Monday -March 2
Hi Family,
Yep,
been a tad remiss on keeping you all posted. Been busy and I guess I've
gotten stuff done. Perhaps the doing has been more wide then deep, but let
me do a quick recap.
Spent the first night in Salt Lake City. Beautiful day for driving accept
between Dillon and Vail the roads were wet and incredibly muddy. Used up
all my wind-shield juice. Next day was even nicer but I had an small
adventure around of Elko Nevada. My wee truck seemed to developed a
shimmy. I had about convinced myself it was my imagination, gassed up and
was heading out for the next 100 miles of pretty much nothing and decided it
wasn't my imagination after all Long story short,(?) I had a piece
of tread coming off what I was to discover was a 9 year old tire. (Ronnie
-it was not lost on me that I could have turned out MUCH worse -in fact, the
odds of it happening a couple of miles from ANY town in Nevada are pretty slim-
and I ought to be grateful.) New tire and it was a smooth 75 MPH all the way
into the Bay Area.
Got
to Fremont about 10:PM and found they had been holding dinner for me! Ribs
and pho (ask Ronnie). Spent a nice Saturday being adored / pestered by the
kids. Good to be adored from time to time and being pestered by very
polite little Vietnamese kinds is not so bad either. Went for a walk
Saturday AM that got out'a hand. Down this street and up that one looking
for a way to cut across back to the home stretch but t'weren’t no place to cut
across! Had some vague enlightenment about just how nice CA
is. And stepping outside in the damp winter (or what they call 'winter'
here abouts) mornings and smelling plants and biology and all is just wonderful.
Made
it to Dan's about noon Sunday, set up my computer and begin looking for a room,
sending inquiries out to HS principals re. what I'm calling an 'engineering
academy,' working on the web site (the mess that was my customer's scapbook is
now fixed for those of you that read it), doing a little work on the 1000 Things
flash cards, and taking naps. Along about Thursday, things started ramping
up for Dan's retirement party -this all under the direction of his daughter and
stepdaughter. Friday I took the train up to the city and checked out a
rooming house (too sleazy and too expensive), went to the tutor interview /
orientation (still favorably impressed, but I will need to hide my conservative
/ libertarian light under a basket while there),(and I was not the only old-fart
there!), and finally meet with this nice little Mexican lady who is both looking
for a room-mate and seems to tolerate someone my age. We had a long chat
this AM and it looks like she will be my roomie for at least a couple of months,
but the decision will not be finalized till this PM.
Spent Friday night w/ Kyle and had a nice old time, and got back to Dan's in
time to help with the party. Not easy things to do, parties, but it was a
success by all accounts. Sunday was spent cleaning up after the
party, more naps, and a trip to Fry's Electronics for more memory for my 'puter
and it kicks ass now! Been having fun with the software you all gave me for my
birthday that didn't work so well without more megs (k's gig's?) of memory.
I'm
aware that this all is woefully lacking in the enlightenment I planed to achieve
when I got here, but it will have to wait.
Billy
March 5, 2009
Haven't found enlightenment yet, but I only got up once last to pee so I'll take my triumphs (?) where I find them. By way of bringing all and sundry (or anyone who cares) up to speed, I'm tucked away in what we call Bernal Heights. A little more posh then the Mission district down the hill, but still a pretty young and diverse crowd. Around the corner, on Courtland (see the pix) there are all manner of cute little stores for coffee, videos, over-priced groceries, liquor, and restaurants from all over the world. And I do mean ALL over the world. Have I mentioned my fondness for saffrom ice cream? Only from Indian creameries and only in this part of the world.
Went for a nice walk this AM -the pix are from this
walk. Involved a lot of up hill and a lot of architecture. I like
the architecture better then the up-hill.
The street I live
on. The bay off in the distance -vaguely south toward San Jose etc. .You
can see m' wee truck on the right, but our house is on the left -and not a 'ticularally
interesting house, but more on this later. The view down the street is
better then the pix shows, but this is so of all the pictures.
Around the
corner and where coffee and port are. In Denver -you would have to drive to Vail
for the ambiance that San Franciscan's take so much for granted.
A block or two
farther up the hill and yep, that end wall is about 4 feet wide.
The south-east, we
see (just to the left of the hill on the right), Candlestick Park.
Mostly east. The
pokey-up bits are for loading ships, but this has not gone on any near SF for
years. Land is too expensive for such utilititarian undertakings.
Last night -fr'instance- I went to a community meeting to gather public input as
to how the city ought to go about achieving the right level of housing for poor
folks. I was impressed with the preparatory efforts, the passion, and the
conviction of all the speakers and the audience. No less impressed with their
naivety, but you have to hand it to them. To summarize, it was an exercise
in liberal politics in action.
Actually to the left of the picture and across the bay is Alameda. This is where I kept the Royal Tiger. Plan to get over there in the next week or two.
