Slip sliding away
Today Richard, Bryn and I joined more than 10,000 humans, a thousand dogs, and approximately 16,000 cases of wine, helping to kick off the 69th season of Stern Grove's Sunday-in-the-Park concerts.Where to start?
Well, the over-arching attraction (the meta-desire, one might say) is a picnic and performance at an outdoor ampitheatre--for this, I am a sucka.
In Houston, it was the blessed Miller Outdoor Theatre, marred only by the LifeFlight helicopter flight pattern directly overhead, giant misquitos and even giant-er folding chairs. Dammit people, if we all sit on our quilts, we can all see. Sure, there were occasional turn-offs like the couples making out two blankets over...in every direction...but basically Miller was A Happy Thing.
SF has several options, with Stern Grove being a natural cliff-and-valley-based ampitheatre the ancients can only have dreamt about. Some days the concerts are rained-out, and some days the fog over the Sunset is so impenetrable the music barely pierces it. But other days were like yesterday, bright, clear and freakishly hot. The only haze o'er the Grove yesterday was marijuania, to which I say legalize it already. Sheesh.
So if the general lure was "outdoor ampitheatre...mmm...forbidden donuts," the specific lure was the headline performer "Aimee Mann," a singer-songwriter I really enjoy. I have the soundtrack of Magnolia -- featuring Ms. Mann -- and I want to take a moment and say Magnolia the movie should -- like Sophie's Choice -- be rated "T" for "Traumatic." But back to Stern Grove, and the groove of Aimee Mann. Lovely.
All the concerts start--officially-- at 2:00 p.m. Plenty of time to go to church, loll, assemble the picnic, loll, right? Wrong.
First, The Man. In all his glory, organizing the picnic supplies Saturday night, telling me we would have to leave straight from church and therefore take the dog to church and hurry Robin if you want a seat.
Well, I'm used to The Man's "ooch, ooch, hurry up," mania, arriving 16 hours early at the airport, etc. So, I think, he's just being Him. Well, I'm starting to get used to being wrong, too.
We find decent street parking and walk towards the park, cooler and dog in hand. It's 1:00 p.m., we're an hour early, and we hear roars from the thick wall of trees ahead. Huge crowd roars, enormous hoardes of people roars. Richard gives me The Look which means, "Who was right about getting here early?"
Dogs aren't allowed on the "Concert Meadow" immediately in front of the stage, although you can bring them if you make your picnic on the hillside (I heard people calling it the mountain) or over in the West Meadow, where you can hear if not see the stage.
We entered at the top rear of the Grove, the highest point straight out from the stage in this natural ampitheatre. A thickly twined mass of eucalyptus trees, nasturtiums, people, dogs, baby strollers, blankets and coolers greeted us, hanging on for dear life on one of the steepest most precipitous slopes in all of San Francisco.
It's a great way to get to know people-- just slide down into their Sauvignon Blanc.
The near-constant winter and spring rains turned Stern Grove into a mosh pit of mud, and helped erode the hillsides. The festival organizers and The City pitched in moolah to reseed the grass, but the Giant Steep Slippery Cliffs of the grove are still steep. And although it's been dry enough that they're not muddy, you still slide. Helplessly, like a downhill skier in slow motion.
So, we stake out a place right at the top of the hill, with an actual view of the stage. A comedy ensues, like an old silent movie, wherein we keep helping each other to stand, and then back up the hill, as we spread out the blankets, and then slide and pull and slide and stop to catch our breath.
Bryn the dog is the happy camper, balanced carefully near a tree, eyeing the dogs, children and food spread around her.
Richard lunges mightily towards a tree, and pulls us all up to the trunk.
Hoping its roots have found some purchase in the eroding soil, we cling to it as we finally make camp. This is the hardest I've ever worked for a glass of wine in my life.
We meet the people around us (can't help it, we're all sliding in to each other), and settle in. The wine is uncorked, the homemade pita crisps are unziplocked, the glop (another blog) is shared around.
Warm sun, cool breeze, the music wafts up the hill.
What an infinitely pleasant day.
Despite the continuous wedgie from sliding down the hill, despite the sudden appearance of 16 bugs from Jurassic Park, what an infinitely pleasant day.
As we leave, The Man turns toward me and says, "Next time, we get here earlier."
posted by Woman In Love @ 7:34 PM
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