The view across the bay was misty one recent morning, as I walked the dogs along the shore. So gray that the skyline of San Francisco, off in the distant northwest from us, beyond the Hornet museum, was obscured. The ridge of the peninsula range dipped down and was swallowed by mist — we could have been looking out at the Pacific. As we walked the sun slowly burned the low clouds off, until the tallest of the skyscrapers caught shimmers of reflected sunrise, then a few more reddening reflections as the sun rose and the buildings gradually emerged, as if the amorphous gray of the mist was condensing and rising in rigid Bauhaus shape, with distant windows bright with molten color.
Ernie was along the edge of shore, among the ice plant above the rocky rip-rap. Facing out across the water he squatted, going into the dog tuck to take a dump. I laughed, looking at the whole morning panorama and thinking of how much better a view he had for his toilet than I have for mine.
