Chris -The San Francisco Treat

I was DETERMINED to eat a healthy breakfast this morning.  I was in too much pain to actually go running in this beautiful, foggy, oxygen-heavy city.  My late night before had consisted of standing for four hours in dress shoes being entertaining and informative, and then sleepily eating some world-class seafood while trying to not let my head actually drop into the bowl of clam chowder.  My feet are a mass of bloody blisters, a toenail I'm sure to lose, and an aching, swollen knee.

Still, I wandered toward the Embarcadero in my uber-comfy running shoes, hoping to find a little cafe to grab some scrambled eggs.  All the places I passed simply sell delicious, dense breakfast sandwiches.  I walked into the Ferry Building where there is an organic market and bought a green shake... wandered to Blue Bottle and got some coffee, and eventually sat down at a communal table outside Book Passage to ponder my options.  I do need to eat real food at some point.

There was a tall, thin man already sitting there reading newspapers, a couple backpacks sitting next to him.  He greeted me cheerfully, said his name was Chris, and we struck up a conversation.

Chris is a native San Franciscan, and so I picked his brain about the city sights.  We agreed Alcatraz is intellectually interesting, but too closed in to be actual FUN.  He highly recommended the zoo -it will be a lovely day today and he felt I ought to spend it outdoors.  Since I am here for work, that isn't an option, but there is always next time.

I asked him where he would recommend I go for breakfast -someplace where I can get something healthy.  He laughed and said he doesn't worry too much about healthy when it comes to food and reminded me that in CA, all the chain restaurants have to put calories on the menu, so that helps you with decisions, you know? 

Then he said there was a great place to get a good breakfast sandwich, and they "have those skinny bagels, you know, the ones that are all wheat and like crackers almost??" and they are nice people there.  He'd show me himself, but he was watching his friend's stuff for him.

His friend was off looking for change in the street.  They needed 5 dollars to in order to do something.  I'm not it sure what it was, he seemed to gloss over that and it wasn't my business to inquire.

So we chatted on quite a bit, Chris pointing out the news from yesterday's paper, until his friend returned.  His friend, Marty, looked really tired and out of it.  He was short a dollar-fifty for whatever it was they needed to do.  Marty showed me a paper and asked if the bank would accept it for ID.  I said I'm not from CA, so I don't know what the banks need for ID, and Chris got impatient with him and said he'd go with him to make sure it was okay.

So Chris picked up his backpack and reminded me to check out that bagel place he told me about.  Off they went to look for cans and more dropped change.

I headed off, too, and located the bagel place he mentioned, and had a delicious, healthy egg-white, asparagus, mushroom and Swiss breakfast sandwich, on a whole-wheat "skinny" bagel.

I missed Chris a little bit, because it was just me and my smart phone to talk to there.