Here it is 12:16 AM Sunday night (technically Monday morning) and I’m just getting my weekly Sunday night prep done. Usually I’m ahead of the curve a bit more. But when my wife shot off for a weekend in Seattle with one of her girlfriends, it was me and my daughters for the weekend. What I didn’t realize was how much I’d be channeling Morgan Freeman in “Driving Miss Daisy”. Damn I did a lot of driving around the Bay Area this weekend.
Friday night was Little League practice with the younger daughter in the Presidio — which is on the opposite end of town from where we live. When we got back to the house, the elder daughter was home from her futsol game — along with a friend who was staying overnight — a sleepover? Nobody cleared that one with me. Two girls fine, they’re mine I guess. But adding the “friend sleepover” seemed like I was being tested by someone — my wife perhaps.
Saturday started pretty easy — I let the girls lounge around the house while I took care of a bunch of errands and did a bit of work. But by mid-day we were on our way for the activities of the rest of the day and evening. First it was over to Treasure Island for the epic Twins vs. Yankees Little League game. While I coached the Twins (to a rousing victory over the Yanks I might add, not that we are keeping track of wins or loses of course), my older daughter and her friend stayed in the car the entire time! What the hell could they have been talking about for nearly two and a half hours sitting in a car? Okay, not sure I want the answer to that rhetorical question. They did actually get out of the car once apparently — in order to walk to the next field over that had the snack shack so they could get some healthy ballpark grub.
After the game it was back to SF to drop the little one off at a friend’s house where she’d be going to one of those “drop your kid off for 4 hours, we’ll feed them pizza and run them ragged while you and your wife have a date night”. Well, my date night was taking two sixth graders to Pasta Pomodoro and then to a movie. The movie was the one about the female surfer who had her arm taken off in a shark attack — but still aspires and succeeds in becoming an accomplished professional surfer. Great story, bad acting (when did Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt decide to pack it in as actors?). From the movie back to get the second grader, take the friend home (no second night sleepover thankfully) and then get the daughters to bed — of course by 11 PM barely. And it’s only Saturday night mind you.
Then came Sunday — and I brought some of this on myself. First, off to Haight Street at 8:15 AM. Who does that? Nothing’s open that early except a couple breakfast joints. Thankfully we found Pork Store not too crowded and sat at the counter together. The little one ate a sausage patty as round as her face. From there we knocked out some weekly food shopping at Whole Foods. It’s always a bit disconcerting when the grocery has two armed police officers roaming the aisles. After WF, a shot across town to Sports Basement — new baseball cleats for the little one, a new lacrosse mouth guard for the big one. Back to Haight to hit Kid Robot store — the purpose in going to Haight in the first place — where the younger daughter bought a couple things she’ll probably lose by this Wednesday.
Ugh! Then to the house for 45 minutes of chilling. Back in the car. Pick up the same girl who was over for the sleepover Friday night (don’t ask, it’s complicated) to take the older girls to Golden Gate Park for a birthday party. After that drop off, the little one and I shoot up to Novato for her lacrosse games. Nothing like second graders scrambling around with face masks and lacrosse sticks. Back in the car to SF. Drop little one off at Rain Forrest Cafe to meet friends for dinner — the same one’s she played with at that “drop your kids off for 4 hours” place Saturday night. Are you getting the repeating themes here?
Then back to the Mission to pick the older one up from her friend’s house post-birthday party. Back to our house. Clean the kitchen. Head out to get the little one and dart to SFO to pick up my wife at the airport. Of course she’s texting incessantly and impatiently wondering why I’m late? Of course I don’t get mad. It’s nice to have the reinforcements. And all complaining aside, this goes down as one of my greatest weekends of all time. Thanks girls.
Originally published on Medium on April 11, 2011. This Substack version is maintained as the canonical archive.