Now we are looking to the
north to the city proper. The pointy building, the Trans-America Tower is
behind t'other buildings. You can almost make out the Bay Shore bridge to
Oakland.
This is off to the
north. I Photo-Shopped the Golden Gate in with too much red so you can see
it. (And again, the pix don't do the job.) But if you can find the
red towers, off beyond is the north bay, Sausalito, and Tiburon. (And
these places make SF look like down-town Detroit re. to property
values.
And this to the
west. Not that interesting, but I had to include it 'cause. The
radio tower in the distance is an important landmark, but I don't know more than
that.
Finally got to 826 Valencia this PM to do some tutoring. Had one little shit with the attention span of a tomato but the charm of an angle -at least for the other kids. Kind'a reminded me of me. Then had a fat kid that was joy to work with. We did math. Finally had a little girl and little girls is the best. But mostly I had a headache. It absolute wuz bedlam! I have no doubt learning went on, and it is probably better that this learning happen in the sort of environment that suits kids, rather then give grown -ups headaches, but..... Finished the evening with a long twilight walk home. Did I mention that walks are happening? I have to tell you that if you know nothing more the how to spell architecture and have the least little interest in your fellow man, bad walk through any part of SF is better then a good day of fishing, napping, working, fucking (as I remember anyway) or anything else you can do.
And now for some port. Enough.
Billy
Friday, March 6
No pictures today. Forgot to take my camera when I left for my walk. Most of the morning was spent running errands w/ D. Flower market, groceries, the PO, and finally, delivering the flowers she bought earlier. Got a little work done on the 'puter and early afternoon set off to find the closest YMCA and the closest library. The Y was disappointing insofar as they have no exercise facilities and appear to be mostly for young families. If I had remembered my camera, it occurs that I might have done well take a pix of a room full -behind glass- of wee-ones at nap time.
Passed through what I take to be a/the Muslim enclave. Just a little too gritty fro my taste. Then -by simply turning a corner, I found where the upper middle class people live. Neat little homes meticulously maintained. One or two had as much as 500 square feet of lawn! Back to Mission Street [imagine Colfax with pedestrians, no parking, and shops for central Americans (not so much Mexicans as Central Americans)], and I noticed green one block to my left. Turned out to be a delightful little walk way along some freeway or other where it parallels Mission. Didn't quite take me to the library, but in due course... and charmed the little lady librarian to give me a temp card and checked out Eat, Pray, Love. (Veronica, The Shack is in a box in San Jose and will be coming up here this weekend. Long story, but I started reading it in Colorado before it became necessary to put everything in storage.) Got started reading while waiting for the buss(s) home (walked enough yesterday and there's this stomping big hill to climb to get home. (Note yesterday's pictures.)
D has plans / her Friday night job so I'm looking forward to a quiet evening home w/ a book -alternately Eat Pray etc, or a cheap sci-fi paperback, or an even sillier old Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi movie.
B
Saturday, March 7
No pictures again today. Nor an interesting walk either. Went around the corner to sit in the sun and have a cup of coffee. Nice chat with a PG&E lawyer from Tulsa with a sweet great Dane bitch. (More dang dogs around here, and no, I don't want Duncan.) We decided our politicks -at least around energy etc. were pretty rare here abouts. After I'd gotten warm, (the apartment is kept on the cool side), I wondered up and down the street. The art gallery's closed however, but I found all manner of overpriced stuff I could well do without
This evening will be spent in San Jose for my friend's Viet's wife's brother's wedding reception. Or something. Spending the night w/ Kyle and then schlepping the last of my stuff up to the city.
I have one thing to relate. Into Eat, Pray, Love about 50 pages or so. I've passed the bit where she is sobbing on her bathroom floor. With a whole 50 pages behind me, I think this might be the pivotal part of the book -or perhaps an early pivot. Here are my thoughts: Yep, there are some parallels and Teresa was wise to recommend the book to me. These similarities are, however, limited to both the author and I going on somedamnkid'a quest -spiritual or otherwise. But this woman has everything that has so thoroughly eluded me for so long and she is unhappy? Un-fucking-happy about what? I reserve for myself the possibility that depression might be nothing more then a fad among people who really have nothing else to worry about. Didn't see a lot of depressed people during -fr'instance- the depression do you? (And we may be set to revisit this happy-time!) But I do go on. For the benefit of those of you who haven't read the book, she is in quite a pickle because she has everything she wants and doesn't know what to want next. All tears and snot bubbles and she prays to God, "Wha'do I do now God?" Then she hears a voice telling her to go to bed. A bit later -the chronology is confusing- she writes a letter to God asking for more vivid clarity and some help with a messy divorce, takes a nap, and -when she wakes up- gets everyfuckingthing she wants / asks for.
So I've written a letter to God too. So as not to worry Veronica, I haven't signed or mailed the letter yet, (She offers a metaphysical means of doing do. With signature guarantee?) Blasphemous or other wise, it is a pretty honest picture of my (?) 'relation' with God.
