Yesterday I managed to make it to City Lights bookstore on Columbus avenue on the line between Chinatown and the North Beach district in San Francisco. City Lights is the home of the Beat poets, a place graced by Kerourac et al. It is a nodal point for social dissent and counterrevolution which seems an oxymoron. San Francisco is a city that is a perpetual dissenter to the median range of American homogeniety. Along the way yesterday, I have never seen so many openly schizophrenic homeless people juxtaposed with the coiffed and coutured. I have seen more Armani suits and D&G shoes walking in mid day in the last two days than I have seen in the last year. The blessing of good weather despite weather reports to expect rain has meant cable car riding to the wharf, chocolate cupcake eating at Ghiradelli square and walking down twisty Lombard street got checked off the bucket list. With a free day tomorrow and Friday, I am eager to return to the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, walk the bridge and see Sausilito. I get to reconnect with an old high school friend and local resident for dinner at The Slanted Door. She must have some local girl connections because the dinner reservation wait list was weeks out. Vietnamese tapas at the Ferry Building this evening, although it is the AARP early bird seating, is a culinary highlight for this trip.
To top it off, the medical confernece has been awesome. Very high quality lectures and information. The speaker this morning that spoke on Exercise as Medicine was inspiring and touched on the core point of origin for so much of our chronic medical issues: inactivity. I feel rejuvenated intellectually. I also think I got recruited to be a future participant at the 2011 AOA house of delegates in Chicago next summer. The selling point? It is a really great time; we have a blast. And it is Chicago!