Nighttime walk, we're taking over Seacliff!

Tonight Grace and I hit the pavement for our late night walk. Of course late night for us is 9:30pm or so, we go to bed early. It was a beautiful night for walking, crisp but not really cold. The night sky was clear and the moon and the stars were bright even with the surrounding city lights.

We kept a good pace the whole time. We have several route that we take depending on how long I want to walk, how windy it is, and if I want to sneak a peak in the rich people’s houses, or if I’d rather mix with the Geary street night life (or is it wild life?). My life is so exciting isn’t it?

Today I followed California Street to the corner of 32^nd Avenue and then headed north toward the mansions of the Seacliff area. I walked to El Camino Del Mar, and then down to Seacliff all the way to 26^th Avenue and then back up. It’s not a long walk, about 30 minutes, but more than half of it is close enough to the cliffs so that we can clearly hear the waves and get a few good looks at the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay.

The first part of that walk is simple; the hope is that the dog will do her business before we run out of trash cans. You see, rich people don’t believe in trash cans apparently and I’m not into walking around with the deed. Anyway, Grace dutifully proceeded in due time and then we were off to enjoy our walk.

First we met an older woman who was walking a perfectly groomed Mini Schnauzer. The lady seemed intimidated by Grace so I told her not to worry, Grace is very friendly. Well, I guess her Schnauzer didn’t hear me because he blew a gasket at Grace, barking and growling and carrying on. Grace just stood there looking at him like “Dude, you’ve lost your mind” but he wouldn’t stop. As we walked past the little devil bit Grace a little on the behind! Grace turned around and bared her teeth growling. She can look scary when she wants to; the other dog decided suddenly that he had other things to do.

We returned to our walk me laughing to myself and Grace prancing proudly. She sure showed him!

As we turned on 32^nd Avenue, I was looking in the houses, not so much as the people, but at the rooms themselves. If I’ve learned anything in the last 5 years, it’s that sometimes it’s just not worth it to cage yourself up financially just to be able to say “it’s mine!” Those houses are worth a lot of money, even now, and honestly, they aren’t even that big, or that great. I’d rather rent an apartment and have someone to call if sometimes goes wrong thank you.

Tension on the leash shook me out of my reverie. Grace was staring at something ahead of us, another dog. I shortened the leash and reminded her to behave, but apparently it wasn’t necessary. The woman walking the other dog took one look at us and crossed the street to avoid us. I guess we looked scary or something. How weird! She did look scared too. Grace and I literally looked at each others, I shrugged and off we go.

The rest of the walk went on as usual, peak at Robin William’s house, will I see him again? Nope, no head sticking out tonight. His house is where several streets meet and the noise of the waves is very loud when to get to that point. Even Grace looked around like “there’s a beach close, can we go?”

We did meet a man who was walking two little cocker spaniels; cute little dogs and friendly too. We had a dog party for a few minutes and off we went running up the hill, one last lap around the block for a last call on doing the deeds, and inside we went for the night.

Every night it’s a dilemma: who’s walking the dog? Honestly I flake out of it very often. My husband is good enough to do it most nights. When I step up and do it though, I really enjoy it. We have a beautiful neighborhood and the walkways are large and generally in good condition, so it makes it all the more fun to walk around.

More than that though, every walk is like an adventure. Grace and I become great explorers roaming the neighborhood in the hope of discovering hidden treasures. We run, we tiptoe around, we chat (yes we do!), we dance around, we stop to look at the moon, we sit together on a bench and listen to the waves…

One night that we were dancing and running around a woman who was walking across the street told me “You know this is not that kind of a neighborhood”. I had to laugh, “You mean it’s not a neighborhood where we can play and be happy? Then it should be!”

Me n Grace are taking over Seacliff, if you don’t like it, move to Tiburon! Right? As I turn to her for confirmation, she's asleep beside me on the couch, her face smooshed in my hip, snoring loudly and her paws twitching. There she goes, off adventuring without me. AH!