Late To The Haight with Patricia Corrigan

Smile -- You're in a Giants Commercial!

2012-02-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

About 400 San Francisco Giants fans showed up Friday at AT&T Park dressed in orange, dressed in black and dressed in orange and black. One man sported a 7-inch high Mohawk; a young boy wore a shorter version, dyed orange. Another fan arrived in a black Wolverine costume festooned with touches of orange. One sported an orange jumpsuit, complete with matching hat, covered in Giants themes.

Beards were on display in great abundance (like the Mohawks, an homage to closer Brian Wilson) -- foam beards, fuzzy beards pasted on or held on with straps and even posters of beards, with cutouts for faces. One man sported an authentic Wilson-style beard. The parents of a three-year-old boy drew a beard on his chubby face. A few fans painted their faces the appropriate colors, including a mom and her four-year-old daughter, who sported orange and black paint “masks.”

Some fans wore orange wigs, panda hats or black feather boas. Others carried rally towels, foam fingers and signs extolling the virtues of individual players. Pre-teen girls from a school soccer team arrived in their own game jerseys but carried Giants ensembles, ready for a quick change. A dozen or so 20-somethings brought their cleavage, framed in low-cut, scoop-necked tee shirts; still others wore short black shorts and tight orange tube tops.

Anticipating a chilly wind off McCovey Cove, I dressed in layers: A black camisole, a long-sleeved black tee under a short-sleeved orange Lou Seal tee, a black hoodie with the orange “SF” logo, an orange neck scarf, a black fleece jacket, long johns under black pants, black socks under orange socks and my black Mary Jane shoes, which showed off those fuzzy socks. I wore my Giants earrings, and carried my Giants ball cap.

All of us, from that bearded little boy to the elderly woman with a walker, showed up at the stadium at 8:30 a.m. Throughout the day, the production team moved us from section to section, occasionally pulling out individuals but mainly concentrating on crowd shots. We all were there because we had answered a casting call, applying for the privilege of appearing in a Giants commercial. Here is what I wrote on my application:

“A lifelong Cardinals fan, I committed post-season treason after moving here from St. Louis in the summer of 2010, trading my extensive Redbirds wardrobe for all things Giant. I cheered the team on to the ultimate victory that year, attended Opening Day (Giants v. Cards on April 8, 2011), wore orange and black all season long (three tees, two hats, one sweatshirt, socks, earrings and a tote bag) and remain an avid Giants fan to this day. Friends share tickets with me for some games; most of them I watch on television. Timmy, Matt Cain, Buster, The Beard, Pablo Sandoval, even Lou Seal -- we're family now, and I am eager for the 2012 season to begin. I love baseball and I love the Giants -- of course I belong in a commercial!”

What I didn’t say is how reluctantly I embraced wearing orange and black. Oh, I had to change teams – you must love the one you’re with, or at least watch the baseball that airs on the channel where you live. But orange and black are my high school’s colors, and though I made some good friends there, I don’t have much good to say about the school. These days, it’s a cliché to hate high school, but at the time, we were always being told that high school represented the best years of our lives. I hoped that was a big lie -- and it was.

Anyway, the producers liked what I wrote and invited me to the stadium. Some 600 people took part in filming on Thursday, and some of those fans came back Friday for more. Chatting with us newbies in the stands, they told us to expect a light lunch at 2, they told us to expect stars to be plucked from among us and they told us that Thursday’s session had lasted until after dark, ending close to 8 p.m.

What did we do all day? Keeping our eye on one particular guy on the field as the camera rolled, we clapped, we squealed, we cheered, we hooted, and we went crazy as instructed with various cues. When the member of the production staff with a megaphone first called out, “Look at home plate,” the woman in front of me stopped everything with her questions: “Who’s batting? What’s the score?” We all rolled our eyes and booed her, if only silently. Method actors!

For hours we were at it, pretending to be at the old ball game throughout the day. We all noticed how difficult it is to shout and wave your arms and hop about for three or four minutes at a time – especially for three or four takes. During a real game, everything happens quickly. Filming television commercials, not so much. They fed us about 12:30 or 1, handing out hot dogs, sodas and small bags of peanuts to everyone there. (“That was a twelve-dollar lunch,” my bus driver quipped later.) Then it was back to work.

At mid-afternoon, a handful of actual Giants – Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Buster Posey and Matt Cain among them -- came out on the field and ran through warm-up exercises. We hooted and howled and a couple of them waved at us. The producers suggested that the players might come over and say “hi,” later but the folks who spent the day at the ballpark on Thursday said not to count on that.

Each time we were asked to move, I grabbed an aisle seat, so I was in several shots, including close-ups. I don't know how the footage will be edited, of course, but I may well end up in a Giants commercial or two. Still, that’s not the only reason I went. This week, someone tried (and failed) to break into my building and on Thursday a small moving van crashed into my parked car. I needed to escape for a day.

About 2:30 p.m., when the crowd had dwindled to about 125 people, I decided I’d had enough. Walking out past the palm trees, I said to myself, “Back to real life.” Then I laughed. Because apparently spending a day at AT&T Park shooting a Giants commercial is part of my real life -- and that rocks.

Miles and Miles of Smiles

2012-01-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

How’s the baby? What’s new with Milo? Tell me Milo stories! That’s all I hear from my friends these days, and the questions make me smile.

Who wouldn’t want to talk about a three-week old grandson?

I tell everyone Milo is fine, settling in, helping his parents figure out what they are doing and what he needs, when he needs it. Mostly, of course, he eats and sleeps and makes those soft, endearing baby noises. Sometimes, of course, Milo cries. All babies do, and all you can do is pick them up and love them and hope the crying stops.

I also tell everyone that my role in Milo’s life right now is mostly to grin at him, either when I hold him and rock him in my grandmother’s golden oak rocker or when someone else holds him. Sometimes, Milo grins back, but mostly he dozes or relaxes. Hey, he’s only three weeks old!

Yesterday, when I was sitting next to Milo’s mom, grinning at him as he slept in her arms, she asked if I wanted to hold him for a few minutes before I had to leave. “I want to hold him for years,” I said. But he was settled in, so I let him continue to sleep in his mother’s arms, where he looked so cozy and happy.

Milo and I will have years to snuggle. I just know it.

Heck, I knew a baby was on the way before I got the call on July 13. Eight days earlier, on my way to a Giants’ game on the streetcar, I was sitting across from a pretty red-haired woman holding a baby girl. I smiled at the woman. She smiled back. When I turned away, I had a strong impression, just a picture in my mind, a sunlit image of a little boy walking in between my daughter-in-law and son. They were all holding hands and smiling. The image was so real that it looked like a photograph.

That was a heads-up from the wee one, I am certain.

After I got the official call on July 13, I sat at my desk, grinning. My mind was racing and every cell in my body was thrilled. A grandchild – my opportunity to pay back my kind and loving grandmothers and also to make the most of an experience my own mother wanted badly and missed. At the age of 58, my mother retired from her government job and enrolled in college, her way of preparing to be a better grandmother. Four months later, before I became pregnant, my mother died.

I have shared the experience with Carol and Beth and other friends. But now it would be my turn to be a grandmother – and oh what a grandmother I planned to be! Someone like Auntie Mame, always up for an adventure, but also a protector and defender and confidante. I couldn’t wait!

Fast forward to 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 7. I called my daughter-in-law to see when she might be available for some pampering. Susan -- her mom and my dear friend – and I had offered take the mom-to-be out for a pedicure. The phone rang and rang. The silence was louder than it should have been, but I ignored it. At first.

I started working on some newspaper story assignments. Suddenly I raced off to vacuum the bedroom. Then I ran downstairs to throw in a load of laundry. There, I ran into my landlord, grandfather of five. I told him I was jumpy and somehow deeply intent on cleaning everything right this minute. “You’re nesting,” he said, and we laughed.

Running up the stairs from the laundry room, I shivered. “He’s coming,” I thought. “The baby is coming today.”

I went back to writing, and tidied up the apartment in between paragraphs. A few minutes before 3 p.m., I sent a text to my son saying I was cleaning like crazy and wondering if the baby was coming. He wrote back that contractions were underway!

I knew to say no more. I also realized that with first babies, sometimes contractions stop after they start. But four and half hours later, the call came – the parents-to-be were at the hospital. Just after midnight, another call: “We have a baby,” my son said.

That was just three weeks ago today. I am completely besotted with this little baby, and ever since he was born, I’ve been smiling all the time. Smiling when I am with Milo, smiling when I think about him and smiling when I look at the photo of him on my refrigerator door.

And of course I smile when asked about him, so ask away!

Memories of Plane Crash Still Vivid

2012-01-13T18:15:00.000-08:00

Thirty years ago today, a plane hit the side of a bridge over the Potomac River and slid down into the icy water. Seventy-four people on the plane died. Only four were pulled to safety.

I was in an airport van on the opposite side of the bridge when it happened.

I was trying to get to the airport to fly home after attending a conference in Washington, D.C. The van also carried several pilots, all of whom were predicting an airport shutdown because of poor visibility and the icy sleet that was falling.

Sitting in traffic in that van, we heard on the radio that a plane had hit the 14^th Street Bridge. One woman screamed, “We are on that bridge!” We had not seen the plane or felt the impact on the opposite side. As we inched along in the van, we did see people on the other side leaping out of their cars and throwing their coats into the water. We saw emergency vehicles stuck in traffic. We saw military helicopters flying in.

Once across the bridge, I asked the driver to let me out of the van. There was no point in going to the airport -- the radio announcer had already said it was closed. No one else seemed inclined to leave the van, but I insisted that the driver get my suitcase and let me out.

I slogged up a hill through the ice and snow and walked into a hotel. I tried to get a room, but was told the hotel was fully booked. I walked into the bar and ordered a shot of Jameson's, straight up. A man sat down next to me, leered and offered to let me sleep in his hotel room.

I slid off the bar stool and went to the bank of telephones, where there was a line. “Phone service is spotty,” said a woman whose call went through and then was cut off. When I got a phone, I called a man I had met at the conference, a man who worked in Washington as a lobbyist for the educational consortium my company was part of. I asked what he thought I should do. He told me to head back to my hotel in the city, that he would call and get my room back.

Next, I asked at the front desk where to catch the Metro. The desk clerk told me there had been an accident on the Metro -- that it was closed. I asked the clerk to call a cab for me. “A cab?” he said. “There will be no cabs, not with the airport and the bridge closed. And now the roads are closing, because of the ice storm.”

I went out the front door of the hotel, ready to walk back to my hotel. Suddenly a lone cab pulled up. The driver rolled down the window and said a name to me, a name I didn’t hear clearly, so I did not respond. The hotel doorman looked at me and said to the driver, "This is your passenger." He opened the door and I got in. It was just after dusk. Every tree branch was covered in ice. I remember driving past the Iwo Jima statue, which also was coated in ice.

Back at my hotel, I couldn’t stop crying. I called a psychologist who had edited a book I had worked on for my company. I told him I had turned on the TV, where newscasters were pondering how long a person plunged into an icy river could survive. The psychologist told me to turn off the TV, find a co-worker and get something to eat, to sit and talk quietly in the presence of another human being, to breathe. I called the front desk and found a co-worker still at the hotel, someone I did not know well. We ate in the dining room. We talked about John Waters' movies.

Overnight, the power went out in the hotel, so there was no food the next morning and no hot water for a shower. I found another co-worker at a nearby hotel, and went there to clean up. Then we went to the airport together, to head back to St. Louis. As we flew directly over the crash site, I remember that every person on board paid careful attention to the flight attendant’s patter about emergency exits.

When my plane landed in St. Louis, I took a taxi straight to the Post-Dispatch. The editors knew me, as I had done some freelance work for them over the years. I told my story, and the editor let me write a first-person account, originally scheduled to run alongside the main piece by the paper's Washington bureau chief. My story never appeared -- but it helped to write it.

Writing this helps, too. I was 33 years old on January 13, 1982. I will never forget riding in an airport van when a plane hit the 14^th Street Bridge and slid down into the icy waters of the Potomac River.

You can read about the crash here:

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/air-florida-crash-washington-post-coverage-from-jan-14-1982/2012/01/12/gIQAVta5tP_blog.html

Banishing Regrets Before the New Year

2011-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

I forgive me for not saving more money.

I forgive me for not losing more weight.

I forgive me for not going to the gym as often as I intended.

I also forgive me for spending time playing Scrabble on line, watching “Mad Men” reruns and staring at coral, burnt orange and purple sunsets over the water instead of lobbying to cure cancer, reading important books and occupying anything much more than my apartment.

That feels good!

I am ushering in the new year in the spirit of forgiveness. Instead of burdening myself with prissy promises that I may or may not keep in 2012, I have decided to banish all regrets, past and present.

You know that song, “Let It Snow?” I’m singing, “Let It Go.” This is not a new song. In water aerobics class, for years my friend Bernice and I used to grouse first and then call out, “Let It Go,” stirring up a froth of highly chlorinated water at the same time. Our displeasures, our disappointments, our regrets -- out with all of them, all at once. Gone, down the pool drain.

Regrets keep us stuck in the past, wishing we could rewrite bad behavior, or at least edit it enough to make it look better when we remember it. Just as there is no broom big enough to sweep up debris accumulating in the future, there is no way to redo, undo or whoop-de-doo the past, so what’s the point?

This New Year’s Eve, I plan to forgive myself for all the unwise decisions I have made in the past – many of which I have forgotten -- and I plan to forgive myself for all the unwise decisions I made not that long ago, those that I remember clearly. Among them:

· Bought a beautiful woven jacket that hardly ever makes it out of the closet because I rarely go anywhere that calls for beautiful jackets.

· Ate not one but TWO malasadas (Portuguese stuffed doughnuts) in Hawaii and two days later I devoured a piece of passion fruit cheesecake on a crust made from macadamia nuts and dark chocolate.

· Aimed to go the gym at least three days a week and then – often after putting on my gym clothes – still didn’t get there much more than twice a week.

I committed other transgressions as well, some of which had nothing to do with money or food or exercise, yet these are the ones that loom largest for many of us on the last day of the year.

It’s okay. I forgive me.

In 2012, I will recognize my standards of personal perfection as goals rather than realities. Then I will work toward those goals at my usual well-intentioned (if sometimes unsteady) pace, and carry on.

Knowing me, I will also buy an item or two that I don’t need but do want, eat the occasional outstanding dessert, play Scrabble, watch “Mad Men” (the new season starts in March!) and stare at breathtaking sunsets. And that’s okay.

You can play too. Forgive yourself -- and let it go. Then welcome 2012!

Highlights from a Whirlwind Hawaiian Trip

2011-12-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Swimming with spinner dolphins. Sipping a lilikoi (passionfruit) margarita. Relaxing in an immense lava rock pond filled with warm seawater. Falling asleep to the sounds of the coqui frogs and rain on the roof. Getting another look at the mesmerizing Kilauea, the most active volcano on the planet. Tasting guacamole made from avocados grown on the farm where the restaurant sits. Speaking with a green sea turtle on a black sand beach.

All that made my vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii spectacular – that and laughing every day with Peggy, an old friend from high school who works as a doctor in Pahoa, a small town south of Hilo. Every day was an adventure full of scenic vistas, wildlife sightings, terrific food and a chance to see the Big Island through the eyes of a local. This blog post hits the highlights, categorized for your reading convenience.

FAUNA. On a snorkeling trip with Sunlight on Water (www.sunlightonwater.com), we saw one “early arrival” humpback whale that breached by way of greeting and then moved on. We also snorkeled with spinner dolphins and manta rays, and got a close look at five endangered pygmy killer whales. Later in the week, two nene geese (the state bird of Hawaii) showed up exactly 750 yards from a roadside sign that promised just that. We also saw wild turkeys, that huge green sea turtle, one lone mongoose, northern cardinals (though no sign of expat Pujols), Brazilian cardinals with bright red heads and peahens likely of some quail species. We didn't see but certainly heard the coquis, small frogs that live in clusters of up to 20,000 per acre.

FLORA. Gorgeous flowers are abundant on parts of the island, and Peggy’s yard is full of tropical fruit trees. We also visited the Akatsu Orchid Gardens (www.akatsuorchid.com), which sells 50 natural species and 1,500 hybrids – and yet that accounts for less than half of one percent of all the orchids in the world! At the Hawaiian Vanilla Company (www.hawaiianvanilla.com) -- the only commercial vanilla farm in the U.S. – we learned that the orchid that produces vanilla blooms just once a year for four hours and must be hand-pollinated. A single bean goes for $11, and no wonder! The flowers are epiphytic, or in the words of a farmer, “They just lie there and live.”

WATER. My favorite place to be is below sea level – well, usually. The snorkeling trip involved lots of popping in and out of the water, but a couple days later Peggy and I spent over 90 minutes languishing at the Hot Pond near her home. (See www.hawaiiweb.com/hawaii/html/beaches/ahalanui_park.html) This was a relief after a visit to a beach on Waialea Bay on the Kohala Coast, where the waves knocked me over and dumped me unceremoniously on the beach. Unfortunately, Peggy has photos…

OTHER NATURAL ATTRACTIONS. Volcanoes National Park -- home to Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess – is one of my favorite places on Earth, and our visit did not disappoint. (See http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/) One day, we spotted snow at the summit of Mauna Kea, some 14,000 feet above sea level. We also admired great views from a ridge overlooking Na’alehu, we saw a rainbow that ramped up into a double rainbow after leaving the rowdy waves and many birds at Waialea Beach, and the lava fields on the island are remarkable any time of day.

FOOD. Peggy’s hometown is known for great food, and we visited numerous other areas for island specialties as well, some recommended by my friend Joe, who visits the Big Island often. Highlights included taro “pancrepes” (one savory, one sweet) at U-Top-It, Big Myke’s blackened mahi BLT at Kaleo’s in Pahoa, malasadas (Portuguese doughnuts, filled or frosted) at Punalu’u Bake Shop in Na’alehu, POG juice (passionfruit, orange and guava) at Ken’s in Hilo, pulled pork at the Maku’u Farmers Market, a veggie stir fry at Sukothai in Pahoa, a fresh ginger cookie from the coffee shop in Haw’i and (last but nowhere near least) the lilikoi cheesecake on a macadamia and chocolate crust at Café Pesto in Hilo. We also popped in at Big Island Candies (www.bigislandcandies.com) to pick up some macadamia nut shortbread dipped in dark chocolate. Breakfasts of fresh papaya topped with yogurt and vanilla-flavored granola on Peggy’s lanai (it runs the length of her house) also rocked, as did my first tastes of rambutans and persimmons.

DRINK. That lilkoi margarita (Peggy calls it an “alcoholic slushie”) at Kaleo’s was outstanding, as was the aromatic vanilla lemonade at the Hawaiian Vanilla Company. Another great treat was the frozen Pacific Passion smoothie at What’s Shakin’ in Pepeekeo, north of Hilo overlooking Oleamu Bay. The drink is made from fruit grown on the farm – banana, papaya, guava – plus apple and pineapple juice. To go with that smoothie, we feasted on the best guacamole I’ve ever tasted. The macadamia nut honey wine at the Volcano Winery (www.volcanowinery.com/) went down easily, and we enjoyed a sip of Volcano Red, made from pinot grapes blended with jaboticaba berries. (What a fun word!)

SHOPPING. Did you know that Macy’s in Hilo sells muumuus? So does Sears! Shopping was not on the agenda for this trip, but we did stop at Hawaiian Arts in Hilo, where three years ago I bought a beautiful tie-dyed shirt. This time, I bought two shirts – one with Hawaiian petroglyphs ($5!) and one with a great octopus graphic that wraps around the shirt.

Home just three days now, most of all I miss the tantalizing aromas at the vanilla farm and the malasada bakery – and of course, Peggy’s terrific company and that of her cat, Pahoehoe, named for a form of smooth lava. What a great trip!

Looking Back, Looking Forward

2011-11-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

Seventeen months ago, I moved to San Francisco. Every day when I look out my wall of windows at the Pacific Ocean, the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the Marin headlands, Golden Gate Park and the tops of both towers of the most famous bridge in the world, I am overcome with joy that I live here.

Everything is here: Extraordinary natural beauty, pounding waves accessible by bus, gusty winds that pull the curl from my hair, striking architecture, scenic views in unexpected spots, much soul-satisfying theater, a ballpark with views of container ships in transit, world-class museums, quirky galleries, a dozen or more independent book stores, restaurants offering savory dishes at all prices, two coffee shops per block, adorable boutiques, upscale consignment stores and yes, a massive Macy’s with a plus-size department that can take an hour or more to scour.

Everything is here: A mass transit system that takes me anywhere I want to go (as long as I plan in advance) and guarantees colorful characters on almost every ride. On the bus to the dentist two weeks ago, I sat across from a woman reading her AARP magazine – aloud. It was like listening to a book on tape, but she also interjected comments. I’ve seen people get on buses with surfboards, bulky strollers and three bags bulging with balloon animals. I’ve shared a bus with 18 fifth grade boys – we talked baseball. Once, a woman boarded with a wooden kitchen chair. She placed the chair next to her seat, right in the aisle.

Everything is here: A refreshing "live and let live" attitude that pervades every neighborhood, allowing for people in costume, people in the buff and everyone else as well. I have met kind and giving people of all sorts, people who wave at me, call me by name and ask me what’s up. The man who owns the insurance company on the corner (and Earl, the wonderful dog who works there) even offered to go with me to the vet the day I had to say goodbye to my cat. I always look forward to encounters with a gifted artist friend in Bolinas, my massage therapist, my hair stylist, the receptionists at my gym, the grocer in Cole Valley, the barista at Café Reverie and the owner of the auto body shop. My neighbors in my building are wonderful people, people who last night got a delivery from the Pumpkin Bread Fairy – and yes, I made a loaf for my kind landlord as well.

Everything is here: Especially my beloved son and daughter-in-law! I moved here to be closer to Patricia and Joel, and that was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right time. As a bonus, I got a whole new family! Susan (Patricia’s mom) and I have become great friends. I always look forward to seeing Michael and Martia (P’s brother and sister-in-law) and their smart, adorable daughters, Catherine and Elizabeth. Marylou and Mario (Martia’s parents) also have warmly welcomed me into the family circle, and I have enjoyed getting to know Marylou’s sisters and their children.

Wait – not quite everything is here. My dearest friends are not here.

Susan generously shares her friends, and I am grateful for that. It’s been great fun getting to know Denise (see you at Christmas and at Full Moon Cocktails in January!) and all the others. At get-togethers, we swap the stories women of a certain age all tell, we explore what else we have in common – and always, we laugh.

Still, after 17 months in San Francisco, I miss my friends. Some of them have come to visit, among them Gerry, Tom, Judy, Scott, Beth, Gail, Susan, Denny, Deb, Bill, Ken, Nancy, Laurie, Karen, Pat, Charlie, Michael, Donna and Doug. When Cheri came to visit her son and daughter-in-law, we reconnected after decades of minimal contact – but then, it’s easy to enjoy hanging out with someone you met when you were 12 and roomed with in college. Other friends plan to visit soon -- or say they will -- and I look forward to that.

We bridge the distance between us with Skype, Facebook, email, on-line Scrabble games and occasional cards. Clearly, no matter how far apart we are, we still feel close, in touch, there for moral support or to share a good laugh. It’s not the same as being together in person, but all these wonderful people (you know who you are) love me still and include me in their circle of friends. I am grateful for that.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Cancer Sucks, But Also Brings Unexpected Gifts

2011-11-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

“Cancer Sucks.”

That’s what the button said. I laughed out loud. It was a big button, available in many colors. I bought a lime green one for a friend who just reached her first year anniversary past diagnosis. I hope the button makes her laugh, and I hope she wears it.

I found the button at the gift shop in the UCSF Medical Center’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, where I had just met with a social worker. Back story: My oncologist wants to see me every six months for follow-up appointments. I think once a year is plenty now that I am two years past the most recent diagnosis.

Who wants to spend time – or money – at the doctor’s office?

At my appointment last week, I whined about the high cost of seeing the oncologist. A follow-up visit runs $391, and six months from now I will be on the hook for the entire amount as I will not have met my insurance deductible. “Go see our social worker,” said my doctor. “You may qualify for some assistance programs.”

“I am sure I won't qualify,” I said.

She replied, “Go anyway. Ask.”

That’s logical, so I went.

Guess what? Based on my freelance income and my teensy pension, I do qualify for several programs that help breast cancer survivors pay medical expenses. The social worker -- my new best friend -- filled out some forms and submitted them electronically for me, and she gave me information about other agencies to contact.

I walked out of the medical center in a daze. I boarded a bus, hopped off at Laurel Village and meandered into Chico's, where I bought a $100 sweater on sale for $50. Immediately I felt guilty about spending money just after signing up for help with medical expenses, so I may return the sweater.

When I first sat down with the social worker, I told her I do not want any money that could be used to help people far needier than I am. She said the funds I qualify for are set up by people who have lost family members to breast cancer, and that no one in dire need will lose out on any money just because I happen to be in the program. “You qualify,” she said. “It’s okay.”

After cancer the first time, I got the opportunity to write "Chemotherapy and Radiation for Dummies," which is also available in French and German. Only 5 percent of all book authors make a living at it, but I did collect a few royalty checks and I would like to think that what I wrote in that book from a patient’s point of view has helped other people going through cancer treatments. Now it seems that cancer has delivered another gift.

Back home later in the afternoon, I got a note from a former neighbor, a woman I treasure as a friend. From her I received the gift of laughter. Her note begins: “Today I am paying bills. The most important one is to the Humane Society of Missouri. Perhaps they can spay or neuter some of the Republicans. Such a sad bunch!”

The moral of this story is this: Go anyway. Ask! And no matter what answer you get, remember to appreciate the sunset.

Of Costumes, Identities and Hearts' Desires

2011-10-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

SpongeBob SquarePants was on the bus heading to the Castro Saturday afternoon, and Cliff’s Variety was packed with people scrambling to get their own Halloween costumes. The bare-chested finalists for the 2012 Bare Chest Calendar were selling raffle tickets on the corner, next to the people processing dog adoptions. A few feet away, a guide talked to eight tourists about Harvey Milk.

Along came a naked man, easily 70-something, toting a backpack and wearing only a white knit hat. This startled and then annoyed the young couple walking in front of me, but I didn’t care. Though I have never walked down a street naked, I have both startled and annoyed people in glorious days gone by, so it’s difficult to offend me.

Saturday one week ago, I spent time with Ken Haller, who was in town for a few days. We walked from his hotel downtown to the Ferry Building. Along the way, we stopped to talk to The Peace Guy (Ken bought a great shirt) and we got a look at Occupy San Francisco’s encampment. Inside the Ferry Building, we bought a toastie at the Cowgirl Creamery. (For details, see the Aug. 28 post). Then we meandered among the Farmers’ Market stalls, tasting pluots and pears and playing with the heirloom beans on display in a big bowl at the Rancho Gordo booth. “You know you want to,” read the sign.

Then it was off to lunch at Colibri, an upscale Mexican restaurant that was willing to let us split an order of guacamole, quesadillas – and even a margarita. Next, Ken headed to the Curran Theatre to see Kevin Spacey in “Richard III,” an astonishingly powerful show. I saw it Oct. 19 and urged Ken to get a ticket. When he called after the play, he had the same reaction I did: “WOW.”

I moved to San Francisco 16 months ago, and I continue to enjoy every aspect of living in this amazing city. Since my last post, I’ve been juggling transitions, making plans and learning surprising things about myself. I remember assuming in my 30s that at some point you figure everything out, and then you know who you are and what to do in every situation. In my 60s, I now know much is up for grabs much of the time.

In “Comfortable with Uncertainty,” Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, says the best approach is to embrace the not knowing and learn to cultivate fearlessness and compassion. That message is echoed in Integrative Restoration (www.irest.us/), a class I am taking from Dr. Richard Miller. His version of yoga nidra (which I was introduced to in Kitty Daly’s restorative yoga class at Big Bend Yoga in St. Louis some years ago), iRest is about freedom from conflict and fear, about balance, about joy and about interconnectedness.

What sent me to this class? First, I had to say goodbye to my 16-year-old cat early in October, a cat I have loved and lived with for over 14 years, a cat who moved to San Francisco with me, a cat who visited Starbucks twice with me during our layover at the Los Angeles airport. She had hyperthyroidism and kidney disease. She was agitated much of the time. And she was losing weight rapidly. I believe that euthanasia is a final act of love, and my vet supported my decision. It was time, but I miss Maggie.

Also, in the middle of October, I had to have my annual mammogram. Two years ago, the mammogram appointment was followed by a second diagnosis of breast cancer. A year ago after the mammogram, when I got the all-clear, I went home and cried for three days. That, I finally realized, was a delayed reaction to the diagnosis in 2009, when I was so desperate to sell the damn condo and move to San Francisco that I spent no time dealing with what had happened. Better late than never.

In any case, like every woman who has had breast cancer, I am not fond of Mammogram Day. This year, I bought myself a ticket to see “Richard III” that very evening, figuring no matter what happened, at least I would get to go to the theater. The mammogram once again was clear, and I went to the theater with a big smile on my face.

Still, saying goodbye to the cat and then experiencing natural anxiety over the mammogram convinced me I needed to get back to meditative yoga. The first week, lying on mats in low light at iRest, we were instructed to go in our minds to a place we feel safe. I discovered that night (and this was reinforced later in the week at home) that I don't feel truly safe anywhere. When I brought that up in class the second week, a surprising number of people nodded in agreement when I spoke.

As soon I as realized that I don’t feel truly safe anywhere (blame cancer, other losses, discomfort with uncertainty), I also realized that fear does not keep me from doing what I want to do. And I am happy to report I aced it when in class we were instructed to express (silently) our heart’s desire. Some people said later they weren’t sure about that, but I am.

I want to be exactly where I am, changing and growing as I build strong, loving bonds with my family.

A Quick Look Back Before Fall

2011-09-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Attention must be paid to the small pleasures, the day-to-day events that cause a frisson of joy. Here are a dozen of my momentary pleasures from the past couple of weeks. Take time to make note of yours.

1. Knowing that less than two weeks ago I walked to the top of Angel Island, which is 788 feet high. Here’s a quick history lesson from the web site:

· Three thousand years ago Angel Island served as a fishing and hunting site for Coastal Miwok Indians. It was later a haven for Spanish Explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, a cattle ranch, and a U.S. Army post starting with the Civil War.

· From 1910 to 1940, the island processed hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the majority from China. During World War II, Japanese, and German POWs were held on the island, which was also used as a jumping-off point for American soldiers returning from the Pacific. In the ’50s and ’60s, the island was home to a Nike missile site.

· In 1954 a number of citizen’s groups managed to persuade the California State Park Commission to obtain 36.82 acres. In 1962 the Nike missile site on the south side of the island was deactivated, and the army left the island. In December of that year, the entire island was turned over to the State of California.

The view from the top was splendid, maybe especially so because I am a mermaid, at home in, on and near water – not a mountain goat.

