Nasty and kinda nice

I have not been able to stop thinking about this place since I went with Tim a few weeks ago. And even though it's disgusting, I almost want one of these.
I have just learned how to link, and I like it.

Drive me to the moon

San Francisco bus drivers are a cranky lot. I think it's because they work in a state of constant uncertainty, or at least that's how I feel when I see the 1BX steaming down California St. You never know quite what's going to happen when you jump on board--will you nearly hit a jaywalking pedestrian; will the thingies that attach the bus to the overhead power cables fall off, leaving you stuck on the side of the road until the driver can reattach them; will a drunk cuddle up next to you and slump against your side in an uncomfortably intimate way? Such adventures to be had. The mood of my morning is often determined by whether I get a seat on the bus or not. It's not the standing itself I mind, it's the queasy whoosh of barelling down steep SF streets without something solid to brace against. If I have a seat, I can read my book and enjoy the rollercoaster ride; if I'm standing, I need both hands to hold on. And still I am thrown into the folk on either side of me. I don't know how the immaculate blowdry women with the stilettos and manicures manage to cling on.
For the most part, the general public is pretty polite to the drivers, but they don't always get the same courtesy in return. This morning, the machine you feed your dollar bills into seized up. A young woman stood and waited for her bill to go through. Nothing happened. "It dudn't sing and dance-h," snapped the bus driver. I would have rolled my eyes at him and huffed, but she delivered a sweet "Thank you" and moved down the aisle. Last night, I ended up on Snippety Snipe's bus. He is my least favorite driver for so many reasons: he speeds in a dangerous, not thrilling, way; he is openly hostile towards Asian patrons; he once told me off for pulling the bell strap thing too soon and when I apologized he just kept sniping until I got off; he yells "fuck" whenever he feels like it; he is sleazy. Each time he drops me off I wonder if he is going to speed off before I am all the way down the steps, or shut the door on my handbag.
Still, riding the bus beats the pants off having to drive and find a park.

State of Blah

I’m feeling a bit tired and pathetic today, just draggy and blah. It’s a hangover from yesterday’s draggy blahness, which came out of nowhere. I think this job is stressing me out more than I realized. We went to Baker Beach, site of the cow painting, unrolled our little $1.99 grass mats, and scattered pieces of the NYT around ourselves (in a manner reminiscent to the hamsters' behaviour with nesting materials--are we taking on pet-like characteristics and, if so, have we turned into one of those sad childless couples who treat their golden labs like toddlers?) And I, after reading about how people with disabilities these days are getting on with "normal" lives, and to hell with those who might stare (right on, I say; they illustrated the story with a photograph of the amputee contestant from The Amazing Race, Sarah, dancing at a club) turned over and fell asleep. I woke up with grass mat marks pressed into my right cheek and a craving for sweets. We satisifed the craving at a German bakery run by Chinese people in Clement St, which is SF's second, smaller Chinatown. We go there a lot. I got a slice of mocha cake. And then we went home and I fell asleep on the sofa before giving in and going to bed. At 9.30pm. Am I living the big city life, or what?
In my defense, we had a busy Saturday, what with meeting the cow painting artist and all. Also, we got up before 7am to help out with the food drive at Tim's church, something we've managed just three times since we've been here. It's actually fun. There are some tough old ladies who try to sneak extra food--not because they're any hungrier than anyone else but because they can--and I actually slapped away a woman's hands when she tried to take two extra yellow squash. That sounds mean in black and white, but it wasn't. She knew she was pushing it, and I think she respected me for staying on the ball. One old guy had dressed up for the occasion, including a hat, and told Tim he used to have a job that was "clean". We think he meant he worked in an office.
Speaking of people in bad situations, I saw a man going through a rubbish bin for food as I walked to work this morning. This is not an unusual occurrence. There are people who stand outside Starbucks, watching you gulp back lattes and holding out their empty cups. There are a couple of men who sleep on the grass right near my office, are often still sleeping there when I pass. There are people who sleep under freeway overpasses, next to the train lines--I see them arranging their bedrolls from the train. The fact that none of this is unusual is what bothers me. So when I am mopey and tired and blah, it makes me feel like a jerk.

Art patrons

Tim and I share few interests—we have an embarrassing passion for The Amazing Race; inhale chip and dip whenever we have the opportunity, therefore must ration ourselves, or suffer malnutrition; love reading and writing (though not the same stuff); and derive tremendous enjoyment from teasing each other. And that’s about it. So when we stumbled on a painting—a grown-up, put-it-on-the-wall and admire-it-for-the rest-of-your-life painting—we both absolutely loved while poking around Bodega village, where Hitchcock’s The Birds was filmed dontcha know, we bought it. Even though our budget didn’t really support it at the time. (It should be noted here that we did get a beautiful painting from Tim’s sisters and their families when we got married, but it’s in New Zealand, with our house and barbecue and the rest of our adult lives.)
In our California painting, two cows stand on Baker’s Beach, with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate and Marin headlands. One is a fresian, and the other is that reddy brown and white sort of cow, the one that looks like wet clay. Both cows are beautifully rendered, would look completely at home on the walls of a great ranching home, but the killer part as far as we’re concerned is the striped beach ball that hangs in the air between them, as if one of the ladies has just nosed it towards the other, and both are trying to look nonchalant for fear of losing their cool. Once you’ve spent a few minutes looking at this scene, drinking in the loopiness, you notice a black cow (Angus?) in the background, thundering up the beach to join the game. The whole thing is surreal and lovely. We swallowed our anxieties and whipped out the credit card, feeling confident we had bought the best thing in the gallery.
That was four months ago and today we returned to Bodega to attend a reception for the painter. We were a bit nervous to meet her, given how much we love the painting and how cool we’d imagined she must be. I was expecting, lord knows why, a woman with a husky voice, lavender hair and shiny black boots with the laces undone. I didn’t realize this is who I expected until we met the artist and she turned out to be quite ordinary, with an embroidered waistcoat (I have a weird hang-up about these), and little interest in talking to us, her patrons. We were miffed, I tell you. She even, at one point, took a huge step back towards the wall, positioning herself in front of another of her paintings, a well-endowed mermaid hugging two sea otters, but that didn’t stop us from sidling back into her space and talking at her some more. We so wanted to make a connection with her. Sad, huh? To heap disappointment upon disappointment, the gallery owner served Chablis in the smallest disposable cups I have ever seen—literally not much bigger than a cough syrup measure. So when “our” artist turned away from us again—crying out and practically jumping into the lap of a man she knew to escape us—there was nothing left for us but to get back in the car and drive back to San Francisco, an hour south.

