City Mouse

Ruby and I ventured into the suburbs twice in the last two days! I've realized that after 5 years of living in San Francisco, I am now fully and completely a City Mouse. To be fair I have probably always been a City Mouse, as I was born in a city, lived the first 5 years of my life in a city, spent the next 12 years plotting my escape from the suburbs, and returned to the city for college. However, I remember when I first moved to San Francisco, driving through the narrow downtown streets would nearly give me a heart attack. Nowadays, I am perfectly at ease weaving through traffic on city streets, but getting on the freeway on the way to Marin on Friday, I was white-knuckled and doing about 40 on a 65. I realized I had completely forgotten non-city driving etiquette. When I crossed back over the Golden Gate Bridge and reentered city limits, I felt an actual wave of relief.

Ruby and I were in Marin County on Friday because one of the members of our playgroup recently moved there. She is one of four moms in our original mommy's group who in the last year moved out of city and into the suburbs. The playgroup on Friday was actually a goodbye party for another one of the moms who is moving all the way to Texas! There is definite trend for new parents to flee the city in search of more affordable housing, less competitive preschools, higher quality public school systems, and of course, backyards!

On Saturday, we headed south to Palo Alto where we took advantage of the Indian summer weather at the Rincanada Pool. It was actually the first time Ruby had gone swimming since her swimming lessons last year. She was a bit hesitant at first, but then thoroughly enjoyed herself wading in the tot pool.





Unfortunately, there are no such outdoor pools in the city as temperatures rarely reach levels appropriate for outdoor swimming. Despite these apparent shortcomings, my love affair with San Francisco, which started the minute I laid eyes on the city, is still going strong. With our recent home purchase in a neighborhood with decent public elementary schools, I feel like we can safely remain in the city for at least 10 years, at which time Ruby will be entering middle school. Hopefully by then either the city's public middle schools will have significantly improved or we will have come into a large enough forutne to send our child(ren) to private school. For the time being, it looks like Ruby will also be a little City Mouse.