This Is A Pet Peeve Of Mine!

This Vehicle Is NOT, 

I repeat, 

A compact Car!!!!!

Pretty funny, Eh?

I Heart San Francisco

I took this a few days ago...

 

 A Guy With A Blind Cane Texting On BART

It Seemed Like A good Idea

Last Monday, Thomas and I went to see "Exit Through The Gift Shop" a movie about street art. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the documentary. I recommend anyone even remotely interested in art, sociology, anthropology, visual anthropology, and/or film to see this flick. And it is my opinion that it should be seen on the big screen, because it is about art.

 Sycamore Alley

After seeing the movie I got caught up in learning more about Banksy's art and who I thought Banksy was in the film. The story is sewn together with clips of the guerrilla artist Banksy in shadow, wearing a hoody, with his voice distorted. Immediately I figured since he was the only one protecting his identity, so to speak, out of many people who were featured throughout the piece, that someone else interviewed was probably him. So, every time a new face would pop up on the screen I'd wonder if that was in fact Banksy and not who they wanted you to think they were.

 Parking lot on Mission Street

It turns out, Banksy tagged the streets of San Francisco right around the movie opened here in the theaters...what a coincidence!  OK, well I went on line and found out where they were and decided Thomas and I would go around and take pictures of them before they were painted over or stolen by art galleries looking to cash in. We didn't really have a lot of time so I just stuck with the Mission area. The first one I tried to find was already painted over. That surprised me, because it was right above Amnesia, I mean really. However, the other ones I had chosen to see were still there. After stopping and taking pictures of the first one, I realized how Bourgeois this was, but we pushed on.

 

Ananda Fuara & The SF EcoCenter

Sometimes all I want is the Neat Loaf Sandwich from Ananda Fuara. Ananda Fuara is a vegetarian restaurant on the corner of Market and Larkin, run by the disciples of Sri Chinmoy a guru. The ambiance of the restaurant is, basically a shrine to the beloved leader with all of the walls covered by his artwork, a designated area of his numerous books for sale, the music blaring through the speakers composed and performed by him, and a TV that is almost always showing tapes of him doing something amazing. The service consists of his converts shuffling around (the women wearing Saris and the men in blue polo shirts and white pants) like they were told Sri was going to speak and then realized they were actually expected to work. Dazed and confused would be a nice way to put how the staff look and act. I am sure Sri never set foot in the place before his Mahasamadhi in 2007. 

However, the food is excellent! 

My suggestion is the Neatloaf combo only available for lunch, the Neatloaf Sandwich, or the Neatloaf Dinner, which comes with mash potatoes and gravy. The Neatloaf is vegetarian made with some dairy, but now they have a vegan version that tastes pretty good also. 

Yesterday, en route to Ananda Fuara, I ended up parking on Grove Street across from the library and noticed a building I had never paid much attention to before. The big sign read SF Environment and the little sign (on paper) said it was the EcoCenter. The EcoCenter is a facility, run by the city of San Francisco that focuses on better ways we can all be more green. There happens to be a small gallery in their lobby that is showcasing Art Furniture made by Larry Berger. All of his pieces are made from found materials and recycled or milled wood.

http://www.intothewoodsstudio.com/Site/Welcome.html

I would like to leave you with some words of wisdom from the late great Sri Chinmoy

Be Happy
Be happy in the morning with what you have. Be happy in the evening with what you are. Be happy. Don't complain. Who complains? The blind beggar in you. When you complain, you dance in the mire of ignorance-condition. When you don't complain, all conditions of the world are at your feet, and God gives you a new name: aspiration. Aspiration is the supreme wealth in the world of light and delight.

The Article I Wrote For Today's Vintage Is Up

Check it out!

The article I wrote for the April issue of Today's Vintage is up on their website at
http://www.todaysvintage.com/decorating/contentview.asp?c=267657

The editor took a little creative license and changed the title of the piece from Cleaning Spring to illuminating Spring. I think she gets my humor, but she is afraid the reader's won't. I shouldn't complain, the piece is about lighting...

 

This is in my old store on the corner of Mission and Precita in San Francisco, which is now a BBQ restaurant 

The light fixtures are made from commercial whisks

From what I can tell, the editor couldn't squeeze in all of the photos I sent. They are all fantastic, I'm sure she had a difficult time choosing which photos to use.

