Weekend Round-Up: New Adventures

The weekend started with a relaxing night at home. We watched a couple episodes of “Going Tribal,” an interesting show that has inspired me to again look into taking a trip to Africa. On Saturday, we decided to meet Matt for some shooting out in Golden Gate Park. Rob and I first made a trip to the archery shop on Balboa to meet with Eddie (a Mr. Miyagi sort of character). A true archery enthusiast, he set me up with a bow and gave me a quick lesson. Turns out that I’m a natural! He was amazed at how quickly I caught on. All geared up, we drove over to the park and claimed target #1. Look at how fabulous my technique (and outfit!) is in this photo:

Archery is a perfect Emily sport. I am by no means “athletic” but do enjoy sports that meet my three criteria. 1) Must involve uniforms with skirts or an open dress code. 2) Can be played in a leisurely manner, preferably while chatting. 3) Is followed by some sort of meal, hopefully involving Bloody Mary’s. Tennis, golf, croquet, lacrosse all make the cut. And archery meets all three criteria! I can wear outlandish outfits that match my imagination of English countryside prep. Tweed skirts, wool, corduroy! It’s an extremely leisurely activity (physical therapy approved!). And finally, the field is located right next to the Park Chalet and their wonderful cocktails.

Plus, it meets a rare fourth criteria: I’m actually somewhat decent at it! I kept up with Matt and Rob quite well, even at 30 meters. When we went back to the archery shop to return my rentals I mentioned buying a set-up. Eddie was so excited that he gave me a bow and a set of arrows for free! Once I get better in a few months, I’ll probably replace these with a fancy wood bow and custom arrows.

We took our seats in the theater stuffed with popcorn and ice cream. A young manager from Tennessee came in and explained to the ten of us in the audience that this was the “thee-aaa-ters” third day open, the seats were real leather and there wouldn’t be any previews. The movie started and we got sucked into this story of an unexpected serial killer. Until the lights suddenly turned on and the movie turned off half way through. Apparently the electrical problems had finally reached the top floor of the Westfield. Slightly panicked managers gave us tickets to come back another time and we walked down five sets of stalled escalators to the front entrance. A frazzled engineer type let us out and we wished him “better luck tomorrow!”

What a surreal experience! I felt like we had been on a slowly sinking cruise ship in the middle of Market Street. On the subway home, Rob and I decided to call it the “apocalypse mall” from here on out. What a fun weekend!