Last week, our nieces were in town, accompanying their mother who was working a conference in SF. J and I were in charge of the two preteen girls for two days. Admittedly, I don’t really have much interaction with kids. I guess growing up in my very non-celebratory family and with my cousins, aunts, and uncles living in Taiwan, my family dynamics are generally very distant. So the thought of chaperoning our nieces for two days kind of stressed me out. J was in charge of getting some feedback from the girls’ parents so we could narrow our choices. Long story short, we got the whole “They’re flexible and will do anything” runaround. I know everyone was just trying to be nice esp bc they know we’re like childfree with limited kid experience, but man, the ambiguity only made things more challenging.

Ah well, we went up to SF on Monday, with the plan being to check out Lombard St., Muir Woods, the trolley cars, and Fisherman’s Wharf. Well, I dunno why I was even surprised, but shit, due to traffic and “city problems,” everything thing took forever. Logistically, the poor girls were like trapped in our car for hours with Uncle J driving like a lunatic. Note to self: for any future visit to Muir Woods, drive to Sausalito and take the bus in, bc there is ZERO parking. Parking was so bad, J just circled around while the girls and I walked the park for 90 minutes. Afterwards, we were WAY beyond lunch time and then headed to Sausalito for lunch. At 2:30pm, the wait for lunch was 45 minutes. What? Yeah, we finally ate around 3:30pm and then it was time to battle the traffic back down the peninsula. The girls were great sports about everything, but I’m sure they were famished, windblown, chilled to the bone, and/or bored. For Day 2, we hit up Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and the trolley cars. But man, it was so freaking windy. I mean, honestly, I am way over SF. It’s just one of those things where the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Haha, we have the lowest tolerance for inconvenience EVER. The thing is, ultimately, we don’t even know if the girls had a good time. A part of me suspects that they would have been happiest just hanging out at home watching tv. Shrug. It’s hard to tell with the young-ins, I tell you.