evan

Friday night we went up to the City for my brother Nate's annual Halloween party. Nate lives on a precipitous incline in North Beach, the Italian-Beatnik section in the northeast of San Francisco with steep hills, great cafés and a significant dearth of parking.

We managed to get Amita June down to bed for the night, gave her grandparents far more instructions than were actually needed, and then sped off into the night. We were running late, but we stopped on the way to pick up Maj's brother Brian, who lives in Noe Valley. It was the first time we'd seen his new apartment and we probably took longer than necessary there, but we finally got off towards North Beach around 7:30PM.

And... we drove and drove. Every street I drove down was packed, and I kept doing U-turns and trying alternate routes to get where we were going. Finally, on Van Ness Avenue at California Street, we got stuck in a gridlock that wouldn't move at all. Friday nights are pretty bad for traffic in San Francisco, but at this point we sat through 5 red-and-green light cycles without any motion whatsoever. Unable to turn, unable to go forward, unable to go back.

When traffic finally started moving again, we saw what the problem was: the last dregs of the Critical Mass rally were just passing through. Critical Mass is a bike rally that happens on the last Friday of each month in San Francisco and elsewhere; hundreds of bike riders take over streets and block traffic. It's really fun if you're riding; it's infuriating if you're driving. We drove down further on Van Ness to go through the Broadway Tunnel into North Beach, but it was blocked by... Critical Mass! They'd turned about and come to block our way again. This time, I was able to do a U-turn and get over to Nate's house through side streets.

We had a good time at the party itself. Nate and his roommates have been having a Halloween party for years, but increased size and complaints from landlord and neighbors have made them move the party to a nearby bar, Woody Zip's. With two stories, two bars and a dance floor, it was just about the right size for their event.

Nate was dressed up as Buzz Lightyear from "Toy Story"; Brian had a huge fat suit and a sumo-wrestler outfit. Maj and I were millionaires, with tiaras and top-hats. We all looked pretty good.

Woody Zip's even let the guys bring their own Jagermeister machine, affectionately known as "Jagi". They got the machine for one of their Halloween parties a few years ago, and they've made special costumes for it each year (this year: Spongebob Squarepants). We had a shot of Jager and toasted the machine's maturity, then moved on to karaoke and dancing.

But only for a while; by 10PM we had to start heading home. We worried quite a bit about Amita June, but when we got back she was asleep in the arms of her Pappou in the TV room. The "parent curfew" is a little hard to deal with, but on the bright side it makes sure you can find babysitters so you can go out in the future.