I’m not at all skilled at hiking up (or down) steep, muddy, rutted trails littered with twigs and rocks, but I grabbed my walking stick and followed my family to the top. My son and daughter-in-law took turns walking with me, just in case I missed a step and plummeted down the hill. Along the way, we heard a woodpecker, saw hawks hovering on wind drafts and watched a snake crossing the road.

2. Making time to take inventory of “perfect gifts for someone” that I have stored in boxes and bags in the back of the closet.

3. Finding Sandy Wood’s great jewelry web site at www.gracelily.com/products

4. Discovering that Moscow Mules are not named for mules from Moscow, Missouri – though that would have been cool --and tasting for the first time another ginger beer-based beverage at Dosa, a favorite Indian restaurant.

5. Interviewing Julie Salamon, the charming author of the new biography on Wendy Wasserstein, playwright extraordinaire.

6. Sleeping with the window open – it’s summer at last here in San Francisco!

7. Seeing the compelling movie “Love Hate Love” at the Jewish Community Center.

8. Cleaning off my desk and clearing out enough files to fill a grocery bag for the recycling bin.

9. Watching little girls (and a 36-year-old man) enjoy an inflated “jumpy house” at a 6-year-old’s birthday party.

10. Being drawn into the world (and heart) of Brian Copeland at his show “Not a Genuine Black Man.”

11. Hearing the physical therapist say my body is working better than ever, one full month after my last appointment.

12. Welcoming the Fall Equinox with new insights about my work life.

Water, Water, Everywhere, and You Get Fries With That

2011-09-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hypnotism. That seemed like a good way to put behind me a rowdy week of happy/sad/regretful/eager emotions and plenty of work. Who does hypnotism best?

The ocean.

I stuffed a sweatshirt, a windbreaker, a hat, sunscreen, water and a book in my splendid huge “Moby” tote bag (courtesy of Gail, re-gifted from the Encore Network, which just aired a new version of Melville’s masterpiece), grabbed my beach chair (courtesy of P&J) and climbed in the car.

I did not go alone. Fortunately, Luciano Pavarotti is always on call in the car’s CD player. I ordered “Che Gelida Manina.” With Pavarotti’s magnificent voice lifting me ever higher, the two of us set off for the sea.

The journey was not long. After years of just dreaming about it, I now actually live less than four miles from the Pacific Ocean. From my living room window, I could see the fog hanging over Ocean Beach, but as grownups all know, we take whatever weather we get.

At the beach, I set up my chair, donned the pale green sweatshirt as well as the navy blue windbreaker and pulled the bright orange hat low over my ears. Few people were on the beach – though one person was “sunning” himself in shorts and a tank top in the brisk wind. A woman walked by, barefoot, taking a business call on her cell.

The water was slate gray. The water was deep blue. The water was pale green. The waves rolled in, over and over, stealing sand, returning it to the bottom of the sea.

For a few minutes, the wind made my eyes teary. When they dried, I noticed a cluster of gulls, a dozen or more birds, huddled a short distance away. All of a sudden, they rose into the sky, where they were joined by at least three dozen other gulls, all whirling and calling and carrying on. After a few minutes, some of them landed close to my chair while the rest flew off.

What do gulls talk about when they hang out at the beach?

Just after I imagined a humpback whale breaching out beyond the surfers (it could happen), I imagined the gulls debating who in town has the best French fries.

“I prefer the truffle-oil fries from the Cliff House,” said one gull. “Sometimes you find them in the sand behind the trash bin.”

“Truffle oil? That’s nuts,” said another. “Give me the garlic fries at the ballpark any day. Truffle oil is just too fussy for me.”

A voice piped up, “I really like the sweet potato fries at Mel’s, and Burger Meister does them well, too.”

That was me. Talking to sea gulls. About French fries. The birds did not reply. Soon, a huge crow came along to pick a fight with a gull, and they all left together.

The hypnotic rhythm of the sea calmed me. I forgot about deadlines. I forgot about politics. I forgot about chaos and confusion and hate, all present in the world but no more permanent than a wave breaking on shore. It’s all real but it’s not real, too. All of it is like passing clouds. (I learned that in a Tai Chi class.) I looked up to admire some passing clouds. All I saw was thick fog.

The waves rolled in, over and over, the roar of the water filling my ears. Fully relaxed, I fell asleep. On the beach. In a blue jacket and an orange hat, sitting upright in a chair.

No one cared. Certainly not the Pacific Ocean, which had yet to notice that I was there. Or even to notice that I exist at all. I love that about the sea.

The wind was up again, and my eyes were damp. I said goodbye to the whales, the sharks, the molas, the translucent jellies – everything you don’t see when you stare at the sea. I said goodbye to the waves, which kept rolling in.

When I returned to the car, I requested that Pavarotti sing “Nessun Dorma.” He did. Three times.

It was hypnotic.

Beth and Judy's Excellent Adventure

2011-08-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

We hit the highs and the lows (in terms of elevation), we happened upon a new culinary obsession and we spent as much time on the water as I could manage during Beth and Judy’s visit to San Francisco. Also, they get now why I committed post-season treason last year, forsaking the Cardinals to become a Giants fan, and they know why I want to run away and join a circus.

Our first stop was the top of Twin Peaks, two adjacent hilltops with an elevation of about 920 feet that provides a panoramic view of all the magic here. Twin Peaks is in the center of the city, just above my apartment. (You can see my house from there!) We didn’t walk up – though many people do, all the time. I’m working on that, a couple of blocks at a time.

Our first boat trip was a cruise of San Francisco Bay on the Red and White Fleet, which takes you out under the majestic Golden Gate Bridge and back, circling Alcatraz on the way. Last time I did this, with Cheri, we got wet from the spray because we were on a small fishing boat. This trip was far more sedate, which keeps you dry -- but does limit the fun factor.

Another day, we boarded the Duck, an amphibious vehicle driven by a big-hearted, wild and crazy guy who sports a Mohawk and wears a fake beard in homage to Brian Wilson, the Giants’ legendary closer. It’s fun to rock out to the music the driver plays on the ride through town and to watch people on the street break out in smiles and even dance moves, but the best part is when the Duck heads into the water and takes you out to McCovey Cove. That’s where all those people sit in kayaks or on party boats during ball games, hoping for a splash homer. Passengers get to drive the Duck in the cove, and that’s fun, too.

Other bodies of water we visited include the serene Bolinas Lagoon, an 1100-acre tidal estuary that reflects the sky. Just as Judy and Beth were lulled by the beauty of the lagoon, I told them what lies directly below the water: The San Andreas Fault. Then it was north to Tomales Bay, a 15-mile-long inlet (see photo above) with gorgeous views. Small restaurants featuring oysters and al fresco dining dot the road, while hawks and turkey vultures wheel overhead. Beautiful!

We rejected oysters and opted instead for open-face grilled cheese sandwiches made at the Cowgirl Creamery. These heavenly cheese toasties, as they are called, start with a thick slice of hearty bread, toasted and then topped with maple mustard, caramelized onions and the company’s Cabot Clothbound Cheddar cheese. A quick trip under the broiler and voila – a mouth-watering sandwich that haunts your dreams for days to come.

We first tried toasties at the Sidekick, the Cowgirl Creamery’s restaurant counter at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. There, the clerk was willing to top the toastie with pancetta. In Point Reyes Station, where we ordered our second round of toasties, pancetta was not permitted. Yesterday, after a ferry ride to an art festival (sea glass jewelry, colorful Polish pottery, fine metal work, intriguing etchings, excellent photography and a glass of sparkling wine with Emmeline Craig at her booth) in Tiburon, I actually ordered yet another toastie. I ate half and then, simply stuffed, handed the box with the second slice to a homeless guy across the street. He was thrilled.

Other great meals here included upscale Mexican at Colibri just off Union Square (we just said no to the $10 caipirinhas), coffee and scrumptious peanut butter cookies at Café Reverie in Cole Valley, a Le Sol pizza from Bambino’s and homemade lasagna and spinach salad at my house prior to a Scrabble game in real time, which now seems harder than playing on Facebook.

We did just a bit of shopping – fine art at Emmeline Craig’s studio in Bolinas, dried pears and a whale tail tee-shirt at Toby’s in Point Reyes Station, tie-dye socks at the Haight Street Sock Shop in Haight-Ashbury, new Keens for Judy at the Sports Basement near the Presidio and new boots for Judy at the Merrell store in Union Square. A few blocks from Pier 39, we popped in at the Musee Mechanique, which houses more than 300 player pianos, mechanical animations and novelty slot machines. That was magical on a small scale.

“Maestro’s Enchantment,” the current show at Teatro ZinZanni, was magical on a much grander scale – plus, Susan joined us for the evening. ZinZanni is a bit Cirque du Soleil, a bit cabaret, a bit comedy club and a gourmet five-course meal, which all adds up to a wondrous theatrical evening. The headliner right now is Yevgeniy Voronin, a world-class illusionist who I saw at the show in 2003, when Joan Baez played Madame ZinZanni. Maybe Voronin recognized me as a groupie, maybe not, but this time he came to our table, kissed my hand and slipped me a little note.

Relax -- it was not a personal note, or even an invitation to join the troupe, though 15 minutes into the show, I had already decided I want to work there. I’ll keep you posted.

Heading for 90

2011-08-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

“Clear a place in the sand for me where I can hide my head.”

That’s from a poem I started during disturbing times several years ago. I never added to that first line, as it seemed to say it all. Now that I have decided not to go for genetic counseling to learn whether I have a gene identified with a higher risk of breast cancer, I thought at first that the line from my poem may apply.

Some background: I have had breast cancer twice, in 1995 and in 2009. I’m the first in my family. We have always specialized in other insidious diseases, but not breast cancer. Anyway, I’m fine now and “heading for 90,” as my kind-hearted surgeon advised me almost two years ago.

A week ago, I interviewed a doctor for a freelance article on Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, which is in September. He works where my St. Louis doctors work, and I asked him if he knew them. He did. I said that these fine individuals had cared for me both times I had breast cancer. This doctor, a geneticist and gynecologic surgeon, then told me that with a history of two primary breast cancers, one when I was 47, I meet the national criteria for genetic counseling and possible screening to see if I carry genes associated with breast cancer.

Last Monday, I made an appointment for genetic counseling. You supply your full health history and that of your family, and at the appointment, the counselor helps you decide whether to schedule the $3,000 blood test that tells you about your genetic makeup. Depending on your level of risk, insurance may pay for the test.

Next I contacted my doctors in St. Louis, who said they doubt I have the gene. I contacted my oncologist in San Francisco, who said she doubts that I have the gene -- but apologized for not informing me about the option of genetic counseling and screening, as I do indeed meet the criteria.

Next came a couple of days floundering in the waters of uncertainty.

Intellectually, I was intrigued with the idea of genetic screening. After all, knowledge is power. Emotionally, I was already viewing the counseling appointment as a black cloud in my future. What if the counselor recommended screening? What if the screening showed I have the gene? What would I do with that information? What would the information mean for my future?

When you have experienced the elemental fear that a cancer diagnosis brings, you tend to get anxious about anything associated with it, including the annual mammogram and routine follow-up visits with the oncologist. That deep-seated anxiety, always at hand, sometimes spills over into other areas of life, so you have to be vigilant about not walking on eggs. Life is more fun when you break all the eggs and whip up some French toast, omelets or a quiche with bacon and onions.

I pondered what genetic screening might mean to me, to my son and his wife, to future generations. I talked to friends, including other cancer survivors. I read Dr. Bruce Lipton’s “The Biology of Belief,” a book about epigenetics, which is the study of genetic changes caused by environment, rather than DNA. I considered the odds of having to hear what could be soul-sapping information.

Then I remembered: I don’t do odds.

When I co-authored “Chemotherapy & Radiation for Dummies” and when I gave speeches all over St. Louis every year for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I always quoted Han Solo. In the first “Star Wars” movie, at one point Han Solo is trying to maneuver the dilapidated X-wing fighter through a field of asteroids. Ever helpful, C3PO starts to rattle off the odds of the plane making it through the field.

Han Solo turns to the droid and yells, “Don’t tell me the odds! NEVER tell me the odds!”

In this very blog, two years ago when I was trying to sell the condo and move to San Francisco, I wrote: “I do not have fulfilling relationships with numbers, especially scary numbers, so why learn them? If you learn them, won’t they just flit around in your brain and drive you crazy?”

In defense of numbers, I like knowing that 76 percent of Baby Boomers worry about money and that one in four seniors struggles with poverty -- so says the AARP. That means when I fret about money, I’m behaving normally for my generation. Worrying about numbers related to cancer risk is something altogether different.

No matter what a genetic screening test may show, I am aware every day that I have already had breast cancer twice. I also am aware that a woman who is 65 today has a 50-50 chance of living to 85. And I know that worrying about money causes stress and that stress sets up a bad environment for genes -- and that could prompt disease. Do I really need to know anything more?

As I stood at the bus stop on my hill late last week, I was blasted with chilly 25-mph winds from the ocean, which is just three miles from my apartment. “Blow away the worry,” I yelled at the wind. (Odd behavior is not just tolerated in San Francisco. It’s standard.) I added, “Blow away the worry and the fear and the obsession with all numbers!”

Friday night, I decided to cancel the appointment for genetic counseling. I also decided I will not accept any more writing assignments that deal with cancer. This morning, I realized that these decisions have nothing to do with hiding my head in the sand.

This is all about heading for 90.

Power Out, Spanish On

2011-08-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

When the power went out suddenly today, I quickly shut down my computer, where I was in the middle of writing a newspaper article. I called my upstairs neighbor to ask about his service, got the number for PG&E from him, called and reported the outage and let everyone in the building know the time estimate for restored power.

Then I put on underwear and shoes. Was I expecting the building to be evacuated? I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea to get out of my pajamas (my usual work ensemble) and look better.

Once properly attired, I decided to dust, in preparation for a small dinner party here on Thursday. Usually, I dust at night. I call it Dusting in the Dark, and it works. In spite of the power outage, it is not at all dark in the apartment – the sun is shining and my huge wall of windows allows in plenty of light. I could only hope I would dust as efficiently as I do in the dark.

So I dusted. I emptied the dishwasher. I cleaned the kitchen counters. I rounded up trash. I did not try to clean the glass shelves in the bathroom, because there is no window in that room and even I do not dust in total darkness.

Now the apartment looks swell and I would like to get back to work, but without power, the desktop is dead. Thank goodness for the laptop! I can at least (at last) put together a blog entry, which at least two regular readers have been clamoring for.

What have you been doing, they asked. Working. Playing.

And learning Spanish on the bus.

I love the Muni bus system here. I can go anywhere, have a great time and be dropped off at my door a few hours later. Traveling by bus does take time, especially on three-bus trips, but so what? One trip, even a trip calling for three buses or streetcars or trolleys or subways, costs $2. I will not have to park when I get where I am going, and I will not lose the sweet parking spot I have for my car. Oh, I do drive -- from time to time. Six weeks ago, I spent $36 on gas, and I still don’t need to fill up.

Besides, I am learning Spanish on the bus.

(A quick digression here – when I saw the sign reading “pozole” at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, I didn’t need any translation. When I had surgery almost two years ago, my friend Diane Duke Williams made pozole (aka posole) for me and ever since, it has been my favorite soup. The restaurant does a great job at it (and Diane, alas, is far away) so I have informed the Hispanic chef that I would dine on pozole every day if it were on the menu that often.)

Anyway, most of the signs on the buses are in several languages, so the English translation is readily at hand. One familiar sign dictates that the front seats be vacated for seniors and people with disabilities. “It’s the law,” reads the sign.

That’s “Es ley” in Spanish.

I was on a bus (not in a front seat, as plenty of older people were on the bus that day) when I saw my favorite sign. The sign is in the window of a large discount clothing store that closed some time ago. “Show your style,” reads the sign. Underneath, it is translated into Spanish: “Anuncia tu estilo!”

That’s even more fun in Spanish than in English.

Anuncia tu estilo!

That ought to be a ley.

Salt in My Ears

2011-07-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

We really meant to have just one – but that’s not what happened.

Cheri is in town again, visiting her son and daughter-in-law and granddaughters. Regular readers will recall she was last here in January (see the Jan. 26 post), and we had a great time then. So even though mornings lately have been foggy and drippy and chilly, I was up and out early, off to catch a string of buses.

We met at the San Francisco Maritime Museum (part of the National Park Service – see www.nps.gov/safr/index.htm) and meandered through a new exhibit on historic maps. I always tell people that every place I’ve been, Captain Cook got to first, and the exhibit confirmed that.

Then we headed for the Hyde Street Pier, aka the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park (also part of the Park Service). Along the way, we looked for my favorite tie-dye street vendor, named Blue, but we had missed him.

For just $5 (free if you have a Golden Eagle park pass), you can board a series of historic vessels permanently docked at the pier. We meandered all over the Balclutha, a three-masted, steel-hulled, square-rigged ship that carried cargo all over the world, including 17 trips around Cape Horn. Launched in 1886 near Glasgow, Scotland, the Balclutha required a crew of 26 – some of them as young as 15 or 16.

We walked through the Eureka, a side-wheel ferry built in 1890 that used to transport people from San Francisco to Sausalito. The ferry bears a sign that reads: Highway 101, because it was the only way to get from here to there. The ferry was full of old cars, trucks and chocolate wagons that belonged to Ghiradelli Company. (Foreshadowing…) We also admired some of the smaller boats.

We popped into the park’s gift shop. It’s a great little store, with wonderful shirts, and they also “Moby Dick,” both Melville’s original and the pop-up version. Then we headed for the Buena Vista

(www.thebuenavista.com/home/home.html), where they have been serving Irish coffee since 1952.

Not to me, of course, or Cheri.

She had never been there, and I was there just once before, some 29 years ago, on an unforgettable evening. Let’s just say I took part in an Irish Coffee Standoff with some co-workers, and remarkably, I do recall the rest of the rowdy evening.

Anyway, the idea was that since Cheri likes coffee and my ancestors are from Ireland, we would pop in and have one Irish coffee each. Once we got a great table in a window, we decided to stay for lunch. I opted for a crabmeat omelet with fresh crabmeat and Swiss cheese. It would have been an excellent omelet but for the bits of horrid orange polyester tomato. Cheri had a different sort of omelet, one with bacon – it looked great.

The coffees came. We toasted our families and ourselves, and we drank. ‘Ohhhh – I like this,” Cheri said. Yep! So we ate and drank and laughed and ate some more. We really meant to have just one Irish coffee, but we decided to have another for dessert. It was equally tasty.

Then it was off to the Buena Vista Gift Shop, where I felt compelled to buy a teensy bottle of Tullamore Dew, a fine Irish whiskey I first tasted in 1971. Next we found ourselves in the Ghiradelli gift shop. No – not “the” – but one of the half dozen or so on that block. Next, we popped in at a number of shops selling San Francisco souvenirs. Cheri bought a shirt. I escaped without buying anything. Except the whiskey and chocolate, of course.

Walking along, we saw a sign that read “$15: Boat Tours of the Bay.” I know a bit about boat tours of the Bay. Farther down the block, at Pier 39, the trips are $30-$40. “Let’s go,” I said. "This is a good deal." Cheri laughed and said we really didn’t need to get on a boat.

Oh, but we did. A few minutes later, we were scrambling down the ladder, the last two passengers on the Silver Fox, which has a double life as a fishing boat and tour boat. The Silver Fox goes out in the Bay, under the Golden Gate Bridge, around Alcatraz and back to the pier.

Today, the waves were frisky, the ride was bouncy and we all got wet from the spray. Not soaked, but more than damp. We saw cormorants, a pelican, murres, gulls and a fur seal. A guy on the boat said he saw a dolphin, but it may have been a harbor porpoise. We also saw half a dozen people windsurfing (aka kitesurfing and sailboarding), including one guy who was riding our wake.

What a great day! Maps, boats, ships, crabmeat, Irish coffee, and a boat trip in the Bay with Cheri, my friend for 51 years.

The bonus? Salt in my ears as a souvenir of the trip.

Sight-seeing in S.F. with Friends

2011-06-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent two days in Yosemite National Park, which is twice the time most people allot to that remarkable destination. This week, I spent three days showing San Francisco to friends, and the itinerary we planned together provided maximum exposure to my new home.

Susan and Denny and Deb and Bill had all been here before and had no interest in making the stops that many first-time visitors insist on, so we divided up the three days we had together this way: Day One was My San Francisco, Day Two was West Marin and Day Three was High Culture, offset a bit by riding buses everywhere we went.

Here is a report on the highlights.

MONDAY: We held our Welcome Dinner at Ragazza, a terrific pizza place where it is difficult to get in after 7 p.m. Fortunately, my visitors’ bodies were still operating on Central Daylight Time, so eating early was an excellent idea. I can vouch for the pie topped with thin-sliced potato, smoked bacon, red onion, rosemary and goat cheese.

TUESDAY: We started at the top of Twin Peaks to take in the near-panoramic view of San Francisco. Next we enjoyed a drive-by of lovely Crissy Field and stopped for beverages and cookies at the Warming Hut, which is thisclose to the Golden Gate Bridge. At Land’s End, we sat in the sun and contemplated life on the edge of the continent, which is also the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The water is at least three colors -- and maybe five. After a short drive to Fort Funston, we sat in the sun some more, watching waves wash ashore and pelicans fly in formation.

After lunch at the Beach Chalet, we waved at the bison housed in Golden Gate Park. In the Botanical Garden, we sat in the shade of coastal redwood trees and later spied turtles sunning themselves in a pond. At cocktail hour, we ambled into Finnegan’s Wake in Cole Valley, a bar once frequented by Janis Joplin. Then we walked to Haight-Ashbury, where we popped in at The Sock Shop, perused the merchandise at Pipe Dreams (the oldest head shop in the neighborhood) and sampled chocolates at Coco Luxe. After dinner at Bambino’s, we headed back to Twin Peaks to watch the sky make art at sunset. Bonus: A 99-percent full moon was on the rise.

WEDNESDAY: First thing, we headed north across the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped to breathe in the fresh sea air at the Muir Beach Overlook, cruised through Stinson Beach, drove around Bolinas Lagoon (Sea lions! Egrets! Herons!) and then stopped to visit the studio of a friend – Emmeline Craig, a watercolorist who lives and works in Bolinas. After driving through the cow-filled Olema Valley, we stopped in Point Reyes Station for lunch.

After a stop at the Bear Valley Visitors Center, we headed for Limantour Beach, said to be the prettiest of the beaches at Point Reyes National Seashore. On the beach, we sat and soaked up the scenery, the sounds, the salt-sea air. On the drive home, we enjoyed the serenity of the towering redwoods in Samuel P. Taylor State Park. I dropped off my friends, who had dinner at Ziryab -- a great Mediterranean restaurant – and I headed home to relax and once again bind up wounds suffered in a fall at Twin Peaks the day before. (No point in going into details and spoiling this travelogue!)

THURSDAY: We met at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. First we rode to the top of the glassed-in tower so I could say, “I should be able to see my house from here.” Then we visited “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris,” an exciting exhibition of more than 100 works of art. Yes, Picasso was a pig – we spent part of lunch trying to sort out how many wives and how many mistresses he admitted to – but he was clearly a genius. We split up briefly to see other works of art. (I opted to walk through “Balenciaga and Spain,” where I learned that Balenciaga was apprenticed to a tailor at the age of 13.)

After lunch in the museum’s café, we all boarded a bus to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where we were eager to see “The Steins Collect,” an exhibition of works by Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and others – all collected by Gertrude Stein and her family members back when you could pick up a Picasso for $25. The art was astonishing, as were the family photos, including one taken one evening when Matisse came to dinner. What a thrill to see these two exhibitions on the same day! (I still must get to the Contemporary Jewish Museum to see “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories.”)

After a rest in the shade and then a rest in the sun at MOMA’s Rooftop Sculpture Garden and coffee bar, we stopped for pre-dinner drinks at a different sort of bar and then we boarded the F Streetcar for Teatro Zinzanni, where nothing is ever as it seems – but it’s always entertaining, an evening filled with feather boas for sale, good food and polished performances!

All this, punctuated with much laughter and good conversation – and yet when my friends return, they will find that San Francisco has even more to offer.

A Quick Trip to Yosemite

2011-06-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

Trees have much to teach us, and Friday I spent some time with some of the oldest, biggest trees on the planet. Meandering through the Mariposa Grove (on foot and later on the tram) in Yosemite National Park, I was in the company of Sequoiadendron giganteum – giant sequoia trees.

These trees are the biggest in volume – just one branch on the largest tree in Mariposa Grove measures seven feet in diameter -- though not height or longevity. Giant sequoias grow to an average height of 160–280 feet and measure an average of 20 to 26 feet in diameter. The oldest known giant sequoia was said to be 3,500 years old.

We looked at intact trees, fallen trees, trees with split trunks, trees with hollow trunks (you can step inside and see blue sky above) and two trees that are conjoined, covered in a singular bark. We looked at tall trees with names (Grizzly Giant, Clothespin Tree, Galen Clark Tree) and we looked at nameless sprouts, just getting started.

We also looked at trees marked forever with what the guide called “fire scars,” blackened areas left behind after the trees withstood the heat of raging fires. Lightning caused some of those fires, some took place as part of forest management and careless humans started some of the fires. The fire scars are testament to the strength -- and the good fortune -- of the surviving trees, which are still standing, still rustling in the wind, still warming themselves in the sun.

After learning about these majestic trees, I feel a lot better about my scars, external and internal. How about you?

Actually, enlightenment was not on my list of things to experience on my quick trip to Yosemite National Park on Thursday and Friday. I went to see the waterfalls, gushing full and furiously with snowmelt. I went to commune with Yosemite Valley, which John Muir said looks like “some immense hall or temple lighted from above.” (He added, “But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite.”) And I went to get away (oh the irony) from one of the top tourist destinations in the United States and my home for almost a year now – San Francisco.

From my door to the Yosemite Valley floor took five hours, and that included one highway backup and two stops. The next day, I came home. In all, I drove 501 miles. I spent the night at the Yosemite Bed and Breakfast outside Mariposa. The B&B is lovely, especially quiet and restful after the crowds and traffic in Yosemite Valley, which in some ways was not unlike being in downtown San Francisco – until you looked up.

Still, the thunderous roar of the waterfalls, the grandeur of the granite and the ancient trees, scars and all, made the trip completely worthwhile. Also, much of the drive from the park to Mariposa follows the racing Merced River, a river I would follow any day. And once in town, Savoury’s serves bacon-wrapped dates, grilled shrimp and good crusty bread.

Though wildflowers are late this year due to a chilly, rainy spring, some lupine was showing off along the drive, and around one bend was a hillside of delicate pink flowers. I imagined painting them. I remembered that I can’t draw, much less paint. Then I imagined painting them anyway.

Other highlights along the way (in no particular order) include:

· The Altamont Pass Wind Farm 40 miles east of Oakland, with 4,930 wind turbines twirling atop grassy yellow hills.

· A roadside stand in Big Oak Flat (pop. 200) named “Tie Dye and Jerky.” That is exactly what’s for sale.

· The first view of Don Pedro Lake, a reservoir in a beautiful canyon carved by the Tuolumne River.

· A sign advertising “Tequila Tuesdays” at a bar outside Oakdale. (Rats, it was a Thursday.)

· Roadside fruit and nut stands near Escalon, which features miles of orchards. At The Barn, owner Denise Crom displays a “produce prayer flag” made of brightly colored fabric squares depicting fresh produce of all sorts.

· A turkey sandwich on rye from Dori’s Tea Cottage in Groveland, a charming place just down the road from a sign announcing “Church Meets in the Park Every Sunday at 10:30 a.m.”

All this – and trees with important lessons to teach!

In honor of the giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park, I hope you will consider helping support all 394 national parks, reserves and monuments by making a donation to the National Park Foundation at www.nationalparks.org.

Just Another Day

2011-05-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

The parade of leather-bedecked S&M fans (including the domineering and the dominated) was just one highlight of a much-needed vacation day that turned into one adventure after another, including driving an amphibious vehicle in McCovey Cove, talking with another cancer survivor on a bench in Union Square and quacking like a duck. Wait – I forgot the Italian potstickers!

The day started with a plan – a trip to North Beach to soak up the atmosphere in the historic City Lights Books, a spot I first visited so long ago that I can’t remember when it was. In any case, the store has three floors of books, with three or four chairs in each room and signs that encourage customers to sit and read. In the Poet’s Room, another sign reads: “We’re sort of a library that sells books.”

Even though I got rid of 46 boxes of books before moving to San Francisco, even though I have (and really like) a Kindle, even though I have vowed not to bring home books, I bought one – Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “San Francisco Poems.” So be it.

Next I went to the Beat Museum (www.thebeatmuseum.org/index.html) to commune with the spirits of the people I used to quote in high school and college and still admire immensely. Owner and curator Jerry Cimino was there, and we compared Baby Boomer backgrounds and the influence the beat poets had on both of us.

Long live the works of Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Corso!

Cimino recommended Calzone’s, just up the street, for lunch – what a great idea. The owner has developed Italian potstickers – steamed wontons filled with Italian sausage, wild mushrooms and spices. Yum! The arugula salad with garbanzo beans, sun-dried tomatoes and Point Reyes blue cheese was good too. Then I popped into a chocolate shop for a free taste of fudge and bought a bear claw – pecans and caramel drizzled with dark chocolate. (It later melted in the sun, alas.)

Next I boarded a bus heading for Union Square, where I planned to catch the Muni train home – but the sun was shining and people were sitting out, basking in it, so I decided to join them. I eavesdropped on an elderly Indian gentleman telling fortunes (he had a line of customers waiting). Then I bought an iced latte and sat down on a bench near a man who turned out to be a classical music reviewer for the Berkshire Review. (See http://berkshirereview.net/) We talked about music, fashion, food and living in San Francisco – and we also compared Baby Boomer backgrounds and the influence the 60s had on both of us.

Then, with little advance planning, I bought a ticket and hopped on a “duck” (http://sanfrancisco.ridetheducks.com/home) because it was a perfect day to be on the water. It was the last trip of the day, and there were just three of us – a Canadian couple originally from South Africa and me. The driver was especially chatty, and we all compared stories. We headed into the water just south of the ballpark – and then the driver let us take turns steering the duck!

That was exciting -- but that was only the beginning.

On the way back to Union Square, Captain Duck Rogers drove us along the Embarcadero. He knows everybody and everybody knows him, so as we cruised (on land by now) in the open-air duck through the popular tourist area, people waved and smiled – but not just the Captain’s friends. He played “We Are Family” and got people on the streets singing, clapping, even dancing along. As we drove through North Beach, he played songs in Italian. In Chinatown, he played “I Will Survive” in Chinese. People at sidewalk cafes, people shopping in the markets, even people at bus stops, heard us first and then joined in. All along the route, Captain Rogers called out, “Happy Friday the 13^th” to one and all.

