The Weekly Croissant: Memories of San Francisco

First Lyft / Bloody Shoes / Old Friends

Hello Croissants,

I’m writing to you from the green room of The Lost Church, a sweet little venue in San Francisco where I am playing tonight. Ever the procrastinator, I’m trying to get these thoughts assembled for you in time for tomorrow morning!

Being here in this beautiful city reminds me of my very first trip out to the Bay Area, with 10 String Symphony (a duo with fiddle player extraordinaire Christian Sedelmyer). Christian was coaching debate at the time, and we had somehow finagled a little tour around a tournament he was coaching so that we could get his flight paid for. With such a small budget for the trip (probably no actual budget), we decided it would be a great idea to do the whole trip using only public transportation. I also hadn’t wizened up to the idea of investing in functional suitcases… so there we were lugging merch and these giant DI boxes we were using at the time and fiddles and clothes, etc, around the very hilly streets of SF, and onto public buses, etc. At one point, a wheel broke off of a suitcase and it went flying into the middle of city traffic.

I had never been to the West Coast before, and San Francisco with all of it’s colorful houses and Spanish architecture blew my little midwestern mind right open. At that time, San Francisco was one of the few places where weed was legal or at least decriminalized, and we thought it would be a great idea to party hard with Christian’s friend Matthias, who was a local. The night before Christian’s debate event was supposed to start, we went out and got LIT. I remember that the three of us decided we could crash in the double hotel room that Christian was sharing with his boss. Matthias suggested we take a “Lyft," and we were like, “what is that?” And he tried to explain and we were like “We just get into a strangers’ car???” But we did!

When we got to the hotel room, we realized there was only one available bed and three of us, so we did rock, paper, scissors, and guess who lost? Me! So I slept on a towel on the floor while the two of them snuggled up, and Christian’s poor boss was snoring away and probably woke up very confused, and I don’t know how Christian didn’t get fired from that job! Christian also left his new iPhone in that Uber and he never got it back!

The next day, while Christian did his coaching job, I was planning to stay with some friends out in Oakland whom I had never met but who were folk musicians. Their names were Melody Walker and Jacob Groopman. Now some of my besties! HA!

I had to get from downtown SF to their house without a car, and I had on these cheap shitty boots from target. Somewhere along the Bart/Bus Ride/Several mile walk, with all my stuff, I developed a really bad blister which thencstarted bleeding into my boot. Walking up to their house, I remember a squelching sound because my foot was literally soaking in blood. So nasty.

These were the boots!!!

Anyway I rang the doorbell and was like, “Hi! I’m Rachel!” I stayed on their couch for several nights. One day I came back into the house and was sitting on the couch. Melody and Jacob walked in and they had this great energy and were kind of glowing, and Jacob said, guess what? We’re engaged! So I proceeded to stay in their house and probably interrupted what otherwise should have been a very romantic night! And that was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship!

It’s very late now and I need to go to sleep!!!!

Love you all

Rachel