From Ray's Boat House to the Campus Stellarum

[saavedra77]

I've been thinking about heading up to Ballard, one of these weekends, ever since the summer weather started to set in, and I finally did, today--although not (as planned) para tomar el sol or to get Puerto Rican food: Jen was up visiting from San Francisco (for the first time since February!) and we met attam for lunch at Ray's Boat House, which was one of Jen's old haunts from her Seattle days.

Jen seems to be doing very well, having finally moved out of Weed and Leila's and gotten her own place in the vicinity of Golden Gate Park. I've spent time in that neighborhood, and I can't think of a more simpatico part of SF: it's more Seattle-scale, leafy, with most everything you could want within walking distance.

Nonetheless, Ms. J. says that she's still feeling "homesick" for Seattle (mind you, she's actually from Reno--hence her nickname, "Desert Girl,"--she only sunk roots down in the Big Rainy during her 20s).

The sun came out as we sat down to lunch, which made me want to wander up to Golden Gardens afterward and hang out at the beach all day. But I wasn't dressed for it, so I had Jen (who was off to a family thing) drop me back downtown and took a joyride on the Bremerton Ferry, instead.

Then I spent a lazy, sunny day on the water reading about Medieval Spain. I learned, among other things, that the name of the Spanish Catholic shrine, Santiago de Compostela, is a corruption of the Latin Sanctus Iacomus de Campus Stellarum--"St. James of the Field of Stars."