It was a rowdy ride, and that felt great!

The N Muni train was crowded – and considerably more sedate -- when I got on at the Powell Street Station. But just past the Church and Duboce stop, those of us looking north saw the S&M parade, which consisted of about 20 people. Maybe this is a regular event on Fridays, or maybe we were just lucky. No one on the N said a word, not even the people who were stretching for a better look. This parade took place just two days before Bay to Breakers (http://zazzlebaytobreakers.com/), a 12k footrace that is the talk of the town. “People run in costume. People run naked. And a lot of the people run drunk,” said Captain Rogers when he filled us in on things to do this weekend.

What a day!

My last Runaway Day was two weekends ago, when I spent much of Saturday driving in West Marin, driving through beach towns (one has a bakery and a Goddess Shop), driving through hilly pastures (wondering if cows ever blow over in the gusty wind), driving to Drake’s Beach on the Point Reyes Peninsula (home of a sand sculpture contest) and driving through redwoods in Samuel P. Taylor State Park (where green equals serene). I only drove 120 miles round trip, and it was a remarkable day, filled with unexpected pleasures -- including turkey vultures that swooped low over the car.

I live here! And believe it or not, I’ve been here almost 11 months!

Serendipitous Adventures in San Francisco

2011-04-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

Giants' Opening Day: April 8, 2011

At Walgreen’s this afternoon, I overheard the young man behind the counter tell another worker that he is a big Giants’ fan but his favorite baseball player is Albert Pujols.

I get that, so I spoke up.

Regular readers may recall in the November 4 blog post I confessed to committing post-season treason, having come under the spell of the feisty, freaky Giants after moving here. And yet after a 50-year relationship with the Cardinals, I have some tender feelings for them as well.

I told the young man at Walgreen's that a week ago, I bought a ticket on StubHub to the Giants’ home opener, on April 8, against the Cardinals. Okay, I paid about what I used to pay for a winter coat at Marshall’s when I was working full time, but I paid because I really wanted to be at that game. I just couldn't imagine enjoying it on television when all the excitement was taking place only four miles away.

Yesterday morning, the forecast called for 56 degrees and 15-25 mph winds. The ballpark sits in a cove, right on the water. I put on the following: A black cami, a long-sleeved black t-shirt, a long-sleeved black sweatshirt, my Tim Lincecum t-shirt, my whale-watching long johns, fleece-lined wind-proof leggings, black wool sock liners, fuzzy orange socks, one baseball earring and one Cardinal earring. I topped it all off with a fleece jacket and packed a wool scarf, wool gloves, a fleece headband and a wool hat.

That, dear Cardinals fans, is what it takes to feel comfortable at a ballgame in San Francisco. I felt great – even when I discovered I was in the very last row. Before I made the climb, I thought it might be like dangling from the blimp, but it was just fine. Nice people were on either side of me, no one was in front of me (just the long stairs leading down) and I was directly above home plate. I could see the entire park, the party boats in the cove and seafaring container ships entering and leaving, guided by tugs.

I teared up when the Cards took the field. I teared up when the Giants took the field. I loved it all, right up until the 11th inning, when Tony wouldn't let the Cards pitch to any of the Giants and the Giants’ pitchers (and we saw a lot of them) couldn’t seem to catch a break from the umpire, whose strike zone was all over the place. I know better, but I left the game – and I had a lot of company. On the Muni, we all cheered when a guy on his phone called out that the Giants won in the 12th inning.

You might think eight hours of baseball was enough (I left the apartment at 10:30 a.m. and got home at 7 p.m.), but I watched the last inning on the TIVO recording.

Of course I didn't tell the young man at Walgreen's all that, but we did talk about some highlights -- and there were many. To encourage him to continue to talk to customers, especially old women who usually are ignored in stores, later today I went back to Walgreen's and gave this same young man the 2011 Giants calendar that I received at the ballpark yesterday. He was thrilled.

To backtrack a bit: On that first walk to Walgreen's, I encountered a sidewalk sale. Diane and John were selling books, shelves and some of Diane’s clothing because she recently retired. As it happens, Diane and I have the same taste. She had my favorite brands – Flax, We Be Bop, Blue Fish and a designer I didn’t know but who clearly knows me. There on the corner I removed my fleece jacket and my San Francisco sweatshirt and tried on some of the outfits. No one walking by paid any attention – except the two other short, round women who stopped to try on clothes too.

One more magic moment to report on: Wednesday, I went with my friends Nancy and Betty-Lou to dinner at the home of two of their dearest friends. The company, the food and the conversation all were terrific, plus there was a bonus.

A redwood tree with six thick trunks grows right alongside the wooden deck in the long, narrow backyard. I learned that in the mid-1940s, someone who lived in the house brought home a tiny redwood sprout in a small cup and planted it, probably expecting nothing. What grew was private redwood forest that towers high over the house.

I went out on the deck for a minute to pay homage to the tree -- yet another serendipitous adventure here in my amazing new hometown.

Bravo Baseball, Ballet, Sunshine and Italian Food

2011-04-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Walking the perimeter at AT&T park at a Giants’ pre-season exhibition game, I popped in at Orlando’s Caribbean BBQ. Not for a crab cake or barbecue – I eat burnt hot dogs at ballparks, embracing all three known carcinogens just once a year.

I stopped in because after the ad for the eatery came up on the JumboTron, a vague memory unpacked itself from a box in the dusty attic of my past and presented me with a vision of a large Cardinals button that read, “Bravo, Bravo El Birdo!”

Orlando Cepeda, it seemed to me, had come up with the phase that led to the button.

“Sir,” I said to a smiling middle-aged fellow at the barbecue joint, “Wasn’t Orlando Cepeda a Cardinal at one time and didn’t he call his team ‘El Birdos’?“ The man considered my question.

“No,” he said. “He was never a Birdo. You are thinking of Albert Pujols.”

I was not thinking in any way of Albert Pujols, but I thanked the man and continued on my walking tour. (It was okay to be away from the action for a bit – there wasn’t any until the last 10 minutes of this particular game against Oakland.) When I got home, flushed with Giants Fever, I looked up Orlando Cepeda on line.

This Hall of Famer played for the Giants from 1958 to 1966 and then moved to the Cardinals, where he helped the Redbirds win the World Series in 1967 and the pennant the next year. Furthermore, Cepeda did nickname the Cardinals “El Birdos,” and his teammates called him “Cha Cha.” In 1967, Cepeda was elected as the National League MVP, the first unanimous selection for the award ever made.

In 1967 – San Francisco’s (in)famous “Summer of Love” -- I was 19. Bob Gibson was the Cardinal Pitcher Extraordinaire, and the roster also included Tim McCarver (now an erudite broadcaster), Roger Maris, Curt Flood, Lou Brock, Julien Javier, Dal Maxvill and Mike Shannon (the much-loved St. Louis broadcaster).

And somewhere in the apartment is my “Bravo, Bravo El Birdo!” button. Maybe. No disrespect to Albert Pujols, of course.

“Bravo” was on the tip of my tongue in another context this week when I went to see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in Berkeley. Founded in 1958, this is a company I have seen four or five times, dating back to the early ‘80s. I think I may even have reviewed a performance or two for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

As always, the performance Tuesday night was glorious, visually compelling and emotionally rewarding. And as always, “Revelations” – first produced in 1960 – brought down the house, with audience members all the way to the back row (where we sat) applauding and begging for more.

Another highlight this week (besides the Southern California weather visiting here in Northern California) was an outstanding plate of spaghetti and meatballs at Osteria, where I was invited to celebrate Susan’s birthday with her lifelong friends. Usually, I have the salmon, but this dish appealed and did not disappoint.

Baseball, ballet, balmy days and meatballs – perfect!

Delights: Artistic, Culinary, Domestic, and Meteorological

2011-03-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

What a week!

First, the artistic experience: Went to the de Young Museum Wednesday with Betty-Lou and Nancy to see Bouquets to Art, some 150 floral arrangements spread throughout the museum, all designed by florists and garden clubs to interpret or complement art in the museum’s collection.

The floral homage to Superman was the funniest. A crowd favorite was a small dog, made completely of plants and flowers, with drooping petals for ears. Some arrangements were inspired, even breathtaking. Some were confusing. Some, I think I could have done myself in a free afternoon. Or maybe not.

Then it was off to Bursa in West Portal for a shrimp kebob, wonderful creamy hummus and a HUGE glass of my beloved Zinfandel. What a great place! More glorious food on Thursday, when Susan called to say she was inviting the family over for corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day.

Alas – I was the only one who could make it, but what a wonderful evening! One moment of panic on the bus, where everyone – Asians, African Americans, Caucasians – was wearing green except me. I had on my blue San Francisco sweatshirt and jeans. Oops! On the other hand, I wear my face every day, and it has Irish tendencies, to be sure.

Susan had set the table with a green and white tablecloth and napkins, yellow tulips, a wee flag of Ireland, a shamrock garland and assorted St. Pat’s Day trinkets. The place looked great but the décor was quickly overshadowed by the food. Oh – the food! Mouth-watering corned beef, a colorful mixture of boiled vegetables (pass me another potato, please) and the best Irish soda bread I’ve ever had in or outside of Ireland.

We swapped stories of our Irish heritage, toasted our native counties, and spoke of our mutual desire to go to Ireland with our children to introduce them to the culture. (Considering I can’t get anybody to go to Disneyland with me, getting to the Emerald Isle may not happen either.) Then I do believe we sang a bit of “Danny Boy.”

All this – and Susan sent me home with plenty of leftovers. In 24 hours, I have devoured my weight in Irish soda bread, toasted and smeared with butter and apricot preserves. I didn’t mean to pig out, yet my waking thought this morning was, “I must have Irish soda bread for breakfast.” It tastes like cake.

How good is this bread? It’s so good that I have asked Susan to make Irish soda bread for my birthday instead of a cake. I made my legendary tiramisu for her birthday, and for the first time in a long time, it turned out “tiramisoupy,” runny instead of custardy. Susan’s son, Michael, kindly said maybe an atmospheric difference between San Francisco and St. Louis caused it. Then he gamely spooned out a serving. I have no idea, but will give it another go.

On the Domestic Delights scene, after much research (on line, on the phone and in the form of actual driving expeditions), I decided what cookware to buy to replace mine, which was unsuited for the radiant glass cooktop on my lovely stove, which was delivered just days before I moved into the apartment. The cookware I brought to San Francisco was deemed likely to scratch the cooktop, and the worst-case scenario had it overheating and fusing to the glass.

No, really! I talked to the people who made the stove and the people who made the cookware and I read accounts by people who had experienced just such upsetting events.

Anyway, I headed out in the car Wednesday morning, determined to buy one particular product. When I got to the store I changed my mind -- downsizing the dollars spent but still choosing lovely cookware that will not harm my stove. I left the mall through a back entrance and promptly got lost.

Looking up and down streets to get my bearings, I noticed really enthusiastic waves, waves I knew needed to see up close. My new cookware and I headed west until I reached the Great Highway, with the churning water just beyond. I parked and scrambled up the sand – it was magnificent! I waved to migrating gray whales (I couldn't see them, but I know they saw me) and headed back to the car.

As though crashing waves weren’t enough excitement, this morning a funnel dropped from a cloud and played splish-splash just off Ocean Beach. I didn’t see it in person, but this video is fun: http://sfist.com/2011/03/18/video_small_cloud_funnel_touches_do.php

Technically, a funnel cloud over water is called a waterspout, known as a “non-supercell tornado over water.” Still, I thought it was super. An hour later, tiny balls of ice pelted my wall of windows – hail! And tonight we had a thunderstorm, with great flashes of lightning and pouring rain. So many meteorological delights!

Of Magic 8 Balls and the Oscars

2011-02-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

Remember those Magic 8 Balls -- the Mattel toy that pretended to tell the future? You would ask a yes-or-no question, turn the ball in your hand and peek in the cloudy window to see your answer. Usually, the answer made no sense whatsoever.

Magic 8 Balls were developed in 1950. They are out, over, now merely nostalgic souvenirs, sometimes found in retro shops. I haven't used one in years. Now, late at night, I sit at the computer and ask Google, “What’s the best way to get to the San Francisco airport?”

(Yes, this is crazy – but not as crazy as when I used to type, “When will the condo sell?” And “Where will I find an apartment I can afford?” And “Will the condo sell soon?)

In its way, Google is no more satisfying than the Magic 8 Ball. Does it tell me whether I should book a taxi, reserve a spot on a shuttle, drive my own car or take BART to the airport? No.

I know from experience that taxis do not always come when called. (See the Sept. 24 post.) On Yelp, I found reviews dissing every airport shuttle service in town, complaining about being stranded completely or, worse, being picked up on time but making so many stops en route to the airport that people missed their flights. Also, apparently no airport shuttle companies in town actually answer their phones.

If I drive myself – and I do trust me to leave home on time, park and make the flight – I am worried that when I get back home a couple days later, there will be no place to park my car. (See the July 21 post.) And I really don’t want to drag my bag and haul my backpack on two buses and BART. I love riding the Muni when I’m out playing or even going to appointments, but making my way to the airport on public transportation right now sounds like a drag.

Is money an issue? Yes. And no. A taxi one way will be $40-$45. A shuttle will cost $17 plus tip one way. Driving and parking will be about $70 total. Public transportation would cost $10 round trip. I’m careful about my money, especially now that Lee Enterprises (publisher of the Post-Dispatch) helps themselves to half my pension each month as payment for health insurance I was promised would be free for life. (My life, not the life of Lee’s tolerance for unions.) But I also am willing to pay for convenience, especially when traveling.

“You’re over-thinking this,” says my son. Yep. That’s how I survive. I over-think and then make a decision and move on to the next problem to be solved. I’ve been taking good care of myself since I got divorced in 1980, and I don't apologize for my methods.

Skipping merrily off to another topic here, I do apologize for setting aside this evening to watch the 83^rd Academy Awards. Thirty minutes in, shortly after the excellent Morgan Freeman’s part of the show was over, I declared on Facebook that the show sucked. Somehow it got worse as the evening went on. And then even worse.

I played a few Scrabble games on line, tried to keep myself from being drawn in to the hideously depressing world and national news in the New York Times and chatted with a friend. Okay, I also looked up more reviews of airport shuttles.

Fast-forwarding through the Oscars show, I did find myself transfixed a time or two by the statue itself because earlier this week I met two actual Oscar winners. On the mantel in their living room were two Oscars and two Emmys. Ever cool and sophisticated, when I saw the statues, I blurted, “Wow! I’m looking at Oscars and Emmys!”

The occasion, part of an incredibly kind and generous “Introduce Pat to Our Friends” project undertaken by old friend Nancy and new friend Betty-Lou, was a visit to the home of two extraordinary people, gifted filmmakers and bright, fun individuals. We sat in their kitchen, drinking tea and nibbling on outstanding fig bread and cookies, talking for hours about our lives, movies, our kids, theater, our health problems, and books.

We laughed a lot, too, most unexpectedly when I mentioned my cat. Suddenly, the couple’s two dogs raced for the back door, barking and snarling and ready to protect their property from any marauding felines. I once had a dog that knew the words “bye-bye” and “walk,” but these dogs heard “cat” and went wild. When I realized what I had said, I immediately began to refer to the cat as an iguana, an elephant, even an okapi, in hopes of calming the dogs.

Anyway, it was a wonderful afternoon of leisure and delight that nicely leavened a week otherwise full of work -- and wondering how best to get to the airport. It’s just a transportation detail. I’ll get there.

A Play Date on Saturday

2011-02-06T13:24:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning showed up clear, sunny and warm, so I hopped in the car at 10:30 and didn’t get home until close to 5 p.m. Where did I go? Everywhere – a mountain, a forest and a seaside town. All in a day.

That’s no miracle – here, it’s typical.

I look at Mount Tamalpais every day, as it is north of my wall of windows. Mt. Tam – whose profile is said to resemble a sleeping Indian maiden -- is 34 miles from San Francisco, in Marin County. The highest point is 2,571 feet. You may walk up, bike up or (thank goodness) drive right to the top. I headed for the East Peak Visitors Center, driving up a road that twists and turns for more than 10 miles at a time through redwood groves and oak woodlands.

At the top, I put on my hat, bought some fruit and nuts at a small snack bar and headed off on a paved .07-mile path marked accessible for wheelchairs. It was, but I quickly discovered that I was not entirely comfortable walking where no rail separated me from the steep drop-off. Halfway along, I sat down on a comfortable wooden bench and breathed in the beautiful day.

Graceful turkey vultures and huge ravens soared below me. I pondered how small, how like a toy, the magnificent city of San Francisco appeared. The island of Alcatraz looked as though it were idling momentarily, and would head out under full steam any minute. On the trail once again, I watched a man teach another man the sport of rock climbing. I eavesdropped as a little boy (maybe 4) told his sister (maybe 6) that he, too, would learn rock climbing when he is bigger and stronger.

Only one spot along the trail was windy, and buena vistas surrounded me: Mount Diablo to the east, the Farallon Islands to the west, my home to the south and more of Marin County to the north. I didn’t know to look for this, but I learned later that sometimes you can see the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains, some 150 miles away.

Driving back down the mountain, I saw a sign for Bolinas. I headed west, driving through silent stands of redwoods and along rolling hills decorated randomly with carpets of purple flowers. Bolinas is a seaside town of about 1,500 and the adjacent estuary laps quietly above the San Andreas Fault. The people there are described as “independent,” and they have exercised their independence by removing all signs that tell how to reach the town.

I found it, only because Charlie and I had visited Bolinas a year or more ago. I parked and strolled down the street to the edge of the land, where kids and dogs splashed in the surf and people my age sat on benches staring out to sea, enjoying the day. On the way back to the two-block-long business district, l passed an art gallery, a museum and a shop that sold locally made cotton socks and plenty of items from Thailand and Nepal.

Hungry, I took an outside table at the Coast Café, across the street from a 100-year-old saloon and hotel established in 1851. In some ways, the café seems lost in time, with stained oilcloth covering the tiny tables. The menu, however, is completely up to date, and emphasizes local produce. I ordered an omelet made with fresh local mushrooms, cheese and scallions. Then I settled in to watch people passing by – lots of people with young kids (one mom was barefoot, which didn’t look comfortable), lots of Serious Bikers in Serious Spandex, a handful of older folks.

Waiting for lunch, I glanced through the wooden trellis just to the left of my table. The trellis partly obscured a public altar to Yemanja, a goddess of the sea and an old friend of mine. Coins had been left on the altar. Everyone passing by was going along with the “Respect This Space” sign until a young couple plopped their crying baby on the altar and started rummaging through a cloth bag. I was worried that a diaper change was in the offing, but they simply retrieved a bottle and moved on. In some incarnations, Yemanja also is a protector of children, but still…

Walking to the car after my late lunch, I saw this sign: “Open Studio – Welcome.” Tucked back off the street was the door to Emmeline Craig’s one-room abode that serves as her home and her studio. A watercolorist, Craig is from Provence, France. She paints Provence but also Bolinas, where she has lived for 10 years. Her work is beautiful -- check it out at http://www.emmelinewatercolors.com.

Driving home, I passed though tiny Stinson Beach (half the size of Bolinas), waved at The Sand Dollar (where Beth and I had lunch last year), and caught glimpses of the sun sparkling on the sea. Mostly, I kept my eyes on the twisty, winding road, much like the one I took earlier in the day. What a grand Saturday!

Making Old Friendships New

2011-01-26T14:45:00.000-08:00

Cheri is coming to town.

Cheri, who lived behind the house we moved to when I was in sixth grade, Cheri who was my college roommate, Cheri who was my bridesmaid.

In the early years, we walked home from school together (except when it rained and her mom picked us up), went to the park and went to the pool. We considered our options for the future. She wanted to be a humanist-scientist (a term I think she made up), I wanted to be a writer.

We both wore the clunky desert boots that were in fashion – and they seem to be back, as I saw a pair in a shoe store window three days ago – and we wore cranberry skirts and sweaters, the hot color of the moment.

In high school, we walked home from school together (except when it rained and her mom picked us up), went to the park and the pool and played canasta for hours. Days. Weeks, even, in the summer. And we continued to consider our options for the future.

In college, we roomed together in a dorm for my junior year and her senior year. I remember discussing boys, getting drunk together on her 21^st birthday and discussing boys, some of whom wanted to be options for our future.

I remember something else. These were the dear, ancient days when girls’ dorms had random “bed checks,” to make sure all the girls were in by curfew. Seniors could check out keys and come in late. The rest of us talked friends into propping open a back door so we could sneak in after curfew.

One night, Cheri was out for the evening – most likely for the night – without a key. As I said, the bed checks were random, and should someone in authority ask where a particular girl might be, a friend could always fib and say she was on a different floor studying or sobbing in the stairwell over a lost love or in one of the “fancy” gang showers that had a tub in a private room.

But when bed checks were held, everyone was expected to be in the dorm.

One night, the Resident Adviser – a friend -- whispered to me that bed check was on the schedule that evening and I should figure out how to get Cheri back to the dorm in time. I knew where Cheri’s boyfriend lived, but I didn’t have a car. I didn’t know his phone number or even the name of his roommate, who likely had the phone listed in his name.

I did not panic. I ordered a pizza sent to Cheri’s boyfriend’s apartment, with “CALL PAT” spelled out in sausage. The pizza got delivered, the phone call came and Cheri made it back in time for bed check.

After Cheri walked down the aisle in my wedding, I moved to Oklahoma while she went on to earn her master’s degree in microbiology. She married and moved to Delaware with her husband, Tom. In some order that I do not recall, I had a child and she had four. I do remember that one of her daughters is named for Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park.

At some point maybe 25-plus years ago, I traveled to the East Coast and spent some time with Cheri and Tom and then headed for New York City. I honestly can’t recall if we have seen each other since, though we have exchanged greetings and pertinent news at the holidays. Also, Cheri was kind enough to post a glowing review of one of my books on amazon.com.

Over time, her children married and moved to different parts of the country. My son moved to San Francisco and married in 2009. As regular readers know, I moved here seven months ago. I learned last week that Cheri and Tom’s son and his family also live in San Francisco, so 50 years after we met, Cheri is coming to town.

We have a past in common. Our futures took us in different directions. Now we have a chance to share some present time with both our families. What a gift!

Another Hundred People

2011-01-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

In light of the heart-rending events that occurred last Saturday, I have been reluctant to prattle on here about the places I go, the people I see and the things I do in my new city.

Today, though, I started thinking that the many experiences we have on a day-to-day basis are life affirming, and give our lives a richer texture, and that is always worth celebrating. So with no disrespect intended to the families in Tucson who are hurting so deeply, I’ll get back to filling space in “Late to the Haight.”

Did you see Stephen Sondheim’s “Company?” In the course of my explorations, I often find myself humming “Another Hundred People” from that show, especially when I am getting off of the bus or off of the train. This “city of strangers” fascinates me. Read on!

Last Sunday, riding the bus to Susan’s, something happened that was like a small flash mob, only it was spontaneous. Four people were sitting in the front of the bus: Two older men, a college student and me. The student, a young man, was on his cell phone telling a friend that he might go see “True Grit” or “Country Strong” -- he couldn’t decide.

One of the older men, who had a serious case of bed head, looked at the young man and said, “True Grit.” The other older man, with white hair and beard, a ruddy complexion and green tennis shoes, said, “That’s right” and nodded in agreement. I chimed in too. “Yep – go see ‘True Grit.’”

The younger man looked at each of us in turn and reported to the person he was speaking to on the phone that the decision had been made for him by people on the bus, and then ended his call. Looking our way, he said, “Tell me why.” So we did.

Once that was settled, we started telling each other about ourselves. The young man, a student at Stanford, said he was the product of six generations in Hiroshima but was “mixed,” with some Italian, French, and Spanish ancestry as well. He grew up in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory of Canada. I have been to Whitehorse and said so. The man with unruly hair said that he was from Canada but had lived in Japan for several years. The other man revealed that he grew up in a town in rural Northern Ireland.

In the middle of this lively conversation, a well-dressed woman boarded the bus and sat down near us. When she heard the young man say that he attends Stanford, she asked the lot of us whether she should get her Ph.D. in anthropology at Stanford or the University of California at San Francisco. We all stopped talking and stared at her. Somehow, she did not fit in. I missed what happened next, because the bus came to my stop.

On a clear, sunny day last week I went to the beach to sit and stare at water. The wind was up and every breaking wave was topped with a frothy lace. Walking along, I came upon a tangle of 10 or more thick strands of bull kelp snarled in rope. I stared at it for a long time, half expecting the bull kelp to start wriggling. It didn’t.

On the N train heading out to the beach, I started a conversation with a dog named Pumpkin who spent part of the trip under the seat and part of the trip soliciting ear scratches from passengers. Pumpkin was quite engaging, as was her owner, a pretty red-haired woman who has lived in San Francisco all her life. In the course of our conversation, I learned that she is 38, plays in a band, and is thinking of moving to Austin. When she got off the train, she called out, “I’m also an astrologer!”

Riding home from the beach, I saw a man wearing those shoes that have toes and look like feet (http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm). He also wore silver nail polish -- an odd choice considering he had on a three-piece suit. He topped off his ensemble with a baseball cap with a great drawing of a merman on it.

Two weeks ago, while waiting for a bus back home after seeing “True Grit,” I met a woman from Peoria whose dad is a cousin of Ken Boyer, the former Cardinals player. I can’t remember how we went from talking about movies – she saw 100 in 2010 and now writes a blog about movies -- to Cardinals baseball, but when she mentioned Boyer I jumped off the bench and squealed, “I have a baseball with Kenny Boyer’s autograph on it.” Of course, I didn’t have it with me – that would’ve been too weird. Daddy got the baseball for my brother in the early ‘60s. Stan “The Man” Musial, Joe Cunningham and Lindy McDaniel also signed it.

So you don’t think I’m spending all my time with complete strangers, I need to mention that I had lunch twice recently with a woman who read my letter in Oprah's magazine last summer about picking up and moving to a new life. She's 52, from Atlanta, and thinking of doing the same thing. She spent three weeks here exploring San Francisco. If she decides to move here, this particular stranger will quickly become a friend.

Bin-ging for the Future

2011-01-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

On the first day of 2011, I spent the morning living in the past, opening crumbling yellowed tear sheets from newspapers printed in days gone by -- and eliminating more than half of them. Before you think I may be a candidate for that TV show on hoarding, let me explain.

Time was when a closet shelf was stacked high with tear sheets, pages clipped from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA Today, the Portland Oregonian, the Contra Costa Times and other papers where my work has appeared. Before I moved to San Francisco, I donated 95 percent of those clippings to the media archives at the University of Missouri/St. Louis.

I kept the travel sections – my favorites – and a handful of other features I couldn’t bear to part with. (Ken and Alex, This Means You.) Before I moved, I did not separate the pertinent pages from the sections, some of which were 18 or 20 pages. (You won’t see that today!) I remember thinking as I packed the condo in Creve Coeur that I could cut a lot of bulk by pulling out just my pages, most of them cover stories (with glorious color photos) that continued on a “jump” page. But I didn’t.

Flash forward to this morning. Next to my desk in my excellent apartment that looks out over Golden Gate Park to the Pacific Ocean (have you admired my sunset photos here and on Facebook?) sit two big black plastic bins. Fortunately, they are mostly hidden by the love seat. One holds copies of books I’ve written, maybe five or six copies of each, and there is no room for more. The other is jam-packed with clippings, past and present, as well as copies of magazines that have published my work, newsletters I have edited and a couple articles about me.

In the last six months, that bin has filled up and overflowed. I started sticking tear sheets into desk drawers, in wire baskets on my desk and in the occasional nook and/or cranny. Why do I keep copies of my work? Good question. I had work published in national magazines when I was 17, and newspaper bylines in metropolitan dailies that long ago as well. With 45 years of experience, why would I need to prove to anyone that I can do what I do, and do it well?

That’s an argument to have with myself on another day. Today, after a healthy breakfast designed to make up for too many chocolate truffles last night, I opened the bulging bin of books and extracted one to give to a friend. Then I opened the bin of tear sheets and magazines and newsletters and emptied it on the carpet.

Out came exciting stories on Dublin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Cairo, Venice, New York, Juneau, Quebec City and Varanasi. I admired my photos from Niagara Falls, the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Kilauea and the Galapagos Islands. I marveled at my work on Mount Rainer, the Grand Tetons, Glacier Bay, Yosemite and the Rockies. I smiled at stories on the series of ocean cruises I’ve enjoyed. And I was thrilled to find a dozen or more travel stories about whale-watch trips, dating back to 1983.

No wonder I told a stranger at a Christmas caroling party last month that it’s okay if I never go anywhere again. I made many trips on assignment for the Post-Dispatch, and since that party ended, I have continued to find ways to see the world and savor the experience of breathing air in places that other people call home. Am I finished traveling? I hope not. I’m good at it, and there are still places I want to go. But, oh the places I’ve been – and there they were, spread all around me.

In case you are wondering, I still write travel stories, some of them about northern California. An article on how to choose a cruise will run in the Post-Dispatch a week from tomorrow. (Thanks, Amy!) Next, I plucked my articles from issues of the St. Louis Jewish Light and jWeekly, the Jewish paper I write for in San Francisco. (Thanks to Ellen, Mike, Liz, Andy and Rachel!)

After pulling out pertinent pages from the newspaper sections, I tackled the magazines. I decided one copy of each was plenty. Except, of course, for the splendid July issue of Southwest Airlines’ Spirit Magazine, which published a 4,600-word love letter from me to St. Louis. I noted that I have written for four issues of Health Progress, a publication of the Catholic Health Association. (Thanks, Pam!) I admired the glossy grocery magazines from all over the country that have published my work. (Thanks, Kelli!) And I hugged the (really) old issue of Ms. Magazine that contains an article I penned.

When I was finished culling, I had newsprint smeared all over my hands. (That's okay -- I like that!) I also had enough newspaper pages and magazines to fill a grocery bag, ready for recycling. The "keepers" are back in the black plastic bin, along with all the randomly stored work samples, and now there is room for whatever work comes my way this year.

Okay, 2011 – I am ready!

I Miss My Moose!

2010-12-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

Green glitter, lightly sprinkled on my desk, winks at me as I take a break from preparations for my first-ever Winter Solstice party in San Francisco. This won’t be a huge rowdy party like those that drew dear friends from far and wide to the Salmon Sanctuary, and before that, to Taraette, the old family estate in Shrewsbury.

Still, this modest soup-and-salad supper will be festive because of the guests: My Family!

My trio of ceramic trees (we Druids love trees) is on display, and I even put up a tiny artificial tree, decorated with cherished ornaments. (See the Dec. 9 blog post.) The stockings are hung – the leopard boot with gold silk trim hangs on the entry door to my apartment while the white felt one with the dove and the peace symbol adorns the bookcase. I even put a tiny furry reindeer on the shelf in the bathroom.

You could say it’s more ‘Tee Hee” than “Ho Ho” around here, but I like it.

