You can’t help but notice the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having in San Francisco this year. When I asked a sun-kissed couple wearing shorts at Fisherman’s Wharf where they were visiting from and they responded, “The Outer Sunset,” I knew something had really changed. Yes, people are almost giddy about our new semi-fogless city, and although I don’t miss my winter-summer parka, I do wonder if I’m the only one who’s worried that this may be a sign that the end of the world is near.
So I figured it’s time to prepare myself. If this were my last day in San Francisco due to the apocalypse, an invasion by aliens (and not the E.T. adorable-type), bacteria-gone-wild or more realistically, a cataclysmic climate change, here are a few of the things I would like to make sure to do. Call it my End Of The World Bucket List:
- Order every ice cream sundae at the original Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop and share them with everyone within melting distance.
- Ask the cable car conductors to let me ring their bell to the tune of Beyonce’s “Put A Ring On It” while riders sing along. Post it on Youtube. Go viral in three hours.
- Sun myself alongside those gargantuan sea lions at Pier 39 K-Dock. Note to self: Bring a lot of fish.
- Have a truckload of Allstar Donuts delivered during my last yoga class.
- Have Francis Ford Coppola inform the waiters at his restaurant, Cafe Zoetrope, that yes, they can serve the Chicken al Apocalypse Now.
- Adopt every animal housed at Animal Care and Control even though our apartment building only allows one pet per household.
- Try to figure out how Noah would have built an ark in a tiny San Francisco apartment.
- Feed all of my new pets roast beef dinners from the House of Prime Rib. To go, of course.
- Flagrantly pick all of those enormous, beautiful hydrangeas blooming at Fort Mason and the Presidio and deliver them to the residents of old-age homes. Tell each resident they are from a secret admirer.
- Bag all of my groceries at the grocery store using the bags from the produce section to avoid being charged 10 cents a bag.
- Get on the Jumbotron at AT&T Park during a Giants game and announce, “Hey, everybody! This round’s on me!”
- Stir our compostables and combustibles in with our regular garbage.
- Yell “I love you!” to every fireman I see on the street. Wait, I already do that.
- Belt out karaoke of The Doors’ “The End” with Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi at Silver Clouds.
- Do a Risky Business slide in my underwear in that long de Young Museum lobby.
- Stalk Tim Lincecum at AT&T Park and give him a huge, Morganna-style kiss. Then tell him he was cuter with long hair and that he should lose the “mustache.”
- Jump the fence at the buffalo paddock in Golden Gate Park and hug some buffalo. Then run.
- Rent Larry Ellison’s yacht on our credit card and go for a (very) quick spin around Stow Lake.
- Climb Sutro Tower and hang a pair of tennis shoes from the antennae.
- Drive up the crookedest street in the world — but only after 4 p.m. on weekends due to the new Lombard Street traffic regulations.
- Cancel my facelift.