Practically still flapping

I love sushi—the salty-sweet firmness of the fish and the bite of the ginger—but I have a bit of an issue with raw food, so I’m conflicted. I tend to go for the cheater’s sushi made from cooked chicken and loads of avocado, or the cooked eel thing that tastes a bit caramel-y and looks like a wrapped gift. So today’s lunch counts as an accomplishment. One of the interns had to deliver some magazines to a restaurant on Shattuck Ave, Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto”, and offered to pick up some bargain sushi on her way back. It was superb, the fanciest sushi I think I’ve ever eaten, despite being composed of many jewel-like slabs of raw tuna, albacore and salmon. Oh, and eel, coiled like a centipede, wrapped in a rice blanket and sprinkled with brilliant orange fish eggs that burst when bitten. I had to close off the part of my brain screaming, ooh yucky, this hasn’t been cooked, and concentrate on the subtle flavor of the super-fresh, practically still flapping, fish, which was deeelishus. Dunking it in lots of soy sauce helped too. I gotta say, I think having interns at my disposal is going to spoil me for other jobs. I try not to abuse my position, but ,hey, who doesn’t like having someone fetch lunch for them? I guess this is why executives get off on having personal assistants.

Feeling hot, hot, hot

I’m a summer baby—was born in California, in summer, during a heat wave for pity’s sake, and have always been one for warm weather hobbies: give me a choice and I’ll always plump for a BBQ, a swim, and an ice block over an afternoon on the ski slopes and an evening sipping cocoa by a fireplace. But this is ridiculous.
This morning I woke up hot, an amazing occurrence given that our apartment has until now acted exactly like an icebox with polished wooden floors and cheap plastic blinds. I was warm on the bus, I was warm on the train, and I was warm walking to my office. The moment I stepped across the threshold and flicked on the lights, I was pitched right over the I’m-coping-with-this-just-fine line into tropical territory. Opening the windows and fanning myself with a copy of the new issue (which looks great, BTW) did not help much at all. Even sending an intern downtown to buy a fan hasn’t solved it, although the thing is gyrating madly just to my right. I am now so hot I am literally sticking to my seat, which is not pretty given the thin skirt I wore to work today.
So this is the start of summer. I can state with some confidence that we have probably seen the last rain of the season and I will not need my coat again until November. I am thrilled about this, and would do a little celebratory cha-cha, but I’m too danged hot.

Kicking butt

It really is a year for unexpected experiences. I saw my first karate belt exam yesterday, and loved it! I didn't have high hopes, cos it seemed like it would be a long, drawn-out affair (which it was) and the only person I really wanted to see was my 17-year-old American niece, who was going for her black belt. But it was fascinating, watching people who had worked literally years for their five minutes in front of the big judge and either blew it from an overdose of nerves, or triumphed in spite of themselves. The students ranged from adora-tots in too-big suits to reeeally intense guys who, I sensed, might not have had much else going on in their lives--pure speculation, but I had three hours in which to entertain myself until our girl came out. Anyway, she was great: precise, clean movements, and when she got kicked in the stomach in the sparring section of the test, it made her mad enough to get aggressive in a black belt-appropriate way. So she got her belt. It's worth noting that earlier she had sat her SAT exams (for entrance to university) and later was going to her junior prom. She'd gone in for a pedi which she scratched doing kicks etc.
What's the deal with overachieving teens? I admire them--my other nieces, the NZ ones, are similarly confident wee powerhouses--but it sure makes you feel like a potato. I was a supremely unmotivated, lazy, miserable teen. I didn't want to do homework, or play sports, or develop any kind of useful/diverting hobbies. My favorite thing was to sit around with a book--well, that hasn't changed--and my second favorite thing was to make fun of striving girls who had better things to do with their time. I was militantly anti resume-shoring activities like volunteering at old folks' homes, or doing Duke of Edinburgh stages, or getting good at languages or musical instruments. Mostly, I thought the kids who were really into that stuff weren't exactly genuine--that they were ticking boxes that would prove useful later when they were job-hunting, and that their clubbiness was all about networking, which given that I went to boarding school is not actually far from the truth, I'd wager.
Anyway, I'm glad adolescence doesn't last more than seven years cos it's a bitch.
Today has been hot. We packed books, sunscreen, the New York Times, etc and headed for Chrissy Field, where there is a lovely beach, and sat in the sun reading, drinking lots of water, and meeting new dogs. A teeny poodle came up to say hello and her fur felt like cornsilk. I could have popped her in my pocket and run away with her.