Two treasures are missing. When I opened the Christmas Box two weeks ago, I discovered that my Frosty the Snowman snow globe had exploded. Fortunately, Frosty – who was a least 30 years old -- was wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap and foam, so the wee bit of water and flecks of phony snow didn’t get out. However, and this is really unfortunate, someone else in the box also decided not to move to San Francisco intact.

My tiny moose, the one wearing four red high heels and lots of lipstick and with ornaments entwined in her antlers -- was in pieces. Lots of them. Maybe Frosty is to blame – it looked like an inside job – or maybe the moose was just another casualty, but this means No Moose and No Frosty this year.

I tried to replace them. When I took the car in today for an oil change, I learned they needed to do a 45,000-mile check up and that my wait would be three hours. Undaunted, I marched off through the Tenderloin (massage parlors, psychics, “theaters,” bars and, oddly, lots of rotten fruit on the sidewalk) to the glorious Union Square, where people ice skate in the shadow of palm trees.

I don't skate. I do shop for moose toys, so I headed into Macy's -- what a crazy idea just four days before Christmas! In Macy’s in the “Wonderland Lane” or whatever they call it, I examined a dozen huge decorated trees, looking for a moose ornament. Everything was on sale already, so if I could find a moose, it likely would be reasonably priced. I did not find a moose.

When I asked a sales clerk, he replied, “ No – no moose ornaments this year. So you remember that moose, eh?” I’m unsure if I remember “that” moose or some other moose – I don’t know where Gerry bought my moose ornament, and it’s been several years. Still, it’s the holidays, so I chirped, “I do! I remember that moose!” We shared a hearty laugh and I went off to look at snow globes. They were all too gilded, too formal. I retreated to the Frontera Grill on Macy’s lower level and ate a chipotle chicken taco with fresh avocado.

When it came time to leave Macy’s, I couldn’t find the O’Farrell Street door. I meandered around for a while, and finally sent Gail a text: “Lost in Macy’s. Help!” As it happens, Gail was at Macy’s in St. Louis about the same time, and she swears she ran through the store yelling, “Marco!” and “Hooty hoot!” (????) but she never found me. Thankfully, I found the right door and got back to the car dealer.

Next I popped into Trader Joe’s for a bit of this and a few of those. Driving through Cole Valley, I panicked and realized I don’t have enough placemats for everyone coming to dinner tonight. Even though I had two packages of TJ”s frozen spinach lasagna in the car, I found a parking spot and darted into a couple of stores in search of modestly priced placemats. I didn’t find any. That’s okay. Walking back to the car, I remembered that even if I had extra placemats, I have only four chairs. Some people will just have to eat sitting on the couch.

When I got back home, I stopped to visit Earl, my doggy friend at the insurance agency on the corner. His owner said he had some sad news – in about 10 minutes, Earl had gutted and filleted the Christmas dog toy I had bought and delivered to him yesterday. I explained I knew that would happen, but I was sure Earl had enjoyed ripping it up. Earl wagged his tail in agreement.

Once inside, I opened the mail. That's when some lovely green glitter tumbled off one of the Christmas cards and onto the desk. Good! Moose or no moose, can you ever have enough glitter in your life?

Winter Thoughts

2010-12-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

Winter in San Francisco is wonderful!

One day, it's sunny and up to the mid-60s or higher; the next day it's barely 50 and sheets of rain are pounding the streets. Yesterday afternoon, the fog was so thick I could barely see the house across the street -- an old fire house, now divided into two posh townhouses. One is for sale: See www.8carmel.com. What a grand neighborhood I live in -- and as Joel pointed out, my view is better than that of the pricey townhouse.

Still, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and not just in the celebrated Union Square. Lights are up in many neighborhoods, wreaths hang on doors, carols ring out from sound systems at the grocery store, the dry cleaners and the coffee shops.

Fully aware of the irony, before I moved to San Francisco I hauled five of my six boxes marked "Christmas" to the resale shop run by the National Council of Jewish Women. "People of all faiths shop here," the manager said when I asked if my merchandise was welcome. I left all of it.

Because I have little storage space in the apartment, I asked P&J to keep a box of my remaining Christmas items at their house. When I picked it up the other day, I noticed my ornaments were missing. I called, and we discovered they had been packed in a separate plastic bin, apart from the larger bin that held assorted small trees, candles and gift bags. I stopped by a day later to retrieve the small bin.

Back home, I spread all of the ornaments out on the table. Distant past mingled with more recent past -- ornaments from my childhood (antiques now, right?), ornaments Joel made in elementary school, ornaments crafted by friends, ornaments given to me as gifts long after I had stopped buying Christmas trees.

Some years ago, at the doctor's office for the third Christmas Eve in a row, the doctor mentioned he could not figure out why I kept getting horrid sinus and respiratory infections the same time every year. "I know you don't have a real tree in the house," he said, "because that would really set off your mold allergies."

Of course I had a real tree in the house, a big one, just like every year.

Oops.

For the next five or nine or 13 Christmases, I set out my three groupings of small artificial pine trees, displayed a candle or two and added a cheery moose figurine to the scene, and that was that. While friends took days, even weeks, to decorate, I took about an hour. The years I traveled to San Francisco, I didn't even bother with that.

The day after my ornaments and I were reunited, I found myself examining tiny live trees at the hardware store in Cole Valley. They were, in a tiny way, beautiful -- full, lush, evergreen. They also started at $35 for a tree under 24 inches high. Then I remembered the mold allergies. Plus, what would keep the cat from nibbling on a branch or two and then throwing up on the rug?

I marched into the hardware store and for $15 bought a small fake tree, green, strung with little white lights. This tree is not what anyone would call lush, but nicer than the plastic Charlie Brown trees that Walgreen's sells. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is my favorite holiday program, and I appreciate what Walgreen's is doing -- sort of. But this is nicer.

I burrowed through my big Christmas box, located a bright red napkin, spread it on the faux burled wood drum table, set up the tree and decorated. At first, I worried because I had neglected to buy ornament hooks, but many of my dear old ornaments had their original hooks attached. They are only a little rusty. Really.

Under the tree, I placed a few larger ornaments -- some of them Peanuts themed -- and my favorite photo of Joel and Santa when Joel was just two months old. I added the baby Jesus from the manger set that I had as a child. The manger, alas, collapsed with age before I left St. Louis and all the other people are gone. Most of them were missing a hand or foot -- in one case, a head.

Susan asked about Joseph just the other day. Regular readers may remember that Joseph from my childhood manger set (he cost 19 cents new) was employed for a time to help me sell the condo. At his post, packed in a Ziploc bag and positioned upside down in the big pot that held geraniums on my deck, Joseph collapsed in on himself, done in, no doubt, by icy weather. Sorry, Joseph.

On the top of my tiny tree I placed an angel given to me when I was 5 -- another antique, made by a friend of my parents. When she gave it to me, she made me promise to always put the angel on my Christmas tree, That was so long ago that my memory of it is in black and white. Still, the promise has been kept this year.

Around the apartment, I set out my mother's small ceramic Christmas bells, "Joy" rendered in stained glass by a friend long gone, three small ceramic snow-covered trees made by an artist in Michigan, a tiny snow globe with a tinier polar bear inside, a scented red candle and a couple of Christmas-themed books.

That's really all I need, now or ever.

I packed up much of what was left in the bigger Christmas bin and drove it to the owner of my neighborhood salon. Lison loves Christmas, loves "vintage" decorations and loves my salt-and-pepper naturally curly hair, so it was a no-brainer that the stuff should go to her. She was thrilled.

Two weeks ago, I wrapped gifts while listening to the "Glee" version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Now that the place is decorated, I guess I need some Christmas music. It's too bad my old Muppets Christmas record with John Denver on it is gone.

I wonder if that's available on CD?

Raise that Glass!

2010-11-24T13:09:00.000-08:00

Listen to Judith Viorst, author of 37 books and an expert on life, loss and love:

“There is a vast difference between youth and age,” says Viorst, 79. “When we are young, we think there are yes/no, black/white, on/off answers to the big questions of life. One way to understand the complexities of life is to understand that for many questions, the answer is all of the above.

“In other words, life is not about seeing the glass half empty or half full. The point is that you have a glass.”

Viorst told me that when I interviewed her last month for the St. Louis Jewish Light prior to her appearance at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival. I had interviewed her before and would do it again in a heartbeat – she is charming, elegant and smart.

Today is a good day to remember that I do indeed have a glass.

Today is the day after I learned that my company has decided not to keep the promise they made when I retired in 2005 -- come January, they will charge me $580 a month for my health insurance.

Today is a week after I learned that a friend has inflammatory breast cancer.

Today is a month after I learned that another friend is likely facing heart surgery.

Yes, today is the day to remember that the glass is not half empty or half full. The point, as Viorst says, is that we have a glass.

When I got the news yesterday afternoon about losing the free health insurance – a sword dangling over my head since I left the Post-Dispatch five years ago – I felt as though I had been body slammed by a frozen turkey. Minutes later, G and Amanda (my second son and his wonderful wife) pulled up, visiting from Pennsylvania, and in the back seat was Griffin, their smiling, curly haired 2-year-old.

Seated in my apartment, I said to Griffin, “ You are adorable.” He looked at me for a while and said, “YOU’RE adorable!” And I was. Am. For the rest of the afternoon, Griffin pronounced almost everything adorable – the fire truck I gave him, the server at the pizza place, the sales clerk at the Sports Basement and the slippers Griffin’s parents bought him.

How adorable is that?

Back at home yesterday, after I had waved “bye” to the adorable family, I was on line grousing with other Post-Dispatch retirees about our Thanksgiving “bonus.” Jan, who as a management retiree got cut off two years ago, put everything in perspective: “When faced with a ‘surprise’ such as the loss of paid premiums, I just ask myself if I'm sorry I left in 2005. The answer is always that it would have been nice if I'd left five years earlier.”

On Monday, Shannon Duffy and the Newspaper Guild will spring into action to start the process to try to force Lee Enterprises to give back what they never should have taken. Meanwhile, my insurance agent is looking for options to compare with what Lee is asking me to pay to maintain my insurance through them.

I went to bed mad, mentally clutching tightly to the money I have – about $46 in my wallet and more in savings and investments. I woke up in Fairy Godmother mode. I dressed and kidnapped someone who couldn’t justify spending money on herself to buy something she needed. I drove her to Macy’s and bought the modestly priced item for her.

“This is not about you,” I said when she thanked me. “This is about me. I have learned that clutching money gives way to fear, fear ushers in hysterics and hysterics divert me from bringing in more money. Buying something for you reminds me to have faith in the future.”

We stopped for coffee and guess what? We each had a glass -- and were grateful.

We All Have Tales to Tell

2010-11-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Armistead Maupin lives in Cole Valley, and Danny Glover has a house there. Janis Joplin used to hang out in the Irish pub and what is now a crepe house was once a comedy club where Robin Williams and Dana Carvey performed. Charles Manson and Jim Jones used to live nearby.

I learned all this and more from two men I met at the bus stop, waiting for the 37 to take me back up the hill to my apartment. The Cole Valley business district is two blocks west and six blocks north of my place. Typically, I walk there – it’s all down hill – and take the 37 back up.

Today was a big public transit day for me. Started out heading east on the 37 to see my internist, a follow-up on my recent bout of bronchitis and to find out the results of my annual blood work, which took place a week ago. Great news – every number was completely normal, and all the numbers have dropped in the last year. Thank you Cheerios, Oat Squares and homemade smoothies made with plain yogurt, a banana and frozen fruit!

That good news was so thrilling that I walked six blocks down a big hill, jumped on the M train and went to Stonestown Galleria, a suburban-style mall in the city. At Borders, I did a bit of homework, in preparation for a book I am about to ghostwrite. Had a peppermint mocha latte (decaf with skim milk and no whipped cream, of course). And I decided not to buy Maupin’s new book, “Mary Ann in Autumn,” the latest of his famous tales of the city.

I downloaded in on my Kindle when I got home -- and am zipping through it!

Walking around Borders, looking at the many tables and shelves filled with books, I wondered how they make a go of it anymore when even a book lover like me refuses to buy books. To get home, I took the inbound M train to Van Ness and then had to catch an outbound N train to get to Cole Valley. This sounds confusing, but it wasn’t, and on the ride in I met a lovely young nursing student who was reading a biography of Ida B. Wells, the pioneering journalist, early civil rights activist and feminist. When I saw the book in the young woman’s hand, I wanted to ask if she was studying to be a journalist, but decided to stay silent.

I talk to strangers all the time – and learn marvelous things about my new city – but for some reason, I stayed quiet. “Excuse me,” she said seconds later. “May I ask you something personal?” I said sure, and we had a lively discussion about eyebrows. We both have palest of pale eyebrows and we both draw them on in the morning. She liked how mine looked better than she liked her own, and wondered what product I use. We started there and ended up talking about journalism and then her desire to be a nurse.

In Cole Valley, I poked my head in the open window of the hair salon I go to and said, “I’ll have a cheeseburger with double pickles and a Diet Coke.” That got a laugh from my startled stylist and her client. Apparently no one has ever done that before! Then I popped into the magnificent Cole Valley Hardware and bought three more Christmas presents. Saturday, they had a huge sale -- 20 percent off everything – and I should have made these purchases then, but better late than miss the opportunity altogether.

Then I headed for the bus stop, where I joined a lively discussion with two men and a woman sitting on the bench. The woman left soon after to board a bus headed in another direction. When the men learned I was new in town, they began to regale me with tales of the neighborhood. What a lovely way to start a new week!

Last week rocked – first, I heard Placido Domingo sing the lead in “Cyrano de Bergerac” at the San Francisco Opera and then spent four days with Gerry and Tom, in town to visit Patricia and Joel. Tom’s brother Mark and his wife, Cheryl, were here too.

One day, Susan (Patricia’s mom and my friend) played hooky from work and met Gerry and me at the de Young Museum, where we saw the second of two exhibits of treasures from the Musee d”Orsay in Paris, which is closed for renovation. Loved staring at these masterpieces, especially Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” One evening, with Martia and Michael (Patricia’s brother and his wife) and the girls along for the fun, we revisited the scene of the rehearsal dinner held last June the night before The Wedding at the excellent Pauline’s Pizza. On Saturday, we drove to the glorious wooden deck overlooking the sea at Fort Funston, which I first wrote about here on January 1. (Read it now if you missed it then.)

Tomorrow I get my hair cut, Wednesday I have a massage, Thursday my dentist (who is expecting her first child – two of them!) finishes putting in the new crown and Friday I will have coffee with an old friend from St. Louis who moved here years ago. Saturday, I may go to an art show in Crockett, a town about 30-45 minutes away. A man who calls himself The Peace Guy – I met him at an open-air market across from the Ferry Building when Gail was here – lives in Crockett, and I still think I may need to buy one of his sweatshirts.

Those are my tales from the city this week, with a nod of humility to Mr. Maupin!

Gone to the Dentist -- and the Dogs

2010-11-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

“Everyone my age is being diagnosed with a hernia,” said a 92-year-old friend of mine.

I was ready.

“Everyone my age is being told they need crowns on their teeth,” I replied.

I spent two hours at the dentist this morning, getting one tooth roughed up and ready for a crown. Fine. Worse things have been done to me. Besides, this dentist’s chair delivers a light back massage during treatment, so if you can forget that two people have dozens of instruments in your mouth, you can feel your upper back and shoulders relax.

More good news: Halloween photos of my Earl, favorite dog – he works at the insurance agency on the corner by my apartment – are now available, showing Earl in both his costumes. In one, he is sporting a skeleton outfit. In the other, Earl wears a Hawaiian shirt with a small lei around his neck. These costumes suited him well, and besides, he did not want to wear the hat with a big spider sewn on it. He made that clear the day he modeled it for me.

In a Facebook post about Earl some weeks ago, I misstated his lineage. (He has forgiven me.) Earl is a perfect blend of German short hair and Plott hound, which is also known as the “ninja warrior of dogdom.” No, really.

That said, I’m not sure Earl is up for the secretive nature of the ninja. He spends a lot of time smiling and looking out the top half of the door to the insurance agency. He greets people and other dogs as well. When he sees me, Earl wiggles and tries to lick my glasses and extends his paw.

Okay, I have bought his love – with Milkbones. But he seems to enjoy seeing me even when I don’t have treats in my pocket. One day, as I stood waiting across the street for a bus, Earl stretched way up, craning his neck to keep me in sight until I waved and got on the bus. That’s a real friend.

After the Novocain wore off from the dentist, I treated myself to a latte at Starbucks (the coffee shop is located inside my grocery – no way to avoid it!) and a package of dark chocolate-covered graham crackers. “I want these,” I said to the barista. “After all, I’ve been to the dentist.” She agreed a reward was in order. Great graham crackers!

When I got home, I clarified a few points in one newspaper story I turned in yesterday and got organized to submit an invoice for an article that will run in Sunday’s Post-Dispatch. (Look for a travel story about shopping in the Upper and Lower Haight neighborhoods!) I ate my graham crackers. I poured myself a Hansen’s Tangerine/Lime diet soda and punctuated the citrus taste with a slice of lime fresh from a friend’s tree. (Thanks, Sue!)

Now I’m going to lie around in my outstanding shirt that honors Tim Lincecum. (Yes, Cardinal Nation, I have committed post-season treason -- and boy was it fun! What’s not to love about these lively misfits?) And I’m going to read as I wait for another outstanding sunset. Love the photo I took last night looking out my window at the Marin headlands and the open sea! (See below.) If I could paint it, I would.

Life is good.

Simple Pleasures: T-shirts and Salads

2010-10-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

“This is the best salad I’ve ever had in my life,” Gail said to the server at Park Chow. It was the first salad she had in San Francisco on Day One of her recent visit, but she was plenty excited about it.

“The best salad you’ve ever had – that’s high praise,” replied the server.

“Okay,” said Gail, “It’s the best salad I’ve ever had that I can remember.”

Fair enough.

I would like to tell you what was in that salad, but I can’t remember. Wait! Yes! Three kinds of fresh beets, some cheese, some pistachios and some greens. It was a fine salad indeed.

Gail spent the first three days of her trip to the San Francisco Bay Area in Livermore with her friend Sue. The two of them drove to San Francisco on Monday, and we all had lunch at the Indian Oven in the Lower Haight (terrific spicy Indian pickles and chicken tikka masala) followed by ice cream at Three Twins.

After Sue headed back to work, Gail and I trolled the shops in the Upper Haight. She came here to buy t-shirts, and she bought one at the first shop we entered – Positively Haight Street, where owner James Preston sells his masterfully designed tie-dye shirts and pants. After covering both sides of the four-block neighborhood that pays tribute to the Summer of Love, we headed to Park Chow in the Inner Sunset for dinner and then I dropped off Gail at her in-town abode.

Day Two started at the Sports Basement, my favorite store for discount “outdoorsy” wear. Gail found an exact replica there of my fleece vest and bought it because I have refused for three years to give her mine. The vest was on sale – as were some sandals she bought. Next we stopped at the warming hut and shop at Crissy Field, which is practically under the Golden Gate Bridge. Gail bought a t-shirt at the hut, which is part of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The picnic grounds and hiking trail on the waterfront are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Next we were off to Sausalito. The sun was shining and the air was warm, so it was a pleasure to stroll through town, popping into interesting shops. We especially liked Out of Hand, which featured craft items by local artists. Elsewhere, Gail bought at least one t-shirt (by then, I had lost track), a sweatshirt and a tote bag. We stopped for coffee, where I sent an email to a friend to say I was thinking of a ferry trip to Sausalito with him back in 1982. “You’re sexting,” Gail shrieked. “No,” I said. “I emailed him.” We had lunch at Piccolo Teatro – a terrific BLT and another great salad, though I can’t remember what was in it.

Tuesday evening, we picked up Susan, my friend and my daughter-in-law’s mom, and the three of us went to Zuni for dinner. Judy Rodgers, a former Kirkwoodian, owns the award-winning restaurant. The room was festive, the food was great (loved the bread salad that came with the roasted chicken) and Susan and I each downed a delicious cocktail made with Prosecco and elderflower syrup. We enjoyed some nostalgic talk about the good old days in journalism, when we all were younger.

On Day Three, Gail and I took the Muni train to the famous Ferry Building. Before we got inside, we browsed the tables and booths set up by various artisans. Gail bought some lovely handmade jewelry. The Ferry Building is filled with shops, many of them food-related, and restaurants. Highlights were pistachio macaroons by Miette (“Macaroons are the new cupcakes,” says Gail), the chance to meet a $26 linen tea towel with a majestic whale design (but who needs a $26 tea towel?) and sitting outside on a bench watching the ferry come and go as we split a fancy cheese sandwich on crusty bread.

Then we caught the F trolley and went to Fisherman’s Wharf. The best part for me there was watching the sea lions jockey for position on a series of docks, growling and barking and shoving one another into the water. Gail found the sweatshirt of her dreams and also bought a purse. I considered assorted Giants t-shirts at the NFL sports shop (yes they carry baseball merchandise too) but rejected them all as too orange or too black.

That experience made me realize that the Giants shirt I really wanted was a gray one I had seen on display at Goodfellas, a head shop in the Upper Haight. The shirt has a picture of pitcher Tim Lincecum and his now-famous fine expletive. I wondered aloud if I am too old for that shirt -- and then remembered I hate wondering if I am too old for anything. Ever.

We settled in for Game One of the World Series with a pizza, beer, diet soda and fancy caramel corn from Miette, which they were pushing as peanuts and upscale crackerjacks. We fell for it, and were not disappointed. No salads were involved, as I recall, though there may have been some ice cream. The Giants won after an odd first inning.

On Thursday – Day Four of Gail’s visit – we hit spots we had missed earlier and backtracked to a few places. We started at Kara’s Cupcakes in the Marina, the breakfast of choice for people who don’t have macaroons at hand. (I liked the Fleur de Sel.) We popped in and out of neighborhood shops, including one where the proprietor spent way too long trying to convince me to sign up for her craft classes, even after I told her I have a button that reads, “I Don’t Do Crafts.”

I don’t, and I am not starting now. To make the woman feel better, Gail had a lengthy chat with her about felting, whatever that is, and bought a felt makeup case with a peace symbol on it. A sign in the window at the Marine Layer store on Chestnut says “Come in and touch our shirts,” so we did. Soft! Lovely fabric, great designs – especially the one with the person lying in a hammock strung between the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. But these are pricey shirts, so we left them in the store.

We did a drive-by of the Painted Ladies – a famous row of Victorian houses on Steiner Street in Alamo Square. We popped into The Other Shop, a retro resale place on Divisadero. The store called Life, where I bought my marvelous fog-colored purse, was finally open (this was our third attempt), so Gail browsed there and then I dropped her off at Mickey’s Monkey, another retro resale shop, while I drove around the block, as parking was not available. Then we drove through part of the Mission, but managed not to find Tartine, a bakery Gail had read about.

We had lunch at Zazie’s in Cole Valley, one of my favorite places. We split a sandwich of braised figs, prosciutto and goat cheese on grilled bread and a spinach salad with roasted pears, cheese crumbles and walnuts. Next we doubled back to Goodfellas, where I bought the Lincecum shirt (may I stay forever young – sing it, Joanie) and then went to my apartment to watch Game Two of the World Series. During the near-total rout (the Giants won big), we dined on empanadas. This morning I picked up Gail and drove her to the airport.

Four days of fun sightseeing, t-shirts, sweatshirts, too many sweets and more than one world-class salad. I’m exhausted!

Boosts for the Body and for the Mind

2010-10-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today I sat reading work-related emails, the kind that disappoint, emails that indicated material I need will not necessarily arrive when I need it. Annoyed, I ran out the door on a whim to catch two buses to see “The Social Network,” a fictionialized tale about the founder(s) of Facebook.

Why not? I’m on Facebook. More importantly, Aaron Sorkin wrote the movie, and I am eternally loyal to the man who brought us “The West Wing” and “Sports Night.” Even “Studio 60,” for a while.

True story: Aaron Sorkin once sent me a blue paper clip through an intermediary, probably because though the window of opportunity was long past, he learned I was still whining that he had never licensed “West Wing” bobbleheads. That was one of the finest ideas I’ve ever had – imagine a bobblehead Leo, a Toby, a C.J. Imagine a bobblehead Josh! (And yes, I am a fan of “The Good Guys,” though I hear there are not many of us.)

Anyway, the movie was vintage Sorkin in style and quite a story, besides. I was surprised to discover that he also is in the movie. When you go, watch for his cameo role.

The movie was fun, and here is what I learned on the bus: “Pick your battles. You will never win if you fight every fight.” No actual battle was taking place at the time. The bus driver was simply was sharing his wisdom with a passenger who was agreeing completely. I also enjoyed watching a one-year-old display his entire repertory of adorable facial expressions. Those of us seated across from him were all mimicking the baby’s expressions. Soon, half the people on the bus were laughing – either with us or at us.

Getting away today also took my mind off fretting about impending dental care (and the high cost for that) and the dreaded annual mammogram, which is coming up soon. Last year, that test did not go well. I have no reason to believe that this year will be anything but fine. But I am more on edge than usual about it. How on edge? Yesterday, the checker at the grocery asked if I wanted to make a contribution to breast cancer. I replied, “I have already donated my left breast.” Together, we packed my grocery bags in silence.

Thank goodness some good things have happened, as well. On Monday I went to the eye doctor for that annual exam. After the various tests, the doctor announced, “Your vision has improved.” I was shocked. A body part that chose to improve? Get better, all on its own with no huffing and puffing at the gym or restricting chocolate required on my part? I questioned the test results, but she insisted. “You are less near-sighted than you were at your last exam and even the one before that,” said the doctor.

Another boost, this one for the mind, arrived in an email not long ago. The note was from a woman who had “shadowed” me at work in the newsroom one day when she was in high school. Here is part of what she wrote: “I have to say that day changed my life, in more than one way. Driving to see you was the very first time I'd ever drove downtown, I'd never been inside of an office building and was just in awe of the whole thing. And there you were, animated as all get out, confidently churning out story after story, calling people and writing everything up like it was magic and you were the master magician.”

She continues, “I realized that I had met someone amazing and had seen an alternate glimpse of what my life could look like.” In college, the young woman found herself changing. “I remembered you being so bold and how it didn't even occur to you not to do something you wanted to. I wanted to be like that too. I evolved.” The young woman then described some of the paths she has taken.

Today, she makes a point of telling people that she is awesome. “I do think that's true, and I really think a lot of it is because from that small bit of time I spent with you back in St. Louis,” she writes. “Thank you for being an inspiration to me.”

Wow!

I wrote back to say that she is awesome, and that she had more to do with it than I did. Still, how lovely that she took time to write. Hearing “thanks” is always appreciated, right?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

2010-10-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

The last time Rick Ankiel, Edgar Renteria and I spent time together, we were all part of Cardinal Nation. They wore the Redbirds’ uniform; I was dressed in one of several Cardinal tee shirts, my traditional summer wardrobe for decades.

Tonight, we were together again at Game 2 of the National League Western Division playoffs, when the Braves beat the Giants 5-4 in the 11^th inning. Renteria is now a Giant. Ankiel plays for the Braves. I live in San Francisco, and my Cardinals tee shirts are on a shelf in the closet.

What a game! Sandoval and Posey collided, Cox got thrown out for protesting an ump's call too vociferously, a batter got plonked and a pitcher dropped to the ground in pain. All 11 innings provided some excitement. In contrast, Thursday night’s game was all about Lincecum, the tough young pitcher who looks like a Goth skateboarder. The Giants won that one. 1-0, in a fast, business-like game.

“That’s the problem with post-season games,” I remarked at the small party I attended. “You pit the best against the best and everyone is so good that not much happens and the score stays low.” On the other hand, post-season play is full of passion, and occasionally there are exciting bench-clearing brawls. Also, the winning team tends to hop a lot after the last strike is called, and that’s always fun to watch.

I grew up listening to baseball -- not watching it. My dad and my grandpa were longtime Cardinal fans. On Sundays, my grandparents would come to our house for dinner. In summer, Daddy did the barbecuing while my grandpa worked in his vegetable garden in our big yard. The transistor radio was always tuned to the game. My job was to deliver beer to the two of them, and I often pulled up a lawn chair and listened to the games.

Those were the days when Bob Gibson pitched both games in a double header and thought nothing of it. Watching Lincecum pitch all nine innings Thursday night, I wondered if he knows that. (Bet he does.) Those were also the days when Daddy would crank up the grill on the Weber kettle as high as it would go, so the chicken was far from the fire.

“Joe,” my mom would call out from the kitchen door, “how’s that chicken coming along?”

“We’re only in the fifth inning, Bonnie,” he’d call back. “This chicken has a ways to go.”

I rooted for the Cardinals all through high school and college. When I married and had a child, the Redbirds and I drifted apart. Years later, when I was working as the restaurant critic at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, an editor sent me to the ballpark one night to taste the “new” food available there – quesadillas and turkey legs. In order to make my deadline, I could only stay for half the game, but I had a great seat, down in front.

In the batter’s box was a fellow named Mark McGwire, well-muscled poetry in motion. I sat there, a turkey leg and quesadilla growing cold, and watched the game. “I know baseball,” I thought. “I remember loving this game.”

Memories of my dad and my grandpa swept through me. I leaped to my feet and screamed right along with the crowd. From that night on, I was a born-again Cardinal fan. I even collected books on baseball, guided by Post scribe Bernie Miklasz. (My favorite is “The Glory of Their Times” by Lawrence Ritter. I’m also a big fan of Roger Angell’s writing.)

For a decade or so, I watched or listened to all the games (with Debbie and Bill or both Gails and also on my own), went to the stadium whenever anyone offered tickets and bought a new Cardinals shirt every season. More recently, I spent baseball season writing books, earning money to supplement my tiny pension. Once again, I lost track of the rhythm of the games.

This year, the Cardinals got little attention from me. I sold the condo at the end of April and moved in June. Oh, I saw a couple of games on television and tuned in on the radio from time to time. I even exchanged a few emails about whether Tony had actually smiled in the course of a game. But I was not engaged.

Moving, unpacking and settling in here all took time over the summer. A glorious rush of freelance work also rolled in, so leisure was at a premium. At last, I had finished all my assigned work and found myself waiting on new work. On Sunday, I watched the Giants beat the Padres, make it to the playoffs. Suddenly, I was hooked.

I’ve been to just one Giants game, several years ago here in San Francisco, when they played the Cardinals. We sat on the third-base line, where I did my best to singlehandedly cheer on Scott Rolen. I was wearing red, lots of red, in a sea of people clad in orange and black. They couldn’t see my red, because over it I had on a sweatshirt and a windbreaker.

At one point I turned to the man next to me, a man I had never met, and I said, “This is not how we do baseball in St. Louis. In St. Louis, we wear shorts and tee shirts and wrap bandanas around our heads and necks for sweat rags and we broil in the heat.”