 

The Light Bulb Factory Is turning On In San Francisco!!!

An Invitation To Join

The Light Bulb Factory

The Light Bulb Factory is a think tank for highly talented and underemployed individuals that meet once a week to discuss and spark ideas as well as pool resources in the area of making a living in the city of San Francisco.

Topics will include:

Starting your Own Business

What Type Of Business To Start

Your Unique Skill Set

How To Work With, Find, Or Get OPM (Other People's Money)

Your Fears And Dreams

(photo from Inclusive Solutions)

 

Are you in?

Please, send an email with days and times during the week you are free for one hour on a weekly basis to:

lynnore@ispyvintage.com

Is This A New Thing?

Is it me or are the bike paths getting bigger?

Steiner Going Towards Oak Right Past Page.

Really?

This is on the corner of my block!

What's the point of tagging a mattress that is left out in the street?

Homemade Vegetarian Dinner On Tuesday And Thursday!

I made a promise to make full vegetarian meals for Thomas and I every Tuesday and Thursday. This week was the third week of this experiment. However, Thomas had undergone oral surgery on Tuesday and was relegated to soft warm foods.

He was in a lot of pain and was basically starving by the time dinner came around. I really didn't want to take any chances, so I decided to repeat a winner from a few weeks ago, the vegetarian Shepard's Pie. Instead of carving out EAT Me on the top I just made a heart. For dessert, we had tangerine juice bars that doubled as an ice pack for his mouth. On Thursday, I made my old standard, lentil soup thick with red and green lentils, red onion,  purple, red, and baby potatoes, garlic and baby carrots. It is always a hit on cold winter days when you might be a little down and in this case unable to chew food. We topped it off with chocolate soy pudding I bought in snack packs at Rainbow.

I regret I didn't take any pictures, but it just didn't seem like the thing to do. By the way, let me know if you would like any of the recipes I have mentioned.

Homemade Vegetarian Dinner Last Tuesday!

Cooking on Tuesday night was a little rough for me. My plan was to make baked tofu in a cashew cream sauce over jasmine rice, steamed Brussel sprouts and baby carrots with fennel, and a salad incorporating some of the crazy lettuce we had bought at the San Francisco Farmer's Market on Saturday.

The biggest problem I faced was the time crunch. It was pouring rain most of the day, so my errands took longer than usual to carry out. I also think the damp cold weather irritated my foot. I was walking terribly slow with an obnoxious limp. By the time I got home I had about a half an hour to make everything. After I put on the rice and started the veggies in the steamer, I realized there was no way the rice would be done in time. I had to improvise, so I put on water for the rice noodles that I remembered I had. Those take a few minutes and are 100% brown rice, so I figured that would be an adequate substitute.

I doubled the recipe for the cashew sauce (I had found online at http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=17310.0), with less water because that was all of the starchy water left from the pasta and three times more garlic, just because. In a medium size skillet I sautéed large pieces of red onion and the Savory baked tofu I cut into cubes. I just bought the tofu already cooked. Then I poured in about half of the cashew sauce and let it reduce about a third in the pan, because I thought it tasted too strong on its own, which I think worked perfectly. However, next time I would reduce more of it and then add the rest of the sauce and reduce it again about a third and save some cashews to garnish the dish. I never made the salad.

Baked tofu in a creamy cashew sauce over rice pasta 

and steamed Brussel sprouts, carrots and fennel

Yesterday, I made a salad with red leaf and just peppered in the weird lettuce we had bought on Saturday. One of the lettuces was a dark maroonish red color and the other one was green with spots the same color of red. Both of them had a strong bitter taste, but mixed with the red leaf lettuce, blue cheese, pine nuts, apples, and grape tomatoes it tasted great. I fried up a package of the Gimme Lean fake sausage with some red onion, poured in a jar of organic spaghetti sauce and threw in the rice we didn't use on Tuesday. I felt very industrious not wasting anything and it all came out great.

So, now it is Thursday and I have no idea what I am going to make for dinner tonight. I am being taunted by the huge bowl of radishes Thomas and I were hypnotized into buying at the Farmer's Market.

