(The following is from 2011, 15 years ago.)
Early morning in a heavy rain. Phone call; you’re suddenly alert. Nope, the new grandchild is not coming quite yet. But, after a couple of sick days, another one of your kids needs a ride to school.
Sure.
On the way to my car, I see a woman in a black coat and black tights with a girl, probably 9, in a pink coat and pink tights, hurrying through the rain, no doubt also on their way to school.
As I drive up to and around Bernal Hill, a flood of brown water is flowing south.
Back home, later, the phone rings again. I don’t hear it; I’m deep into preparing a speech for tonight on behalf of a non-profit I care about.
When I catch up to the message, it is the third time in three days that one of my kids’ schools is calling; this is the third of the three, which means now it’s my daughter’s turn to be sick.
Back home, with her wrapped in a comforter and sipping tea, I start wondering what would happen if I actually had a real job?
A friend calls --”It’s getting better out there,” he says, “I’m seeing more jobs for people like us.”
Right.
The cellphone company sends an urgent text -- apparently my bill is overdue again, a monthly occurrence. I have a family plan, which includes me, my three youngest kids, and someone I used to know.
It’s funny about euphemisms — they just pop up when you need them.
The rains continue. A tree goes down nearby. I post to my weekly blog about what the tech industry is doing in San Francisco. I put on a white shirt, nice slacks, and a sports coat.
Not trusting how I look in the mirror, I ask my daughter, who’s observing me from her sick bed. “What do you think, jeans or the nice pants?”
“I like those ones (the nice ones),” she says. That’s it, a decision is made. She is not only my chief fashion consultant, at the age of twelve she is the only woman in my daily life, the one whose judgment I trust completely.
Soon enough it is time to take her back to her Mom’s house, back over Bernal Hill, where an even bigger brown river now heads south and an even bigger tree nearby has gone down, blocking Folsom Street.
As we are arriving, her brothers show up, having gotten there via buses from their high schools, with backpacks and wet sweatshirts.
She hugs me as I drop her off.
“’Good luck with the speech, Dad. You’ll be great.”
HEADLINES:
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