San Francisco Weekend- Day 2 (part 2)

End of the day:

Midnight+: This is the 3^rd blog. So apparently, this will be a 4 blog set. It’s another late night now. We’ve been out late doing what we do best- hanging out with people and just loving on them and being real. But I’ll get to that soon.

This morning, as Rachel and I ate breakfast, we saw these couple people go by- in wheelchairs. They were talking on cell phones and, funnily enough- using their legs and feet to move themselves up and down the street. Later, as we went out to shop before dinner, we saw the one guy sitting there begging for money.

Other random thought- Rachel and Kassie found themselves resisting the biggest temptation a girl will ever face- looking down the loaded barrel of a Louis Vuiton Store and not spending any money (or even asking to).

So, we left the hotel to go shopping before dinner, except we really didn’t plan on spending money. Just going into stores we didn’t have in Medford and enjoying being in a city. But after a little while of that, we decided to try and catch a cab to the Wharf where we intended to eat dinner. Honestly, the gene that allows people to catch a cab- it’s not in either Rachel or me. She may love cities, but we can never live in or near one because we can’t catch a cab to save our lives. We spent a half hour in NYC on our honeymoon trying to catch one. We spent a good half hour walking around- heading toward Fisherman’s Wharf in order to be closer when we caught one. But, man, it was so hard to get one. The whole “Chinese New Year” parade. Which, by the way, I did find out the Chinese New Year wasn’t this weekend- they just had the parade today.

Decided to do dinner at the Hard Rock Café. Good decision- I’ve never been to one before. Despite having been in a number of cities in my life, I’ve never been to one of these before. A few funny anecdotes from all this- we sat in a table underneath a hat that had belonged to Michael Jackson. Very funny for us for a number of inside joke type reasons. Near us was a jacket once worn by Sting. Eddie Van Halen had signed a guitar for this Hard Rock. They had a guitar signed by Journey, which was amusing because I’ve had the song “Don’t Stop Believing” in my head most of this weekend- and singing it out doesn’t actually relieve me of having it in my head. Sometimes, it intensifies it. Finally, a guitar signed by George Harrison. Good stuff, good stuff.

Dave and Kassie headed off to spend some time together and Rachel and I headed down the street to meet and old friend of Rachel’s from YWAM- Cheesecake. Explanation- this girl’s name is Sonia. Middle name Lee. Sonia Lee. Very similar to Sarah Lee- aka- Sarah Lee cheesecake. So she gets called “Cheesecake”. This is very similar to the girl who decided I get to be named “Grape juice” because my last name is Walsh- similar to Welch. And Welch’s makes grape juice.

So we just walked around for a while, sat down outside for a while talking. But we decided it was getting kinda chilly, so we walked around a little more trying to find a nice little café type place to sit down. We found one, after putting out names in at the Rain Forest Café’s waiting list. And apparently, while Rachel and Sonia were standing in line waiting to get coffee and I was resting my legs and feet, Rachel mentioned something about Family Guy and the Simpsons. And for some reason, that made a huge difference in the direction of the conversation, and, ultimately, the night.

See, apparently, she had not been saying much and watching what she said because she didn’t want to offend a “pastor”. And those of you who know me know I’m not the type of guy to get really offended at stuff and I realize that if people are going to offend me, I’ll have to deal with it if I care about that person at all. So, anyway, finding out from her that hearing I’m a real person who’s not an uber-conservative went a long way toward us just being able to have real conversation among the three of us and not just have trivial small-talk that so often pervades conversations of people who get together to “catch-up.”

She becomes the second person in a short span of time to tell me if I were the pastor of a church, they’d be there in a heartbeat. It’s good to hear things like this sometimes, especially after having received really “beat-me-up” comments from someone recently that have gone the contrary to that. It doesn’t matter who says it, hurtful things that are said still hurt people- surprise. So hearing things like this from the people who I would want to reach with the Gospel or have as a core of people means a lot.

However, not to be the only one receiving encouragement, after having talked to Sonia, she shares with us what an encouragement it is to have spent time with us because we’re not very conservative, and neither is she, but she lives with 3 roommates who are super-conservatives and so she has a hard time being herself around them without feeling judged. So we feel as though we’ve had a really good night, and though it’s really late arrival again, it’s been a good day. Long day- and very eventful, but very good.