Part of the joy of retirement is having the time to spend with family.  I’ve enjoyed being with my grand kids in here San Francisco.  They are a bit over two years apart in age, the oldest a boy 10 and the youngest a girl missing her two front teeth. He’s into computers and video games, while she wants everything she sees, and seeks the shiniest objects.  My son and his wife went to a Green Day concert at the Oakland Coliseum, so my wife and I got babysitting duty.  I think they were excited just to get some time on their own together, while my wife was not so excited to not have some time with just me.  The compromises we make in life!

I decided to take the kids to see the classic movie, “Mary Poppins,” starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.  It was a “sing-a-long,” so the words to all the songs were in subtitles at the bottom of the screen.  I expected the theater would be filled with screaming kids and their parents.  Not in San Francisco…and certainly not at the Castro Theater!  As my grand daughter astutely mentioned on the way out,” It was mostly adults….and most of them were men!”  I had to agree, since the restroom lines were uncharacteristically longer for the Men’s Room.  We were all given a prop kit that consisted of a crown, popper, comb, glow-stick, and bubble-maker, and were left to our own to decide what to do with them. My wife, of course, had it all figured out, knew all the songs even without the subtitles, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My grand daughter was right with her, wearing her crown, and trying to keep up with the songs, applause, and rhythm cues. My grandson and I watched the spectacle – not quite sure what to think.  I thought Dick Van Dyke’s dance performances were amazing, and the glow-stick waving added a lot of pizzazz to the show.  I had already promised my grandson some X-Box games if he would just go along with his sister.  He patiently played with his bow-and-arrow made from balloons at the Rainforest Cafe, where we all dined before the show.

We then did all the touristy things together, including the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, Sea Lion watching, the street performers along Pier 39, Boudin Bakery lunch, Dryer’s Grand Ice Cream (it was national Root Beer Float day), and Alioto’s for dinner.  I spent a good chunk of my retirement savings on these adventures, with three more days to go.  They had already been to Yosimite for a couple of days before we all met in San Francisco, so this has been quite an adventure for all of them.  Tonight it’s the ballpark and the Giants against the Cubs. We’re all Cub fans, looking for a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious “W!”

My wife and I are enjoying some quiet time while the kids are with their parents at the pool this morning.  I get easily exhausted being a grandparent, and don’t know how I ever succeeded as a parent?  She has two girls of her own and has somehow eluded being a true grandmother, but does a great job helping me be a grandfather.  She walked and I ran through the throng of people trying to get to work this morning.  Our hotel is in the Financial District, and so there was a lot of dodging around subway-seekers, bicyclists, and cars, trying to make our way to the waterfront.    It was vastly different from my typical morning jog, and to circle back on occasion to join my wife’s slower walk pace allowed me to get some decent training miles in before my grandfather duties start again.  We’ll all go to In-N-Out Burger for lunch, a treat-repeat for me from my last trip to L.A. (See Post #41).