A Significant Move!

For the past 18 months Charity has gloried in living in her favorite city in the world: San Francisco. She left a year ago last August thinking that she could easily get a job and start a career. Well, not so easy! She did find FOUR really nice jobs and thoroughly enjoyed the flexibility and fun of doing a variety of interesting things but we were all overjoyed when she landed a real job albeit in Palo Alto!

She started work on January 4th. Since it required buying a new car, attending a new ward, having new roommates and brand new work associates with an actual office, I flew out on Friday to help her move. She couldn’t actually move into her room until Sunday because of a strange situation with a roommate being evicted and some crazy stuff surrounding that. The details are too complicated to post but call her for details if you’re interested. 

The bottom line is that we had a free Saturday and we had a ball exploring her old life in San Francisco….Charity style (cram as much as you can into every day).

I can’t tell you how impressed I was with her work at Batter Bakery! Two women who have become entrepreneurs have opened their own business in the heart of San Francisco. One does the baking (McKay Badger works there as a baker and got her the job) and the other does gourmet food which can be bought over the counter or delivered to your home.

On the weekends they do a brunch that is to die for!  This is what we had: cornbread waffles with blood oranges and apples, exotic fruit syrup and pomegranate berries with crème fresh. Also a poached egg in polenta with maple beans and kale. We were swooning with the deliciousness! We met both of the owners and were so impressed with their cooking abilities and their business sense. Charity manned a downtown kiosk with the baked goodies which is a tiny little glass house towered over by a crowd of skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco. Pretty cool job!  In fact Charity has decided that when she retires, she wants to be an entrepreneur and do something like this.

 

Since it was Saturday we went to the Ferry building which was a stunning display of every kind of food imaginable! She has spent a lot of time there picking up food for the bakery. The weather was simply spectacular and we loved seeing all the stuff in the outdoor markets…as well as the indoor ones.

 

Such a fun place! And look at that blue sky!

 

 

Next it was on to the tower, museum and the botanical gardens at Golden Gate Park:

I loved this hanging display of charred wood from a church burned down in Mississippi in the 1960s and this totally different display of glass fruit that is just fun! 

 

 

On to the incredible arboretum:

 

After that little bit of heaven, we headed for what Charity considers heaven….the beach with the Golden Gate bridge in the background:

 

There’s always a bride on the beach!

And a sunset!

Dinner was fab! Charity truly lives in the food capital of the world!

I got a chance to meet the lovely woman from England for whom she has been working as a nanny and who was also nice enough to give her a great deal on the car she has been driving their kids around in for the past 18 months. She has moved to Suburbia!  She’s not entirely happy about that but she’s adjusting.

 

She now lives in this house of diversity with a Navajo roommate, one of Korean descent and a darling black girl!  There are two Caucasians too. One is an airline stewardess and one is an accountant and also the self-proclaimed social chairman of the house (and many in the ward). Good news! Funnily she used to live in Charity’s San Francisco house.

She’s working at Innosight which is the Educational Think Tank based on Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn’s book called Disrupting Class as well as others. She is working with Michael there, Clayton’s daughter Anne and two friends from the past all of whom she is excited to learn from!  It is truly a privilege to be a part of this stellar group!

The office looks out on a courtyard of beautiful trees but I’m not sure how much she can see from her desk which is behind the wall of bookcases below. The office wasn’t open so we took pictures from outside.

 

In the window, among other things:

After church (which was really fun to see as the chapel literally packed with outstanding singles from ages 26-31) we found a little park in Charity’s new territory with some beautiful outdoor spaces. Even though it doesn’t quite the same as the parks in San Fran, it’s someplace to go to get out of the world!

On Sunday night we drove to Fremont to visit Chris, Aaron, Adam, Kimberley, their youngest adorable Rachel.  I haven’t seen Aaron for about 4 years and couldn’t believe how tall and handsome he has become. What a great guy! Adam and Kimberley are pondering on their next move with some offers, one of which is in Cedar City. We’d LOVE to have them in Utah! 

Charity whisked me to the airport on Monday morning but wow, did I learn a lot about Charity’s world, which is a pretty spectacular one!  We’re about to see her bloom where she’s planted!