Gazing into the Cone

Last Friday, I rode shotgun as Dicky piloted my purple bookmobile to San Francisco, our bikes harnessed to the back. We parked the car a few blocks from Kathy's new apartment, and promptly forgot it existed, riding our bikes out of Noe Valley, down a hill, up a hill, into the Mission and beyond. On Sunday morning, I went for a run, and on a whim, decided to check on my car. It was no longer where we had parked it.

A few phone calls later I discovered it had been towed only hours after we'd abandoned it. The alarm kept going off and some folks in the neighborhood called the police. I couldn't blame them.

I had planned to spend my San Francisco Sunday riding through Golden Gate Park, visiting the Conservatory of Flowers, admiring the bridge and the bay. Instead, I embarked on a Kafkaesque car retrieval odyssey, accompanied by Kathy and Dicky, which entailed (not necessarily in this order): two visits to two different police stations, a bit of crying, two visits to two different copy shops, a strained phone call to my mother (to whom the car is still registered for complicated reasons), a sad Soju Bloody Mary, a Chimay, several cups of coffee, a trip to the tow yard and a $425 price tag.

I don't eat ice cream very often. While I'll occasionally steal a lick from another's cone, I can't recall the last time I went anywhere and had my very own serving of the stuff. On Sunday, after finally reclaiming my vehicle, we rode our bikes to Bi-Rite, stood in line for a half-hour and I ordered a motherfucking ice cream cone. It was one scoop of Salted Caramel and another scoop of Coffee Toffee. We walked across the street to Dolores Park and found a decent patch of grass in the sun where I promptly ate the shit outta that cone. Let me tell you something: Ice cream is good.