"How Are They Still Alive?"

Remember when I blogged last Thursday about coming back home to SF, and seeing a crowd of guys from out of town drinking on the neighbors' steps next door?

Turns out they're visiting from Boston, and they've been drinking on that stoop for most of the last five days straight. Straight through New Years, almost without noticing. We've seen them crowded on those steps drinking – or slumped over passed out – at all hours of the day, from 1pm to midnight to 8am.

I told St. Frances today that I'd passed one of them this morning on my way back from the Farmers Market, nursing a beer on the top step. We started counting on our fingers the days they'd been drinking out there...

"Five days!" she said, elbow deep in soapy water, washing dishes. "How are they still alive!?"

I'm more bemused than exasperated, but it does make us feel a little old, and shriveled up. Was there an earlier age at which I would have wanted nothing more than to stand on the front steps in a blissful, sudsy stupor, yelling 'Happy New Year!' at the top of my lungs to all passersby? Any age?