“You think this is cold?” he asked, his words muffled by his orange and black scarf. “You should have been at games at Candlestick Park. Now, that was cold.” When Barry Bonds hit a home run, I stood up and applauded. The man next to me was impressed. “Hey,” I said, “we Cardinals’ fans know excellence when we see it.”

Now the excellent San Francisco Giants are battling to go the distance in post-season. I’m not ready to wear orange and black -- I had enough of that color combination at Webster Groves High School. But I am going along for the ride.

Culture with a Side of Tie Dye

2010-09-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

Standing outside last night, waiting for my ride, I admired my blue and purple tie-dye socks. They look great with my sturdy Mary Janes (thick soles, padded toes) because so much of the socks show. A vision drifted through my mind’s eye, a vision of black Merrell pumps with a little heel, actual grown-up lady shoes. Not slut-on-a-stick shoes, to be sure, but grown up all the same, Merrell pumps with a little heel that I had found for 75 percent off at Dillard’s one fine July day.

Where are those shoes?

Not that my tie-dye socks would go all that well, but I could use shoes here like that from time to time. I gave away a lot of shoes before I moved, but surely I wouldn’t have parted with Merrell pumps that had cost so little. Later, when I got home, I found the shoes in a box high in the closet. Once I had determined that I needed sturdy shoes, shoes with a strap, shoes that would get me on and off buses and trains, I must have stashed the Merrells up high.

I sit on buses and trains, making my way around San Francisco, and I look at shoes. Young women wear flip-flops and flirty sandals and grown-up lady shoes and stylish boots and yes, even slut-on-a-stick shoes. On the buses and the trains. Women my age wear sturdy shoes. I’m fine with that. But now, especially if I get a ride and lots of walking is not required, I can wear my Merrell pumps with the little heel. Maybe I’ll even pair them with some tie-dye socks. No one here cares what you wear – you are free to be yourself. Love that!

In truth, shoes have not been much on my mind this week. No – this is Theater Week for me, a culture spree. Tuesday night I saw “Compulsion” at the Berkeley Rep with Mandy Patinkin. On its way to Broadway, the show is based on the life of Meyer Levin, the man who helped get “The Diary of Anne Frank” published and who had a gentlemen’s agreement with her father, Otto Frank, to write Anne’s story for the stage. The agreement went sour, Levin grew bitter and lived much of the rest of his life in a litigious rage. Powerful stuff.

The cast -- three people, two of whom play several roles, was terrific, and it was great to see Patinkin in this meaty role, displaying so much emotional range. I am a fan. I’ve seen several of his concerts, the one-man shows and also a wonderful concert with Patti LuPone. I even met him once. Steven Woolf took me to a concert at Edison, and to the reception afterward. Steven said to Patinkin, “I’m Steve Woolf. I knew you at Juilliard.” Patinkin nodded in recognition and they spoke a moment. I was next. “Hi, I said. “Steve Woolf knew you at Juilliard and I know Steve. I am delighted to meet you!” Patinkin laughed.

Last night I attended a performance by Word for Word, a performing arts company founded in 1993. The company stages works of fiction, old and new, with simple sets and full costumes, using the author’s words. All of them. If the line in the story reads, “Laura laughed merrily,” the actor laughs and adds, “Laura laughed merrily.” It not only works, it reveals depth in the text that a reader may miss.

Last night’s show was two stories from Elizabeth Strout’s book “Olive Kitteridge,” a series of stories about people’s lives in a small town in Maine. The buzz on the book has been great – it won a Pulitzer Prize – and I’ve been meaning to read it. The Word for Word actors brought the people to life beautifully, poignantly, acerbically. As they drew me into the action, I also found myself captivated by Strout’s writing, writing full of emotional honesty and wisdom. Kindle, here I come! I must read this book.

Tonight at A.C.T., I will see “Scapin,” Bill Irwin’s riff on Moliere’s play. In October 1992, I reviewed Irwin’s show at Edison Theatre for the Post-Dispatch: “After watching Bill Irwin perform, you walk out of the theater acutely aware of your knees and your feet and your elbows and your mouth. Irwin has great flexibility in all those spots, and your own body starts to mimic what you've just seen on stage,” I wrote. “Suddenly your mind snaps the rest of you back under control. You pout a minute, and then decide to go home and play with cooked spaghetti - something else you've just seen on stage.'' I’m looking forward to the show.

I’m also looking forward to “Howl,” the new movie about Allen Ginsberg and the obscenity trial in 1957 that resulted after Lawrence Ferlinghetti published Ginsberg’s poem “Howl.” I’ve been enamored with the beat poets since college, and now I live where it all happened – must see this movie! (Bonus: St. Louisan Jon Hamm is in it.) In my book “Eating St. Louis: The Gateway City’s Unique Food Culture,” Jack Parker, longtime owner of O’Connell’s, tells a great story about Allen Ginsberg. If you missed it, here it is:

One cold night in February, deep in the mid-1960s, business was slow at O’Connell’s Irish Pub, then at 454 North Boyle Avenue in Gaslight Square. A total of twelve people had dropped in over a four-hour period. Then the door opened and in came Russell Durgin, a professor of English and drama at Country Day School.

He brought a friend—Allen Ginsberg.

Ginsberg (1926–1997), should you be unaware—and you shouldn’t—was a man of many facets, among them an iconoclastic poet and activist. The Allen Ginsberg Trust defines him this way: “Spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school.”

“Durgin had befriended Ginsberg in New York a few years earlier,” recalls Jack Parker, longtime owner of O’Connell’s and now proprietor of Jack Parker’s Fine Art and Antiques, located above the tavern. “This was when the Bohemians were fading out in the Village, when City Lights Bookstore was big in San Francisco, when people were talking about Jack Kerouac’s On the Road—all that was going on,” says Parker.

“Ginsberg talked for a while about the old days in the Village. Then he sat down in front of the fireplace—we had a great fireplace—and took off his shoes. He sat in a lotus position, and he got out little bells, finger cymbals. And then—Allen Ginsberg recited from Howl.” (The famous first line goes: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness . . .”)

Parker pauses, remembering. He smiles. “It was a wonderful evening.”

Four Days, Four Poems

2010-09-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

In Jonathan Franzen’s new novel “Freedom,” a character moves to a new city. He walks, exhilarated, through the streets. Franzen describes the character’s heightened sense of awareness like this: “Each encounter was like a poem he instantly memorized.”

I get that. I do that, too – take mental snapshots of new experiences, unexpected moments, here in San Francisco. Following are some of the snapshots, the poems, from this week.

Just got home from a hike to the Bonita Point Lighthouse in the Marin headlands, the entrance to San Francisco Bay. Once a month, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy holds a hike on the night of the full moon so participants may watch the sun set over the ocean and the moon rise over the city.

Wow – all this, and the night was downright balmy, with no wind and no fog! Everything about the evening was beautiful, though not as poetic as it might have been. The hike from the trailhead is just half a mile, on paved road, part of which is relatively steep. Up until this very morning, visitors who made the trek were allowed to cross a suspension bridge to the actual lighthouse and to stand there at the edge of the continent. This morning, the bridge was declared rusty and unsafe for passage, so instead we hung out just this side of the bridge, admittedly still quite close to the edge of the continent.

When we gathered in the parking lot – maybe 25 of us – a male red-tailed hawk (so I was told) was preening itself on top of an electrical pole. The bird’s mate was perched high in a tree not far away. After the hike, driving back to the main road from the trailhead, I saw six white-tailed deer and a morbidly obese raccoon. In between was the stunning sunset and moonrise.

Also, we heard a great tale about another tour group that emerged one sunny afternoon from a tunnel in the hillside near the lighthouse to find not one, not two, but 10 turkey vultures sitting in a row on a the fence that runs along the trail. One wag quipped, “Must have been a tour for seniors…”

Last night, I attended the infamous “Beach Blanket Babylon,” a musical review that pokes fun of local and national leaders and celebrities. The concept for the show dates back to 1974 and apparently it has garnered rave reviews ever since. (In 1983, Queen Elizabeth saw it, and she loved it.) Ten talented actors zip nonstop through outrageous song parodies and short skits, all while wearing outlandish wigs and high headgear that accentuates the musical barbs. I was lucky to be there with nine people celebrating the birthday of a friend, and we all laughed throughout the show. Fun!

Wednesday night was not fun – or funny. Here’s the background: Placido Domingo will sing the title role in “Cyrano de Bergerac” at the San Francisco Opera this season. No single seats are being sold for the run; you have to buy season tickets. Okay -- I selected a series of three shows and bought seats way up in the balcony, because I want to hear Domingo in person.

Wednesday evening I took the train to the Opera House, went to the free pre-show lecture and settled into my seat for the performance, which was Massenet’s “Werther.” Right away, I couldn’t hear very well. It was really warm, up there by the ceiling. I found the set annoying. And the story, set in Germany in the 1700s, struck me as silly.

During the pause between the first and second scene, I asked the guy sitting next to me – a longtime subscriber -- what he thought. “I can’t really hear them, and that’s unusual,” he said. He also agreed that it seemed unusually warm. And he laughed, nodding, when I said I thought the characters were all crazy. I left at intermission, and I was not alone.

By the time I got to the street, I was alone. I guess the others got into their cars and drove away. My plan was to catch a taxi. In the first 10 minutes, I saw only three taxis on the very busy street where I was standing in front of the opera house. I called a cab company and was told a cab would come get me. None did. After waiting 15 minutes, I called back. The taxi company put me on hold and never answered. I considered calling a family member to rescue me, but I have not previously flunked cab-catching. I have found taxis in the rain in New York City and in an ice storm in Washington, D.C. I was determined to find a cab – and after 15 more minutes of standing around, I did.

The next day, Susan told me that it’s not unusual to have trouble getting a cab. The city, she said, does not issue enough taxi medallions, and that’s how current cab drivers like it. I don’t like it. This is an international city. Finding a taxi outside the opera house on a busy street should not be a challenge. Instead, cab drivers should be fighting over those who sneak out at intermission.

Another transportation dilemma – somewhat related – sprung up Tuesday night, when I attended my first meeting of the Bookworms Nature Book Club at the California Academy of Science, which is in Golden Gate Park. We read John McPhee’s excellent “Assembling California” (in the book, McPhee calls this area “lithospheric driftwood”) and the meeting was lively, just as meetings were with my old Friends of Tyson Nature Book Club.

I took two buses to get to the meeting, which was actually three bus rides from my apartment -- but I like walking to Cole Valley to catch a bus or train there, so I did. When I got to the museum, I asked the woman at the desk about taking a taxi home. “Cabs can’t find our back door here in the park, and our front door will be locked when you leave,” she said. “If you call for a taxi, you will wait at least 30 minutes – and that’s if they can find you.” (Foreshadowing!)

Resigned to taking three buses home – and a little uneasy about tromping round the park at night -- I walked to the stop with a fellow book club member whose car was parked just past the bus shelter. She offered to wait at the stop with me in the dark, deserted park, but a bus arrived seconds after we arrived. Good thing. The sign at the shelter noted that the next bus would arrive in 30 minutes. Next month, I will drive to the meeting, and park in the park – though the Academy website warns that cars parked in the park are often vandalized. That risk beats dealing with a bus that rarely runs and taxis that aren’t available.

Franzen’s character learned, as have I, that not every encounter – or poem – is beautiful. Still, I love where I live and I even love that when I get on a bus or a train or the rapid transit system, I am never entirely sure that I will actually get where I am going. That’s exciting!

More on Franzen: His brother, Bob, was in my graduating class in 1966 at Webster Groves High School. We had over 600 people in the class, and I did not know Bob Franzen. However, Jonathan Franzen (Class of 1977) and I have something odd in common. We both are on the Webster Groves High School Wall of Fame (see http://tiny.cc/chcjf). Ever since I read Franzen’s “The Corrections,” I’ve been suggesting (half seriously) that Webster take me off the wall, as Franzen deserves a bigger space. He’s such a gifted writer and a compelling storyteller!

On that note, I am curling up with my Kindle and reading until I finish “Freedom.”

Sweet September Vacation

2010-09-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Just finished a whirlwind three-and-a-half day vacation in my new home town. The occasion? A visit from Beth, one of the Five Favorite Female Friends. What did we do?

More to the point, what didn’t we do?

We didn’t do a lot of the common touristy things because Beth has been to San Francisco before, but we filled the time with adventures, misadventures and some good food along the way.

Before I summarize our itinerary, I have to say one huge highlight was collecting my lifetime national park pass, a privilege for people 62 and older. You pay $10 – and you have to pay in person, at a park – and then you get in free at most national parks, forests, refuges, monuments and recreation areas. Of course, I still help support the parks with my membership in the National parks Conservation Association (www.npca.org), but I am delighted to have my lifetime pass!

A word is also in order about an uncommon number of wildlife sightings -- and no, I am not referring to the gentleman who took a liking to Beth at a cafe we visited. The smallest creature we saw was a tiny snail hauling a beautiful green and white shell across a hiking trail. On the same trail, we saw three wooly worms (Pyrrharctia isabella), moths in their larval stage. These critters are said to predict winter weather, and Beth read the color bands as an indication of a mild winter. (Wait -- aren’t all winters in San Francisco mild?) We also saw a tiny lizard basking in a wee bit of sun, two bunnies and a six-point buck. Raptors wheeled overhead all the while. Later that day, we saw another deer – a doe – and a chipmunk.

Here’s a breakdown of our time together.

Tuesday:

Showed off the apartment and my spectacular view.

Walked to Cole Valley for a delicious Il Sol pizza at Bambino’s, which is run by a guy named Spiro.

Tapped on the window at my hair salon to show Lison, my stylist, how cool my hair looks in the new cut she crafted.

Walked to the Upper Haight to pop in and out of stores and enjoy the parade.

Took the Muni train to Ocean Beach to stand in awe of the sea.

Relaxed at the Java Beach Café -- it was cold, standing in awe on that dune!

Took the train and a bus home for a simple supper.

Wednesday:

Stopped at Patricia and Joel’s house for a quick tour and to pick up a spare backpack and walking stick.

Drove to the Tennessee Valley Trail in Marin County.

Hiked 1.7 miles to the sea (we sat on a piece of driftwood, watching cormorants as they watched us) and back.

Stopped in downtown Mill Valley for coffee and a thick lemon cookie.

Shopped in some of the stores, including one with unusual merchandise from India. Impulse purchase: Rhubarb jam!

Drove to Muir Woods and meandered among thousand-year-old towering redwoods.

Headed for Stinson Beach, where we waved at the waves and enjoyed a wonderful garlic-festooned dinner at The Sand Dollar.

Made a U-turn to enjoy some frozen yogurt at Swirl in Mill Valley, where on Wednesdays if you guess the price of your yogurt (sold by the ounce), you get it free. That didn’t happen.

Relaxed back at the apartment and made plans for the next day.

Thursday:

Walked to Cole Valley to catch the train downtown to Gump’s, a home furnishings store founded in 1861 (www.gumps.com). I’ve been buying things (small things) from Gump’s via catalog for 35 years, but had never been to the store.

Walked a few blocks to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the wonderful “Calder to Warhol” exhibit. People were lined up on the sidewalk to get in – on a Thursday morning!

Enjoyed beverages (including delicious pure apple juice) on the rooftop sculpture garden at SFMOMA.

Took the train to the Lower Haight, where we munched on rib tips at Memphis Minnie’s barbecue joint, a favorite of mine.

Stopped in some of the neighborhood boutiques and galleries. Oops! I bought a purse.

Took the train and a bus back home to get ready for dinner.

Joined Susan for wine, Smiling Noodles and ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream at Park Chow, which buys from local farms.

Susan took us on a spontaneous -- and hilarious -- tour of Golden Gate Park in the Dark, made all the more enchanting by thick fog. We couldn’t see a thing! Highlights were a baseball game in progress in the Presidio in spite of the fog and another look at Robin Williams’ former home in Sea Cliff.

As I write this, Beth is on the plane, heading back to St. Louis with a locally grown Gravenstein apple in her purse. Memories are souvenirs, too, and I think she took home a lot of fond ones. As for me – what a great vacation! So glad to spend it with Beth.

Easy as A, B, C

2010-09-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

A is for Allende (Isabel). B is for Beer (Blue Moon). C is for Cut (Hair).

Easy as A, B, C – whoa, I hear a Jackson Five tune coming on!

Here’s the scoop, starting at the very beginning. Isabel Allende, a favorite author of mine, spoke last night at the University of San Francisco’s Center for the Pacific Rim. She is on a book tour, promoting her latest novel, “Island Beneath the Sea.” Susan, my friend and Patricia’s mom, asked a few weeks ago if I wanted to go with her.

Oh yes! I am a longtime fan. Plus, I have reviewed a handful of Allende’s books for the Post-Dispatch, among them “'Ines of My Soul,” her account of the splendid life of conquistadora Ines Suarez, who helped found Chile. In that book, Allende writes that Suarez ponders life and death, musing, "I suspect in this life we are not going anywhere, and even less in haste; one merely follows a path, one step at a time, toward death."

This is what Suarez imagines when we reach that destination: "Death is not a hooded skeleton with empty eye sockets, as the priests tell us to frighten us, but a large, roly-poly woman with an opulent bosom and welcoming arms; a maternal angel."

Love that! After my review ran in the paper in November 2006, a radio station in Chicago called to say Allende would soon be appearing on an interview program and they wanted to read part of my review on the air. Was that okay with me? Sure, I said, but why not just fly me to Chicago so I could take part? They balked, and I did not get to hear the program, but I was honored nonetheless.

Last night, I sat on the aisle in the third row at Allende’s presentation. She is tiny, small in stature, made taller by slingback silver spike heels – this at 67! She wore a black skirt and top, with a sheer black jacket with maroon trim. Allende’s eyes are big, quick and intelligent, and a feisty sense of humor brings often unexpected remarks from her generous, smiling mouth. How wonderful to be in the presence of Isabel Allende at last!

About Beer: For years after my father’s death from cirrhosis of the liver, I imposed a two-drink minimum on myself. Why? Because I have loved every alcoholic beverage I have ever tasted. Margaritas and dirty martinis and caipirinhas and frou-frou drinks and Irish whisky straight up and big red Zins at $12.50 a glass – bring ‘em on! Then after a Betrayal of the Body six years ago, I was put on a medication that is hard on the liver.

“Don’t drink,” said the doctor.

“Ever?” I asked.

“Okay, four times a year,” she said.

I cheated. For the past six years, I’ve been enjoying alcoholic beverages maybe eight times a year. Really – ask my friends. Early this week I met with my new doc in San Francisco. “We know more now,” he said. “You may have one drink a week with no cause for worry.”

“One a week? I couldn’t,” I said, appalled. Then I confessed a secret: Over the past three years, I’ve been bumming a taste here, a swallow there, of craft beers being enjoyed by friends, and have come to love unfiltered wheat beer. The doctor laughed and assured me that one beer a week was absolutely fine.

I just had one! A Blue Moon. I drank it with a tiny pepperoni pizza from Trader Joe’s. Pizza and beer – what a pleasure! I’ll still order a margarita or martini on my birthday, and once in awhile when out to dinner with friends, I’ll indulge in red wine. Other weeks, I’m exploring craft beers.

And now to C, the haircut. San Francisco weather – the damp fog and the rowdy wind – has not been nice to my hair. The humidity isn’t high enough to cause my naturally curly hair to spiral in on itself and look thick and lustrous, and every day, the wind has tried its best to pull out what curl I did have. I’ve been walking around with my usual short hair looking long, standing straight up, a la Christopher Walken or even Albert Einstein.

On Wednesday, I walked into my neighborhood salon and said to Lison, my stylist, “Last month I asked you to duplicate the cut I came in with. This time, I am asking you what you would do if this were your head.” I explained the problem. Lison proposed cutting it really short on the sides and in back, leaving some height on top.

“We could go for an asymmetrical look,” she said. “If you pull some of the hair in front straight across, it will curl on the other side of your forehead. You will look more contemporary, new, exciting.”

Me? Contemporary? New? Exciting? “Do it,” I said. She did, and my hair did just what she said it would, curling on my forehead like a single quotation mark. Now when the wind tosses my hair, it just looks ruffled and somehow fuller, instead of sticking straight out. It’s easy to live with. It’s fun. It’s cute. I like it!

I took the photo posted here, but my face looks really big because my arms are short and I couldn’t get the camera far enough away to shoot a really good picture. If you want to see my contemporary, new, exciting hair for yourself, just buy a plane ticket and come for a visit. Karen Duffy did, and we had a blast!

And that’s my ABCs for today.

A Mid-Day at the Beach

2010-09-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

Today in San Francisco, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the fog was visiting another community, and a mid-day break was on the agenda. I took a bus to the beach.

Actually, it was a light rail train that glides along tracks in the center of the street. Sometimes, depending on the time of day, just one car does the job, but most of the time two, three or more cars are hooked together. When the train goes around corners, gliding and lurching, it resembles a giant centipede, with first one body part moving, then the next and then the next.

The trains are part of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, which was founded in 1912. The Muni boasts that it carries over 200 million customers per year, taking people where they need to go all day, every day, along 80 different routes. The Muni operates historic streetcars, diesel buses, alternative fuel vehicles, electric trolley coaches, cable cars and the light rail trains that run both above and below ground.

I walked seven blocks (all down hill)) to Cole Valley and caught the Outbound N train heading west to 48th Avenue, which is literally across the street from the Pacific Ocean. It takes awhile – 20 minutes or so -- to get from Cole Street to 48th, though the true distance is only about 3.5 miles. That’s okay. The Pacific Ocean does not check Google Calendar to see what time you will arrive. The Pacific Ocean does not care. Why should you?

When I boarded, the N was almost full. By the time we hit 40th Avenue, only six passengers remained. Acting in concert, as though we had rehearsed, we all rummaged in our respective backpacks and pulled out our hats when we reached 45th Avenue. At 48th, we disembarked and walked across the lower and upper sections of the Great Highway.

And there it was! Up a sandy hill, down the other side -- and there the ocean sparkled in the sun. I found a spot on the sand to spread my small towel and sat down, enjoying the sounds of the sea and the cool air. (People who brought bigger backpacks pulled out beach towels. I’ll do that next time.)

Sailboats glided along the horizon. Nine surfers rode the waves. In their wetsuits, off the boards, the surfers resembled curious seals bobbing in the water, sticking their heads up for a look around. On the beach, a young woman sunned in a bikini. A few yards away, an older man lay on his towel dressed in dark green Bermuda shorts, a long-sleeved plaid shirt and calf-high green socks. He had a blue towel draped over his face. Only his knees were displayed to the sun.

A mom played catch with her little boy. Two middle-aged men played catch with one another. One young couple tossed a Frisbee; another couple led a toddler to the edge of the sea, the little girl between them. Two teenage girls dug deep holes in the sand and then climbed in, laughing. A young woman pushed a stroller. A dozen people walked the beach with great seriousness of purpose. Four dogs, clearly thrilled to be out of the house, raced up and down the beach.

Not far behind me on the sand, a man got off his bike, spread a towel, sat down, opened his backpack and began to play a large wooden flute. As the wind carried the sounds across the beach, heads turned, one by one, to look back to see the source of the music. I sat, in my hat, listening to the waves and the flute music, thinking this was a terrific mid-day break.

Then I headed back up the hill, hot sand streaming through my sandals. The Java Beach Café has the great good fortune to be situated at 48th and Judah, right where the N train drops off passengers. I popped in for a sandwich. After lunch, I walked four blocks to visit a shop I’d read about in Sunset magazine and then got on the next train back to Cole Valley. There, I caught the bus that heads up the steep hill and stops right in front of my apartment.

Living in St. Louis, I used to like knowing I was just a 2.5-hour direct flight from Montego Bay. Now I can take a train to the beach -- in 20 minutes.

Christopher Walken (okay, his hair) and Me

2010-08-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

Spent time today sitting in the car on Twin Peaks, looking down at all of San Francisco below, sunroof on the car wide open, wind blowing my hair straight up (I look like Christopher Walken, sort of…) and all the cobwebs from my mind. Just finished a couple of weeks filled with lots of work, and just agreed to start two new -- no, three -- projects.

Life, as the tee shirt says, is good.

What’s new? Soon I’ll be seeking corporate sponsors to help boost viewership of a series of short programs on conservation organizations around the world. No paperwork has been exchanged, but it’s likely I also will serve as co-author with a doctor who has a good idea for a book. And the guy who owns the best barbecue joint in town has asked for my help with his web site. (I see rib tips in my future…)

I’ll continue with my other work, of course. I’m still writing for the St. Louis Jewish Light, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (watch for a travel story coming soon), a marketing firm that publishes grocery magazines and a web site that promotes fitness. Also, I’ve been promised freelance assignments from the Jewish newspaper in San Francisco. And I applied for a temporary job writing paragraph-long blurbs on restaurants for a local weekly paper. Of course I’m still available to help out a couple of friends in business, too.

“So you’ve figured out how to piece together enough jobs to pay bills,” said a friend on Wednesday, a friend who is considering moving here and will need to do the same. I have. My income is never predictable, but money always comes. Five years ago, in October, I left the Post-Dispatch and kissed goodbye that regular paycheck. Five years ago I started seriously building on some freelance connections I’d already established, and I am still building. A little here, a little there – after a lot of hustling. I don’t make a lot, but I make enough.

The big reward is that I work for me. Working for me means that when I had a great time goofing off all day a week ago Thursday, I gave myself the day off on Friday as well. It means I can dunce around in the morning, get organized by lunchtime and then work or play according to the plan for the day – or the lack of plan for the day. I’m the boss, and when the boss decides to sit and watch episodes of “Arrested Development,” that’s the plan.

Gail put me in the lede of her recent story (see http://tiny.cc/t67um or go to www.stltoday.com and type in “Pennington Arrested”) about a movie version of the hilarious series, and that was fun. What isn’t fun is that I keep wanting to quote lines (“No touching!”) from the show, and everybody who watched it years ago is quoting lines from newer shows. If you haven’t seen “Arrested Development,” talk to TIVO or get it on Netflix. Very funny!

Don’t think I stay home all the time. I am conscious that I am not on vacation here and must continue to earn a living, but I’m making time to walk to my gym in Cole Valley and take my bus to yoga class. On Thursday, my bus chose not to come, so the cat and I did yoga in the living room because by the time I realized the bus had abandoned me, it was too late to try to drive to the recreation center.

I forgive the bus for that one incident. Picture this: Me climbing on a bus with a small bag of nectarines, bread and eggs in one hand and a 10-pound jug of kitty litter in the other. Or this: Me climbing on a bus with a brand new fan in a box to help circulate air on the three days a year when the wind for some reason ceases to blow here. Here’s the deal – my bus is rarely crowded, and I profusely thank the driver for being patient with me. Hey, I am not the only person my age boarding a bus with a bunch of stuff. It’s common here. It works. I like it.

Plus, missing a bus is a good reason to walk. Last week I missed the bus that goes up the huge hill to my apartment. I didn’t want to wait 20 minutes for the next bus, so I opted to walk seven blocks to Haight-Ashbury and check out the tie dye selection at a resale shop. The sun was shining, the air was cool and pleasant -- and what’s not to like about tie dye? Later, I took the bus back up the hill.

Yesterday was a Drive Day. I stacked up errands and knocked them off, one at a time. First I drove to the recycling center to donate some items I’m not using. The process of moving here (regular readers remember me whining about that process, often) has made me more adamant than ever: If I’m not using it, I’m not keeping it. Period. Next I dropped off my medical records from St. Louis with a doc I will see in October. Then I went to the Oceanic Society office to meet with the director.

On the way home, I had planned to stop at a store near me for a few things. Instead, I found a parking place in the Marina, a neighborhood I had not yet explored. San Francisco is full of small business districts with independently owned shops, restaurants and groceries. I walked and window-shopped for about 40 minutes, getting to know the area. Then I ducked into a grocery, got what I needed and drove home.

Today I returned calls, paid bills, wrote a few note cards to friends back home – and then drove to the top of the hill high (900-plus feet) above my new home. And I let the wind pull all the curl from my hair. Why not?

Impressed by Psychedelic Impressionism

2010-08-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

A mid-August evening in San Francisco and I’m driving to a friend’s house at 5:45 p.m. I’m wearing a Polartec jacket. I dressed for how the weather looks – fog rapidly moving in, pushed by high winds.

Still, it’s not really cold enough for Polartec. The long-sleeved cotton jacket and long-sleeved cotton shirt are plenty warm for the evening, which will be spent inside the de Young Museum at the exhibit on “The Birth of Impressionism.” Ironically, it was much cooler earlier in the day, sitting in the sun outside the Academy of Sciences.

And that’s August in San Francisco.

Today was a day filled with crisp images, kaleidoscope moments, extreme concepts – no doubt influenced by a visit to the “Extreme Mammals” exhibit at the Academy of Sciences. Did you know lactating kangaroos can deliver two kinds of milk – one extra rich for newborn joeys and one not so much for older offspring? Neither did I.

I did know that manatees’ nipples are under their flippers. I did know that whales have vestigial leg bones. I did know that one-third of the musculature of a naked mole rat is in the animal’s jaws and that it can dig a tunnel with its teeth.

But the museum impressed me mightily with a model of a batodonoides, an extinct shrew-like mammal that weighed less than a dollar bill. The batodonoides is displayed next to a model of an indricotherium -- also extinct, and a relative of the rhino – and the largest land mammal ever. This guy stood 18 feet high and was 39 feet long. Nice pairing!

One glass-enclosed kiosk contained a green snake, tail wrapped around a branch and head dangling down, little tongue darting in and out. Below, sitting calmly, was a giant toad, maybe six inches high and six times as wide as the snake. Next I watched a man take a photo of a rare lizard from Madagascar in spite of the large sign on the reptile’s enclosure that read: “No Photos.”

The same sign – with one additional claim -- was posted on the glass wall that enclosed a tiny single tree shrew. “No Photos. I’m already jumpy.” Wide-eyed and clearly nervous, the tree shrew licked its tail just like the cat does when she’s fretting about something.

Sitting outside in the sun and chilly wind, eating a $21 lunch, I watched a toddler unfasten his slacks, stand in his underpants and scream for his mother. “They fell down,” he told her when she rushed over. After a visit to the four-story rainforest and a Philippine reef inside, outside I watched a slightly older boy plan to step into a fountain, actually step in that fountain and then burst into tears and leap out.

In between my two visits to museums today, I tried to right some wrongs. For instance, the brokerage firm that manages some of my money still sends statements to my condo in Creve Coeur, though they have my San Francisco address. One publication I write for also sends me mail at the wrong address – this after two phone calls and a letter. And why is it I have not heard from three people who promised to get some information to me today?

I also pondered my shopping list: Sticky mat for yoga, sturdier step stool for when I need to get to the higher cabinet shelves, and quarters for the coin-operated washer and dryer in my apartment building. The trick is to figure out to get all the items at one place. No solution yet.