Wish me luck!!!

Hanging With The Tourists And The Yuppies

Thomas took this by mistake, but I really like it
 

Well, today is Tuesday and I am wondering what to make for dinner. Last week I decided I would create full vegetarian meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturday, Thomas and I soldiered on (I think it took us about 7 minutes) to the Ferry Building to shop at the Farmer's Market. I haven't been since last year and Thomas has never checked it out. It is kind of a tourist destination as well as a yuppie vortex, which are two groups of people a lot of San Franciscans try to avoid. However, it has the best variety of organic produce from local farms in the city. We got there probably around 9:30 in the morning. I knew it was on the late side, but that was the best we could do. Arriving late at the San Francisco Farmer's Market doesn't mean you'll miss the best produce. It simply means you will not miss most of the tourists and city dwellers pushing those crazy kids in those gigantic strollers. We decided whole families just don't get out of the house before 9 am. Also, I think the people are a little more polite earlier on Saturday morning. I suggest getting there no later than 8 am.  

Thomas took these pictures of us

We were really cold

This is where we went to escape from the maddening crowd

Immediately, we were overwhelmed by the amount of people already there, plus the amount of booths selling produce as well as prepared food, spices, pickled things, and cheese, cheese, cheese. I love cheese, but these days I am trying not to get lost in it. We just concentrated on the goat cheese, because I am convinced it is better for us. However, in the end we didn't buy any. We ended up with a bunch of different types of radishes, potatoes, chard (baby and regular), two kinds of lettuce I've never seen before, two bags of almonds, and a type of pear I have not had before, plus other things I am sure I have already forgotten about. Right now I am trying to figure out what to do with all of this, plus the broccoli and cabbage I already have.  

I will let you know how it turns out!

By the way,

I found this great vegan cooking blog I would like to share!

http://tofu-n-sproutz.blogspot.com/

Christmas With The Goldfarbs

I feel compelled to do a type of recap of my life as a post on this blog, because I haven't written anything for almost two weeks. However, that type of literal writing simply isn't my style. I mean, I take great pains to make sure everything I write is clear, concise, and easy to read. However, simply listing or recounting the things I have done, seen, and experienced on such a public arena seems like an exercise in masturbation and boredom. Two places one gets to that shouldn't require very much work.

I have been with my family and friends in the Los Angeles area since December 21st and having a great time. The weather is perfect and I am visiting all of the people and friends I had planned to see. I love my parents, they are like little kids, always a lot of fun. However, how do you know, if your parents are getting Alzheimer's, if they are eccentric in the first place? What, if growing up your Mom or Dad used to stand at the back door (everyday for thirty years) trying every key on the key chain, before finding the right one, even though that door was never kept locked? If they never recognized their house key when they were in their prime, then what are the signs to look for now they are old? What if my Mom always ate ice cream sandwiches for breakfast in the summer? Do we think she might be losing it, if she starts eating them in the winter or at a different time of day?

I love coming home no matter what, because it makes me see clearly how much I am loved and missed, by these crazy people I call my family and friends. Is a marriage over when your husband is addicted to phone sex, cyber sex, and real life sex with other women? Is it OK to call the guy you are having sex with your boyfriend, even though he spends days like Christmas, New Year's, and his birthday with other women?  My three year old cousin squealed uncontrollably when she saw a present for her wrapped in purple and pink sparkly wrapping paper.

I am going back home to San Francisco on Saturday and I can't wait to see my cat and the guy I made out with right before I left. I hope they are just as happy to see me as I am to see them.

Ug, Parking In San Francisco

This is a very cute video that wants the viewer to think that it is about how to solve the parking problem in San Francisco. However, it is quite clear that IBM's ingenious new idea is another way for the city to enforce even stricter methods in regard to parking meters in order to justify issuing more tickets.

This great new idea involves smart phones, which bothers me twice. People with cheap phones or (heaven forbid) no cell phones, won't get the breaks. Plus the fact that, if this is the wave of the future, there will be yet another reason for drivers to pay less attention to the road than their phones.

I Am Adding A New Category To This Blog!

I need to have a space to document the facts and run commentary regarding the bitches and assholes who are my neighbors. I am not sure what to call it. OK, how about The Bitches and Assholes Driving Me Crazy? The title might need some fine tuning.

