How I Know it's Wednesday

There are 2 ways I know it's a Wednesday. One I like seeing, the other one (though utterly dependable and sometimes amusing), not so much.

1. As I leave the house, and walk up Guerrero, I pass middle school children on Wednesdays. Just a block up, on Valencia, there's a huge yellow school. It's called The Friends School. Any school with the word Friends in its name must be yellow, I think.

Anyway, I enjoy seeing these kids because it reminds me that I'm in a city and their life is different from what my life was like growing up.

These kids are in various baggy tshirts, comfy shorts of all sorts, jogging pants. Girls' hair are pulled back in loose, messy ponytails. They're running around the blocks in groups of 2-3, then the stragglers by themselves, breath jagged, faces flushed. Or the occasional kid who's way behind, arms flailing, face so bright red it looks like a tomato ready to burst.

I love seeing them running. I like seeing the tall, stick thin kids in the front. I recognize myself in the middle of the pack, hating running but not wanting to be the last.

So different, running around city blocks during gym class and up and down the hills of San Francisco, exposed to the world of pedestrians, bicyclists, people gazing out their windows, dog walkers, and drivers. How vulnerable, compared to my upbringing of circling the Brookville track over and over and over again while staring at a stark landscape and chainlink fences. Coming up on the concession stand every loop around the neverending track which drew enormous lines during Friday night football games, but during the day was a sad, concrete maroon and gold closed box.

Anyway, I like seeing them and it makes me smile.

2. Get on the F like normal. But what's different is that I have to be very careful about where I sit. I head straight to the very back, which is being a little proactive, a little defensive.

Because what I know is that halfway down Market Street, we're going to stop in front of the Civic Center. And on Wednesdays, that means the Asian Farmer's Market is in full swing.

I don't know why this particular farmer's market is considered Asian. Maybe the vegetables you can get at the market lend themselves well to soba noodles, stir fry, and general tsao. But I do know that the stop is packed with swarming old Asian ladies and men carrying loads of plastic bags filled with all sorts of farmer's market purchases.

They overtake the F. They like to sit in the front (which is why I head to the back). Where the F was once a quiet commute--the main sound being the clicking of the levers in the front, and the sound of the rails--it becomes this enormously loud, chatty, high-pitched, guttural explosion of Asian exchanges. Pushy ladies toting 6 bags and cackling loudly with their friends. Squeezing into seats on the benches where there isn't a perceived vacancy. It's almost like hearing the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill for the first time, except much more discordant and disruptive.

I do not look forward to the last half of the ride.

Anyway, that's how I know it's Wednesday, and that's how I can tell time passes. Because it'll seem just like it was yesterday next week when I pass the school kids on my way to the F.