Let me tell you about something amazing that happened on my run this morning!

I ran down the Embarcadero, but I got a little turned around after the sidewalk started twisting around under the highway and around the tracks. I ended up stopping outside of a dog park where A FRENCH BULLDOG MEET-UP WAS TAKING PLACE! (I wish I’d had a camera. So many little Frenchie butts!) Since most Frenchie owners that I’ve met are pretty cool, I assumed they would be a good group of people to ask for directions.

When I was asking for directions, I noticed a woman and her husband with a brindle Frenchie who they were calling “Marlowe.” As it turns out, I had found a picture of this particular dog on the Internet a few years ago, and I had emailed back and forth a little bit with his owner Robin to ask some general Frenchie ownership questions. I knew from social media that she and her husband Gary had moved to the Bay Area, but I had no idea where they lived or if they were still there.

What’s the chance that I would happen to get lost and stop in front of the park where they meeting for a monthly French bulldog social event?!? I MEAN, WHAT!!!!!! WHAT?!?

I, of course, ran over to introduce myself, and Robin immediately recognized me. She and her husband were so nice; they got me going in the right direction and said to let them know if we returned to the Bay Area!

For Sunday brunch, we headed to the Haight (Like every other non-resident, I want to say “the height.”). I grew up staring at a poster from a Haight-Ashbury street fair at my mom’s house, so it was cool to realize that Haight-Ashbury actually is an intersection:

(Okay, but also, ZOMG THE HAIGHT!! I was very resistant of what I perceived to by San Francisco’s yuppie culture until I realized that I’m pretty far on the yuppie side of things. At least, I am compared to some of the people I observed in the Haight!)

We had Sunday brunch at Magnolia Gastropub, where I was not a fan of Jordan’s brunch porter:

Because he didn’t have to stay awake to drive anywhere, Harrison ate a coma-inducing plate of French toast:

We walked around Golden Gate park in the early afternoon, and I was happy to recognize one of the shooting locations from Contagion.

We’ve been doing tons of walking the past few days with Jordan and Maria. They don’t own a car, so we’ve been mostly hoofing it all over town (with the occasional uber car for long distances or when our feet hurt). Yesterday, we walked almost 13 miles, and today, we probably covered about seven! And Maria and I spent most of today whining about our verrrrry sore hip flexors.

Today was apparently National Ice Cream Day!

Don’t worry, we celebrated at The ice cream bar, an authentic ice cream parlor/soda fountain!

(He’s toasting a homemade marshmallow with a torch.)

Om nom nom!

I’ve come to discover that the weather in San Francisco is highly dependent on your precise location in the city as well as the time of day. I like that the fog (“Karl“) rolls in every evening.

And, also, Jordan is eight-years-old:

Harrison has always complained about the cold weather from the time he visited San Francisco in the summer with his parents. It’s definitely an adjustment to need a [thick] hoodie in the middle of July, but I find it delightful! I’m hardly ever sweaty here, and I don’t even need to run the air conditioning on full blast. Hurray!

We’ve so enjoyed our weekend with Jordan and Maria! They are really good friends and excellent hosts who always show us a good time when we visit. I hope that we can return the favor soon by living some place cool!

[I set the camera on a timer and had to scurry up some stairs to get to the balcony of their loft. In the left picture, I fell and didn’t quite make it.]