I live in an apartment that was once a single family house that had been split into three units with one upstairs and two downstairs. Later, the apartments were turned into condos. Two women D and K live upstairs. One of them (D) owns the upstairs flat and K acquired the apartment next to mine downstairs with her two sisters and brother about four years ago. K rents the two bedroom apartment out to three people C, A, and J. My apartment is owned by a different woman who is independent from them.

(No Photo Credit)

Everything was great until four years ago when it was decided that since they owned two-thirds of the property they will pretend they own all of it. Because of this lopsided circumstance the couple upstairs and the tenants next to me can do what ever they want, but if I do anything besides breath, all hell breaks loose. My landlady is very young and doesn't want trouble so she just lets them run right over me and K and D are perfectly happy with that arrangement.

The last time I talked with D (the woman who owns the upstairs flat) she told that she is trying to get me to move out. I never really felt comfortable with writing about this on my blog before, but I changed my mind once she copped to harassing me. So, basically this new category will document all of the harassment. This way I will have a place to vent my frustrations and the documentation I'll need when I take them to court.

Sarah Handicap (Curb Your Enthusiasm)

I couldn't believe it when the nurse at the state of the art Presidio Surgery Center, who had swiped the fancy wand across my forehead to take my temperature and showed me the tropical scene on the fluorescent light fixtures overhead, handed me a pair of crutches right out of the dark ages. I think the United States and some third world countries are the only ones that still use the underarm crutch. All over Europe and Canada the forearm or elbow crutch is standard.

                              Tiny Tim, holding a crutch against his armpit

As soon as I could, I started looking for the forearm crutches on line. There are not a lot available here in the US. Most of them are very ugly and instantly evoke images of polio survivors or the kids with hip problems who used them like two canes, walking  with a swivel and a side to side type of gait. Crutches have come a long way since Dickens' Tiny Tim and a time when we would just call anyone who had a walking problem a cripple. However, you wouldn't know it, if you aren't able to walk with both legs here in the good ol' U S of A.

American Forearm Crutches

(Only come in grey)

Sunday, my friend Smithy decided I needed to get the hell off of my couch and out of my house. She doesn't have a car, so we were going on this field trip with her driving my car, for the first time. Once she adjusted the seat, mirrors, checked everything out, and pulled the car around to the top of the driveway and I very clumsily sat down and shoved the crutches in the back seat, we were off. But, we didn't know where to go or what to do. So, after a lot of "what do you want to do," "I don't know, what do you want to do(s)" we went with our old standby, the beach. Half way there I decided I wanted to just go to the movies, because it seemed easier.

 

European Forearm Crutch

(Come in many colors, but very expensive)

What a joke! First, when Smithy pulled up to the curb (about 8" away) I couldn't figure out how to negotiate the gap with my crutches, so I made her get closer and that helped. I hobbled over to the box office in West Portal, while trying not to get bumped by the minefield of people walking all around me like Zombies, mindlessly talking on their cell phones. I finally got in line and I had to wait on an incline, which is not easy to do standing on one leg with crutches under each arm. A slight breeze or brush from a cell phone talking Zombie would have knocked me over.

Once I got the tickets and made it inside I waited for Smithy. It took quite a bit of time for her to find a parking space. Soon after she got inside, the ticket girls (there were three) gestured to the theater and Smithy noticed the steep little staircase entering the theater itself. She pointed to the stairs and I freaked. There was no way I could get up those stairs, not to mention how the hell I was going to go down them. I asked the oblivious ticket girls if that was the only way in and why they didn't tell me about it. They said "yeah" and that they didn't have to tell me, because on a small sign posted on the box office window that lists the movies, I am supposed to look for the little wheelchair icon and if there isn't a wheelchair next to the theater, then it is not handicap accessible. I guess they have never been on crutches...Assholes!

By the time Smithy came back with the car and I fell in it, I just wanted to go home. However, Smithy wasn't going for that and we ended up at The Century 20 Theaters in Daly City. The people working there were much nicer and the ticket guy reassured me that there weren't any stairs, just an escalator and an elevator. I chose the elevator. Of course, the theater we needed to get to was the furthest out of twenty. Oh, and the handicap seats are basically in the front row. However, I got used to the seats real fast. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend staring at George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey for an hour and a half, when you feel like shit.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Really?

