Sunday, June 25, 2023
Medium bowl of oatmeal with milk, flax meal, cacao nibs, toasted shaved coconut, diced half banana, dried cherries; hot water. It was hard to figure out what to wear today because ordinarily Pride Sunday every year is warm and sunny but today it was clear that it would be cold and overcast with maybe some sun and scattered clouds followed in the afternoon by cold and overcast again. We chose to dress warmly even though our warm layers weren't very rainbowy or festive, and that turned out to be a good choice. Patrick and I rode Muni to Civic Center station and visited the Pride Festival. We got a philly cheesesteak sandwich from a generically named booth for $16 which was not very good. The cheese was nacho cheese sauce, slightly spicy. Part of the sandwich was cold. We had walked far away to sit on grass and therefore didn't complain. The sandwich was rather messy, partly because the meat was in little bits. We continued walking around visiting different areas. At one point while approaching the API stage I was holding my fingers in my ears because the music was too loud. Magically, someone (first aid crew? someone from a health services vendor?) appeared and offered me a wrapped package of earplugs. I smiled and gratefully accepted the gift and forgot to say thank you. Would they have heard me anyway? Patrick and I shared a can of Coca-Cola purchased earlier with the sandwich. At the porta-potty restrooms I tried using a sink, but there was no soap and no water. We saw someone in an inflatable gorilla suit. We happened to walk alongside Andrew Christian supporters for a bit. Before we arrived I checked the SF Pride website for bag guidelines and found that many items were prohibited. We got through the entrance and bag check pretty quickly enough with no issues, but later inside we saw and smelled many people with items that were on the prohibited list, including non-compliant purses, bags or backpacks; non-service-animal pets; umbrellas; hula hoops; and marijuana, so I suspect that the rules were not strictly enforced. We had had enough excitement and left. We did not watch the parade at all. We rode Muni to the Castro. We had a small meal at Thai Chef: fish cakes with sweet dipping sauce, bbq chicken with a different kind of sweet dipping sauce. We walked to Sisters Coffee Shop on Valencia where Patrick got an iced red velvet latte—delicious. Dinner and a movie at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema: Asteroid City with two waters, one glass of red wine for me, one chocolate shake for Patrick, one popcorn no butter to share, one cordon bleu sandwich with fries and ketchup to share. We split our order into two parts, saving the sandwich for about 30 minutes in. There was a long delay waiting to place the first part of our order because while helping the seats next to us the (iPad?) device the server used to place orders was not functioning properly. Later there was a long delay in receiving our waters, so we raised a card and promptly got the waters. Later we submitted our order for the sandwich and again there was a long delay. We received the bill and all other items but not the sandwich. I raised a card and the server took away our bill. A long time passed, and we continued watching the film. Finally the sandwich arrived along with a revised bill which removed the sandwich. This was easily the worst service we have ever received at Alamo, but I still tipped $5 even if they might not have deserved it. We rode Muni home. Patrick went to bed. A fun and exhausting day.