I should be rested for the drive into the city. My spirit will certainly have quieted. I already feel that sense of homecoming that my Pacific always brings me.
It’s the sixth day of the one-hundred and twenty-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