Dear God,
I have prayed for more then 20 years that I might somehow get and keep a job, and for 20 years it has been your will that I shall have had less then 4 years of steady employment and less the 2 years of the type of employment with health insurance that most people take for granted. I pray now with no more expectation that this prayer will be answered that any of my other prayers have been. You win, I fucking give up. Tell me what to do. Or not. If this is too much to ask, so be it. I ask -again with no expectation of the same kindness you seem willing to shower on all your other children- that you at least help me set aside my anger and my pitiful faith that someday -some way, I too might find your loving kindness.
This is kind'a directed at all three of you'se guys. Teresa -you told me to read the book. Colleen, you mentioned praying at one point for help in setting aside anger, and Veronica, well, Veronica right or wrong, I take the view that if anyone has God's ear -it's got'ta be you. (Clearly it ain't me.) I am pondering -and it ain't an epic ponder- with the logic of praying for the faith to believe prayers will be answered vs. praying to be shed of faith altogether. Or the value of asking (asking for anything?) to set aside the anger. I don't quite know about the "Tell me what to do" part. But now I'm going to shower and hit the road.
In a completely different direction, has anyone seen The Gangs of New York ? Compelling movie! I didn't hear a lot of the dialog because of my hearing -and because my roommate had just a squeence too much to drink and wanted to talk to me. (And she always wants to talk to me.) Did a little research on the history and while several historians / authors said it wasn't all that accurate, it seems to me that it wasn't all that inaccurate either. Have to tell you, we ought not feel any embarrassed that our people came over comparatively late in the game.
Sunday, March 8
What a nice evening and next day it's been. After writing the above, I set at all aside and drove down to SJ for the wedding reception. Sweet Jasus, do the Vietnamese know how to do a wedding. Must have been 300 little tiny -very pretty people there -and the women were even prettier! But the children!
This is Jane and Augy. (Understand that the actual wedding was at 8:AM followed by.... not clear what followed the wedding, but there were two of them honoring first the groom's family and then the bride's family.) All this was before the reception I got to at about 7. The pix was taken as I left at 10:PM and poor Augy has clearly about had it. Jane was the prettiest, sweetest, smartest little girl there. Except for her cousin. Maybe.
Viet and Tang. Viet is only a little older then I am, but he has also had a long day and it turns out that the grooms family pays for the party.
I will tell you all about it anon, but I must begin with a description of this one little girl that reminds me so much of Bonnie. She is the younger sister whose older sister -while sweet and adorable- is clearly in charge. (Now why would that remind me of Bonnie?) It may be just to my eye, but she looks like Bonnie too. Both these girls are Viet's sister. He has 3 sisters, but one is still in Viet Nam. I met her many years ago while Viet and I were still in school. She kept house for Viet and one or two other brothers. It's all a bit vague, but Viet had a job and went to school. Another brother had a job, and the third brother -the youngest, went to school full time. There were two other brother there besides the groom. If this all doesn't add up to nine siblings, the rest are in Viet Nam. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Jane's birthday was last week and I got her some drawing stuff. After the band went home -but before the karaoke started, I showed her how to draw some simple stuff and when I was through, I had about half a dozen kids watching. I promised to show Jane how to do it and the cousins wanted to know if they I would show them too. The littlest one asked me if I was an art teacher and I told her I was the best art teacher in the world. And she looked at me like I told her I was actually from another wonderful planet. Art lessons will follow -perhaps next week, but they have to fit in around karate, (Augy), Girl Scouts (Jane), and the cousin's schedule, but they live close to Viet and baby sitting chores are shared back and forth, so we will sort this out.
Now back to the wedding. Each table had a bottle of Remy Martin VSOP brandy and while I suspect each bottle was empty by meal's end, there were no drunks I could see. The food was a half dozen sauces on a giant turn table. First course was sort of a Pu Pu platter / anti-pasta followed by Peking duck, followed by abalone and bock-choy, followed by beef & broccoli, followed by squid, scallops, and pea pods, followed by lobster, followed by the humongous chunk of roasted cod, followed by hot and sour soup, (I tried to add hot sauce-big no no -hot and sour soup wants black pepper!), followed by -why at the end I dun'know- rice, followed by sweet black bean soup. Amazing evening.
Spent the night at Kyle's and slept to 11:AM -standard / daylight / beats me but I've been sleeping well and a lot lately. Didn't sleep all that time though, read some of the morning away. About half way through Eat, Pray Love. Continue to be struck by how much our situations are alike, just that mine are less (melo)dramatic. We will see if I can gain as much as she did. Kyle and I had lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant. I was there last week with Dan and spoke briefly to one of the brother / owner's daughter about this and that. Asked where she was because -while I am too old to care about such foolishness- I thought she was awfully pretty. Somehow it came out better then I described it and both brothers made a point of telling me about their niece / daughter. (She wasn't there but....) As we were finishing our mango sherbet, Dan called and proposed a field trip up the east bay to look at sanding machines at Harbor Freight Tools, and Kyle had stuff to do, so I headed off to there for a nice drive up and back cause they were closed.
