6

Saturday at last!

I met Ann's cousin, Tina, her husband Ritesh and her son Rohan for lunch. We went to an Asian area and ate at a Chinese restaurant. It was nice of them to drive and pick and drop me :) They liked the apartment, Rohan drew on the whiteboard, and we spoke for a bit. The kid is actually cute! I know, I'm saying this, but he wasn't feeling well and still wasn't cranky. And he was sooooo small! He's 3 years old, so he was tall enough to reach my knee. Hehe. :)

San Fran.

I did laundry real quick, and then took the Caltrain to San Francisco. I was going to meet Billy and Paul for dinner. I thought I'd meet Nee and Gapa as well, and stay at Gapa's. That was the plan. I was going to stay in SF because I was going to meet Iciri in the morning (yes, she came from NY - to meet me and Natasha)

Billy and Paul's.

One Caltrain and one Bart train ride later, Billy picked me up at Daly city, and we drove to his house. Along the drive, Billy was giving me interesting trivia about SF - including the history of why NY and SF have the highest gay population in the U.S. - because they are along the coast and that's where most of the military men came back to after battle.

And then the house. They have SUCH a beautiful house, it's probably the most beautiful house I have yet seen in SF. It's still a work in progress - they recently bought it and very recently moved in, so they're setting it up still, and boy are they doing it up well! Oh, and the location of their house is even more awesome - it's in this area called Sunset, and it's across the road from the beach!

My first glimpse of the house was from outside, and as soon as the car pulled up, I saw Nala sticking her head up and then running into the house. We parked in the garage, and went upstairs, and Billy took me on a tour of the house. He took me to see their backyard, told me about the in-progress rooms in the garage floor, showed me the dog door :) Then he took me to the balcony, where we could hear the ocean! Like, totally wow! They've set up the house with a lot of pretty pieces of art and bookshelves, and they have a fireplace! It's so quaint and lovely.

Billy and Paul - what can I say? :) They are a super couple... I would have to say, I didn't know I could get so used to two men being together - I've always had a slight tingling taboo feeling about it. I cannot believe that they're so young and married, but it all works out really well for them. I had spoken to them both so much at work, and they are so nice, there was absolutely nothing uncomfortable about being there with them. They greeted me with nice warm hugs too! They have 2 beautiful dogs, Athena and Nala. Nala in fact, is half wolf. All in all they make the most incredibly beautiful family! :)

They'd cooked some awesome food - they made pasta and beef. I had taken them some dessert wine, which they were very happy to receive. To go with the food, we had really good wine and beer. We'd been sitting and talking over our glasses of wine towards what we thought was the end of our evening, when Gapa told me he was feeling sick, so it might be better for me not to come. As Billy and Paul overheard the conversation, they set up the guest bedroom for me! :O They had offered to have me stay at their place even earlier, but I didn't want to intrude. I wasn't made to feel, in any way, that I was imposing though.

Over dinner, they talked about how they'd met, and then we spoke a lot about how California is, and well - lots of things. I feel like I need to get back to reading a lot more. I want to be able to tell them so much more about India.

The Gift.

Paul pulled out a book - A People's History of the United States of America to gift me as a going away present from them. Awwwwwwww :( I will miss them!

Ocean beach at Sunset.

We decided to go to the beach with the dogs. Billy gave me his leather jacket and a bottle of cider beer to take with me, because it was going to be cold by the ocean. Paul and Billy took their own little beach entertainment. :)

We went to the beach with the dogs and the water was faaaar away because the tide was low. The dogs were unleashed and they frolicked around in the sand. Billy picked up a scallion and gave it to me. Then we saw car headlights, and it was a cop car that started blinking its red and blue lights, and Billy and Paul called the dogs to leash them up because there are some rules around leashing the dogs on beaches. It almost felt like we were in an adventure series - in the middle of the night, trying to hide from the cops, haha. We decided to go back after a bit, and whoa - Athena had stepped on a part of the sand and it lit up under her feet! And then we stepped on this phosphorescence. Possibly some bacteria that emitted light when they felt movement and some pressure. Ohhh man, it was supremely trippy. The three of us stayed there with the dogs, stepping on it and rejoicing in the faint light emitted. :)

Finally, we headed back and took some good amount of sand into the house with us. We sat by the fire and had a couple more drinks, and talked and talked, and they wanted to see pictures of India, so I showed them pictures of Bombay. Paul dozed off, and not long after, Billy and I decided to retire to bed too. They'd put a heater in my room and took the dogs with them for warmth at night :) So sweet! Sigh.

I slept at around 2a.m.