To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars

My cousin Cinderella is on her way here, and we're driving up to The City tonight. That's San Francisco, where my heart is, for those of you who may be local to some other city.

It's not the first time I've been there since Jack died. There was the wake at his local pub, for one. Jerry took me to that party, quite the celebration of his life, it was, and just like Jack would have done he looked after me, made sure I didn't get too drunk, and made sure I got home safely.

He's awful swell, Jerry is.

Then there was the Friday night I talked Jeremy into driving me up to The City. I promised to take him out for dinner to a place of his choosing so long as he'd take me to The Black Horse for a pint afterwards. It was Jack's birthday, and that's where I wanted to be.

But the first time I was in Jack's city without Jack was the week after he died, when Tim invited me up to hang with the Java nerds. To take my mind off the frustration I was feeling then, because no date had been set for the funeral yet, and I thought my head would explode from frustration. I love to hang out with nerds, especially with Tim, because he's, like, a pretty famous one, and it's never boring to meet the propellerheads that flock to him.

And hang we did, from one Java fest to another, then one bar to another. Now, I don't believe in karma, as a rule, but I had to wonder what cosmic forces had aligned when the Java troop trooped into Jack's after-work bar, the House of Shields.

To be continued.