My sister Katy and her son Ivan came out to visit for the last half a week. They are big fans of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, and their main goal was to see them play the San Jose Sharks here on Saturday.
Katy says she’s only flown once since COVID, and Ivan not at all. Fortunately their flight went smoothly and even landed early. Unfortunately I somehow got confused by the signage at San Francisco Airport and ended up waiting for them at the wrong terminal. I left short term parking to pick them up at their baggage claim, and found that the turnaround from the airport exit to the entrance is closed, so I had to leave the airport and come back in to get them. Frankly it would have been faster to just move to the other side of short term parking, had I known that! But I did eventually get them and we made it home safely.
They happened to arrived at the leading edge of a historic heat wave, with temperatures breaking 90°F regularly through Friday, breaking temperature records and melting much of the Sierra snow pack which supplies California with a lot of its summertime water. We do have air conditioning at home and left it running the whole time they were here, but it made for a slightly sticky week. I’m also recovering from a cold I had almost two weeks ago and the cough on this one has been lingering.
Thursday Debbi and I took them to our latest favorite breakfast place, Holder’s Country Inn, where we’ve been meeting friends regularly for brunch, and have even gone to for dinner a couple of times (their breakfast is much better – and is served all day!). We also went by the romance bookstore A Novel Affair, which Katy was interested in given her nascent writing career. In the afternoon we visited our friends the Hoffmans, mainly for an exchange of information between generations about different careers. But also to visit the dogs, including our dog, Domino, who was vacationing with them so he wouldn’t bark his head off at the interlopers in his house. Afterwards we went to Vive Sol, which was the main place Katy mentioned she’d like to go for dinner.
Friday we had breakfast at Hobee’s, and then made the trip into the city, where we stopped by Ocean Beach, then the Golden Gate Bridge, and then Ghirardelli Square, before stopping by the Nike store on Union Square. (Parking under Union Square was a lot cheaper than at Ghirardelli!) We got several nice pictures, especially the one below of a raven and a fish head taken by Katy.
Saturday was game day. I’ve never been to a hockey game! The sport has never really been my thing. But Katy and Ivan had us covered in explaining what was going on. And we got to see a lot of stuff:
- A fight, which Katy thought had been prearranged as it happened less than 2 minutes into the game.
- Another fight, definitely not prearranged!
- Several other fights which were quickly broken up by the refs.
- Barbie Game Day! (Guy sitting behind us to his friends: “I didn’t know it was Barbie Game Day when I bought the tickets. So, you’re welcome.”)
- Flyers score on the power play.
- Flyers score 2 goals in the last 3 minutes when the Sharks pulled their goalie to try to tie the game.
The game did seem very similar to soccer, only, you know, on ice and with sticks. And zambonis. And fighting.
Final score Flyers 4, Sharks 1. The teams were both a little over .500 going into the game, so I don’t think we were seeing the cream of the league playing here. Katy said both teams are pretty chaotic which adds to the uncertainty.
I think the thing I was most surprised about was that most players only play about half the game, and that while they announce the starting line-up for both teams, they don’t announce any personnel changes. It would be nice if the big board above the arena would periodically show who’s on the ice.
(Katy, to me after the game: “So far you’ve called it a field and a court.” Me: “Park?”)
We had considered going to see the Bay FC women’s soccer game afterwards, but we (or at least I) had had enough, so we went home. (Maybe a good thing, since Bay lost 3-1.) For dinner we went to another recent restaurant find of ours, the Redwood Grill.
And then this morning I took them back to the airport for their flight home. It was good to see them, and hopefully we’ll see Katy, at least, this summer when we head back east. But hopefully it won’t be another ten years before they come out here to visit us!