Andy HoffmanMy son Marcus, approaching his 28th birthday, seems every bit the modern man: he has many colorful tattoos, the discreetly placed to hide under his clothes with fully dress. His blond hair sports blue streaks, fading to purple and green. An engineer at Google in their main headquarters in Mountain View, he and Chilean-born boyfriend Rob, also employed in tech, have a modest apartment in San Bruno, south of San Francisco and quite near the airport. The apartment has cats whose food disbursal and litterbox management happens entirely without human hands.
Deb and I took out first trip together four months after we met, which some people might consider hasty. On the other hand, as friends once said, celebrating their fiftieth anniversary, “When you know, you know.” We knew, though we still had quite a few details to work out. One of those details boiled down to how well we travel together, because we each love travel and anticipated many more trips together – assuming we each passed muster on the road together. Marcus has cultivated a remarkable persona, so part of this travel check up included time with Marcus, especially as Deb’s daughters, almost a decade younger, have opted for a much straighter sensibility.
Marcus and Rob concluded that we should drive to Pacifica for breakfast At Breakers. Pacifica, as its name implies, abuts the Pacifica Ocean, and Breakers overlooks it. A homey community on a crowded peninsula, Pacifica hides behind mountains to the North and the East, and the often-frightening ocean route south of the city leads only to Santa Cruz. The isolation accounts for fact that even on a weekend we only have to wait fifteen minutes to get a table. From our table we can see the occasional wave rebounding off the base of the sea wall, up and over onto the street that dead-ends there.
Breakers serves huge platters to Mexican inflected food. The whole vibe emphasizes the quality and quantity of food and gives no regard to appearance or even service. Not that the waitstaff verges on rude; they just do their job and move on. The dressed down ambience leads to excellent conversation, always a must with Marcus. I think I had an omelet with salsa, avocado, and sausage. Someone had a variation on huevos rancheros, the black beans shiny in a sauce redolent of garlic. We laughed. A lot.
After breakfast we explored the surroundings, which included a handful of restaurants and surf shops. When we walked on the alley between the Breakers and the seawall, poking into the tourist traps there, a waterspout exploded over the wall and landed on the walkway between Marcus and Rob. They both got a bit wet, and they both guffawed about it. I thought then that they really had a chance. This was in 2019, and Marcus and Rob are still happy together. Breakers, however, survived the pandemic, Marcus reports, but has lost some quality. Of course, the ocean doesn’t care.