Are men so homophobic they would risk their lives just so they won't have to hold onto another (gasp) man while riding on the back of a motorcycle? Basic physics tells us that leaning back and not holding onto anything or merely a strap or bar that is located behind the passenger, will promote a more bumpy ride with an increased vulnerability to falling off than leaning into the driver. When the passenger leans into the driver they are working with the (forward) motion of the bike. Not to mention they have something to hold on to i.e., the driver.

Living in San Francisco, I see quite a bit of people riding motorcycles and scooters when I'm out and about in the city. I am noticing more and more that the passengers don't seem to be holding on to anything. Albeit, the last time I rode on the back of a bike I nearly cut the driver in half, because I was squeezing his waist so hard, but to not hold on at all or just hold on to the back of the bike seat with one hand? That seems ludicrous.

I haven't been in the position to take pictures of any of this, so I started looking for some online. I found a few, but what I found a lot of were websites and blogs dedicated to instructing people on how to ride on the back of a bike. I was very relieved to see so much information on the subject. However, to my dismay these were the types of things I found. This shit is all over the Internet.

I do not agree with this at all!!!

The following is from the website Instructables (Pay special attention to step 3)

introBeing safe as a pillion passenger on a motorbike. 

step 1For starters...

Before you get on ask the driver if they want you to put your feet down at the lights etc. It's actually a serious point, if they can balance with the extra weight most wil…

step 2Getting on.

Let the rider get on and get themselves set up, don't get on until they've shifted the bike to somewhere they're ready to leave from, ride-arounds are hell with a pillion p…

step 3Now you're moving.

So once you're moving there is that whole business of staying on the bike... Lock your arms behind you or beside you, this stops you tilting back when accelerating and tak…

step 4The other bits.

When it's windy it can be a bit unnerving to be coming over a bridge at 60mph and suddenly be hit by gusts of wind, try not to react to these and give the rider any extra c…

step 5Little extras and good ideas.

Things that will be of help: - Gloves, a decent pair should keep you from freezing to the bike... - A proper motorbike jacket is a plus for protection during crashes an…

Are you kidding me?

After reading step 3, step 4 seems ridiculous. How can you not react to being hit by a gust of wind going over a bridge at 60mph? Whether you like it or not if you are sticking out away from the driver and leaning back you will probably get knocked off of the bike or at least lose balance and cause the bike to react, which could lead to an accident driving on a bridge at high speeds. Weeee!

Talking Is So Underrated

I had a great weekend. It was one of those weekends where I was cognizant of the fact I have a blog. I would do something fun, hear something funny or interesting and I would pause to take a mental note to make sure it goes on my next post ASAP! I felt like I was narrating and directing my life, because it needed the push.

So let's see, I need a moment while I scroll down the mental list of what I SHOULD write about...Friday night? No, I can't even remember what I did Friday night...Saturday...made two pillows not important...went to Writers With Drinks at The Make Out Room, Yes! The writers and their readings, maybe...the audience, sure. See, now that I have started outlining this post, nothing seems that great anymore. My weekend experiences went from fond memories I can't wait to talk about, to an academic exercise tedious and insignificant.

On Sunday, I saw Zombieland and my cousin Nancy's new dog Moxie. After that I went to Safeway and bought a box of gumdrops, you know the chewy candies made of pure sugar covered in sugar, plus TEN different crappy cookies I plucked out of the cookie bin located in the corner of the store, along with two half gallons of unfiltered apple juice, white cheddar cheese, bananas, and my usual health food purchases. I ate three cookies on the way home and four more at home, plus half of the disgusting gum drops and then ate diner. However, I don't think that is really worth mentioning. Except, I totally recommend Zombieland and Moxie is the cutest dog I have ever seen. Oh and I feel like I'm hormonal...because of all the sugar.

Oh shoot, now I remember what I did Friday night. I went to five different open studio art openings. I promised Alan I would cover them for his website Art Business. I feel kind of bad that I forgot about the art openings. I am pretty sure I visited over fifty art studios and talked to most of the artists about their work. Anyway, I shouldn't write about the art stuff here, because my comments are going on the Art Business website.

