A fun (and full) 24 hour date day

My mom picked up the kids at 4pm on Saturday and didn’t return them until 4:30pm on Sunday. After a bunch of “chilling at home on the sofa” date nights this past year, we really took advantage of these 24 hours to get out of the house and explore.

To start, we hiked my favorite park, where I usually run alone. The weather was beautiful Saturday, so it was still pretty warm even though we were hiking at the end of the day. I’ve never really been up there that late, and the light on the city, and bay, was beautiful.

We went to a new restaurant (Good Good Culture Club) in the Mission for dinner and… we sat inside! It was a first for both of us. The food was amazing, and it was nice to sit inside and eat without being cold and having wind whip in our faces.

We stopped at Dog Eared Books on the way home and we both found a couple things we wanted. It was so nice to just stop into a book store – I haven’t done that in a long time.

At home again watched The Paper Tigers, which is a funny, silly movie with some decent fight scenes. I always wonder how movies like that get made these days. I’m glad they do.

Sunday morning we had to hustle to get to BART on time to catch a train to Oakland for an 11am reservation at the new Native American-owned restaurant Wahpepah’s Kitchen. The food was again amazing, and I very much appreciated that my husband has places like this on his radar.

After brunch we hit up a newish coffee spot (Red Bay Coffee) which was also very good. I got a couple bags of beans for my parents too.

I saw a dress I liked hanging on a tree as we walked around, and when we went in to get it, my husband realized they had belts, which he desperately needed. The owner made him a belt while we watched, and my husband loves it. Again, it was nice to step inside somewhere and support a local business.

We walked all the way to Alameda and checked out a couple spots we plan to hit up with kids next weekend. We also discovered that there is an INSANE toy store right next to an arcade we plan to take them to. It’s very good that we know about the toy store ahead of time, because it will definitely be a “thing.” But I can’t be mad about it because it’s truly a marvel to behold; every square centimeter is filled with toys, and there are tons of old vintage toys behind glass. It was a real walk down memory lane, and I’m fine letting my kids spend $10 each in there next weekend.

There was also a candy and soda shop that we’ll definitely have to drop some dollars in.

By the time we walked back to BART and took a train home it was 4pm and we were wiped. We hung out with the kids, and played Catan Family Edition on Sunday evening.

Today our son is going to his grandparents’ house (the other grandparents) while my daughter’s friends come over for her first TikTok session. We just let her get an account (after writing up a contract she had to agree to and sign), but she doesn’t really know how to make a TikTok so her friends are coming over to show her the ropes. Then I’m taking them all to boxing, and finally out to dinner. It should be fun.

The reality is, our behavior this weekend isn’t so very different than it has been, except for some key exceptions: we ate inside at a restaurant and my daughter’s friends are coming into the house without masks today. But the shift in mentality allowed my husband to conceive of all that fun stuff because he knew we were “opening up” a little. I do think maybe our “opening up” is everyone else’s “hot vax summer” and that our “move toward normalcy” is only getting us to a place that many people already have been. Or maybe not. Maybe I am one of the sociopaths who can’t be bothered to care about covid anymore because I’m simply an awful person. I’m still trying to figure that all out. In the meantime, I found our date day to be deeply gratifying, and I know this afternoon will mean so much to my daughter. I also know we are lucky that we can do these things in our area and feel relatively safe.