I suspect that somewhere in the last paragraph I crossed over into boring, so I'll close for today. Home now. D is I don't know where and I have to get ready for tutoring AM
Billy
March 11, 2009
So I been a little busy lately, and neglected the blog, sue me already!
(March 9)
Monday AM I almost took a walk to where I was to tutor a screen-writing class. I say almost 'cause it was taking forever and I was late and called to inform the 826 volunteer Nazi of this fact, and was informed I was actually about 24hours early. Anyway, it had been a walk I was looking forward to. I dropped down off Bernal Hill to the east -toward the bay and the industrial area. Once I found I was in no hurry, I wondered all around and about. (Often wonder what the bad-guys tailing me would think about my walks or what they would look like if mapped from above -ain't no straight lines anywhere when I get from place to t'other.) Much of what you find in any big cities' industrial are I s'pose, construction b'nesses, car b'nesses, and the usual, but a lot of food wholesalers too. I did find a perfectly maintained building with absolutely no signage and a little woman and her protective dog tending to a garden behind a ever so slightly broken down fence. I asked what the place was and she said a warehouse. Come to find -or infer actually 'cause she was just the least little bit guarded. That there was no space available, and it was indeed a particularly nice building indeed! If all you have is a hammer, all the world looks like a nail and if you have a real bug about live-work, all the world looks like a secrete place where creative people are living and doing wonderful things.
I did check out a couple of depressing industrial spaces on the way home -looks like $1.00 per foot is the going rate for depressing spaces, but we will be confirming this in good time.
Came home, finally got Denhe to sign a receipt and wrote her a check, went off to tutor in the PM (better this time), did a little shopping on the way home and spent a quiet evening reading.
(March 10)
Yesterday finished better then it started. Turns out we have no heat in this wee garden level apartment. This is to say I have no heat in my room, and yesterday was a cold on -by SF standards anyway. It was a bitch to get out'a bed and get going. Dang-near didn't. But glad I did. The screen-play-writing thing was better then I had expected. For starters, they wuz HS kids and I am more comfortable with this age. Additionally the teacher -certainly liberal and the assigned theme reflected her political views- was a pro. So many teachers are utter nitwits, that a prepared, & thoughtful professional really stands out. A plop of 3 kids for 1 1/2 hours and another plop of 3 for the next 1 1/2 hours. (Did you know that kids come in 'plops'? Like crows come in 'murders' and orcas come in 'herds,' students come in plops This is 'cause kids come into classroom and plop they-selves down. Some work got done and some thoughts got thought. One semi-literate student of 16 showed the ultra-sound of his baby. He was a nice kid. Like cars. Wanted to be a cop. Another student -a 17 year-old girl- was worried about what she was to wear when she started showing, but work got done. In the 2nd plop there was a Philippino kid that was a hoot. Reminded me of Patrick a little. Goofy, full of humor, and a surprising level of insight as to himself, the human condition, and the questions of the assignment. For my part, it was one of those rare teaching moments, that you and the student connect, you understand his questions / confusions, and you somehow say exactly the right thing to get understand to pop. Kind'a like it was a big old festering white-head just under the skin. (And not for nothing do I chose this analogy.)
Then I went to the local YMCA to help out with the BBQ the end of their (?) winter, annual, month-of-February fund drive. I first went there looking for exercise etc. Not this one. Up town maybe. Or maybe 24 Hour Fitness. Or maybe I'll just take a walk. Or nap, for that matter. But back to the Y. They raised $58m. I wonder about all this. Their building has to be worth millions. They provide a place for old folks to play bingo & do crafts and pre-school kids to hang-out and take naps. But it was a nice bunch of youngish people in the kitchen. We talked about how they came to have jobs at the Y -two of the more earnest ones got started as volunteers and were students -to some degree anyway. Not quite clear they were currently enrolled but de-nada. By the time we got to eat, all that was left was salad and rice. Probably for the best.
Killer full-moon on the walk back up the hill to home.
March 11 -Wednesday
Today (Wed AM) is to be spent slouching about and at my computer and tutoring PM.
And I did a dang good job of slouching. Some minor progress with the web site this AM, much reading in the PM and a trip to the video store for $1 Wednesdays and home again to watch silly a chick flick and then a little equally silly SciFi. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was pretty much my day.
March 12 -Thursday
Almost could copy yesterday's entry. I did, however, make some terrific progress on the cookbook.
