Six Hours and Six Hundred Dollars in Portola

Whuttaday.

We embarked on an ambitious, mega apartment hunting mission this morning.  After only the second of eleven showings, our Jeep overheated and died. We were in the section of San Francisco called Portola.  The morning had been going smoothly- we had checked out a loft and explored the Portrero Hill neighborhood a bit- found a dog park, had coffee at a nice cafe and chatted up a few locals about how they liked living there.  Our itinerary had us seeing a bunch of different apartments while working our way down the Peninsula- next was Portola, then San Bruno, then Burlingame, San Mateo, and Belmont.  Finally, we had plans to head over to Half Moon Bay to meet up with our friends Don and Lianne, who were having a beachhouse BBQ that evening.

Well, showings were canceled as we found ourselves stranded and a funky smell coming out of the hood.  Fortunately, there was a service station right around the corner, so we got the Jeep over there to be worked on.

An hour into the diagnosis, we learn she needs a new radiator… which they told us they could do today, but would take a cool FOUR HOURS and cost $500.  Not having any other real option (Jeep was there, was dead, couldn’t be driven anywhere else!), we gave the go-ahead, called to cancel the rest of our day, and set in to wait it out.  Linus was with us; most landlords prefer to meet the pooch to ensure he’s under weight limits and well-behaved.  This seems to usually works in our favor as our friendly woofster tends to charm the socks off of ‘em.

First, we killed time with a leisurely brunch at Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a cute little greasy spoon with some sker-umptious hash browns.   Then we headed to McLaren Park for the bulk of the wait. We played around with Linus, who was overjoyed for so much playtime- from his perspective the day was going splendidly!  Earl and I both read the local rag of a paper to death (oh, what I would have done for a fresh off the press early edition of the Sunday Times), then whiled away the time rooting for different sides in a shirts v. skins volleyball game (go Team Skins!) and scheming various ways to blend in and crash an extended Asian family’s picnic/BBQ.

Earl became really grumpy because we accidentally sat in sap. The stump I selected looked so enticing for a sit, however we both ended up covered in a sticky mess of sap all over our thighs and butts.  Even Linus had sap all over his rear and belly, because he had cozied up to us on the stump!  I didn’t really care because I was wearing yoga pants- Earl, however was in a pair of nicer work pants.  Immediately post sap-butt incident, I inadvertently navigated us through a giant swampy field, so our feet and ankles became soaked and muddy.  This did nothing to help my cause.

We took ourselves on a mini walking tour of Portola (some pretty cute houses, then some MAJOR dumps!), then soothed our aggravated souls with some refreshing, delicious bubble teas from the Asian portion of San Bruno Ave.  I theorize that my timely suggestion of bubble teas absolved me a bit from the sapping and the swamping.

Back at the mechanics, the Jeep was *still* not ready.  Nerves frayed and totally bored, we sat on a bench outside the shop amusing ourselves snapping silly-face photos of Linus.

I submit the following photo essay titled, Dog Earns Keep Entertaining Stranded, Bored, Broke, Sappy and Swampy Family:

About fifty minutes later, we learn they CANNOT replace the radiator today because it turned out a certain part that connects the radiator was cracked- they don’t have a replacement part and can’t order it from the parts store because the parts shop closed an hour ago (@#E$#@#!!!). Sooo… after all that waiting, the car’s not ready anyway and won’t be until Monday. Huzzah, we hopped on a Muni bus and found our way back to the city. We actually had a take a few different buses to get all the way home; it was quite the adventure. Another exciting thing for Linus. He got lots of attention on the bus lines and lots of pets.

So all in all, pretty exhausting and unproductive day! Between being towed and now this debacle, it’s been an expensive month to own a Jeep.