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So right now I work in San Francisco proper having left Silicon-Valley-Of-The-Geek behind for the timebeing.
Not that I didn't enjoy my time there - I did. But those short sleeved shirts and 1985 trainers (mid decade is never a good year for fashion in my opinion) were becoming a tad overwhelming. So now I commute to SOMA which has it's own colourful residents, still in odd shirts and 1980's trainers - but the SOMA residents don't just live there, they live right there - on the street (and in the doorways and the dumpsters) . These locals make those trainers seem so much more funky though - funny that. I don't really mind navigating the local residents of SOMA, it takes me back to my London days when I'd dodge trucks drivers and butchers on my way through Smithfield market of a morning. Flashback to the morning I cut my ankle tripping over a pigs foot in a pair of impractically high mary-jane's. (I was wearing the mj's, not the pigs foot). Oh the colourful life I've led!

So now I drive North instead of East, keeping the ocean on my left and being intimidated by the SUV's at the on ramps.
I've already found my own little favourite parking lot, right opposite the office and haven't got lost once yet. Although today I did accept that I was a little rusty on city driving when, having been momentarily distracted by a phone conversation, I found myself driving the wrong way up a one way street. Oops. In my defence, it was a pretty wide street. No harm done in the end, although I did have to end my call abruptly when the penny dropped.!! (Don't tell the husband, he'll confiscate my phone).

I was getting on quite well with the car lot guy as well, he's always nice and cheery and it makes a lass feel fairly safe on the mean streets when it's dark and your crossing a parking lot, to see a familiar face watching your back. It all went a little less rosy today unfortunately when he tried to pull a fast one on pricing. (Now those of you (Short) who are terribly British and nervous of talking about money, may want to stop reading at this point.) I arrived later than usual and commented on how full the lot was. That's when he informed me he'd already put his rate up to $20 as there was a big conference on up the street. I noticed at this stage that the sandwich board prices were indeed lick and stick vinyl and had been bumped up. Apparently this is the norm - all supply and demand and the American dream and all that. Having just renegotiated the block after my wrong-way-one-way incident, I'd no intentions of getting back in the car. I also had no intentions of stumping up 20 bucks because some fat-arse business man convention was on up the road, so resorted to some hard negotiations of my own. I politely pointed out that I'd been paying $12 all week (which is already $4 more than the lot 2 blocks down), and if car lot guy was going to pee me and his other regular customers off on fat-arse-convention days, he'd be poor and shivering and lonely when there was nowt going on but the usual drone of day to day life. He crumbled way too easily - a sure sign of weakness /chancer-ism. So I managed to haggle further and get a nice reduction on the monthly rate. (which I haven't actually commited to yet). I flounced off, feeling quietly superior about my fine-tuned bartering skills. Don't try to rip off this stoopid immigrant buster!

I did get a little anxious at home time though, wondering if my car would still be there, or if it had been keyed, or rented out to a vintage Air Jordan clad local resident as a daybed, or maybe if I'd be smelling wee all the way home if I dared turn on the heaters. Luckily none of these nasty surprises awaited. Although who knows - it's like being horrid to a waiter I suppose, you must never eat there again - EVER. (I'll still be parking in my usual lot though - it is Valet after all!)