East Bay

WDP — Cold Weather

Fandango4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
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Generally speaking, I prefer cold weather to hot weather. When the weather is cold, you can dress for it — jackets, scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. — to keep warm. But in the summer, when it’s really hot and muggy, short of staying inside an air conditioned building, there’s not much you can do to escape the heat and humidity. Sure, you can strip naked, but you’d be likely to get arrested for doing so in most places outside of your home.

That doesn’t mean I like extreme cold, either. I lived in Chicago for three years and when the temperatures dipped down to forty degrees below zero before windchill, which they did a few times while I lived there, I didn’t like that one bit.

Before we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, my wife and I lived in Massachusetts, where the winters were frigid and snowy, which was one of the factors that led us to move all the way across the country.

Here, winters are cool, but not really cold. Rarely does the temperature where we live dip below freezing. Unfortunately, our summers on the East Bay can get very hot — 100°F or more multiple times — between mid-June and mid-September.

That explains my being naked in my house (and sometimes in my backyard) in the summer. No peeking!

WDP — Golden Gate Park

Fandango10 Comments

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

When we used to live in San Francisco, our house was located just three blocks north (to the left in the above photo) of Golden Gate Park, an urban park that pretty much bisects the city. It’s a huge park, with restaurants, museums, gift shops, lakes, grass, and trees that stretch to Ocean Beach and the Pacific Ocean (in the foreground of the photo).

Two or three times a day we’d take our dog out for long walks there, visiting different sections of the park. There were music festivals in the park, like “Outside Lands” and “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass,” held there, performances at the Bandshell, and museums like the De Young Art Museum and the Academy of Sciences. Other points of interest included the Japanese Tea Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, the San Francisco Botanical Garden, the Arboretum, the National Aids Memorial Grove, Stow Lake, and Strawberry Hill.

Living so near the Golden Gate Park was special. But four years ago, we moved to the East Bay to a town at the base of Mount Diablo, which is the tallest mountain in the San Fransisco Bay Area, at 3,849 feet. Here is a view from our backyard.

Our son and daughter, both avid bicyclists, have cycled up to the summit and back multiple times, but I get there by car. Yes, I do have an e-bike and have thought about giving it a shot, but at my age, I’m thinking probably not.

There are a lot of parks around where we live now, but none compare to the Golden Gate Park.

Sunday Poser — Where We Live

Fandango7 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know…

Have you chosen to live in the city/ area you live in due to convenience or because of your job? If given the choice, would you live someplace else?

I’m going to give a yes and no answer to this question. Thirteen years ago we chose to relocate from the east coast (Massachusetts) to San Francisco. Why? Well, at the time we moved, I was a working remotely and there was an opportunity to be assigned a territory that was mostly on the west coast and in the mountain states.

San Francisco is a stunningly beautiful city. It’s on a peninsula that is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the north and east by the San Francisco Bay. The weather, in my opinion, is great, rarely getting that hot (i.e., 80s or above) in the summer time and almost never going below freezing in the winter. So after dealing with the hot and muggy summers and frigid, snowy winters in Massachusetts, relocating to San Francisco was a no-brainer. I loved living in the city.

But then, in 2019, our son got married, his new wife got pregnant, and they bought a house about 35 miles east of San Francisco on the East Bay. In May of 2020, our grandson was born and we knew in advance of his birth that our son and his wife would want us to help out with their newborn. Ah, the sacrifices one makes for family. So in January of 2020 we bought a house on the East Bay and moved from our beloved San Francisco into our East Bay home in February of 2020.

The reason I say “yes” and “no” about where we live now is because I do love our house on the East Bay, but I preferred living in the city of San Francisco. Weather-wise, as I write this, it’s 92°F where I live now, but it’s a delightful 68° in San Francisco. And were it not for us wanting to accommodate our son and his wife by living closer to where they live to help out with their kids, I would, selfishly, rather be living in San Francisco.

WDP — Weather Extremes

Fandango11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
View all responses

One of the reasons my wife and I moved from New England to San Francisco in 2010 was because of the weather. New England summers are hot and muggy. New England winters are frigid and snowy. In contrast, San Francisco summers are relatively cool and dry, and San Francisco winters can be wet, but they are mild. Snow in the city of San Francisco is almost unheard of.

We no longer live in San Francisco. In 2020 we moved to the East Bay to a town about 35 miles east of San Francisco. It’s climate, though, is very different from San Francisco’s. The summers here are hot, hot, hot. I’m talking about a lot of days at or above 100°F. Fortunately, it’s typically a dry heat, so it’s not as oppressive as it is back east, when the humidity is close to 100%. The winters here are colder than in San Francisco, but not nearly as cold as they are in New England. It rarely gets below freezing (32°F) where we live.

Okay, yeah, I hear you. I haven’t answered the question. So let me do that. I prefer cold weather to hot weather. When the weather is cold, you can dress for it — jackets, scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. — to keep warm. But in the summer, when it’s really hot and muggy, short of staying inside an air conditioned building, there’s not much you can do to escape the heat and humidity. Sure, can strip naked, but you’d be likely to get arrested for doing so in most places.

Of course if I lived in the upper Midwest, I might have a different answer. I lived in Chicago for three years and when the temperatures dipped down to forty below zero before windchill, which they did a few times while I lived there, I didn’t like that one bit.

But I’m okay with the snowless, relatively mild winters here in the coastal regions of Northern California.

WDP — Last Live Performance

Fandango12 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What was the last live performance you saw?
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When we lived in San Francisco, we belonged to an organization, BroadwaySF. It would bring anywhere from six to eight Broadway shows (plays and musicals) each season to San Francisco. As subscribers, we were guaranteed seats and we regularly purchased six tickets for each show.

The last one we saw was the musical “Anastasia” in September 2019.

We also used to enjoy going to a lot of local live performances by artists we loved, including Billy Joel, Jackson Brown, Don Henley, Peter Frampton, Sting, Steely Dan, and even Randy Rainbow.

We didn’t renew our BroadwaySF membership for the 2020 season because we knew we’d be moving to the East Bay in early 2020, but still planned on going into the city to see at least some of the performances.

And then the pandemic hit, and everything shut down, including BroadwaySF. I believe it has since started sponsoring live performances again, but we are done with going to live venues, even outdoor ones, because people are crowded in. And despite what everyone says, people are still contracting COVID.

So going to live performances, be they shows or music concerts, are over for us, I’m sad to say.