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| People waiting to enter Contemporary Jewish Museum on Christmas Day |
My friend S and I have been talking about our tradition of hanging out on Christmas Day. She is a modern Muslim, and I am an atheist. Naturally we just hang out and do whatever on Christmas Day. I have wanted to go hike in a regional park but it's been raining cats and dogs for days in the Bay Area. At 1 a.m. on Christmas morning, we decided that we would go help out at San Francisco City Impact's Christmas Day Block Party. S has just moved to San Francisco a few months ago, so I met her at her new pad in the Mission.
By the time we arrived at City Impact's office, the event was winding down already. S and I each carried a box of hot meals to hand out around the block. This was in the Tenderloin district, an area just around the corner from downtown where all the designer shops are, but it's night and day in comparison. The Tenderloin is full of homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, and people who are just down on luck. It didn't take us long to hand out all the hot meals. We went back to City Impact to help clean up the facility before we headed over to our next stop, Contemporary Jewish Museum.
It was the only museum that's open on Christmas Day, and it was generously offering free admission for everyone. As soon as we got inside, we got some lunch at its cafe, which was serving Indian food for the day. These are some of the reasons I love the Bay Area. We could all go to the Jewish Museum and eat Indian food in the same building on any given day.
After lunch, we stayed in the museum reading up the history of Jewish communities in the Bay Area until the museum was closing at 4 p.m. I was in full rain gear, so I stepped outside in stride. My friend S unfortunately had to walk around in her soaking wet tennis shoes. I knew exactly how that felt and couldn't help not to tease her about the squishy wet socks. We headed over to one of the movie theaters nearby to catch a lighthearted comedy, Silver Linings Playbook, before heading back home.
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| Heavy rain resumed at 4 p.m. |