March 13 -Friday
Friday AM has become Take the Room-Mate to the Flower Market morning. Great chance to be practice my speed-listenng skills and then sit quietly in my car either reading or doing writing prep. Didn't bring along enough to do last week and ended up reading a weekly free liberal rag from cover to cover. Silly me -a woman told me it would be half an hour and I believed her. This time I was ready. Anyway, some other errands and home for lunch and a brief discussion of our relationship / cataloging of my errors. The toilet seat, neglecting to take my shoes off at the door, etc. Nothing serious and other then the verbal diarrhea, we seem to be getting along pretty well.
This afternoon's walk was to the north-west in search of a convenient 24 Hour Fitness. That one wasn't the right one anymore then the YMCA to the south west was. But it was a nice walk. The pictures that follow are by no means pictures of special things -there are special things to see on each block. The problem -if it is indeed a problem- is crossing back and forth from one side of the street to see something or other better. Look a right loon. Had something happen again. Less and less as time goes by, I cone across something and hear myself saying something like "I'll have to tell mom about this -she would like it." For the second time this week, I heard myself thinking to ask Mon if she knew where Meryl (Bobo?) lived. All I remember was the Mom said she was an important person in the public schools and I think Mom held her in some awe -if perhaps not great affection.
The walk finished at the library, and a stop at the grocery store at the bottom of the hill before coming home to write, drink port, and try making ceviche. Travel-log follows.
What can be
said. Perhaps the most garish, but still appealing. This was about a block
from the Mission library. And the Mission is where all the Latinos live.
Not a cheap neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely
working class.
A little
more restrained color-scheme and in the Noe Valley. The Noe valley is so
named because it's not in a valley. It is, however, a little more upscale then
the Mission District.
A few years
ago when I spent a month in the Retired Teachers Rooming House (the R T Pensionne),
I discovered that all these houses in SF have delightful little secrete gardens
behind them. They are usually sealed off from the street but this garden
backed up to a rare alley I wondered down (love alleys) so I was able to get a
picture of it. The front of the house is nice, but not extraordinary.
March 14 -Saturday
Major crisis this AM. Poor Denhi lost her cell-phone and I got sucked into it all. I was setting off on a walk with the end being the St.Patrick's Day parade. Didn't make it. Instead went to her Friday night job with a note, made calls, had her co-workers make calls, waked a block on my way, went back to the place make more calls and -throughout- -and again- practice my speed listening. Have to find a way to get her to slow down and LISTEN to other people. Maybe just for a mintor two.
But it was a nice walk. Went down the hill a little and about one third of the way around to get to Filmore. Or might'a been Folsom. Began with an F anyway. Then off to the civic center for the tail end of the parade, and a nice hour or so in the central library. Took the bus home as it had been a long, cold, but nice, walk. Might as well let the pictures say it all.
A nice house on a hill
side. Reminds me of one of the Homes-On-Parade in Silverthorn we toured on one
of our sibling weekends.
Looking up at the back of a house on the hill with a million dollar view.
The million dollar view. And yep -that's the same tripod looking radio antenna that seems to show up in a lot of my pix/ The white truck in the lower center of the left-hand pix is in the parking lot where I took the pix of the million-dollar-view house. I continue to be disappointed in the city-scapes. They make SF look more like a South-American slum then the beautiful city it is. But it was an overcast day.
We will finish
with an non-descript picture of St. Patty's crowds at city hall. (Serendipitously
enough, last night I watched an old court-room / SF drama movie, w/ Glenn Close
and realized I'd just been there!
Sunday, March 15
After yesterday's walk, I spent most of the day at my computer. I did however, walk up the street and get on the Bernal Heights bus. Took it to one end -north -rich neighborhood just south of the bay and a little east of the Presidio, and then all the way to the other end -south -poor -black -just outside Hunter's Port and the shipyard. Different as night and day -cliché, but there it is.
March 22
Good heavens. Has it really been a week since I last wrote? What a lousy job of blogging I'm doing! Well, let's see. A couple of mornings helping out with writing screen-plays at the continuation high-school and missed (over-slept in a big way) one morning at what they call field trips. We don't go on field trips, we (are supposed to) go to 826 Valencia and they (the HS students) come to us for help. (Reminds me of a time I took my students on a field trip out the classroom door to look at the horizon and ponder vanishing points. When we came back into the classroom, one of my students told me I did lousy field trips. Maybe you had'a be there.)
This is one of my students.
We did fractions. Occurs to me that little girls -charming though they may be
(and this one is obviously a cutie) use about 9 brain cells working the answer
out of you for every one brain cell they use in actually trying to figure out
which is bigger -1/2 or 1/8. Tuesday was St. Paddy's day and we had
ice-cream and sundry other treats. I was at the end of the line and got
only a little melting ice-cream in a cup -the cones didn't last- and poured some
bubbly orange stuff over it and stirred myself up an ice-cream soda. On
top of neglecting children's educations in the three R's, I find society is
doing a woefully inadequate job of teaching them all the fun ways to rot their
teeth and ruin their appetites. As I was about to stick the first spoonful in my
mouth, there were cries of "You can't do that." "What's he
doing?" "Can he do that?" and about a micro-second later, multitudinous
cries of "Can I have some?" Hit of the party I was. (The
previous should me pronounced with an Irish brogue.)
