Stiffen Myself to the Possibility

Lyfting around the Bay Area.  How much time does it take to get from Oakland to SoMA on a Wednesday morning around 7:00AM?  I didn’t count on it taking more than an hour.  It did.  Fortunately, my driver wasn’t averse to breaking the law and taking advantage of some bus lane they had, but I would have been considerably more late had it not been for this. 

Seeing someone whom I hadn’t talked to in a year.  A good catch up, though there isn’t much that has changed from the last time we talked.  Later I walk over to Broadway, near Chinatown to the same meeting location we had yesterday, where I’d industriously gotten up during the meeting and began charging my lap top on the wall, only to forget it on the way out.  This gent is giving an interview and has asked not to be interrupted till 9:30AM.  I kill some time at a small café two blocks down on Broadway, where I can charge my phones and sip on a seltzer.

He isn’t there when I knock.  But his colleague is, and he looks around and spies my laptop there on a tabletop.  The charger neatly folded alongside.  Apples are ubiquitous and I check the password upon opening this one up.  It’s mine.  Now I trace my tracks to the next location on my last evening’s progression:  Coqueta doesn’t open till 10:00AM.  I get there and no, no one there has my credit card, but it would have been put in the safe if anyone found it and the guy who has the combo will be here in fifteen minutes.  I wait.  He shows.  He remembers me and I remember him.  Then he darts to the back and doesn’t return at first.  I began to stiffen myself to the possibility of having lost the card, but he returns with it and after I show him my driver’s license, he hands it over.

Now it’s down to SFO.  The CEO of a company I have been speaking with is meeting me there at the international departure lounge.  And as we talk, I learn that he isn’t flying anywhere today and any more than am I.  A second meeting comes over from Pleasanton and I make a day of it there in the international departures’ restaurant area.  I’m off on the BART by three, the first time since I’ve arrived that I’ve opted for mass transit. 

Wednesday, 11/13/19