Places

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Twelve Things I’ve Learned So Far (About Grosse Pointe)

I’ve been living in Grosse Pointe for a little over two weeks now. Here are twelve things I’ve learned so far…

1.  The Starbucks in the Village makes a better dry cappuccino than any San Francisco branch. (milk foams better here, too. humidity levels?)

2.  Every second car is an SUV or truck. Every 20th car is a cop car. Every 50th car is foreign.

3.  An unexpected snowstorm in April is magical, revitalizing and cathartic.

snow in april

4.  Detroit-style pizza is going to be the death of me. (If I can’t fit into my swimsuit this summer, I blame you, Buddy’s!)

5.  I can make a perfect grilled cheese on an electric stove. Sushi rice, not so much. Pork cutlets, a struggle. Stove = 2, Me = 1.

stove.grilledcheese6.  Nope, that’s not a cute cottage, that’s a garage.

garage7.  Fire hydrants are red.

hydrant

8.  Squirrels are creepy.

9.  Japanese beetles are not ladybugs (and they are all over the apartment. and also creepy).

10.  A quarter will get you anywhere from 20 minutes, to and hour and 15 minutes, at a meter (and look at them!).

meters11. Detroit is beautiful.

detroit212.  An after-dinner family walk makes everything better.

walk

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument / Sutro Heights

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The north side of the observation deck.

Yesterday I found a bunch of Sutro Heights pics that I meant to use for a post on (what else) Sutro Heights. Now that I’m no longer in San Francisco, I can’t really write the post I originally intended. Instead, I give you a handful of photos taken on that blustery foggy day for my second installment of the Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument.

Sutro Heights
San Francisco, California

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The mighty Diana (back view. obviously.)

Here’s a very quick overview of Sutro Heights: A very wealthy man named Adolph Sutro (who also became mayor of San Francisco) built an estate overlooking Ocean Beach, which included beautifully manicured grounds, a huge glass conservatory and an observation deck, which was open to the public.

Most of the estate was destroyed by a fire in 1966, but a few statues and some of the structure still stand. It’s an under-visited park, in my opinion. Across the street is the more-popular (and also super beautiful) Sutro Bath ruins (yep, built by Mr. Sutro) and Land’s End trail.

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The back of the observation deck.

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Another view of the observation deck.

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The observation deck circa 1890s. Image courtesy of postcardroundup.com

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Street Life II

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Waiting for Obama
Bush Street
San Francisco, California

I was out running errands one afternoon and stopped on Divisadero to pick up the dry cleaning. As I got out of my car, I saw the street in front of me was blocked by a motorcycle cop and bunch of people were lined up on the whole stretch of the street. They were waiting for President Obama’s motorcade to come through (which it did, about 10 minutes later).

On a side note, I leave for Michigan with the girls in three days. I really, really should be packing. Procrastinate much?

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Ocean Beach: the Edge of the World

Ocean Beach from Sutro Heights

Ocean Beach, as seen from Sutro Heights

It’s exactly two miles from my house to Ocean Beach (my Strava app tells me so). Every weekend I make the short run, ending up at the north end of the Great Highway near the Cliff House (today I beat my record: 9-minute miles – hurray! A special thank-you to my running partners, stress and angst).

Grafitti wall

The wall, looking northeast.

Ocean Beach wall

The wall, looking northwest to the Cliff House.

Ocean Beach is not initially beautiful. At least it wasn’t to me, the girl who grew up in Hawaii. There’s a huge, graffiti-covered (only on one side, thankfully) concrete wall that spans the entire length of the beach. It’s supposed to keep sand dunes from piling up on the Great Highway. Still, every summer the highway shuts down for the annual sand removal, a project that moves approximately 7,000 to 10,000 cubic yards of sand (source: SFGate).

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Another view of the Cliff House.

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Even without the eyesore, there’s the weather. The beach is cloudy or foggy or cold or windy or all of the above 360 days of the year. But… like everything else in this town, it’s grown on me. I love how vast it feels, how uncrowded (when it’s a nice day, you know it. Everyone flocks to the beach), how rugged, even how grey (I mean, crashing waves at the edge of the world are pretty amazing, whether the sun is shining on them or not).

oceanbeach.beerbottlesI’m beginning to think San Francisco can make anything beautiful. The old homeless man sitting on a park bench I passed this morning. The abandoned beer bottles I found last week. Maybe my stress level is so high that I’m not thinking clearly (I think I AM a tad delusional right now, let’s be honest). But I think more than that, I just want to love my town as much as I can in these last couple of weeks.

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One of the lessons that San Francisco has taught me (and it’s taught me many) is to look beyond. To look beyond myself, to look beyond first impressions, beyond stereotypes, beyond the hype…to look beyond the concrete wall and the fog, to find the beautiful crashing waves of Ocean Beach.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

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Okay, y’all. I’m doing it. The Weekly Photo Challenge. For those of my non-blogging Followers (and I have a bunch – love you guys!), the challenge is announced by WordPress (the host of my blog) each Friday. The purpose of the challenge is to spark creativity, but it also gives us the opportunity to see others’ interpretations of the theme.

SO… because I can’t help myself and because I have nothing better to do (like maybe pack up a house in less than a month and no, I haven’t started)…basically, because I am out of my mind crazy, I’ve decided to play. I’d never call myself a photographer and don’t have any other camera except my iPhone (wish), but what I love about this game is that there’s no right answer and anyone can play.

Above is a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. And below, the original photo. I took it several months ago while hanging out with the girls at San Francisco’s Baker Beach.

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