Friday AM
is go-to-the-flower-market-day here in room-mate-land. I wanted to get to
the screen-writing tutoring by 9:AM so we had to be quick. Turned out to
be only a minor cluster-fuck so that's an improvement. I actually made it
on time. And I didn't choke the life out of Denhi so this makes for an all
together successful (?) effort. The flower market is where the florists all go
to buy their stuff. Incredible. Not just flowers, but parts of
trees, moss, and if I knew more about nature I'd have a lot more words to
use. It's all there. Open to the public too. Lots of Doctor's
wives walking around with arms full of botany.
I took
this picture just because I liked the colors. Actually, I took both the pictures
'cause we found a parking space this time and I was able to get out of the car
and look around.
After getting home from tutoring, and refraining some more from choking my room mate, I drove down to San Jose and a beautiful morning it was. 'Drove down to' means I got there, but I did so in rather the same I walk 'to' someplace. Walking to suggests some direction and purpose. Not the way I do things. I started out on 101 -the freeway that comes up the east side of the peninsula. Then I noticed some interesting houses on the hill side above San Carlos. From the top of one hill, you could see both the Trans-America tower (the pointy one) in SF and the blimp hangers at Moffett Field in San Jose. Up and down hills and houses that are no nicer then any that I grew up in, but with million dollar views, and I continued west to 280 or the Juniperro Serra Freeway. (Same guy who gives us juniper bushes, the Sierra mountain, and -but we don't talk about this in history classes- decimated the costal Indians and enslaved the survivors.) This freeway runs along the back bone of the peninsula and is as green as it can be. It will, however, be brown a month after the last rain and stay that way till next 'winter.' Cut back into Palo Alto on Sand Hill Road. This is where all the venture (vulture) capitalists have / had their offices. No doubt some of the mercedes' and jaguars I passed (passed me) were financed by some of them bail-put dollars our g'munt is spreading about. At the end of Sand Hill Rd is Stanford University and Stanford Shopping Center. Stopped here for a potty break and to begin hardening myself for a trip to Sausalito. Important for a poor wood worker from Henderson Colorado not to go directly to Sausalito. I have to kind'a build up my tolerance for beauty and wealth. (I will not try to describe that place just now, but will and send pictures too.) Stanford shopping center is where the PhD crowd goes to look sharp -or their wives go as the case may be. Fascinates me to view the economy as a whole based on the square footage of a shopping center dedicated to selling stuff for women compared to stuff for children, compared to uni-sex stuff, or compared -how pitiful- to space dedicated to selling stuff to men. It may just be that I haven't been in a real high-end mall for a long time, but it seems to be that the ratio has gotten a lot heavier in favor of the womenz side of things!
Went down El Camino Real -the Colfax of the peninsula -but no hookers- not that I'm sure I've ever seen a hooker on Colfax -I haven't ever been looking for any- and made green lights all the way to Mountain View. Spent a nice evening with Dan Hepner, and went to bed early. Then I slept till 10:AM. Been doing some world-class level sleeping lately. Not sure what to make of it. Feels nice though. Just don't remember when I have slept so much. Still have to get up to pee 3 or 4 times in a night, but even this seems to wind itself up (empty itself out?) by 5 or 6 and then I sleep the sleep of the [some metaphoric sleeper].
Saturday I had lunch with Frank Messersmith Saturday. Frank is the ex-marine NRA guy I team-taught with in the jail. Good old boy. We spent a couple of hours and didn't get it all done. We will need at least another lunch in the next few weeks. What we did do, however, was work on the business of a loving God. Or a not-so-loving God. What he said Ronnie, was not unlike what you said. He didn't say it better, but he said it in a ex-marine kind'a way. And as one who has seen me work and teach and one who got laid off for the sake of political expediencies at the same time I did. Stand by for further in this direction.
Sunday (today) has been pretty uneventful. Finished up some odd work at Dan's, had a longish phone chat with Kyle (and this is the only kind to have with Kyle) and made it home by 3 or so. Turned cold this PM. The trees and coming in green -or are full-out with pink or white blossoms. Denhi has been up the street and around the corner selling flowers. I went up to help her haul back a couple of arm-loads but I just didn't love her enough to bring my wee truck, so now I'm getting sung at in punishment. Sung at and sighed at and mio-dios-I'm-so-tired at. Got a few good hours of work done so perhaps I ought to be grateful. (Just to keep you posted, because I didn't respond to the 'mio-dios's, I am now inaudible. Could be worse. She could hear me and want to talk at me and I'd have to listen. Rather a lot actually.)
