Picnic on the bed

Everyone told me that summer in San Francisco would be dismal. I believed them, but it is one thing to logically understand wretched weather and something else entirely to actually wake up to it everyday. Four years of winter in Boston did a good job acclimating me to the reality of everyday being more depressing than the last. Still, summer in San Francisco required its own sort of fortitude. In my apartment merely blocks from a frigid, shark-infested beach, the fog was particularly pervasive. The sun might struggle out in Union Square, but at my house, the gray wooley blanket and desperate chill descended in June and didn't let up until the end of September.

But now that's all in the past. It's October and everything is lovely. I had a dream about a house full of pumpkins last night, but the weather doesn't even hint of fall. It's been around 70 degrees, sunny and breezy. Two days ago I put on a sun hat, walked to a playground, sat on a bench and read. Outside. It was fantastic.

But it reminded me of some weeks ago when everything was not so lovely and Stephen and I had picnic on the bed. I'd just gotten a new haircut and was feeling festive, plus Stephen had hurt his back and was in no shape to sit at the table, let alone help with the dishes. So I stopped by a couple of shops to pick up a few tasty nibbles to eat, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, or rather, sur le lit style, I guess.

I bough a roast chicken to eat smeared with green peppercorn dijon, a baguette, apples, grapes, three types of cheese (taleggio, aged gouda and cambozola, a sort of camembert innoculated with gorgonzola mold), and a big, purplish heirloom tomato that I dressed with olive oil and fleur de sel.

I spread one of my grandmother's vintage tablecloths on the bed, poured some wine and we ate everything with our fingers, Stephen propped up on a pile of pillows. And believe it or not, even though it was August in San Francisco, it almost felt like summer.