After trying to right wrongs, set up appointments and ponder shopping needs, it was time to get ready to go to the de Young Museum. A night out called for dressing up. As I pulled on my new favorite tie-dye socks, I remembered before I left St. Louis that a friend laughed and said, “Finally, you’re going to live somewhere that will appreciate your taste in tie dye.” And I do!

As I finished dressing, thinking ahead to an evening spent with Monet, Manet, Morisot, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas (and Susan and Denise), it hit me – tie dye is psychedelic impressionism.

I wondered whether I can copyright that phrase. Then I grabbed my Polartec jacket and left.

A Whale of a Day

2010-08-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

“This trip had more whales than we saw in Alaska.”

“We didn’t see anything like this in Hawaii.”

“I had no idea what to expect – what a day!”

Listening to my fellow passengers’ remarks, I realized that though I’ve seen many whales in Alaska, Hawaii and elsewhere, and though after almost 28 years of whale watching I did know what to expect – or at least hope for – even a rave review will not fully do justice to the Oceanic Society’s nature trip Sunday to the Farallon Islands.

Here, straight from the report of naturalist Izzy Szczepaniak, is the tally:

• Seabirds: Western gull, brown pelican, Brandt's cormorant, double-crested cormorant, red-necked phalarope, common murre, sooty shearwater, pink-footed shearwater, pigeon guillemot, Heermann's gull.

• Pinnipeds: California sea lions, northern fur seals, Steller sea lion, harbor seal, elephant seal.

• Cetaceans: One minke whale, three blue whales, two humpback whales, one gray whale, one orca.

Hey, I’m a big fan of seabirds and pinnipeds, but I’m out on the day-long trip to see whales. (For info on these trips, see www.oceanicsociety.org/whale-watching-farallon-islands) And oh the whales we saw!

After lunch on our boat, the Salty Lady, in the relatively quiet waters of the mystical Farallon Islands, we headed out in search of more whales. We’d already watched blue whales feeding, had several good looks at the broad backs of the largest animals (up to 80-90 feet long, weighing more than a ton and a half per foot) ever to live on Earth. We’d caught a fleeting glimpse of a fleeing minke, a small baleen whale (a mere 30 feet long) that shows little and tells even less. And we had hung around a small humpback long enough to hear several blows and watch a few shallow dives. We’d even come upon a gray whale (said to be the most primitive of whale species) feeding close to the Farallons.

So we’re riding along on the back of the boat, many of us half dozing, cold and a bit damp (more on this later), when with no warning whatsoever, no tell-tale blow to indicate that a whale was nearby, a massive adult humpback, weighing about 40 tons, leaps fully out of the water and crashes back into the sea. Everyone screamed – even those who turned in time to see only the great splash. Izzy, who had been in the front of the boat, raced to the back, crying “Did you see that? Did you SEE that?”

Captain Jared slowed the boat. We waited. We watched. “This humpback’s heart is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle,” said Izzy. “The arteries are big enough to walk through -- if we stooped a little.” Then the whale breached again – and again and again! We were not tired of watching the breaching whale (how could we be?) but next the whale showed us every trick in a humpback’s bag: spyhopping (sticking its head out of the water), lobtailing (raising its tail high and then smacking it on the water’s surface) and flipper slapping (smacking those 12-foot-long flippers on the water). The whale rolled over and over, showing off the beautiful flippers, dark on top and white on the bottom. Next we were treated to a series of partial breaches. The whale actually wheezed during one expulsion of breath. ”All that activity takes a lot of exertion,” said Izzy, laughing.

Fog and chilly sea spray be damned – a golden glow settled over the Salty Lady. Everyone smiled – including Captain Jared and First Mate Tack. Then a woman from England asked about something she noticed in the distance – a dark fin high above the water. Someone asked it if were a shark. One wag aboard called out, “If it is, we’re going to need a bigger boat.” Izzy concurred, and kept searching with his binoculars. Suddenly he erupted in a huge laugh. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an orca!” It was an adult male, with a six-foot-tall dorsal fin – not a common site in the area.

And so we watched the top predator of the sea move through the waves. Orcas have been known to kill great white sharks, though more often they go for baby whales or old, sick whales. I’ve read that they consider tongue of blue whale a special delicacy. The orca did not come as close to the boat as the blues and the humpbacks, but we were close enough to appreciate the sleek body and that impressive dorsal fin.

Then it was back to San Francisco, back to land, back to longing for my fleece sheets. Exhilarated, cold and exhausted, I made my way home, where I peeled off layers. How many? On top, a camisole, a long-sleeved base-layer turtle-neck shirt, a long-sleeved fleece pullover, and a fleece vest. On bottom, Capilene longjohns, fleece-lined leggings and rain pants over all that. I also wore a three-quarter-length, water-resistant raincoat with a hood, a fleece “ear wrap,” a water-proof brimmed hat, sock liners, wool socks and my sturdiest tennis shoes. Still, I was cold.

I climbed into bed, snuggled into the fleece sheets and begged the cat to heat up some soup for me. She decided instead to join me in a nap. Later, I fed both of us and sat replaying the day in my mind. I took no photos, took no notes – just took it all in. What a day indeed!

Transformations

2010-08-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Everything has changed.

I live in a different place in a different city in a different state. I don’t go where I used to go. I don’t run into people I know everywhere I go (well, rarely – see the last post). Heck, I don’t even know how to go many places, but I’m learning.

Geographic transformations take time (though not nearly as much time as geologic transformations) and time is what I brought with me; time to start anew, time to rethink what the actor Ken Page once described so beautifully as “the cocktail hour of life.” So I’m taking my time.

“Oh – did I just push in front of you?” asked the man at the Upper Terrace Market, a few blocks from my apartment. We were standing in front of the beverage case.

“No,” I said. “I’m just moving slowly.”

He looked at me. “How do you do that?”

I laughed and said, “You get to be 62.”

He replied, “I just turned 40, and I recently fell down for the first time. I know I was moving too quickly, and I fell.”

We discussed how falling takes place in slow motion, how every second you are certain you will catch yourself – but you don’t. We discussed how you feel really stupid when you’re on the ground. We discussed how we are not the sort of people who expect to fall. We expect to get where we are going, and back, safely.

“I have on Birkenstocks, and that’s why I am moving slowly,” I said, pointing to my feet. “I didn’t want to take time to put on tennis shoes.”

He pointed to his feet. “I always wear tennis shoes. It’s safer.” Then he admitted that now that he has fallen for the first time, he figures it may happen again, at any time, regardless of what shoes he wears. “I’m only 40,” he said, “and I fell!” I assured him he had a lot of good years left.

We paid for our beverages, wished each other well and went our separate ways. I made it home, some three, maybe four blocks, all up hill. These walks to the mailbox and the market – and my new gym membership – may contribute to another sort of transformation. Especially now that I have thrown out half a box of those delicious Triple Peanut Cookies from Trader Joe’s.

When I walked in, the cell phone was pinging, to let me know I had a new email. The Kindle sat charging. And I remembered I wanted to send invitations to a couple of friends to download Skype.

This electronic transformation was not slow in coming. I arrived in San Francisco with a not-so-smart phone. Joel listed the advantages of a smart phone, and a few days later, I had one. The Kindle has intrigued me, a born book lover, from the beginning, and I’ve read a lot about them. Joel suggested that I borrow his Kindle for a few days. I read and read, quite happily, from the small plastic device. I read the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New Yorker. I peeked at a couple of books Joel has downloaded. Then “The Good Guys” came on, and I’m a fan, so I put down the Kindle, but I am not ready to give it back.

I’m not new to Skype – Patricia and Joel called me on Skype when they were in New Zealand, and now I even have a web cam. Since I moved, I have been to two Skype parties – Judy’s birthday dinner and a gathering of my beloved Sherpa writing group. I’ve even given some Skype tours of my apartment for other friends in St. Louis. (Calling between Skypers is free.) I use Skype to interview people I am writing about (calling non-Skypers is inexpensive), and also to set up appointments, because sometimes the smart phone takes a break right in the middle of a call.

Not everything, of course, is different. I spend part of each day sitting at my desk, working on current assignments. I field emails from all over, on all topics – though lately many of them have been complaints, statements of outrage that it is 102 degrees in St. Louis and 57 degrees in San Francisco. I pull up maps, check on my bank balance and go in search of important information on the web, such as when “The Good Guys” will start up again in the fall.

Then I look out the window, and I am reminded that everything, after all, has changed.

Small World in a New Town

2010-07-27T17:41:00.001-07:00

“Aren’t you Pat Corrigan, the writer in St. Louis?”

That’s a question I heard constantly in and around St. Louis. Today, I heard it in a small coffee shop in Cole Valley, my next-door neighborhood. Standing there smiling at me as my jaw dropped and my smile grew was Bill Grivna, acting teacher (and now life skills coach and Tai Chi practitioner) from home, on vacation in San Francisco.

“I am,” I said, “except now I live here – have for a whole month!” We both laughed for the joy of it, and then set to catching up.

Michael Max, my friend and acupuncturist from St. Louis (see www.youngkangclinic.com) was with me and Bill was with a friend and Tai Chi practitioner who used to live in San Francisco. We all ended up exchanging information for resources. And of course I told Bill that on opening night at the Rep, he must hug Steve and Champe and kiss Edward for me. I will miss being at opening night – all the opening nights -- so Bill agreed to be there on my behalf as well as his own.

Bill asked where I live. I pointed up the hill, and explained that Cole Valley, just six blocks down some steep streets, is my next-door neighborhood, where I hang out. My apartment is just below Twin Peaks, the two 900-plus-high hills right in the center of the city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks_%28San_Francisco,_California%29.

Standing at the top of one of the hills on this gloriously clear and sunny day, Michael and I found my building. Then, looking beyond – east to the Bay and north to Marin and west to the sea – Michael turned to me and said, “You did it. You’re here." Then he gestured to the scenic vistas all around us and added, "Look at all this -- you are a super hero!”

Nice, huh?

Also nice is the front-page coverage Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle on a subject dear to my heart – whales! See www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/25/MN8K1EJ0U6.DTL or just Google the Chronicle (www.sfgate.com) and type in “whales.” Two weeks ago, dozens of blue whales steamed into Monterey Bay. I may have to run down the coast and see for myself! One whale-watch trip sighted 28 of them – the largest creatures ever to live on the planet.

Speaking of my favorite marine mammals, on Thursday I have an appointment to meet with the director of the Oceanic Society (www.oceanicsociety.org) to discuss a volunteer job. I hope to do some writing for them, and also to get out on the boats to assist the naturalists. Roger Payne offered me a similar job a long time ago, off the other coast, and I was unable to take it. That was then -- now it’s a real possibility!

In Other News, earlier today, I went to one of the three Trader Joe’s stores in San Francisco. Here’s how this works – cars line up in the traffic lane closest to the curb and wait (patiently or im) as TJ employees wave in each car when a spot in the modestly sized lot is vacated. Inside, the store is big and bustling. (And what fun to fill the cart with stuff I love and have been without for over a month!) Outside, I felt the need to hurry to my car and drive off so the next person in line could get in. Strange!

Here at The Crow’s Nest, the best news is that the new bed part arrived at 8:20 p.m. last night and finally I got a good night’s sleep. As I said in the last post, I am finished unpacking, finished stashing stuff into closets, finished running the last of the boxes and the donations off to the Haight-Ashbury Recycling Center. Sunday, I officially started living here, as opposed to being busy moving in. I celebrated that by attending a double feature with Susan at the Balboa – the haunting “I Am Love” and “The Secret in Their Eyes.” Four hours and 30 minutes of movies!

This afternoon, gazing out my wall of windows at my world-class view, Michael said, “It’s all out there, and it’s all extraordinary, isn’t it?” I told him it is – but a lot of my life takes place in this chair, at this desk, writing. I’ve got five assignments right now and a couple more lined up for the future, so that important part of my life remains the same.

Everything else is different. Here when I look out the window, what I see is extraordinary – wee sailboats and huge container ships heading to Oakland or going out to sea (I track the ship traffic at www.boatingsf.com/ais_map.php -- a terrific new hobby) or redtail hawks (thinking of you, Jim Hanselman!) soaring over my building to the Tank Hill nature preserve behind me or – this time of day -- opaque filaments of fog stretching in from the sea.

Super hero? Nah. But I am living her life!

The Good, The Bed and the Ugly

2010-07-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

The Good: The best of the good news is that Maggie and I are together again. I brought her home a week ago. Right away, she bonded with our furniture, found the litter box, had a snack and jumped on the bed for a nap. For three days, she seemed to think we had just a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. When I put her in her little round bed on the desk by the window, she peered out and then dashed away, maybe alarmed by the scenic vista, the sea gulls or the noise from traffic. Now she seems thrilled with the view and sleeps in her bed on the desk while I type, just like old times.

Every box (except three going to Patricia and Joel’s for storage) has been unpacked, the furniture is in place and every possession has been stored, filed or artfully arranged. Wait – that’s not quite true, because I haven’t yet hung all the art on the walls. Still, I live here now, which is different from moving in. Really different. Delightful! And usually I remember where I have put stuff.

Full disclosure: I have packed and stored here a shoe box full of sea shells. Yes – I seem to have brought sea shells to the ocean! Not just any sea shells. Sea shells I’ve had since I was a kid, sea shells my brother collected (from stores – he never saw the sea) and sea shells I have been given. A friend suggested I drive the shells down to the shore, line them up and wave “bye.” Instead, I have put three on a shelf in the bathroom, filled a huge abalone shell in the living room with others and packed some in a box, to think about another day.

Also good: The brisk, gusty winds that roar through my open windows invigorate me (sorry, suffering St. Louisans…). My neighbors are kind (one from Kansas City, one from Chicago) and also quiet people. I find that even with a tender foot I can maneuver the 38 steps down to the trash room and the private laundry. (David Bonetti said I had to get a place with a laundry, and I did.) The shower is a joy! I care about showers, and this one is terrific. The dishwasher is a treasure – only about one-fourth of apartments in my price range have them.

In other good news, I have found a woman willing to try to cut my hair, I have located a gym I will join soon, I missed only one question on the driver’s license test and so now have a California license and oops -- today I bought another rug, a splendid, unusual rug, this one for the living room.

Susan played hooky and drove with me to Novato in Marin County to have a look at the rug, because one person cannot load an 8-foot by 8-foot rug in the car, get it into the apartment and push all the furniture around. She was kind enough to help, and we celebrated with burgers and a fresh peach milk shake afterward. A word of thanks also is in order here to Michael, Patricia’s brother and Susan’s son, who set up my desktop computer, fixed a shelf, added a wrap rack (as in Saran) to my kitchen cabinet door and fetched a small teak file cabinet that I found at a resale shop. Joel set up my TIVO just in time to capture “Mad Men” and taught me how to work the new TV and DVD player. And Patricia has provided moral support and admiration of what I accomplished here in a short time. She walked in the other night and exclaimed, “It looks like a house!”

Savoring all the good!

The Bed: My beloved Select Comfort bed has a slow leak. I agonized for a day over why and then set about getting the air chamber replaced. It took seven phone calls over five days. Today, UPS brought my new air chamber while I was touring Cole Valley shops with Susan. Oh well…

The Ugly. Blame it on not sleeping as well as usual (did I mention the leak in the bed, leading to a less than firm mattress?) or on unpacking 93 boxes (and finding a place for the stuff and then disposing of the boxes) but I’m really tired! When I am really tired I make stupid mistakes, forget things, neglect to read the grocery lists I make and have to double back on errands.

To make it better, tomorrow I will remind myself that the work of moving here is over. I will make an appointment for a massage – I’m past due. Then I will walk a few steps up the street, sit on an old tree trunk on a hillside and eat my lunch as I admire the astonishing view. The view is the same as from my wall of windows, but I think I need to be out in the wind, to help clear my head.

I live here now, and can at last begin to explore what that means.

Sleeping at Home -- At Last

2010-07-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

My champagne bucket is wearing a lampshade as though dressed for a party, the varnish on my wooden rhino appears to have suffered on the trip across the desert and I not only have enough glasses to open a restaurant, I have enough hand towels to furnish a spa.

Still, all's right with this world -- slept in the apartment last night! Hoping to bring Maggie "home" from her second home at Susan's by this weekend.

Today I determined that I could not unpack another box until I got rid of the empty ones and discarded another 16 big bags of packing paper. There simply was no place to put so much as a measuring spoon, as every surface was covered in unpacked items, and no way to get through the rooms, as massive flattened packing boxes blocked every route.

The city trash hauler offered to pick up everything free (an annual opportunity) but not until next Wednesday. Then on line I discovered the Haight-Ashbury Recycling Center. I loaded up the 16 bulging bags, drove off and disposed of them in huge bins. I returned home and loaded up every last flattened box -- too many to count. How did I accomplish this with one gimpy arm and two arthritic hands? Three boxes at a time. By the time I got back to the recycling center, I was as sweaty, unkempt and wild-eyed as some of the homeless people I've seen around town, but it felt so good to heave every last box into the bins -- three at a time until I was finished.

Then I marched into the Comcast cable office for the second time to discuss once again my concerns as a new customer. The first time, I went to argue that I was entitled to cable and high-speed internet service NOW, not in three weeks while the company waited for the former tenant's contract to expire. I won that one.

Or so I thought. On Monday when the technician arrived, he did not have a working cable card with him, but said he could sell me a box or set up another appointment. Joel had told me to reject a box and hold out for the card so we could set up my new TIVO, so I did as I was told. I didn't understand the implications, of course.

Last night I fell onto the couch, exhausted, and turned on the TV. "Run Auto Channel Scan," the screen said. I hit "Menu" and clicked on "Run Auto Channel Scan." The TV faltered a moment and then this appeared on the screen: "Are you sure you want to do that?"

It was like talking to Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey." I ran the scan and discovered I get 12 channels, six of them in languages I do not speak. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with two people at Comcast (the phone dropped the first call) and then indulged in a "Live Chat" online session with someone at the company. The woman said the problem is that I don't have a cable box...

Undaunted, I went to the Comcast office today looking like hell and announced I was there to pick up my cable card. They gave me one! I also asked for a channel line-up for my TV package. Turns out I was enrolled in Bargain Basement Cable -- no Comedy Central, no AMC (and with "Mad Men" starting up soon!) and no Weather Channel. I promptly upgraded my service.

Next I went to hug Maggie and visit with Susan. Drove to Patricia and Joel's to visit with Banjo, their cat. (He yelled at me too.) I'm just a bad cat mom lately. And then I drove the Tree Sap Express (aka my hard-working Little Black Subaru Wagon) to the car wash. The young man who waited on me said, "I'll tell you our choices, you tell me what you want and I will take care of everything." I practically wept. I ordered an outlandishly expensive car wash and bought a Diet Pepsi, which I drank while sitting in the sun and that young man took care of everything.

Then I came home and started unpacking. Again.

Making the best use of kitchen cabinet space is a jigsaw puzzle. I solved it, and then found another box marked "Kitchen." That's why this evening the champagne bucket is wearing a lampshade as a hat. The linen closet is still unsolved. The utility closet is hilarious. The bedroom closet is full of clothes and various items are vying for space on the shelf. The office area of the living room is quite nice, but then I haven't unpacked three boxes marked "Desk." Overwhelmed tonight, I set one small goal: Clear off the kitchen table.

In the middle of that chore, I was inexplicably moved to switch the loveseat with the chair-and-a-half. Why? Because (Edward, where are you when I need you?) once again, just as I did 11 1/2 years ago at the condo, I had put the long piece of furniture on the short wall and the short piece on the long wall. I laughed the whole time I pushed and shoved these big pieces of furniture, remembering that Edward helped me solve the problem last time and surely moving the two pieces would this time, too.

Not so much.

But as my friend Charles always advises, "Live with it awhile."

Right now I am watching waves of fog race across the city. I think the weather is changing, and I say that with confidence -- even though I do not yet have access to the Weather Channel.

Three Weeks Here

2010-07-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

New accomplishments: Passed the driver's license written test, got what I wanted from the cable company because I made an office visit (after failing on line and on the phone) and got the parking permit for the moving truck, which comes on Monday.

Who knew?

Free advice: Avoid feeling smug. You know -- here is the more traditional saying: Pride goeth before a fall.

After tallying up my many accomplishments, heading out again I missed the last porch step at P&J's house and landed on the sidewalk. Joel, who was following me, asked if I would prefer to sit on the step instead of on the sidewalk, but I was taking inventory. When I decided everything was where it should be and seemed to be okay (though it hurt), then I got up.

Drove off to the apartment with a load in the car, took everything inside and was wondering what to next when my injured ankle shouted, "GO HOME AND PUT ICE ON THIS FOOT!"

So I did. It's good to listen when the body talks.

My ankle is much better this morning (though still swollen) and so my mind is doing the organizing, sorting and prep work that needs to be done at the apartment. Just as well -- today is a big family picnic, so I was taking off the day anyway. Best news: In addition to attending a picnic in the woods with my new family, I have a $10 filet mignon to grill in the park!

Or to let someone else grill while I sit with my foot up. Still, it's all good!

More later.

Oops -- I Bought a Rug

2010-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Just finished measuring and cutting shelf paper -- fun! The task involves math and cutting in straight lines, neither a skill I possess, but it's done. So be it.

More fun was shopping for a metal basket that clamps to the wall by suction cups -- perfect to hold the electronic toothbrush charger -- and a stacked fabric shelf thingy to hold tee shirts in the closet and a second attempt to purchase a plastic bin to hold ice in the freezer. Making ice is one of my specialties, and a person needs a bin to keep it in.

"What's your recipe," asked Joel, pretending to care about my hobby of making ice.

I could not retort with a "Nyah, nyah" because he was in the bathroom constructing an over-the-toilet etagere with shelves to hold makeup and whatever else one keeps on shelves in a bathroom. It's been so long since I left my HUGE bathroom with two linen closets and miles of vanity counter surrounding the sink that I can't remember what I used to have out, but now I have a new place to have it. Out.

Yesterday I met a lovely family selling a sturdy tv stand (one with places to put DVDs!) on Craig's List for just $40. I bought that, though the family's 3 year old worried about what he would use as a train table once it was gone. "We have a lot of other stuff," said Keri (the boy's mom), "like rugs." Susan (Patricia's mom) and I meandered into the garage to have a look.

The next thing I knew, I had purchased a beautiful wool Oriental rug to go -- well, I wasn't sure where it would go, but it was incredibly appealing at the time and we liked it even better when we got it back to the apartment. The rug likely will help define the "Let's Sit and Stare at the View (or the TV)" space, but right now it's lying in the middle of the room and when I'm at the apartment, I really want to lie on it for hours and just imagine living there.

I'm not living there yet -- my Stuff was loaded on a truck today in St. Louis. Tomorrow someone else's stuff gets loaded on the same truck and then the driver maps out his route. And so I wait.

Joel has been referring to my apartment as "The Hut" and "The Cottage." I announced today I like "The Crow's Nest" because I am so high up. A moment passed and he said, "The Crone's Nest," in reference to my advanced stage in life as a crone, which comes after maiden and then mother. That has some appeal. But it's so not nautical, and here I am surrounded by water! Speaking of which, with the binoculars, I can clearly see the lighthouse at Bonita Point from my wall of windows.

While I was out playing "And Then I Bought..." I briefly considered a welcome mat for the entryway just outside my door. I don't like welcome mats that say, "Welcome." I did see one that said, "You are here," which is funny, but in the end I spent money on new cabinet knobs. The ones in the apartment are brass and huge and very flashy -- not that different from my old door knocker -- so I have changed the tone of that for now. Obsessing over cabinet knobs really annoys me, so I didn't spend a lot of time at it.

Next on The List is to get a driver's license, get a library card and join a gym. But first, maybe I'll spend some time lying around on the new rug. Stay tuned.

Two Weeks Down, Decades to Go

2010-07-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

Driving up, up, up a hill, noting the sign "Abrupt Grade Change" and then driving down, down, down a hill, I suddenly realized where I"d seen all this before. Weren't some of the best car chases ever seen on screen filmed here in San Francisco?

No surprise -- everyone here drives as though they were chasing someone or being chased. Hurry, hurry! Pass that car, go around that taxi, dare that old woman to open her car door and try to get out before zooming past her! After just two weeks, I get the intensity, the purpose, the sense that time is passing us all by and life is short, so we should all drive fast. I can drive like this, too, and I admit it's fun, especially on the outrageously steep hills.

But how big a hurry must I be in to get to Pier One? Yes, I was eager to see the $129 chairs on sale for $89, but I took my time, savoring the quality of light over The City, noticing the flash of the sun off the water -- what a beautiful place this is!

As it happens, I was given the gift of a dining room table. I checked Craig's List for dining chairs. Hmmm...not surprisingly, most people seek to sell chairs along with the matching table, not individual dining room chairs. One listing mentioned Brand New Chairs, $50 each. They looked nice. One listing offered just three, and I was in the market for four. A couple of listings advertised chairs for $10 each, and well -- you get what you pay for.

I emailed the person with Brand New Chairs. Then I found a nice-looking chair on the Pier One web site. The store on Geary had three. The downtown store had one. I was in possesion of a splendid parking place, and the time was 6:30 p.m., a time after which there are no available parking spots on any streets in San Francisco. Or so I have been told. Was I going to let the fear of never finding a place to park keep me at home? Or was I going to boldly go to Pier One and stare at chairs?

Off I went. As I pulled into a splendid parking spot outside Pier One, my phone rang. Or more accurately, quacked. I have set my ringtone on "Duck" and I find it highly amusing. Calmly, I parked. I listened to the message. It was the young woman advertising the Brand New Chairs, inviting me to come by. First, I visited the chairs in the store. I liked them, but with tax, four would cost over $400. I drove to the Marina to see the four chairs that would cost a flat $200.

The young woman's mother had bought the table and chairs for her daughter, and she didn't want them. She was willing to keep the table, but she wanted something entirely different in a chair. "Did your mother buy you a tv stand that you would like to sell as well?" I asked politely. She had not,though the young woman was thinking of selling all her bedroom furniture.

I bought the chairs, which will serve me well. The I drove them to the apartment. I unloaded them one by one, I took them inside one by one and I carried them up my seven steps one by one. I put them in the living room and ran out the door -- dusk was fast approaching and I had to get home and find a parking place!

This morning, I had three people lined up trying to sell me the same bookcase, a modest piece of low-end furniture from Ikea. One woman wanted $10. A man wanted $35. Another woman was asking $40. Joel rented a truck and off we went in search of the $10 bookcase. Is it in perfect shape? No, but it is perfectly serviceable and will do exactly what bookcases are required to do.

We (mostly Joel) got the bookcase up the steps and into the apartment. He installed a curtain rod and hung my sheer panels. He hung up the new shower curtain -- I got white fabric, to cut down on the overall pink mood of the room. And he constructed and installed the hanging file apparatus for my file drawer in the office cabinet that goes with my splendid new (used) desk.

Here's what else I have in the apartment: A kitchen cart, a microwave, a wicker etagere for the kitchen, baskets for the etagere, four bamboo placemats, the perfect white plastic trash can for under the sink (that took some doing), two big storage bins, six small storage bins, a Brand New Digital Television Set, a handful of new clothes hangers, a shower caddy and miles of shelf paper, just waiting to be installed. Oh, and ice cube trays.

My goal from the beginning was to get what I needed in advance so that on the day the Stuff arrives from St. Louis, I can devote my time to unpacking and start to actually live here inhstead of living any longer in limbo. Living here got easier this afternoon when I discovered the little shopping plaza near the apartment has a huge Safeway, a decent-sized Walgreen's, a Post office, a Pack and Mail, a dry cleaner, a hair salon, a branchette of my bank and a veterinarian's office. And plenty of parking! This area is different from what will become my hanging-out neighborhood, which is Cole Valley, just six blocks down a steep hill from the apartment. But how nice to know that both are near.

Now all that's left to look for is a tv stand. Maybe a rug for under the dining room table. And a compost bin. That's a short list, and does not call for fast driving!

Sunday Afternoon Musings

2010-06-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood – 75 degrees, sunny, a pleasant breeze -- what to do with the afternoon?

In just a week, I’m already paranoid about moving my car – if I drive somewhere, I’ll lose my parking spot just half a block from the house, and weekend parking seems harder to come by than parking during the week. I studied the bus routes to assorted destinations. I studied the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) routes to other destinations. Then I went for a walk.

I’m walking every day because it’s easy and because I’ve not yet joined a gym. Besides, on previous walks I have observed:

• A family of four painting a bookcase on the sidewalk in front of their home.

• The roof of a convertible (unsure what model) draped around a tree, as though for safe-keeping.

• A woman bedecked in many a colorful tattoo – and those were just the ones I could see.

• An ebullient young man hanging half out of a car window shouting, “Hello!” to everyone. (Maybe he just moved here, too?)

• A German shepherd tied up next to a sign outside a restaurant called The Little Chihuahua.

I headed west on Oak to Divisadero Street. San Francisco is divided up into dozens of small neighborhoods, and Joel has described this one as the Middle Haight, nestled right between the Upper Haight, which is where Ashbury intersects, and the Lower Haight. I popped into a store called Cookin’: Recycled Gourmet Appurtenances, owned by one J. Kaminsky. Hundreds of thousands of kitchen items fill the cluttered shop – if you ever owned it or you ever needed it, it’s here. Four of us were meandering up and down the narrow aisles while Ms. Kaminsky answered questions, located items and chatted with her dog, who works part-time at the store.

One table holds Le Creuset cookware in all sizes, another displays a bevy of teapots. A tea cozy in a fish-print fabric is for sale, as are many, many sets of dishes. One man found a Calphalon accessory he said he’d been searching for over the past decade. A cookie cutter in the shape of a crab was on a shelf. Hundreds of salt and pepper shakers were available, as was a brand new, 24-inch-tall pepper mill. I admired a pretty red ceramic pitcher, an enamel cup sporting a cow and the best nut chopper I have ever seen, but left with only a Corning dish with a lid and an Oxo grater for me and a metal trivet for P&J.

A door or two away I entered The Other Shop, which is filled with vintage furniture, records, clothing and accessories. (Note to Gail and Other Gail: I spied not one, but TWO sets of nesting Pyrex bowls in primary colors – one marked $58 and one marked $78.) A desk lamp in primary colors, made in the ‘70s, caught my attention right away. Too bad it was by a famous designer and cost $62. A teak filing cabinet intrigued me. I liked the coasters from Australia with Aboriginal designs. Then I spied two Hawaiian shirts in perfect condition, both made in Hawaii. The shirts cost just $18, so I bought one! And I bought Edward a Not Birthday Present.

While I was in the shop, I overheard the manager order a sandwich from King Foot Submarine, a little place across the street. When the order arrived, they showed me the different sizes – you can get a tiny sub sandwich as well as a bigger one. I walked there and ordered the tuna sub with bacon and avocado, and sat in the window enjoying my lunch.

“I live here,” I said aloud. (No one was nearby to hear.) I laughed and then went back to my sandwich.

