In a weird place

I'm aching to write a vacation roundup right now; have been for days. Except, I'm not on vacation.

At some point, between then and now, I came to the conclusion that moving to California was right for me. There was big excitement and a whole lotta hubbub, but in all honesty, I didn't think it would happen. Sure I had a plane ticket to Oakland and an apartment in Berkeley and a Cali-appropriate gas-efficient car on its way to meet me, but, really, I just didn't think I was going anywhere. 

So when my mom and I were greeted with open arms by my cousin-cum-roommate and started making Ikea runs, it all felt a little bit like make believe. As a result, a silly grad student and her equally silly mom transformed an empty room with a gray-blue rug and short, white drape into a candy land of marshmallowy bedding and gumdrop dressers, capped off with an absurdly miniature palm tree that I hope beyond hope will sprout brown-sugary dates. 

Then, my mom left. Just poof! - she was gone, without me. Not quite poof. There were bouts of tears for hours before her flight. But, in the end, she was gone. And I was left wondering who was going to split a French macaron with me. Excuse me: split an entire collection of Miette macarons with me. 

My mom and I have always gotten along; there was the occasional mother-teenage daughter quarrel, but I've long considered her my best friend. Over the last three years since I graduated college, it's like we somehow became connected at the hip. (If this is getting nauseatingly too Gilmore Girls-y, it's time to stop reading.) 

We had dates that friends knew they couldn't mess with and, to my father's chagrin, we could talk for hours and hours and hours on end. We've come to share probably everything worth sharing and plenty that probably wasn't, and that sharing was usually conducted over something edible. 

In the past week alone we shared thoughts on my future plans (aspirations to become Andrew Zimmern's sidekick aside, we concluded that the horizon is fairly plan-free) over sandwiches of orange and wild fennel salami from Boccalone and Cowgirl Creamery's Inverness cheese, making time to tussle for rights to the favored ends of an Acme sourdough baguette. (Okay, so a return to the Ferry Building is on the list of short-term plans.)

We talked about music (Cesaria Evora trumps Persian rap - no joke) over a box of Tartine's revered rochers, tower-shaped meringues dotted with either almonds or cocoa nibs, and a nubby coconut macaroon, for dessert of course. 

We shared theories on the purpose of a mysterious, albeit beautifully landscaped, mansion in the middle of the Mission - my guess is vampire's lair, but mom proposed less intriguing possibilities like consulate or law office or some such. 

We shared teetering views from San Francisco's hilltops, 

And a beachside picnic after a flip floppy walk through Tennessee Valley.

We shared a pint of strawberries like palm-sized rubies as we walked the Embarcadero, 

Only to take a trip (mom's first!) on the ubiquitous cable car. 

We looked for fish in the waters of Lake Merritt, and schemed to pick magnolia blooms off the trees on the lakeshore,

But not before eating our fill of sandwiches at G.B. Ratto's in Old Oakland. 

We sniffed basil and taste tested melons that made my mom imagine her native Iran and drank way too much coffee. And it felt really good. 

And as bad as it felt when she left, deep down I know it's for the best. Because one week is not nearly long enough to eat an entire city. She'll be back.