The big plan worked. Linda dropped me at Menlo Park station where I grabbed the 9:14 – lots of seats available in the front, which made for an easy walk to the Muni (it’s adjacent to Caltrain’s 4th and King station by AT&T Park (seen above, in the rain, through the Muni train’s window).

Indeed, I arrived an hour early at UCSF. The radiation techs would have moved me up, but they had a bunch of people in wheelchairs and on gurneys already waiting – it didn’t seem right. So I drank tea and read cheery brochures about brain tumors in the waiting room.

God bless the N Judah streetcar: it is a veritable petri dish of San Francisco life. At one stop, a biracial couple got on. He was wearing a leather jacket with a sleeveless denim jacket over it. The denim was so old it had all but melted into the leather. He had a good, slightly battered hat with a snap brim, full gray beard and long hair. All of a sudden, it was 1969 at the back end of the front car on the 12:27 N Judah.

Caltrain and Muni were both on time, both ways. Despite a longer than usual therapy session (more Xrays today), and a stop for a sandwich at UCSF’s food court, I made the 1:07 Caltrain and got off in Palo Alto. Stanford’s free Marguerite Shuttle was waiting at the curb (the B Counterclockwise) and 15 minutes later I was at Stock Farm road. I walked the mile home in a light, and not at all unpleasant rain, really enjoying this, one of our first rainy days.

When I got home I took a nap. A knock at the door 90 minutes later, at 5:00, revealed a former Adobe colleague bearing a dinner of chicken soup and her best wishes for a quick recovery. The porch was heaped with boxes that another Adobe colleague had picked up from my office and dropped off at my door. It was a very good first day…

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