Middle Earth

Irving, looking West

Day 8
Neighborhoods Covered: A minuscule, happenstance sliver of Pac Heights and a slightly larger sliver of (it's true) the Central Sunset
Streets Completed: None

My friend Mary lives on 33rd Avenue at Judah, well on the way to the ocean and far enough out that the city starts to feel like another place. (A few more blocks west, in fact, and it puts me in mind of a Jersey beach town in the shoulder season.) Mary and I have a running joke: she consistently tries to get me to believe that her bit of San Francisco is called the Central Sunset, and I retort that it's too far out to be considered central, though I will agree to call it Middle Earth.

Last evening I went out to spend some time with Mary, and before I left home I looked at my map to plot a few streets to walk before we met up. And there it was: a shaded portion of the city called the Central Sunset, encompassing 33rd Ave. at Judah. How right she was.

My stroll in the CS was brief and brisk (making it not so much a stroll after all, I suppose), but it was a beautiful time of day for it. I walked for only about 15 minutes, and in that time the sky went from riotous with a sunset to all but empty. That first part never seems to last long enough.