Sunny Sunday stroll up and down

A perfect late-October day, with bright sunshine and the fog held off shore. I hiked to the top of Telegraph Hill, and found the Coit Tower open. I had never seen the wonderful series of murals, nor taken the elevator to the top, 20 storeys up. The view is worth the $5, particularly today, as I spotted a huge and highly eccentric yacht docked in the cruise ship slips. It turned out to be the Maltese Falcon, built by a Hewlett-Packard gazillionaire and now chartered out most of the time. Truly amazing from a distance but maybe more up close.

After some searching, I found the staircase down Telegraph that passes through the gardens occupied by the somewhat famous Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. They seem to be thriving. Several hours later, reversing my steps around the waterfront about 4:30 I heard parrots shrieking in the distance. I could see a couple of hundred of them lift off Telegraph Hill in a flock and fly through the buildings of the financial district, finally emerging in a few large lombardy poplars in Embarcadero Park. I was heading that way anyways, and when I got there they were noisily feeding. Leaves flying everywhere. The parrots don't like pigeons. Anytime one appeared, the parrots would dive-bomb them. Fun to watch, but my camera ran out of batteries..
:-(

Late night North Beach

Pretty sad to wander North Beach late at night these days. The odd landmark is still in evidence. City Lights has consigned the Beats to the 2nd floor poetry room, sensibly displaying more current material on the ground floor. And the store is much cleaner than I remember from 40 years ago when I first dropped in. The few sitting in Café Vesuvio... least said the better. Wandering through party central, I'm calculating that any of the Beats still alive would be in their mid-80s, and hardly likely to be found walkiing these streets at any time of day. Counting lucky stars.