San Francisco, Part Four: Oakland, Cats

Let me note that I went back to Part One to add that before we went on the Alcatraz tour, we went into the ​Musée Mécanique, a space full of the most amazing old games and mechanical ... things ... it's really hard to describe, and I'm kind of surprised that I forgot it, but as soon as we went in, I felt it wasn't well suited to still photography, and no photos, no memory, that's me.

Now, onward! It is Sunday (August 31st), and we're off to Oakland. 

Transit in Boston has bilingual signs, too, but English and Spanish, not English and Chinese (at least, I'm guessing that's Chinese).

Some interesting architecture downtown, as you will see.

And look, we're just in time to catch part of the Pride Parade!

I love that car.

Rainbow flags: now we're talking pride.

They were very carefully riding their bikes slowly; it's a loong time since I rode a (non-stationary) bike, but I remember, riding slowly is hard.

Another lovely old car.

And, well, not an old car, but appropriately decked out.

The umbrella and long veil are an interesting match.

Stay still and you're going to get decorated, it seems.

Little dog along for the ride. That's what sidecars are for!

I liked the beak on the guy in gold.

A baby BART car?

Ohhh. Political candidate season, and of course BART board members would want the tie-in. Makes sense.

 And sure, why not?

And a little Rocky Horror makes any day.

Many years ago I went to a Halloween party where one of the hosts dressed up as the doctor, and yes, there was singing. Pretty funny.

I was almost as surprised as my mother was by this group. This is a thing? Really? I lead such a sheltered life. (And am happy to, thank you). 

Check out the dog.

I get out? I can get out? Lots of frinds to meet, lots of sniffs to sniff...

And the parade passes by.

Back to the architecture.

The details!

Old peeking between modern.

Nature will find a way.

There's that pretty old building!

See the tattoo?

A book!

If I could stand to get one, that would be a good one.

Fun chains.

Is that building green?

My goodness, yes, that building is green.

Aaaand, a smokestack with figures drawn on. Fun!

There goes one of the intactavists (we were waiting for the bus to A Verb For Keeping Warm). We watched him deflate the balloon, but I didn't really want pictures of that. This isn't exactly a family blog, but it isn't x-rated either.

Very impressive doors.

Hiding high voltage things, apparently.

Now there's a bumper sticker I did not expect to see in a city.

We'd been talking about the Jesus fish/Darwin fish, etc, so it was nice to see a variant.

We had a look through AVFKW, then adjourned next door for lunch at the Actual Cafe.

I love that they refer to themselves as actual staff ... though our waitperson was a little, shall we say, flighty? Perfectly nice, did a good job, but ... Well, having looked at the menu and seen the sort of place it was, my mother joked with her, when she brought us a carafe of water, "Is it organic?" And the girl seemed to be serious when she said yes, well, no, since it doesn't have carbon in it, so it can't be organic. Um, okay? The food was good and everyone was really nice. And the bathroom was so very college-town that I had to take pictures.

And a close-up of this one. Is it a complaint or bragging?

Okay then!

After returning to the yarn store, and letting me loose, we moved on. Across the street to catch the bus, and I had time to get this picture.

And then on the bus, where I photographed this sign.

Perfectly clear.

When changing buses, we learned that decorating switchboxes is not just an east coast thing.

And when we got back to the city (after viewing an open house, my brother is in the market, this place was nice but not big enough), we saw the same was true there.

And we passed the perfectly-named-for-SF thrift store, Out of the Closet. Love it!

This is when we passed Dolores Park, as I mentioned here shortly after our return. We went to CR's, to see if we could lure his cats into coming closer to us. As you can see by this expression:

We had our work cut out for us, even with the lure of wet food. They are young, rather unused to company, and basically skittish enough to make most of the photos blurry. Not that I didn't try. Thing Two decided that he could stand us, with caution, for the worth of the prize.

Thing One was very tempted. But...

With you right there?

 I don't know...

At which point, Thing Two said, "Fine, then I'll eat yours."

Carefully.

 Thlurp.

Thing One unbent enough to give the bowls a second cleaning.

Leading to a rare, almost-in-focus shot of the two together.

After that, they prowled, approaching with caution, skiddy-ky-ing away again. Eventually, Thing One got close enough to Mum that she could have killed him, had she wanted to. To his surprise, she didn't.

And I did get one good shot of one of them, I think it was Thing Two.

Before someone walked right through the photo shoot.

Doesn't he look appalled?

Since all of us are strong cat people, we spent quite a while hanging with the cats, playing with toys.

He wears it well, don't you think?

And happily, we were all looking and got to see the funniest thing ever, when one of them apparently forgot that his brother was right there next to him, and when his brother moved, went straight up into the air about 18 inches. I think you had to be there, but trust me, it was hysterical. I was laughing too hard to talk for a few minutes.

Just a few more pictures from Sunday. We went past a building with an amazing mural. Mural doesn't seem a big enough word!

And on the way to dinner, we passed what was, to me, an unexpected sign.

Zoot suit sale? In 2014, really? I am so out of touch.

We're almost done! Hang in there.

If you missed an installment:
An Interlude of Dahlias
San Francisco, Part Three: Flowers, Ocean, Very Good Food
San Francisco, Part Two: Alcatraz
Let's Get To It: San Francisco, Part One 
My Yarn Tour of the Bay Area