We've arrived.

We're in New Orleans - Maryetairie actually.

The flights from SF to NO went like clockwork. I'd planned on sedating our cat, BeBe, for the flight. However, she behaved so well sitting in her carry-on while the movers loaded the van that we decided to hold off until we saw how she reacted to the flight. She was awesome - quiet and peaceful during the flight to Dallas and on the flight to NO. She's such a sweety.

Befitting our move to New Orleans, the Krewe of Barkus marches this weekend as one of the first Mardi Gras parades in the season. I hear BeBe's gonna pass...

People leave San Francisco every day.

I see them in the taxis headed for SFO in the early morning. I see them in 747s as they fly over the City for one last glimpse before they settle in for the long flight home to Paris, Amsterdam, or Frankfurt. And now I'm one of them.

The place has been cleaned by Rosa for the last time. I've handed the keys over to D'Anne, our landlord, who handed me a check for our deposit. And now we're in a hotel waiting to join the fleet of taxis that head for SFO tomorrow morning.

And San Francisco will continue. A previous tenant's son will be camping in our apartment this weekend with his father and a few friends, sleeping in the place where he was conceived twelve years ago. Isn't that cool? The cable cars will keep trudging up Powell, Hyde, and California laden with tourists and the few resident commuters. And the fog will continue to roll over Mt. Sutro as it spills into Eureka Valley and the Castro.

The hotel we're staying in tonight is on the cable car's Powell line. I can hear the cable cars trudge up Powell past Pine as they head towards Fisherman's Wharf. I can see the cable cars as they head down Powell towards the cable turn at Market. And I can hear the conductor clang the bell. When we looked for our place in New Orleans, the one thing I could never understand was the comment by some about how living on the streetcar line was a drag, that you get tired of hearing the streetcar go by. How is that possible?

The cable car and the streetcar, to me, represent the essence of those cities. I never get tired of hearing them go by. Do these people know how many others would love to see them, hear them, and ride on them? That's why they fill those 747s and taxis every day. That's why we'll be in a plane to New Orleans tomorrow, to see and hear the streetcars on St. Charles as they trundle by carrying all those tourists and the few resident commuters.

The movers have left. The place is empty. Rosa comes to clean house tomorrow and we can leave.The SF chapter is about over.

This time none of the packers got drunk on the job. The folks driving the moving van are happy to discover they're moving us into our new place on Super Bowl weekend. Two of the movers have a problem with the third one, so I don't know if he'll make it to New Orleans. Anybody know the correct tipping protocol for movers? I never know if I'm doing it right... or should be doing it...

Sorry about any broken links - I took the server down last night, it's sitting snug in a moving van headed towards New Orleans via Oxnard with Roy and Emma at the helm. Daniel's iffy.

A rainy day in SF

It was 104F every day of the week the week we moved from Dallas to SF. What should I expect when it's August in Dallas? So today the moving company is packing us up for the move from SF and it's (surprise!) an overcast rainy day.

I was up early and went to Spike's to get a morning coffee - our coffee maker has been retired for the move. The morning had a great feel to it - cool, quiet, partly cloudy. As I walked to Spike's from Castro, I had a great view of a stripe of sunshine hitting the houses west of Castro, the other houses still in shade. I could see blue skies breaking through the clouds on the other side of Mt. Sutro. Within two hours, though, the clouds won and it soon became misty and then rainy.

We went to Mecca tonight for a good-bye drink with our friends Chris and Ken. Imagine a gay version of "Home Improvement" and you get an idea of them - frequent visitors to Homo Depot. Rick was there, too, along with a fellow named John who was after Chris or Terry - I'm not sure which. Michael and Louis showed up and something happened that re-affirms why I love D.

First, Mecca is where snottier SF gay boys go for a Sunday night drink - they get to pay $6-7 for a cocktail and watch a drag show. Mecca is a very nice place, great ambiance. There's nothing like it in NO for the gay boys.

I was talking to Chris when Michael and Louis walked in. I heard D say "Happy New Year!" to them and thought nothing of it. Turns out D discovered from Rick before they showed up that M & L had thrown a New Year's party and hadn't invited us although we'd had them to dinner several week earlier and we live all of three blocks from them. Hence his HNY greeting. So when we said our good-byes at Mecca, D didn't bother with M & L. As D says, "Hautaine queens!"

On the moving front, the stereo has been dismantled and the computers are next. Packing 2 desktops, a web server, and three printers isn't my idea of fun, but there you go. Don't be surprised is a few links are broken once the web server is shut down.