Serendipity

It's fun to live in San Francisco.

It's a both a big city and a small town. After living here for over five years now, I have met quite a few people. I can't nearly call all of them close friends. I don't even remember many of their names. But it's always fun to run into people around town because it makes me feel like a member of the community.

First Thursdays is the day in San Francisco and many other cities when art galleries around town invite the public to come into their spaces and see what's on display. It's a social event as much as anything else, but what better place to hang out than a building full of art you could never afford.

Monica and I ran into four people we knew during the 45 minutes we were there yesterday. Some who's names we remembered, others' we didn't.

But before we got there, and while I was waiting for Monica to arrive, I did some window shopping on the block surrounding the gallery. I came upon an open door on Maiden Lane alley with some good loungy music playing inside and interesting decor. There was no sign outside the door, but I was curious, so I went inside and asked the people if it was open to the public. The girl working there said that it was a new bar named Otis and that it was indeed open.

So after the galleries got tired of all the rif raf hanging around and kicked everyone out, we found ourselves in a sea of aimless schmoozers with nowhere to go. We, of course, had our secret hideaway staked out already and went over to Otis. It had that air of a place that someone had spent a lot of time and money dreaming about and setting up. They passed that dream onto their customers in the form of a cool vibe and high drink prices. But the best part of the bar by far was the real grass they had covering the floor in the upstairs open-windowed loft area. How fun to be both inside and outside at the same time sipping $10 cocktails in a place no one knows about. Neato.

Then it was off to Tokyo Go Go for some tasty sushi dinner.

While we were eating, I couldn't help wondering about people living in San Francisco during, say, the 1920's, having exactly the kind of time we had that night 80 years previous. Different music, different art, different fashion, but otherwise the same brand of fun. Just another regular San Francisco after-work happy hour, full of gleeful happenstance.

It's fun to live in San Francisco.