I'll really have to stop writing diary entries while really tired. Yesterday was a very enjoyable day. As I was saying to Lara as we were walking across the bridge, I was reading a book my mum gave me for Christmas which is about this particular trip the author went on. He's from San Francisco and made mention of a revelation he had on a previous trip, a round-the-world one. He went through India, got the Trans-Siberian Express, went through Europe and then drove across the U.S. As he crossed drove home across the Golden Gate bridge, he realised something he'd suspected all along - that he lived in the most beautiful city in the world. I can't say I disagree.
I really enjoyed spending the day with Lara, I like her company and she's not at all like anybody else I've ever met. She describes herself as "flighty" and indecisive, but comes across as contemplative and difficult to faze, and speaks in the coolest kind of sleepy Californian drawl. She seems to be happy with how her life is going at the moment, which is good to know.
Anyway! I slept well last night for a change, and spent the morning doing Internetty things until Rod suggested we take the dog for a walk. We drove up to a park a couple of miles away that seems to be made primarily of extinct volcanoes and their surrounds, and walked around there for a while. We went through forest, grazing fields and abandoned quarries, and because of the time of year most of the wild flowers were in full bloom, so there was plenty of purple and orange about to keep it looking interesting. The dog kept getting angry whenever other dogs were around so there were a couple of annoying moments, but off the beaten track where just moving around wasn't a deal of work it was nice.
So it turned out that the reason Rod was busy today was that once or twice a month he delivers meals to house-bound folks in San Francisco for a charity called Project: Open Hand, and he asked me if I'd like to come along. I'd never done anything like this before, so I accepted. So we drove into San Francisco and into the Tenderloin district (poverty, violence and adult entertainment) to the headquarters of the project, where the guy there chatted with Rod and gave us the list of people we'd be delivering to (seven people) with instructions on how to get to their apartments, and the meals (in deep trays sealed over with clear plastic covers, similar to airline food, and a breakfast bar for dessert).
We were covering area 51 (heh) which was the edge of the Tenderloin and into Nob Hill (some very wealthy areas, some poorer areas). All it involved was making our way, usually with a key as provided by HQ, into an apartment building or hotel with living-there facilities, knocking on a door and handing the tray over to whoever answered. But I'd never been in one of those apartment buildings with a lobby and front desk and that kind of thing, so it was interesting and very worthwhile. Some of the places were pretty cheap-looking, but one was fancier than any hotel I've been in, with a uniformed doorman, seats in the lift and muzak playing in the corridors outside the rooms. The guy turned out not to be in, and Rod says he often isn't - I gotta wonder, if he can afford a place like that and can leave it often, why is he having a charity deliver meals to him as a house-bound person? Apparently our job was just to deliver, not to ask questions, so after spending maybe an hour, probably less on that, we picked Ted up from work in the hospital and headed back to the East Bay.