All in a Week's Work

2010-06-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday morning, I woke up as a new resident of San Francisco for the first time. I had a big suitcase (Gail made me go to Marshall’s to buy it the night before I left St. Louis, as my traveling gear just did not fit in my modest-sized suitcase – and she was right), a backpack on wheels (again, thanks to Gail) and my purse. And, of course, Maggie, plus her second-favorite blanket, a small bag of toys and a cotton fish on a string tied to a pole.

Today, one week later, I have an outstanding apartment in the Twin Peaks neighborhood, four sets of keys for it, a kitchen cart to hold a microwave oven, a microwave oven, a kitchen trash can, three new bottles of cleaning supplies (movers won’t store and move cleaning supplies), two big plastic bins for storage, a sink strainer, a bathtub plug, a shower caddy and half a dozen new hangers.

I also have an iPhone! I’m learning my way around it. Joel and Patricia want to give me their dining table (they need a bigger one), some smaller plastic bins and perhaps a wicker étagère for my kitchen, and then all I will need in the way of furniture is a large bookcase. Today I hope to buy a shower curtain and some sheer drapery panels for the bedroom. (I’m feeling Lace Curtain Irish…)

My car also lives here now, parked on the street, and so far so good. Judy and Scott arrived on Monday evening after taking the scenic route to San Francisco in my Subaru though Sedona, Santa Fe, Las Vegas and downtown Oakland. We had a great time on my birthday on Tuesday, which ended with a festive dinner when Susan joined us. (Patricia was out of town on business again.) The Guerreros also brought me another suitcase and laundry basket filled with clothes and Maggie’s favorite blanket and her bed, which is now in a chair in Susan’s living room that Maggie chose as her favorite. (Susan, in case you have forgotten, is Patricia’s mother, a warm-hearted and generous person and a wonderful woman.) Maggie and I also spend time together sitting in the sun room, watching birds in Susan’s yard.

I’ve been working my way through the list of people and agencies who need to know my new address and phone number. I opened a bank account. I applied for a bus pass, and then rode five one morning in 90 minutes, to see how that works and where they go. A bus that stops right outside my apartment will take me to the gym or to Patricia and Joel’s house. I’ve toured two fitness centers, and hope to join the small one sooner rather than later because not working out has made me crunchy and stiff.

Driving in San Francisco, I have discovered, looks scarier than it is. Everyone is in a hurry and many streets are thick with traffic. Once I got going, I did fine, but the initial adventure did not start out well. First, I could not lock Joel’s front door from the outside. It’s tricky, and I struggled – but if I can’t lock the door, I can’t leave. Finally I got in the car and started to assemble the GPS. I had everything but the cable. Went back inside, searched high and low three times, and couldn’t find it. Joel said he might have one, so I handed him my GPS – and it was broken. I don’t know how it happened or when, but it is just past warranty. Wrote down directions on paper and got back in the car.

Took a deep breath and opened a bottle of sparkling lime-flavored water I had grabbed from the fridge – and it exploded, fizzing all over me. I started laughing. What else was there to do? As I dried my shirt with my jacket, I recalled the Christmas night when Scott brought a tray of sliced filet mignon, hot off the grill, into the dining room to show those of us seated at the table. Smiling proudly, he held up the tray. We applauded. Then the tray tipped and the steak slid onto a dining room chair. Scott burst out laughing, a perfect response. In the car, I laughed some more and headed off to the hardware store.

A link to home arrived yesterday – a beautiful “Bon Voyage” book that Gerry and Tom assembled with pictures from the party they had for me, pictures of other friends in St. Louis (and G in Philadelphia) and pictures of family in San Francisco. What a wonderful gift! Be sure to ask to see it when you visit.

Yesterday I meandered around the Lower Haight (and no, I did not try to pressure people into reading this blog), popping into shops and peering into windows of others. I talked to the guy who owns Mickey’s Monkey, a secondhand furniture store. I bought some note cards at Merch, a tiny gift shop with cool stuff, including a padded canvas laptop bag with the stenciled image on the front of an old typewriter. (Loved it, but it was $55, so I left it there.) Went to the Three Twins ice cream shop, where I bought two pints for the house (lime sorbet and chocolate and peanut butter ice cream) and a single scoop of Harvey Milk and Coffee. Then I walked back to Patricia and Joel’s house.

I can do this! Here is what Amelia Earhart said:

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. You can do anything you decide to do.”

For now, I’ve decided to go buy a shower curtain.

News from the Left Coast

2010-06-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO: We got here – Maggie the Cat and I made it to San Francisco! She’s even been to Starbucks for her very first time, in the Los Angeles airport. I liked it better than she did.

Here are some notes on the past few days, for you – and also for me, to make sense of it all.

Weds. June 16: Resale shop picked up office furniture in the morning; I closed on the sale of the condo in the afternoon and then spent the evening packing every last thing I was responsible for. Went to bed early, fell asleep quickly, work up two hours later and repacked some stuff. Sigh…

Thurs. June 17: Movers arrived at 9:10 a.m. and were impressed with how organized I was. I accepted all the compliments and then lay on the couch, exhausted, until they needed to shrink-wrap it for storage. They carried out and loaded the last of the 117 boxes (!!!!) about 3:20 p.m. Then Gerry and Tom arrived, cheerfully took out the last of the trash for me and helped me load my stuff in their car.

They drove me to the Drury Airport Hotel, which I chose because it is across the street from Lambert and because they take cats. In our room, I took Maggie out of her little crate. She looked around the room and got back in the crate. (It was a LOVELY room!) I decided I needed to hang out with her for awhile before going next door for dinner. Finally she started exploring, coming back from time to time to where I was lying on the bed dozing, to express her concerns about our adventure. Then she settled in under the dust ruffle on the bed. I heard munching. She was eating half a Cheerio some other guest had left behind. I gave her a cat treat, put her in the bathroom with food and water and left, in search of something more filling other than half a Cheerio.

Had a DIVINE dinner at Lombardo’s – great family owned place (they also have a Lombardo’s at the Drury Hotel at Union Station and Carmine’s downtown) with delicious food. It was only 4:45 or so, so I got to know the young man at the next table, who just moved from Quincy, Ill., and wants to be a firefighter. We spoke of many things. Then I headed back to the room, showered and went to bed, exhausted, about 7:45 p.m.

Fri. June 18: With a mildly sedated Maggie in tow, I arrived at the American Airlines desk (I flew free; her ticket was $100) at 7 a.m., where we learned our flight to Chicago was cancelled. They decided to send us to Los Angeles instead, there to transfer to another flight to San Francisco. Saw a woman from my water exercise class and then was seated next to a woman my age wearing a blue tie-dye shirt with a peace symbol on it. Love this part – her name was Glinda! The good witch and I had a lot of fun talking on the flight, plus I got to see the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon from the air! Very cool. Once in LA, we had a three-hour delay before we finally took off for San Francisco.

But you know – eventually we did get there, and I actually recognized Santa Barbara and Monterey Bay from the air. At last we were in Joel’s car (and care) and headed for the home of Susan Fox, my daughter-in-law’s mom, who kindly offered to put us up for a bit before the transfer to Joel’s. Maggie meandered around a lot at first and then seemed to settle in. Me too – slept soundly.

Sat. June 19: Joel and I set out with a list of six open houses at one-bedroom apartments in the Glen Park neighborhood and two other locations. The first was too small. Way too small. The second was even smaller, and had three flights of steps down to it. The third was a possibility, though it was not very interesting. The fourth, the most expensive on the list, was really bad – crummy and dirty.

We drove around looking for “For Rent” signs and saw none in the neighborhood. Heading back to Joel’s for lunch, driving through what is known as Upper Cole Valley/Twin Peaks, Joel pulled over to park and pointed to a sign across the street: “Open: Large 1-Bedroom with View.” I popped out and went into the building.

Long story short: The view is astonishing – three big living room windows from high on a hill look north, to Marin. You can see the city. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see Point Bonita. You can see the PACIFIC OCEAN!!! The view literally took my breath away – I gasped and tears ran down my face. So much for not letting on to the manager that I liked it. We talked at length. The apartment is in a quiet six-unit building, 725 square feet, lots of closets. Not much charm – no hardwood floors or bay windows or the look of San Francisco on the inside – but did I mention the view???

I went to the car and asked Joel to come in and meet the manager and look at the place. We decided to go home and eat lunch and think – was it too soon? Had I seen too few? What the hell was I thinking? I hadn’t even been in town for 24 hours! I told the manager I would be back in touch either way. Patricia was at home – back from a business trip – and the three of us discussed the pros and cons. Then we all three went back to the apartment. They encouraged me to go for it. (Did I mention how much I love these two people?) I put a hold on the apartment, with money up front.

Then the three of us went out for celebratory drinks -- iced tea for P and smoothies for J and me. We had a toast to the future – I’ll know Monday or Tuesday if I got it – and then we went to their house to get ready for a wonderful dinner at the Tadich Grill (I was there 29 years ago with Joe Schneider…) with Mary Kay (Joel’s aunt who is in town for a conference), her friend Gina, and Susan.

Not bad for my first day in town, huh?

Sun. June 20: Woke up convinced I have made an excellent choice, got a good price, and want to go buy a shower curtain right this minute for My New Place. Only of course it’s too soon. Susan went to church and I walked to the grocery store and got some food for us. Maggie is sleeping in the sun. I’m sitting here by her, grinning.

Good Food and Good Fortune(s)

2010-06-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Next week this time, I will live in San Francisco. I won’t have an apartment yet, of course, but I will likely be out looking!

A few posts ago, I wondered aloud how to leave all the people here that I care about. Now I know – at parties, over coffee, during lunch, throughout dinner. I have not eaten a meal at home for nearly three weeks! Every gathering, no matter how small or large, has been wonderful, warm and loving and reassuring.

And the gifts! Along with a boat-load of “We’ll miss you,” I got an “I am proud of you.” I got a “Good for you – this is a bold step, and you can do it.” And I got a profound observation from a friend. First, he noted that he wants in front of him what he likes and what he knows. Then this: “You have an interest in and curiosity about all 360 degrees, and San Francisco can offer you something at every point on the circle. This is a great move for you.”

One dear friend surprised me with a family-themed photo frame, a gift for the future. My Five Favorite Female Friends popped for a last-minute massage with Yue Ma at the J, a gift for right now. My water exercise buddies bought me an exquisite leather-bound journal from Italy. My Jewish Chinese medicine man gave me contact info for two of his friends in San Francisco. “You’ll like both of them – be sure to call,” he said.

And everybody who has met me for coffee, lunch and dinner these past three weeks has picked up the tab, so I have saved a lot of grocery money while out eating orecchiette a la Nonna at Paul Manno’s Café, the fabulous burger at Cardwell’s, roasted chicken at Mai Lee, a selection of small plates at Remy’s, homemade whole wheat bread and great guacamole at Carolyn’s, gyros at L’Ecole Culinaire, the pork chop at Duff’s, Sicilian deep dish pizza at Adriana’s, shrimp and fresh vegetables at Macaroni Grill, grilled pork loin at Beth’s, a taste of Tim’s flatbread at Robust, meatball pizza from Dewey’s, and lots of skinny vanilla lattes.

When not eating, I’ve been darting around picking up medical records, emptying the safe deposit box, making copies of my rental application, returning books to friends, shredding old receipts, filing new receipts, exploring San Francisco neighborhoods on CraigsList, getting my hair cut and – ever so occasionally – packing. I even had a job interview, for a freelance gig in San Francisco. I got it!

And I took time to meet for coffee with a friend who has been thinking about moving to the Bay Area for a couple of years, at least. “Just do it,” I said. Then I emptied my purse of tiny crumpled fortunes, fortunes I’ve been collecting from cookies for months, fortunes that seemed to encourage me to Go West. “Take my fortunes,” I said. “They can all be true for you, too.”

A few hours after that coffee date, I was at an appointment. I picked up a book in the waiting room and leafed through it. The book fell open to this: "The most difficult thing is the decision to act -- the rest is merely tenacity. You can do anything you decide to do.” The quote was attributed to Amelia Earhart. When I got home, I sent it to Greg, as follow-up to the little stack of fortunes. The quote echoes the theme of the sign-off I use at the bottom of my emails:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain said that. You know he’s right.

Pack It Up

2010-05-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Three weeks from today I will wake up in my new city – San Francisco.

I will be living out of my suitcase, and much of what will be in that suitcase will belong to Maggie the Cat, as I know she will need her blanket and her toys and her scratching mat to comfort her in her new surroundings. Fortunately, friends will arrive in my car a couple of days later, and with them will be a second suitcase full of things to comfort me – and extra clothes and shoes, of course.

The rest of my stuff – what little there is – will go in storage until I sign a lease on an apartment. Remember the 46 boxes of books I gave away over the past year? Somehow, I still have enough books to fill 14 boxes, though two of the boxes are really small. Of those books I’ve held onto, only three will go to new homes. The rest are now in boxes, taped shut and labeled and sitting in rows in the empty dining room.

Yes! Packing has commenced!

Talking about packing has filled up a lot of time in the past three weeks while I was writing instead of packing. The writing was welcome, several assignments I agreed to take on before proceeding to pack. A week ago Friday, I finished the last assignment at 7:30 p.m. “That’s it,” I said to myself. “No more working until I’m settled into my new place.”

On Monday, I decided I really needed to write one more article, get the July HealthWatch feature finished so my editor didn’t have to find someone else to do the job. Found a suitable subject. Interviewed her. Wrote the article. Turned it in on Tuesday. “There,” I said to myself. “That’s the last of the writing I have to do for now.”

On Wednesday, I packed. On Thursday, another editor at a different publication asked me to add a short insert to a profile I recently completed for her. Writing the insert required contacting the subject of the profile and asking just a couple of questions. Of course, I said -- glad to do it. Called the woman, got her thoughtful response and sat here typing away.

Then I started laughing. Writing is easy. Not writing is so hard for me! I love working with words, choosing strong verbs, eliminating pesky adjectives, letting a subject’s personality emerge through quotes. When I finished the insert, I sent it off and sat around for awhile. “Well, no more excuses,” I said to myself. “Time to get back to packing.”

All day Friday, I packed. Then I cleaned up and went to a wonderful party. People I’ve known for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, even 48 years (that’s you, Susan) were at the party, all gathering to wish me well – and gobble up the delicious food prepared by Gerry and Tom for the crowd. We all laughed a lot, Ken and Charlene sang and as far as I know, Ron was the only one who got weepy. What fun!

Today, the people who are buying the condo stopped by. They wanted to walk through the rooms, see where their furniture would fit, think about what they needed to buy. “It feels like home,” they said. “It’s a wonderful place and we will be happy here.”

I am happy for them, and I will be happy in my new city just three weeks from today. Of course, I have packing to do -- but first, I just had to write this.

Somewhere a Place for Us

2010-05-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Sari lives in the Inner Sunset and speaks of the “neighborhood pride” there. She writes, “I agree that there are many times that it's foggy over here and sunny over on the other side of the city.” Micki lives in Pacific Heights, and warns about the fog in the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset. Doreen lives “by the beach” in the Outer Sunset and loves every minute of it.

That’s what I’m up to – interviewing people about where they live in San Francisco.

I ask about the neighborhoods, the climates (the city has several “mini-climates”), the coffee shops. Is there a library? A bus line? What about a gym? I ask everybody I speak to who lives there. These conversations take place on Facebook, in emails and on the phone, but they are no different than my rapid-fire questioning of cab drivers, store clerks and people in the ice cream shop that I have pestered during recent trips to San Francisco.

Usually, after pitching one neighborhood or another, the people I am questioning suggest I look on CraigsList to see what’s available. Look on CraigsList? For one year, I have been looking at apartment listings on CraigsList. I have looked at so many listings for so long that I can now recite some of them.

Among my favorites are the listings that offer spaces that have just one window (a converted garage), or narrow rooms and low ceilings or granite countertops but no stove. To clarify, those are my favorite funny listings. My true favorites, the ones that set me dreaming, have big rooms and hardwood floors and laundry facilities in the building – maybe even a parking place! The best of the lot have an ocean view, but here’s what I know about San Francisco – even if where you live doesn’t have a tremendous view, you can just go outside and look around and be amazed and astonished at what you see. It’s all worth looking at!

I will be free to sign a one-year lease on an apartment on June 23. I probably won’t, as at that point I will have been in San Francisco just four days – but I will be out looking. The best gift I have received from looking at CraigsList on many a night is that I know I will have choices, and most of the apartments have more than one window and they do include stoves. On the day I start looking, I suspect I will have just missed an incredible place at a great price – and I bet on the day I sign a lease, an incredible place at a great price will become available.

That’s how life works, but that does not mean that I won’t find a wonderful place to build a new nest. I will.

Where? I don’t know yet. Maybe in the Inner Sunset. Maybe in Pacific Heights. Maybe in the Outer Sunset or the Outer Richmond. Cole Valley, Noe Valley, the Castro, the Upper Haight, North Beach and Hayes Valley all have their charms. When the time comes, I will see what’s available, see what feels right and choose.

As I have sung repeatedly to Maggie the Cat: “There’s a place for us…”
And once I’m settled, I’ll invite Sari and Micki and Doreen over!

Stay Tuned... to Mr. Tambourine Man

2010-05-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

Going toward love – that’s what my 91-year-old friend and neighbor says I’m doing by moving to San Francisco. My son and daughter-in-law are there, as are all the wonderful members of the extended family I joined just 11 months ago when Joel married Patricia.

When I’m on the Left Coast, will I renounce my beloved only aunt and all her children, who are scattered in several states? Of course not. Will I tear up the connections, turn in the membership cards that bind me to the extended family I have created for myself in St. Louis? No way.

Sitting at Judy and Scott’s table over dinner on Mother’s Day, I promised everyone there that I will never forget our many holiday meals together – that when I sit at new tables, I will even repeat some of the wonderful stories I’ve heard at Judy and Scott’s table over the past 35 years.

Since the condo sold, I’ve been to the Zoo, made plans to walk through the Missouri Botanical Garden and enjoyed several lunch, dinner and coffee dates with dear friends. The next four weeks are filled with more of the same, plus a couple of parties that promise to be fun as long as we all concentrate on enjoying being together and overlook that it may be the Last Time We See Each Other – at least until they visit San Francisco, which they all promise to do.

If we get teary – and we may -- well, I have a secret weapon. When my friend and doctor of Chinese medicine asked me what he could do for me when I popped in for an acupuncture treatment, I told him I needed energy and courage: Energy to keep juggling many oranges without making juice and courage to cope with emotional farewells. I have abandonment issues, I told him. My whole family died before I was 35 years old, and now by moving halfway across the country, I am abandoning people I love.

Exactly how do I do that?

I told Michael Max that I don’t know how to do what I am about to do, emotionally, physically or financially. But as my neighbor reminds me, I am going toward love. I am also going toward a massive body of water, water filled with the song of the humpback, water that rushes in to steal the shore and then hurries away, water that offers sound that calms me and fury (nothing pacific about it) that excites me. I’ve already signed up to volunteer one day a week with the Oceanic Society – writing and helping out on whale watches, as needed!

The first big body of water I met was the Gulf of Mexico, 40 years ago. We drove along the beach, and when the car stopped, I got out and walked right into the water. Home! I tried once before to move to a place where I could live by the sea – Bandon, Oregon – but the job I was offered there required a 60 percent pay cut. I know now that Bandon offers exquisite natural beauty but not so much a life of the mind.

San Francisco is a city with a life of the mind – many minds, from what I hear – but also rich culture, startling vistas, bustling neighborhoods and endless opportunities to grow and change. So yes, I am going toward love, but I also am going toward newness, a chance to begin again, adjust and improve. My dear neighbor is certain all that is possible – in my life, her life, all of our lives.

“I am not my story,” she said at dinner the other evening. We agreed that it is important to respect and learn from our pasts, our stories, but it is equally important, if not more important, to stretch, to move beyond, to write new chapters based on new experiences. Think exciting plot twists, introductions of unexpected characters, rich new material that shakes up everything!

As I go toward love -- and give in at last to the lure of the ocean -- I have no idea what words will form paragraphs on the pages of the next chapter in my story. I have picked out some music. Sing it, Bob: “To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea…”

California, Here I Come!

2010-05-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Good News: I sold the condo!

Some details remain to be resolved, but everything looks good and I’m already fond of the people who soon will dwell in The Salmon Sanctuary. On my list of things to do today:

• Buy new toys for the cat.

• Buy a Sharpie.

• Buy a new Cardinals tee shirt.

What a short list – and a grand day! I have just finished tons of work, and to celebrate, I applied for three freelance jobs based in San Francisco. Then I set about doing the errands on my list.

The reason I have so little to do was discussed at length in my previous post, so no need to repeat myself. I will take on more freelance, right up until when I leave (mid-June, maybe), but for now, all I have to do is watch the calendar fill up. Many people want to have lunch or dinner -- or even hold a party in my honor.

How cool is that? One party planner has asked guests to wear some flowers in their hair. Surely you remember the song! My hair is too soft to hold bobby pins holding flowers, but perhaps I could staple a gardenia to my head…

A friend who lives on the east coast, understandably, has not offered to take me to lunch or dinner, but he did send sage advice about going late to the Haight:

“First of all, you do know, of course, that there's a big earthquake coming. I mean the granddaddy of them all. No reason not to live there. But you ought to take it into consideration when you look for a place to live. When the next earthquake hits, a lot of buildings are going to fall down. A lot did the last time. It's easy enough to go online and study geological maps of San Francisco to figure out where the most damage is going to be done (to buildings built on fill dirt). So stay away from them. Then too, don't move into a building that hasn't been retrofitted to survive the earthquake. Some have; most haven't.

“Get yourself an "I can survive the earthquake" kit. You can probably figure out the obvious things to put in it: fresh drinking water (which you need to replace regularly), spending money (small bills), food for two weeks (canned goods . . . Spam works well), backpack, etc. A few tools are handy too, such as a small crowbar that can be used to hit people over the head that are stuck under buildings screaming bloody murder and there's no way to get them out before the flames reach them.

“Remember, San Francisco is a city of weather zones. There are parts of the city that are always in the fog. It can be 20 degrees colder there than the rest of the city nearly all day long. The good news is, these places are cheaper. But then, they are cold and damp too. Places in the sun are much more expensive. Places over on the ocean side are cheaper and as long as they are on a Muni route, probably a better buy/rent. Funky areas abound around San Francisco State.

“Hang out in neighborhoods before you buy/rent. Spend time in them in the morning, afternoons, evenings, and then late at night. See if you like the neighborhood at all these different times of day. The city is weird that way . . . it changes by the time of day.”

All this makes me smile – even the part about the crowbar. It’s happening – I am moving to San Francisco! Here is what I said when I started this blog: “Some 42 years after the Summer of Love, I am moving to San Francisco, shredding the fabric of a comfortable life in St. Louis and stitching together something new. Will it fit?”

Stay tuned.

A Compliment to Savor

2010-04-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

“Well organized.” That’s how the woman from the moving company described my stuff as we toured the condo so she could estimate what moving to San Francisco might cost me. Every time she opened a closet or walked into a room, the phrase “well organized” came up again.

Organizing is easy when you’ve heaved out two-thirds of your stuff. The heaving – that’s not easy. I’ve written about it before, in earlier posts here. In today’s New York Times Magazine, Rick Marin writes about it, in “Lives: Objects of Accumulation.”

Marin’s dad has died, his mother is in a nursing home. An only child, he boldly goes into their home, filled with 50 years’ accumulation of stuff, and begins to sort and pitch. The project took him five 15-hour days, some of it spent discarding a drawer full of rubber bands, a closet where he found his grade school projects and rooms full of dusty, musty books.

I’ll pause now for a moment of gratitude from my son, because I have saved him 75 hours of toil by getting rid of so much of my stuff. (Note to son: I think this proves you owe me a four-day visit. I did the math using waking hours only.) When I’m in the nursing home – or have walked into the sea to go south with gray whales – he won’t have to do what Marin did. “Well organized.” That’s what the woman said about me when she looked at my condo.

Kay Ryan, poet laureate of the United States, addresses the topic of clearing out in a poem called “That Will to Divest,” which appeared in the April 12 issue of the New Yorker. Because I don’t have permission to print it here, I’ll just say that Ryan succinctly notes that the more stuff you get rid of, the more urgent it becomes to toss out most of the rest of it. Her poem includes this: “It gets harder…not to dismiss rooms, not to divest yourself of all the chairs but one.”

And why not?

Years ago, every time I announced I had bought a new pair of shoes, one male friend was incredulous. “You can only wear two shoes at any one time, and most likely, you will wear two that match,” he would say. The same is true of earrings – or was, until I started mixing up the pairs for an interesting look. I’m past that now, and I also own just 12 pairs of earrings. Even that seems too many.

“Want what you have.” That’s the mantra I repeated often after I took the buy-out from the Post-Dispatch. Then, when I decided to sell the condo and move, I discovered I didn’t even want much of what I had.

Now what I want is to live among family, the family my son joined when he married. Wonderful people, one and all, they wait patiently to welcome me in San Francisco while I wait in St. Louis for the condo to sell. The good news is that people are meandering through now, two or three a week, looking at the place.

Even better – I’m well organized.

The Untold Story of Maggie the Cat

2010-04-17T07:10:00.001-07:00

Countless times, I’ve asked Maggie, my cat, to tell me about her life before she came to live with me. She always declines. Perhaps the memories are too painful. Or maybe like all cats, Maggie lives in the present, and does not care to revisit times gone by.

I adopted Maggie through the St. Louis Cat Network 13 years ago to serve as a companion for Ginger (my big orange guy cat) a few months after Ginger's half-brother, Scoop, died. I thought it would perk up Ginger to have a friend, and the two could be company for one another when I was at work. This beautiful tortoise cat came with a name and a small pink-flowered bed. I allowed her to keep both. The vet estimated Maggie’s age at about 2.

For the first three months, Maggie hid under the couch. Ginger ignored her. When she emerged, she started following Ginger around, begging him to play. He ignored her. At long last, they became friends and eventually were inseparable. Ginger got diabetes and I treated him for three years before he reversed it. (Only cats can do that.) He lived a few more years and then, at 18, became senile and his health went downhill.

Maggie and I both grieved Ginger’s passing. About six months later, I brought home a tuxedo cat who needed a home. He had lost his siblings in a farm accident and was missing a foot, though you would never know it from how well he maneuvered. Tux was about 3 years old, and I thought he might cheer up Maggie. Instead, she was furious. Maggie yelled and cried. Tux yelled and cried. I yelled and cried. I took Tux back to the vet, who found a new home for him.

One day about four years ago, I was cleaning out my folder marked “Cats.” That’s where I keep vaccination records. Maggie’s adoption papers were in the folder, and tucked among the tips on how to care for a cat and feed a cat and love a cat was an envelope I had never opened. Inside were the papers from the day Maggie was turned in to the Cat Network.

“I don’t need these,” I thought and started to pitch them. I even wondered if I had been given the papers by mistake. Then for some reason, I unfolded the papers and read them. I discovered that longtime actor and director John Grassilli had brought Maggie to the Cat Network in early 1996. That explained her name! (Maggie is the lead character in the play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”) I had known John slightly, as I was second-string theater critic at the Post-Dispatch at the time. I also knew John had left St. Louis some time ago, so I thought no more about the connection.

I did ask Maggie about John, but again, she had nothing to say. On Tuesday, my waking thought was that John Grassilli likely was on Facebook. I looked. He was. I sent him this note:

“Hi John -- I was at the Post much of the time you were in St. Louis, and often reviewed theater. More importantly -- and I didn't realize for a long time that you were involved -- I have Maggie the Cat, a tortoise-colored cat you turned in to the Cat Network rescue program. We've been together 13 years! I'd love to hear your story about her, and fill you in, if you are interested.”

Just hours later, this came back:

“Hi Pat. Maggie...after all these years..very good to hear. We (now ex-wife Sara and I) were walking in Tower Grove Park when we heard her cry from a sewer drain. She wouldn't come out so we went back home, got the car and some cat food and then coaxed her out and took her home. We were going to keep her but our female cat Rita would have none of it. She was a bit of a bully too so we looked around and found the shelter. We thought it was a great place and we trusted they would do good by her. (We didn't know how good as it turned out.) We always wondered what had happened to her. Thanks for letting me know. Her extended story would be great to know if you have the time. Rita, who is standing behind me now demanding supper, in her better moments would like to know too, I'm sure.”

I sent John more details and a handful of photos. Then I gathered Maggie up in my arms and said, “Tell me about the day you were in a sewer drain – how horrible! You must have been really scared! Thank goodness John and his wife rescued you!”

Maggie wriggled and squirmed, jumped down, flicked her tail and went into the kitchen for a snack.

Cooking with Ed and Ross

2010-04-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ed Myers has died.

Ed Myers – the man who was my boss at the Central Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratory (CEMREL) in 1981-82, the man whose low chuckle that would build and erupt into delighted laughter, the man who taught me not to defend or explain my decisions, the man who occasionally got me bumped up to first class when the CEMRELites went to Washington, D.C.

Ed Myers also was the man who challenged me to edit a huge government grant application and then write the executive summary. Later, it was Ed Myers who announced to a room full of staffers that what I wrote blew him away. When St. Louis got 14 inches of snow, Ed Myers came to my apartment and dug out my car. And he excelled at pointed asides, delivered quietly, with eyes averted so you weren’t always sure you’d heard what you thought you’d just heard. You had.

The last time we talked – maybe 18 months ago -- I told Ed Myers that I get to San Francisco from time to time because my son and his bride live there. We tried to work out a time to get together, but he was traveling when I was coming to town. We agreed to try again.

We didn’t. And now Ed Myers has died.

Ed Myers was my mentor and my friend. Early on, we made a pact: Ed would ignore that I was fat and I would ignore that he was short. That worked well for us both, and allowed us to spend time appreciating the big brains we both brought to our friendship.

He also introduced me to two of his best friends, men who changed my life in so many ways. E. Joseph Schneider was one of them. The first time I heard Joe speak, I was convinced he was the male manifestation of me, so what was not to like? We had many long-distance conversations about journalism, politics and Fargo, North Dakota.

Ross Winter was the other. Befriending Ross was a lot of work, because he was a loner by choice. The artistic director of a dance company, Ross knew things about art and life that I wanted to know, so I persisted. Over time, I wore him down. We ended up as family for one another for a decade, and I loved him with my whole heart. Ross died March 13, 1994.

Later that week, after spending two days cleaning out Ross’ condo with his two sons, I called Ed Myers. “You have to come to St. Louis and help me,” I said. “I’m trying to help Stephen and Alex, and no one is helping me. I'm a mess. I cannot do this alone.” Ed Myers came, and he helped.

And now Ed Myers has died.

Ross and Ed taught me to cook. They both knew a great deal about cooking, about good food, about wine. Occasionally on Sundays, we’d gather, and we’d cook and eat together. When Ed’s true love, Carol Thomas, moved to town, Ross and I continued the tradition of cooking and eating together. Since Ross died, I’ve done serious cooking only on rare occasions.

