Ralphie's Going Away Party

My head felt ready to explode.

I don't know if it was the flight attendant's wonderful technique of delivering all her in-flight announcements in joke or song form, or if the cabin was incorrectly pressurised,(my vote is the latter; the attendant was great) but all I could hear as we sat outside the San Francisco Airport waiting for the town car to collect us were distant low pitched rumbles. I felt dizzy and the pressure in my ears and sinuses was phenomenal.

Several hours later, we were climbing into a shuttle bus that would take us from our plush digs in the much-to-be-feared Tenderloin district to the tourist haven of Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf.

We had a date with some sea lions.

Our driver, a tall, long-haired, laid-back sorta fella, took an obvious pleasure in talking about his home town; showing us the sites and talking engagingly about the things he loved about living and growing up in SF.

"See that car there? That's drug money there. He used to do deals just across the road from my home not far from here. I had words with him one time and called the cops. He stopped coming for a while, but I still see his car there every now and then. Pisses me off. I mean, there's a school there. That's not right."

I looked at the car, then back at our driver. Yeah. I could easily imagine him doing exactly that. There was a sort of relaxed fearlessness and self-assurance underneath his laid-back persona. Being somewhere around 6'5" wouldn't harm the impression he'd make on someone either.

I went back into tourist mode - checking out store-fronts, watching people in all their variety that we passed, shamelessly goggling at the architecture of the buildings that lined the streets, craning my neck to catch the glimpses of the Bay and the distant hills at every opportunity until we had finally reached our waterside destination just outside Pier 39.

We bailed out of the mini-bus and I used the moment it took to put on my sunglasses to stop my head spinning before we entered the fray.

There is no way you can escape noticing that Pier 39 exists purely for the tourists. All possible manner of paraphernalia emblazoned with the various cliched San Francisco motifs leaped out at you wherever you turned your gaze, and hidden in amongst them small boutique-like stores purveying their wares in slightly over-inflated prices and a bevy of fast-food shops and resteraunts (most of which working on the to-be-expected seafood theme). Thousands of small bright lights decorated plants and buildings alike and further into the crowded space was a two tiered merry-go-round - complete with calliope. And constantly, through the noise and bubble of people and music, we could hear the barking of sea lions coming from somewhere off to our left, hidden by two stories of tourist traps.

I had Next on my arm and I was grinning like a lobotomised chimpanzee.

I looked at her and saw a similar grin directed back at me.

"Well," I asked. "Where to?"

"Follow the sound of the sea lions."

We walked on through the lights and noise and crowds, the barking noises getting louder the further we moved forward until we were standing outside the complex leaning against a railing and looking out over the Bay and the yachts moored at the marina.

I singled two or three out as being suitable objects of piracy on the high seas, then grabbed her arm once more and dragged her to our left.

"They're this way."

We rounded the corner and my grin grew fit to split my head open like a pez dispenser. I started laughing with delight.

There they were - the reason for our pilgimage. There, piled body upon body, filling up every spare inch of space on the gently bobbing pontoons, heads flopped over the sides of their platforms or canted backwards at odd angles, grunting, snuffling, snorting, sneezing, snoring, barking, shuffling over the top of on another, splashing smoothly in and out of the water, were our sea lions. And in the middle of this mass of wood and fur and blubber and insane levels of cuteness was a pontoon reserved for the Pier 39 WWF Sea Lion Smackdown.

Pounding ears and dizzy head or not, I could have sat and watched for hours. Next, I think, could equally have spent hours watching me watching the sea lions in all my fully fledged child-like glee. I could not, however, resist the insistent demands of my innards. I needed to put stuff into them, and, though it may seem indelicate to say so, I needed to get stuff out of them. And I also needed somewhere to sit still and quietly for a moment to let the spinning and clamouring of my noggin subside.

Back into the crowds and shops we went.

We found ourselves on the second level of the complex. Up here, we were removed from the press of people, and also, I hoped, there might be toilets that had somewhat shorter lines of people who shared my increasingly urgent need. To my great relief (well, mental relief anyway - physical would have to hold off for just a little longer) I saw a blue sign indicating there were rest-rooms somewhere off to our left, behind an Italian resteraunt and a handfull of boutique and souvenier stores.

"You go," she said. "I'll wait here."

I went left past the corner of the resteraunt, and then right again as I followed the boardwalk that ran alongside the back half of Louis Italian & Seafood Resteraunt. I could see the restrooms just beyond a small group of cigar smoking men who had spread across the walkway just outside what was obviously the trade entrance to the kitchens of Louis' fine establishment. They were all dressed to the nines. Dinner suits and tuxedos abounded. Shoes gleamed.

"Nifty threads. Must be a wedding," I thought. "I guess this is where all the blokes come to have a smoke and escape their women and talk about football and stuff."

One particular fella caught my eye, dressed as he was in a somewhat louder fashion than those around him. He was standing next to a dapper grey headed man who was obviously at the centre of a smaller sub group of this mass of wedding guests. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned, a heavy chain hanging around his neck, his lapels a bright red silk, a thick and solidly expensive looking watch on his wrist. He was somewhat older than I, at a guess I'd have put him in his late forties or early fifties, clean shaven and a shining bald head. I looked down. The dude was wearing spats. Colour me shallow and all kinds of countrified bumpkin, but the spats impressed me. They looked very cool and I wanted a pair. I glanced up from his snazzy footwear and looked around at the other men around me. There was quite a lot of heavy jewlery on all these swarthy looking dark haired fellas.

As I moved through them, I caught snatches of conversation spoken with a particular Mediterranean bounce, and then, as I passed by Spats, I heard him speak to the old man.

"It's a good send off. I know she's not happy about it, but we'll look after her. Judge has only sent Ralphie down for six months, it'll go quick."

I couldn't help it, I started chuckling. The pez-head grin had come back and by the time I got back to Next I was giggling like a kid on a sugar high.

She gave me smile and a look that said she was a little concerned about my sanity.

"What are you giggling about?"

"It wasn't a wedding, it was Ralphie's going away party."

This obviously did little to soothe her concerns and her eyebrow arched upwards a little more. Which of course, made me grin and giggle even more. In delerious and delighted tones, I gave her the answer I knew she would understand.

"I just had my Sopranos moment."

Sea lions and the Sopranos. Pounding head or not, I knew I was going to love my time in San Francisco.