The time between Monday's Screen-writing class and Friday AM's flower not-quite-as-big-an-ordeal-as-it-could-a been was largely spent on city buses. Or just seemed that way. I plan to get out of the rut I am just beginning to dig for myself. A minor rut, and a pleasant rut, but a rut none-the-less. Last week -fr'instance- I finally found the YMCA and plan to get there tomorrow AM and do a push-up or two. We will see. Or at the very least -find the bus to Golden Gate park and tramp all over it. Or Union Square -SF's financial & fashion district- and tramp about & look at pretty women. Or the waterfront and pay too much money to tramp on various old ships, boats, and a WWII submarines.
Enough for Sunday, March 22.
Tuesday March 24 eve.
Yesterday was largely about a long walk -spent half the AM getting to a place where I might have saved a buck or two on some paper for some illustrations for my cookbook. The walk was successful in an athletic way -athletic for an 53 year old (almost ex) diabetic, but not so successful for scenery and architecture. But I made it to tutoring to do the usual 2 steps forward and one step backward. Had the chance to give one little girl a serious ego-boost by being real impressed that she could read up-side-down and asking her to show one of my colleagues. (Takes so little, sometimes, to make a kid's day.) Then I was asked to help a little (8th grade) girl with her algebra. Turned out she was an AP algebra student and smart as a whip. (Are whips smart? I dun'know, but once she understood a thing, she could work through the algebra faster the I could follow.) She was expected to answer a couple of questions that (I thought) needed the quadratic equation to answer but she insisted her teacher hadn't gone over it yet. So I taught here the least little bit of calculus (about all I'm capable of teaching) and we NAILED it. One of those rare occasions where calculus is easier then algebra. Her parents had shown up by then (almost 6:PM) and so when we were done I went to tell them their daughter was one smart little cookie. They couldn't speak English! Think of it what an amazing thing this is -this child is excelling in something hard in her second language. Gives me the ever-loving impression that human potential is dang-near infinite and to eff it up, takes a real serious bureaucracy / liberal / board of education / take your pick.
Today was mostly spent at my computer with the exception of a trip to the PO and groc store. Nothing remarkable about all this, but I did walk (slowly) back up the hill home. And not for nothing are the Bernal Heights called the Bernal HEIGHTS. More work on the cookbook and I missed the chance to take a bus ride to anywhere and back so I took a walk up the shorter of two hills that make the Heights. Imagine a junior-high-school quality baseball diamond at the top of a hill with views going out 5 or 10 miles. The bay over here, down town over here. Walked around the baseball field once or twice as it was getting dark and met a woman (Veronica!) with a white German shepherd (Snowflake) who was almost the spitting image of Fremont. 10 years later, I still puddle up over my dog.
Wedensday March 25:
Worked at the 'puter all AM and set out to see a different part of the city, but got on the wrong bus ad fond myself back in the neighborhood where the tutoring happened. So I decided what the heck, walked a little and tutored a youngster in area and perimeter and what not. Kind'a dull till we got to his science homework and had to hash out meteors, and comets. Works out that comets don't land but meteorites (meteors?) do and kill kangaroos. I have no idea why kangaroos should have been playong on the windmills of his mind, but we both got to giggeling and couldn't stop. Great fun.
More pretty houses. If you get tired of there pix and want more of some other kind of pix, you have to tell me, or I will just keep shooting what I want to shoot.
The following two pix are of the pirate store looking into the tutoring room. The second is in the tutoring room -shortly before the kids start showing up. It looks to the offices and out to the garden. Recall I mentioned that most buildings and all houses have a lovely little garden out back.
Saturday AM, March 28:
Yesterday was an interesting day. The usual cluster fuck around taking Denhi to the flower market, but this was only to be expected. Got her and her flowers dropped off and drove off to do the screen-writing thing. Plum forgot it was parent teacher conference day and 'cause I hadn't brought a parent, I had to leave.
Schlepped up to the top of Protero Heights to a little park at the top and enjoyed some of the best views in the city. And what a beautiful day it was. (So nice that I wore shorts and later would find myself walking down the shady of the street.) But forgot my camera, so no pictures for you. Sat pouring over my transit map (insert joke about 'pouring what?" here) and decided to walk to China Town. On the way I passed a church with the dangdest architecture I'd ever seem. It was nice -not a monument to some architect's ego -but one of those just-what-the-heck-iz-zit? They were in the midst of a food hand-out and had food piled up everywhere -looked (and smelled) a little like one of my morning walks down through the food warehousing / distributing part of town. Folks coming and going so I walked in and asked who might be in charge. Found myself chatting with Pastor Paul who was able to answer my question to so thorough a degree that I asked if he had studied architecture somewhere along the line -this got us to talking -as he was stilling spaghetti sauce and sautéing Italian sausages. From Texas, but spent summers in Estes Park. Had a nice little chat. He doesn't need teacher / tutor volunteers but I've sent him my email etc. just in case & down the road.
From there it was a long walk down hill thru the gritty side of town -and to the tony side of town around Yerba-Buena Park, Metrion, and Union Sq. -the shopping / financial district.