When the call came this afternoon that Ed Myers has died, my refrigerator was uncharacteristically full. The last big-deal meal I cooked was over 11 months ago, before I put the condo on the market. I just don’t do that anymore. But today, cooking was on my agenda. After I thanked Nada for the call, I reached out to Joe. I wrote a note to Carol. I called two former CEMRELites.

Then I headed into the kitchen and I started to cook. As I chopped and peeled and measured, I took a deep breath and invited in warm memories from long-ago afternoons cooking with two of my favorite people. And I cried. I’ve never gotten over losing Ross.

And now Ed Myers has died.

The Writing Life

2010-03-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

Five years ago this October, I walked out of the Post-Dispatch for the last time. Yet just last week a well-meaning woman came up to me to say she reads my articles in the Post all the time.

“I write some travel stories for the Post now and then,” I said, “but I left that paper some time ago.”

The woman asked whether I was enjoying my retirement. I retired from the Post, but I have not retired from earning a living, I replied. She asked what I’m writing now.

Ten minutes later, I paused for a breath. Later, I realized how lucky I am. One of the reasons I always loved daily journalism was that I did something entirely different every day. Happily, that is still true, only now I find myself working on three or four different assignments in a single day.

In that regard, I am juggling oranges – and trying not to make juice.

Before I launch into a litany of current work, I want to say something about work I completed last Sunday evening. I had the privilege of writing the script for the Fifth Annual Kevin Kline Awards ceremony, which took place Monday night.

Scripts for award shows consist primarily of patter for presenters who must eventually say “And the nominees are…” Kline awards are given out in 22 categories, and most of them this year were presented in pairs, so I worked with a lot of people, generating patter, shaping patter, rewriting shaped patter and then tweaking rewritten patter. In one month, I crafted seven drafts of the script, which is typical.

I love the theater and I love theater people, so this job was a lot of fun. Even more fun was sitting in the audience on Monday night, listening to the audience laugh at lines I wrote for the presenters! What a great assignment!

Daily journalism is not part of my life anymore, but weekly journalism is. For the past year, I have been writing features and news stories for the St. Louis Jewish Light – profiles, advance pieces on special events, interviews with individuals who have achieved fitness goals or advanced medical science in some way and even a travel story about Jewish attractions in San Francisco.

“Thank you for letting me do journalism,” I said to Larry Levin, the publisher, at a luncheon late last year. I love the work. I like and respect the people I report to and I enjoy meeting the people I interview.

For the past year, I also have written for several national grocery store magazines, working with a company that publishes the magazines and the occasional calendar. I get terrific emails from my boss there: “Are you available to write 200-250 words on honey in 48 hours?” or “Can you jazz up a story from our files on soup?” or “I need 150 words on white beans – are you up for that?” I am always available, always willing, always up for that. Fun stuff!

The visitors’ association in a small town in Alaska approached me some months ago about a tourism marketing campaign. I responded to their request for proposals, and I got the job. Alaska is a favorite state of mine, and the research was as much fun as the writing. A friend who works for the Catholic Health Association has come calling three times, assignments in hand. A small arts organization calls on me for help with publicity and newsletters from time to time.

Recently, I edited a book for a doctor, and he says he’ll contact me when it’s time to put together a marketing plan. Two organizations have approached me about writing books, and I have put together a proposal for a third. And I still take great pleasure in leading writing workshops, where we all write together and surprise each other (and ourselves) with what we have to say on any given day.

So in case anyone asks, I am no longer at the Post-Dispatch. Except for rare occasions, you can’t read my writing in those pages anymore. Yet I am writing, and people are reading. Perhaps more importantly, I am earning a living writing, as I have since my first newspaper job more than 40 years ago.

Here’s what crime novelist Mickey Spillane had to say about that: “My speed depends on the state of my bank account. When it’s necessary, I can write 5,000 words a day.”

Yep!

Ten Months and Counting

2010-03-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

The day I put the condo on the market -- May 22, 2009 -- I ran into my massage therapist in the locker room at my gym. “What? What?” she said, staring at me with concern. I told her what was up. She said she had never seen my eyes so shiny, my face so animated.

Three months later, as I lay on the massage table in defeat, the therapist said, “I knew you couldn’t sustain that level of exhilaration. No one could. I’m not sure it’s healthy, and I’m glad you have calmed down.”

On Monday, nearly 10 months after listing the condo, I dragged in for my monthly massage. My mood was quiet, closed, sad – and I suspect my face reflected that. “It’s been almost a year,” I whined. Then I drifted off to that other planet where I always go when I have a massage.

Later that evening, I practiced coping with the fact that I may still be living in the condo on May 22, 2010. Here is what I came up with:

A year is a long time.

“My financial advisor says I can retire, but not for another year.”

“We’ll get that debt paid off, even if it takes a year.”

“Twelve months from now, everything may look different.”

A year is a short time.

“Just last year, I was still a junior.”

“Twelve months ago, we were planning the wedding, and now we’re just three months from our first anniversary!”

“Twelve months from now, everything may look different.”

A year is a long time if you count minutes and hours while looking ahead.

A year is a short time if you count seasons while looking back.

All years bring some good, some bad -- and then we characterize them.

Annus mirabilis means “year of wonders” or “wonderful year.” You remember – Frank Sinatra sang about one (“It was a very good year…”) and collected the Best Vocal Performance (Male) award in 1966.

Annus horribilis is year of a different sort. You hear people speak of those kinds of years. “Last year was terrible…”

So what defines my past year? Much mirabilis: Joel and Patricia got married. Joel and Patricia bought a house. I got to spend Christmas with them, in the house. I have been inundated with work -- wonderful work, fun projects, unexpected assignments, much glorious work.

A bit of horribilis: The Cancer Fairy blasted me again – but (mirabilis) it was tiny, it was contained and lopping off the body part did the trick, requiring no further treatment.

Also, Lee Enterprises, which owns the Post-Dispatch, decided that they didn’t mean it when they agreed to provide the free health insurance I was promised when I retired. Soon I will be asked to find $7,000 a year to pay for health insurance that was promised as free. That just about wipes out my Moving to San Francisco Fund, but thank goodness I’ve been working hard. (See mirabilis.)

Of course, this is horribilis for all 150 people who retired under the yellow contract and also has sideswiped the people who retired under the previous contract and a lot of top management retirees, as well.

Like everybody else, I had a year that offered some good and some bad. Here are the words I am hanging onto:

“You need to stop worrying about selling the condo. You have a terrific agent, and you need to let her do her job,” counseled my massage therapist. “Besides, it hasn’t been a year yet.”

Tease Now, Play Later

2010-03-05T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today – March 5, 2010 – is a tease.

Look at the sunshine. Consider that sky. Feel the hint of warmth in the day. Listen to the birds chirping. Wait – is that a crocus peeking out? Is it possible that spring really will come again?

Or maybe today is not a tease, but a belated valentine for my friend Joe Hanrahan, who said earlier this week in an email: “We need to break the 50-degree mark and get Spring Training going!”

And then we did. That’s what today is all about. Good thing, too.

“I apologize for being crabby,” said my friend Carol. I was mystified. I was sitting next to her at lunch yesterday. I was crabby too, and it had not occurred to me to apologize. The cold weather, the Party of No, the earthquake victims in Haiti and now Chile, the news from the war fronts, and a betrayal heading my way (and aimed at 149 other Post-Dispatch retirees, as well) from Lee Enterprises regarding our health insurance costs all have conspired to upset me and a lot of people around me.

One friend, stressed about juggling two high-pressure jobs, said on the phone just this morning: “It’s amazing how clear the connection is here on the Titanic – I can hear you perfectly.”

All the gloom and doom swirling around so many friends right now reminds me – though admittedly few others – of part of the opening paragraph of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Here it is:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos [anxieties] get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

We all know that damp, drizzly Novembers of the soul can occur even in February (maybe especially) or in March, and that last bit gets to the heart of one reason I am crabby.

Remember the reason for this blog? Last May, I put the condo on the market so I could start a whole new life in San Francisco by my son and his bride and the sea. I called the blog Late to the Haight because I missed being there for the Summer of Love by four decades and then some. But 10 months after listing the condo, here I still sit in Creve Coeur. The new issue of San Francisco magazine arrived yesterday, but otherwise I am no closer to living in the City by the Bay.

With that in mind, today is a tease in another sense. Today I signed a contract with a new realtor, my third. New realtor, new price, new forms to fill out – all that somehow encourages me, makes me think that maybe my dream of moving to San Francisco is not just a wild fantasy after all.

Ten months ago, I read a list of sure-fire ways to sell your home. One of the items on the list was “work with a third realtor.” The tongue-in-cheek reasoning was that by the time you sign with a third realtor, your place has probably been on the market long enough to actually sell. Ha. Ha.

We all know that today's weather is a tease, that more cold, dreary weather is on the way. That’s inevitable – it’s March. And I know that it’s highly unlikely that suddenly hoards of condo-seekers will rush to my place and fight over who gets to buy it.

But hey -- spring will come, and eventually, the condo will sell. I know this because sometimes a tease really is a promise of what's next.

Fleece Explosion

2010-02-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

The planets aligned a week ago Sunday, and all six of the Favorite Female Friends gathered at the Boathouse to celebrate Carol’s and Beth’s birthdays. You know the world is too complex when it takes half a dozen emails followed by as many phone calls just to set up a lunch with friends – but we did it.

Everyone looked great, and we admired one another as we sat at the table by the fireplace. Carol had on a magenta fleece jacket, a color that looks great on her. I said so. “I don’t wear sweaters anymore,” she said. “I wear fleece jackets instead. You can easily adjust when you are too warm or when you feel chilly.”

I replied that I used to have two fleece jackets, but when I got smaller, they went to the resale shop, and I have not replaced them. Carol continued to praise all things fleece. Judy mentioned everything was on sale at Eddie Bauer, including fleece. I said maybe I would get myself a new fleece jacket. Carol jumped up and urged me to try on hers. It fit – and she said I should keep it.

Keep it? “Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s wonderful!” Carol hugged me and laughed, and that was that. The six of us have been friends for 35 years, and that is how are with one another – but what a delightful surprise.

Tally: One fleece jacket.

On the way home from lunch, I stopped at Eddie Bauer. I bought a long-sleeved tee shirt marked down to $9. The next day, I popped back into the store to buy another shirt in a different color. I know from experience that you can pay twice that for a quality shirt at a resale shop. There, hanging next to the shirt I planned to buy, was a red fleece jacket marked half off and then discounted even further as per the sale of the day. I bought it.

Tally: Two fleece jackets.

I own a fleece vest. I bought it for $10 at the Alpine Shop at an end-of-winter sale half a dozen years ago. After I bought the red jacket, I looked on the Eddie Bauer web site to see what fleece vests were selling for, as I had not seen any I liked at the store. I browsed L.L.Bean’s web site. Then I looked on ebay. There I found several fleece vests, but the deal I liked best was two from Land’s End for $25 – with free shipping. I bought them. They arrived, and they are wonderful, in perfect condition.

Tally: Two fleece jackets, three fleece vests (counting the one I already owned.)

“Can I sleep in my fleece jackets?” I wondered one night as I crawled into my new bed. I love my new bed – see the previous post – but the sheets are COLD when I first crawl in. Before I bought the new bed, I had slept on a heated waterbed for at least 25 years. I miss that heater! When I whined to friends, everyone suggested flannel sheets.

I did the research, and discovered that women of a certain age who experience sudden temperature fluctuations at night don’t do all that well with flannel sheets. I also discovered that fleece sheets are now available, and that fleece wicks away perspiration. Fleece sheets, one web site claimed, are perfect year ‘round – not too cold and not too hot.

As I lay in bed pondering the idea of fleece sheets, I reached over to pet Maggie, who sleeps on a small fleece blanket I bought to keep the cat off the comforter. (Sometimes, it even works.) “That feels good,” I thought. The next day, I bought some fleece sheets on line.

I washed them. I dried them. I put them on the bed. I was skeptical. That night, I crawled into bed. My bed was warm! My bed was fuzzy! My bed, which previously had been cold and crisp and not at all welcoming, was warm and fuzzy -- and I was immensely happy. I slept well – so well that when morning came, I did not want to get out from under the warm, fuzzy sheets. When I did get up, I went on line and found the same sheets for half price on an end-of-season sale, and I bought a second set.

Tally: Two fleece jackets, three fleece vests, two sets of fleece sheets.

I’m set, I said to myself. I am prepared for any occasion that calls for fleece. The very day after I swore off purchasing another single thing, fleece or otherwise, I found a reversible fleece vest in my size at a resale shop. It cost $9. I bought it. You do the math for the final tally.

And I do mean final.

A Bedtime Story

2010-02-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

Out with the old, in with the new. Okay, the used.

In my continuing quest to have in the condo only furniture and goods that will move to San Francisco with me, I sold my old bed and bought a new-to-me bed. When I moved here over 11 years ago, I bought a grown-up bed, real furniture, with a headboard and footboard. Previously, I had slept in a free-flow waterbed nestled in a custom-built, low-lying frame. As a more mature individual, when I moved here I bought a free-flow water mattress wrapped in a standard king mattress.

LOVE waterbeds!

However, once the move to California was afoot (okay, pending), I knew I could not move a king-size bed (with or without a water mattress) to a small apartment. The dresser was huge. The two nightstands were generously sized. The whole set was just too big.

You may or may not recall that my entire dining room set (antique table with two leaves, six chairs, buffet and a china cabinet that resembles an old Philco radio) has been moved to a terrific resale shop and my Empress-style chandelier now hangs in an antique gallery, all waiting for a buyer. Though a person can get by without a chandelier or a massive dining room set, it’s difficult to make do without a bed.

Late one night, prowling around on Craig’s List, I found a queen-size bed for sale with two nightstands. From the description, it sounded like a Techline product. I love Techline, a Danish modern style several notches above Ikea products in quality. My current desk and office table are Techline. For that matter, my next desk and office cabinet are Techline – I found them on Craig’s List in San Francisco, and my son and daughter-in-law kindly picked them up and carted them to their home to wait for my arrival.

Anyway, I talked myself out of calling about the bed -- for a few days, anyway. Finally I caved and shot off an email. Yes, the furniture was still available. It had been used in a guest room, so it was in great shape. And the headboard had a big space for storage, which I suspect I will need in a small apartment.

So on a night when the temperature dropped to 8 degrees, I drove to Festus – south of Festus, actually – and looked at the bed, which was stored in a trailer. I liked what I saw. I liked the price. I also liked the people selling the bedroom furniture. I bought it, and a few days later my friend Scott followed me to south of Festus and we loaded up his truck and my station wagon and brought it all back to my condo.

Now I had two beds, four nightstands and a chest of drawers. I also had my grandmother’s dresser, which has four deep drawers that are on the small side. “I can do it,” I thought one night, lying in the four-poster waterbed. “I can get by with the smaller nightstands, the storage headboard and my grandma’s dresser. I just need to get rid of some more socks.”

LOVE socks!

Fancy socks, plain socks, wooly socks, cotton socks – I love them all. I gave up pantyhose two decades or more ago, and tights have ceased to impress me. I wear socks. And apparently, I buy socks whenever I see a pair I like. As it happened, I visited a friend after Christmas who was wearing shoes, but no socks. She was in the process of moving, and somehow she had lost her box marked “Socks.” Thrilled to come to the rescue, I drove home, sorted socks and drove a bag full over to her new house. Problem solved!

For two years, I’ve been looking at a particular mattress. “Don’t believe the hype,” said my son when he heard it about it. I didn’t need to believe the hype. I believed Carol and Nick, Judy and Scott, Donna and Doug, Beth and Rick, my neighbor Will and my friend Carl, a high school classmate. They all endlessly praised this mattress, and boasted to one another about how well they sleep. So I bought the mattress.

All that remained was to sell the king-size bedroom set. I sent out an email to friends and a few friends of friends. I found a buyer who liked what she saw, liked the price and was even willing to take some nearly new bed linens. Today, two young men who do this sort of thing arrived to take away the four-poster bed, the chest and the two big nightstands.

Last Monday morning, Doug came over with a pump, a hose and a tool box. He pumped the water out of my waterbed mattress. He took apart the four-poster. His friend Jerry arrived in time to help Doug carry the old bed frame out of the bedroom and the new bed frame in. Doug and Jerry left.

Monday afternoon, Nick showed up with his tool box. Soon after, Scott arrived to help. They figured out the puzzle that was the new (used) bed frame – all I had for them was a plastic bag full of hardware – and then they put together my new mattress. Scott even helped me make the bed. By 4 p.m., the room was transformed.

After Nick and Scott left, I stretched out on the new bed to test it. Ten minutes later, I was asleep. I slept well that night, too, and every night since then. Yesterday I drove around delivering Starbucks gift cards to Nick and Scott. I promised Doug I would buy him a pizza at our favorite place later this month. So that’s done, and I now live mostly with the furniture that will accompany me to San Francisco.

LOVE my new bed!

So what’s your Sleep Number?

Three Beats Two, Right?

2010-01-17T08:31:00.001-08:00

What’s new in 2010?

I have three new breasts! I don’t wear them all at once, of course – I just need one, to replace the one that went bad on me.

I keep two of my new breasts in a box on a shelf in my closet. One is a big hollow silicone number, see-through to boot. I wear it swimming and to work out, and wash it off afterward. One is solid silicone, and looks like a small baked ham. It is for dress-up wear. I even have two new black bras to cart it around in, so I am ready for fancy occasions.

My two silicone breasts rest in a contoured plastic container, where they nest together, one on top of the other. As it happens, silicone breast forms – whether hollow or solid – wear little outfits, soft little buntings, and that keeps them from sticking together.

My third breast is a doozy!

A 19-year-old friend found a website called Tit Bits, with knitted breast forms for sale. The site also offered a pattern and showed various designs. When Jenny came home for Christmas from Oberlin -- where she is majoring in organ and geology – she presented me with two new knitted breasts.

One is blue, with whales swimming around it. One is black, for formal wear. The blue one fit perfectly and looks 99 percent as good on as the $300 baked ham. As instructed by the web site, Jenny weighted down the breast form with a metal charm (this one is from Tibet) tucked inside the fiberfill stuffing, so the breast doesn’t try to travel up and out of my bra.

Speaking of traveling, probably I need to wear one of the silicone breasts on planes. Imagine going through security and being asked about that metal object you are trying to smuggle through in your bra…

I wear the blue breast when I’m hanging out at home. Okay, I went to Walgreen’s in it one day, too. I also wear it to Weight Watchers, because unlike my store-bought breasts – which go about 1 ½ pounds each -- the blue one adds no weight at all. Also, it is soft and warm.

The black knitted breast was a tad too small, so Jenny took it back to Oberlin to make it bigger. For spring, she is knitting me a festive breast that looks like a slice of watermelon.

A man I know just got a new shoulder. This is his second one. That’s terrific – but don't three breasts beat two shoulders?

Happy New Year!

A Warm Winter's Night

2010-01-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

Baby, it’s cold outside – 7 degrees, to be exact.

Seven degrees – that’s hardly even trying! In spite of wearing plenty of clothes, I feel chilly. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the condo seem to have adopted a “share the air” policy, even with the shades closed. Apparently Maggie the Cat is cold too. She has expressed her displeasure by refusing to watch television with me, and has headed off to bed.

I reject a rerun of a Chris Rock special, surf for a bit and come up with the film version of “Carousel.” Starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, the movie was made in 1956, when I was 8. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but in later years I came to love “Carousel.” What’s not to like about “If I Loved You?”

I grab a blanket and settle in. The movie is almost over – Louise has just started her ballet on the beach. The beach! As the waves roll in, young Susan Luckey dances with great exhilaration and delight, expressing everything I feel for the Pacific Ocean. I imagine it’s me, dancing my “Hello, I Finally Moved Here” dance on Ocean Beach when I finally get to San Francisco.

Okay, my ballet is not what it used to be -- especially my tour jetés. And that’s the nice thing about dancing vicariously, isn’t it? So Luckey is dancing away, having a grand old time, and she encounters a young carnival barker with his troupe. This part is a fantasy, of course, but this carnival barker can really dance! Who IS this guy?

I hit “pause,” run down the hall and look him up in the Internet Movie Database. In the old days, I would have looked up the dancer’s name in one of my many books on dance or movies, but the books are long gone, and I know the Internet will know.

It’s Jacques d’Amboise!

Jacques d’Amboise is a man from Massachusetts who took a French name. He danced with the New York City Ballet, and later choreographed for the company. He was 22 when he danced in “Carousel.” Just 20 years later, d’Amboise founded the National Dance Institute in New York City, where he dedicated his life to teaching children to dance. His daughter, Charlotte d’Amboise, is also a dancer. Maybe you saw her in “Every Little Step,” the film about the Broadway revival of “A Chorus Line” – or maybe you saw her play Cassie in that revival.

I zip back to the living room (hey, it’s cold…) and resume watching the movie. Of course, I know exactly what happens, so my mind drifts. I think about how much I love dance, and of course that brings to mind Ross Winter, my dear friend and surrogate family member who died in March of 1994.

Then I remember Hope Wurdack’s production of “Carousel” in her years with Theater Factory. Hope’s Mr. Snow – Kevin Chamberlin -- went on to play Charlie on Broadway in “Dirty Blonde” and Horton on Broadway in “Seussical.”

Then, plain as day, in my mind I hear Edward. He’s saying, “The overture to ‘Carousel’ goes on and on – it must be the longest overture in show business!” The day he actually said that was in 1995, when we were in Arrow Rock, seeing the Lyceum Theatre’s production of “Carousel” and seeing Philip, Edward’s twin brother.

Philip died four years ago today.

At this point in the movie, everyone is at the high school graduation, and they are singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” a teary song if ever there was one, especially as Billy kneels next to Julie’s chair and tells her he did love her – and she smiles and starts to sing along.

Suddenly I’m not cold anymore.

All Decked Out

2010-01-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Have I found an apartment in San Francisco?

No – but I have found a deck, a big multi-level wooden deck, a deck perched on the edge of the continent, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I found this deck at Fort Funston, a stretch of craggy cliffs and dunes along Skyline Boulevard, south of Ocean Beach.

I found this deck on Christmas Day, when it was sunny and almost warm, close to 60 degrees in San Francisco. “Let’s go for a hike on the beach,” said my son, Joel. His bride was all for it. I was excited, too. We put on our layers and off we went.

Our first stop at Fort Funston was this wooden deck. When Joel and Patricia were ready to head out on the hike, I decided I needed to sit in the sun, stare at the water and listen to the sounds of the sea instead of scrambling down 200 feet to the beach. Off they went. I hiked to the car to retrieve the baseball cap Patricia had loaned me for the day, and returned to the big deck.

A woman was seated on one of the lower levels, a pregnant woman who had rolled up her shirt to expose her belly to the warm sun. Respecting her privacy, I moved to the other side, on another level, and we sat together/apart in silence, listening to the sounds of the sea.

As time passed, other people came to the deck. Two young men and a young woman arrived. They sat down on the level below me and opened sandwiches. After they ate, the young woman started taking photos of the ocean through a half-full bottle of water. One of the young men lightly mocked her; the other defended her, applauding her creativity.

Two couples showed up with a teen-age daughter and a big woolly dog named Bonnie. Fort Funston allows dogs to romp free of leashes, so many people there had dogs with them. Bonnie was interested in the three young people – probably she smelled the remains of their lunch on the paper wrappings in their backpack.

The sun was so warm, the sounds of the sea so soothing, that I fell asleep for a while. When I woke up, the pregnant woman was gone and one of the couples with Bonnie was showing the other couple how to swing dance, right there on the big wooden deck. The teenager laughed in delight.

More people came and went. Some stopped on the top level for a quick look at the view. One man chased after his dog, which suddenly slipped through the rails of the deck and started bounding down the cliff. When the runaway dog heard another dog barking above the deck, it bounded back up and was reunited with its owner. The barking dog, a little black Yorkie mix by the look of it, raced around the deck drooling on everyone, but in a dog-friendly way. No one seemed to mind.

Out in the ocean, a seal – or maybe it was a sea lion -- popped its head out of the water to stare up at those of us on the deck. A couple of pelicans flew low over the water. A cormorant soared overhead. The sun shone on and the waves just kept rolling in on this peaceful Christmas afternoon.

On another day, I did look at some apartments in San Francisco, scattered throughout several neighborhoods. The one I liked the best, in the Outer Richmond, offered two views of the sea. When I told the fellow from the real estate management office that I am a writer, he said another writer lives in the building. “His home is in Sonoma,” he said, “but he comes here for inspiration.”

No matter where I end up living, I now have a deck where I will find inspiration -- a big multi-level wooden deck, a deck perched on the edge of the continent, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

On the Road Again

2009-12-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

Good news – Highway 40 is open once again, which means now you can get from here to there without making a plan in advance.

More good news – My detour on the road to San Francisco (a new bout of breast cancer) is under control. Surgery was six weeks ago and the side effects from that surgery are responding to treatments I can live with, in contrast to treatments that were driving me crazy.

Okay, crazier.

Something else to rejoice about: I’ve revised my ideal deadline for moving. When I put the condo on the market last May, I wanted to move NOW. Once I had made the decision, I took steps to make that move happen. It didn’t, even after I spent money to neuter (um…neutralize) the place, carted out 46 boxes of books and displayed folded towels in the master bath that resembled folded towels you might see in a spa.

Over the months that followed, more than 40 people toured the condo. Some were neuter (er…neutral) about it. Some disliked it; some loved it. One woman wanted to buy the condo and all the art on my walls, as is, but had to sell her place first. (That hasn’t happened.) One man stood a long time in the dining room, imagining hardwood floors here – a lovely vision. Then he left and never called back.

“Frenzied.” That’s how one friend described my state of mind as summer turned to fall and I realized that somehow, in spite of my specific intention and superlative force of will, I still lived here. Okay, I admit to frenzied. Also frustrated and annoyed and yes, startled.

“I’ve started to think maybe I have a loser condo,” I confided to another friend. She didn’t buy that, and suggested I consider making condo affirmations. “Pretty condo, good condo, nice condo,” I crooned as I walked through the rooms. (That always works on the cat.)

Nothing changed.

People came, people went – and it’s likely that these same people were tromping through the other 32 condos for sale in Creve Coeur. No one made an offer on mine. Then along came cancer, dropping into my life like a huge red stop sign. I stopped, but I immediately started mapping out an efficient detour, much as we all do when confronted with an unexpected traffic jam on a favored route.

“Your condo did not sell because you needed to be here, with friends and doctors you know, as you went through surgery,” said one person. Or maybe it was two. No – I think I heard that at least three times. Yet as far as I know, the condo does not now and never did know that I got cancer.

In any case, that’s all in the past now. I feel terrific, I look pretty good and I’ve decided to aim for moving to San Francisco by June – a much more forgiving deadline than NOW.

That said, if you know someone who would like a new condo for Christmas (with all appropriate tax breaks), send them to: www.soldinahurry.com/SOLDINAHURRY.COM_2/Coeur_de_Royale.html

Thanks!

What's Up Your Sleeve?

2009-11-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

Does your left hand know what your right is doing?

For four days, my right hand was doing everything. My left hand – and forearm and elbow and upper arm – were all bundled up, wrapped to reduce lymphedema, a swelling that is common in women who have lymph nodes removed during surgery for breast cancer.

This bundling process, provided by an occupational therapist with special training in treating lymphedema, starts with a full-length gauze sleeve. More gauze is wrapped around each finger. Then comes a layer of cotton batting, followed by large pieces of foam rubber. Next is a wide band of stretchy gauze. Last comes not one, not two, not three, but four layers of stretchy bandages, all taped down.

Next? Me, whining.

Never mind that my left arm looked as though it had been ripped off the Michelin Man and transplanted onto me. I could barely bend my arm. It was heavy. And I had exactly three shirts in my closet that would fit over the thick bandages. Still, in order to combat the swelling and encourage my lymphatic system to start working correctly again, I was to go about wearing the tape, bandages, foam, batting and gauze wrappings for 23 hours a day. Staring in shock at my newly immobilized limb, I asked my therapist if I could type. She was sure I could.

I couldn’t.

The bandages on my left hand kept hitting all kinds of weird keys. My right hand was happy to go it alone for a while, but then that arm would start to burn and cramp. Meanwhile, my left arm alternated between itching, throbbing and feeling hot. Surgery, post-op annoyances, wrestling with the drain, dealing with extra fluid at the wound site and learning how to maneuver a breast form all were a cinch compared to living with this!

I was scheduled for two weeks of therapy appointments. Each week day, I was to unwrap my mummy arm in the morning, shower and then head -- unbound -- to my appointment. There, after a massage to stimulate lymph drainage, I was strapped back in. What about weekends? Well – I was told I could take off the bandages and shower on weekends if I could wrap my arm back up properly. Hah!

I couldn’t.

Lymphedema is not curable -- I learned this on my first day of therapy -- but it can be managed. If treated early enough, sometimes a mild condition will reverse spontaneously. If left untreated, symptoms may include severe fatigue, a swollen limb, fluid accumulation in other body areas, discoloration of the skin, infection and eventually, deformity. An extreme version of lymphedema (one that involves microscopic parasitic worms) is elephantiasis.

To reduce the risk of my wee bit of lymphedema running wild and out of control, my therapist said on the second day of therapy that the prescribed treatment would be to wear a compression sleeve every day and to bundle and bandage my arm every night -- for the rest of my life. I just looked at her and said, “No.”

I couldn’t.

I went home that day with my left arm immobilized and my mind and spirit pulverized to a fine powder. Since Oct. 7, people have been telling me things I do not want to hear. Since Oct. 7, I have been moving passively through the medical world, a patient expected to be compliant. Since Oct. 7, my sense of myself as a healthy, active individual has been under siege.

On the third day of therapy, the lovely young woman who truly wants the best possible outcome for me discussed an alternative to night bundling – specifically, an elaborate, expensive compression sleeve. She also showed me daytime sleeves that come in bright, crazy colors, as though making a fashion statement with a sleeve would make wearing it more appealing.

The fourth day was Thanksgiving. Time spent with friends and some delicious food pierced my gloom for a short time, but through the day, though people said, “Have a nice holiday,” I couldn’t.

At 3 a.m. on the fifth day of therapy, I woke up and could not get back to sleep – a rarity for me. At 5 a.m., I unwound every layer and freed my arm some four hours earlier than prescribed. At 10 a.m., I dragged in to therapy and announced that we needed a new plan, a plan that would allow me to take good care of my arm but that also would allow me to move through the world as myself.

The therapist hugged me. Next, she measured my arm and reported that the swelling was down by half. Then she told me that if I could find a medical supply store that stocked an off-the-rack compression sleeve that met her standards, I could buy it and try going bandage free, as long as I wore the sleeve during my waking hours.

I could. I did. I am. And it's just fine!