OK -pix for you after all, but off the net, not my camera. The above is more or less what I saw walking down from Potrero Heights. 'Cept it's at sunset & I was there about 9-10:AM. The Trans-Am tower -the pointy one just left of center is a little beyond and to the left (west) of China Town. The below is just a nice pix of the place.
My ankle got sore about the time I got to the Metrion. This -not my ankle- deserves a little explanation. Big, vertical, high tech shopping center is the best way to describe it. Last time I was there -5 years ago when I stayed in the city for a month, it brought Bonnie to mind. The top floor is (may still be -I didn't go in) is -for want of a better word, an amusement park about (I think) Sheldon Silversteen's world and animals and all. Well done from what I could see, but there was an admission and I'm a grown up, so I didn't go in then either.
Anyway, the Convention Center, (full of game developing 'puter geeks for a game convention evidently -and surprisingly attractive -albeit few of them- women. The men were nurdz as you might expect.), Yerba Buena Park (children's discover museum kind'a stuff), and the Metrion are all within a block of one-another. There is that old joke about the fun of Alzheimer's Disease is that you can make the same new discoveries everyday. Kind'a the same with me. It was in 1989 that I first took the train up to SF and started tramping about. Every now and then, I stumble across something I discovered on an earlier visit.
In a somewhat -but not really- more disturbing Alzheimer direction, it was about here that I completely lost my sense of direction. This rarely happens, but in a new place -one without the Rockies for orientation, it occasionally happens. I had bought a cheap little keychain compass and the damn thing stubbornly persisted in insisting that north was west. If I had just asked one of the passing 'puter geeks which way China Town was, and hoped I hadn't asked one from Iowa, and gone off in that direction, I'd'a been OK, but dang it -I had a map and compass and used to was a navigator -sorta. In my defense, the streets go off at 45 degrees, not N-S or E-W. So I took a bus to China Town -turned out to be the right one- and was done with it. Did a little shopping and found the little tea shop where I made a friend of the docent 5 years back. (docent -noun -a person who is a knowledgeable guide, esp. one who conducts visitors through a museum and delivers a commentary on the exhibitions.) (He made tea and 'splained it. We talked about SciFi. after the tourists bought their tea and left.)
This is a picture of China Town -make up your own explanation. I got
nothing, but the poor woman on the left clearly needs to be in your story.
I guess I do have to 'splain
this one. This is Ross Alley -used in filming the early chase scene in the
Indiana Jones movie -Temple of Doom
This is just a tourist
picture of a couple of tourist restaurants in China Town. You never see Chinese
eating in places like this. But little hole in the wall places are full of
them. And BTW -China Town is full of real authentic Chinese people. Well,
during the day, it's full of tourists and little tiny Chinese old-ladies doing
their shopping at real authentic (smelly) Chinese groceries. One gets the
feeling that any young Chinese men you see on the streets are real authentic
Chinese gangsters, but I have an real authentic imagination.
A couple more bus rides, one of them flash-back memory things of stumbling into the fabric / interior design neighborhood, a nice chat with an retired English teacher from the mid-west, and I was back on Potrero Heights walking back to my car when a little pick-up comes around the corner and the driver -some strange woman- starts waving and calling "Bill" Well, I knew right away this was my name, but I had no idea who she was or why / how she would know my name. (And her passenger was the handsomest young man I'd seen in quite a spell -but this is of no importance to my story. Just building up the suspense till I tell who she was and how she knew my name. Who she was, was, was (love the opportunity to use 3 was's in a row -grammar be damned) the lady that owned the motel I stayed at this past summer. Evidently I made quite an impression on her. We had a nice chat but my ankle still hurt so we will see about doing lunch next week. Actually, it wasn't so much me what made the impression, but the introduction that came from -now hold on here -this is tricky- the guy who sold her the carpet for her motel who was the husband of the lady I made the cherry coffee table for who became a nice on-line friend and with whom I will be making some garage door panels to replace the ones she broke one night driving home a van-load of her daughter and her friends -cheerleaders all. Hope that cleared things up for you. But what's interesting is that aboutthe week I got here I went to a Bernal Heights Neighborhood meeting where-in enlightened liberals explained how they are going to eff-up the housing situation here in SF even more thenit allready is by making property owners do charity 'cause the city is out'a money and there ain't no more coming from the Fed. This brought to mind a chat I had with her husband this past summer about utterly Draconian rent-controls here abouts and I was able to sound semi-well informed on a subject near and dear to her heart. This led to Sharon telling me that Marty -purveyor of carpet and husband to a wee coffee-table-owning Guatamalin fire-cracker- bought a big old ware-house thing he was looking to fill up. (Pretty sure the previous makes sense. If it confuses you -find the noun and verb and sus it out for yourself. I for one am done.)
This page is long enough. Check out SFTrip #2 for the latest.