Actually, I did have a good time at the openings. I ran into a couple of people I haven't seen in a long time and a couple I run into a lot. My friend Wickie was giving life advice free for five minutes with a friend of hers, Dana a career coach. My five minutes turned into a half an hour and then Wickie's boyfriend Jed came up and we all justed started talking about everything we could think of. (I don't think I should end that sentence with the word of.) Oh well...

Oh my God! My cousin Nancy just won a two year long battle with her landlords and was finally able to get a dog. She has been volunteering at Pets Unlimited to get in her dog fix, because her apartment wouldn't allow dogs. It's a long story, but she cat sat my cat Chloe when I went to Costa Rica for a year and when I came back Chloe ended up staying with her, so she had her a total of nine years. When Nancy got married she gave her back to me, because her husband is deathly allergic to cats. Giving her back broke her heart. So, that's when she turned her attention to dogs. Her husband isn't allergic to dogs. On August 10th at thirteen years old, we put Chloe to sleep, because she was so sick. I think that was the catalyst that gave her the courage to really get serious with her landlords about the dog issue.

Well, jumping ahead...her landlords finally acquiesced and she got Moxie, a teeny Shih Tzu, recovering from a gnarly dog mauling experience that left her with broken bones in two of her legs, a punctured rib, and a ton of other things I am not sure of, because my brain stopped listening after hearing about the punctured lung. Apparently, the previous owners were visiting a friend with Moxie, who had a viscous dog that attacked him. Then they just dropped him off at Pets Unlimited where my cousin (who had been pining away for a dog) just happened to be. Sunday during my visit with Moxie, we tried to teach him how to shake, but we didn't really know what we were doing and we weren't sure if we should shake the foot that had the cast or the good one. Anyway, he loved the sound of the clicker and the treats.

Oh, I just got an email from Mike one of the three guys I let sit in the booth I snagged at Writers With Drinks. I got to The Make Out Room an hour early and there was already a line out in front. By the time I entered the bar all of the seats at the little tables directly in front of the stage were taken so, I grabbed a booth to the side of the stage. The place was filling up fast. First a lesbo (I say lesbo, however butch dike is more fitting, but it sounds so dated) around my age, asked me if she and her two friends could share it with me. I said sure, but it kind of looked like her friends liked where they were.  It turned out I actually know her. She was a friend of one of my neighbors and came into my store all of the time. I am trying to remember which pronoun she preferred. I am pretty sure it's she, but I really can't remember. Then I let a guy named Tom sit there with the condition that there would be enough room for all of us, including Barbara who had asked me (earlier) to save her a seat. The second he sat down two guys wanted to know if there was room for them. I screamed to my friend Danny the lesbo and she shook her head, so the two guys Mike and Steve (or is it Steven?) squeezed into the booth. Barbara didn't come until after the show had started. So, for about an hour four perfect strangers all excited to see Charlie Jane Anders' show, passed the time by actually talking to each other.  It seemed so old fashioned, but it felt right.

 Me and My Boothmate Tom
photo by Steven Black another boothmate

Here are some links
Online travel journal by Mike, one of my boothmates 
Writers With Drinks
 

Parking Sucks In San Francisco

Are you kidding me?

I found this on my friend's Facebook page...I don't know who took the photo.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Was Crowded!

Are you kidding me? Hardly Strictly Bluegrass on Sunday probably saw the most crowds in its history and had the worst lineup by far. I regret having missed the festival last year, because I was still in Las Vegas. I was told Gogol Bordello, Odetta, and of course Marty-Wilson Piper were Awesome, to quote a few of my friends.

This year I was happy to have seen (mostly heard) Neko Case. The crowd was probably the biggest crowd I was a part of in my life. I usually avoid large groups of people, because I'm short and have a claustrophobic issue. I pulled out a few tricks so I could withstand the conditions. First of all, I put my chair down kind of close to the stage up on the hill stage right, about an hour before Neko was scheduled and then left to hang out with Smithy over at the Rooster Stage where we waited for Marianne Faithful to play.

By the way, I was disappointed in Marianne Faithful's performance, even though it was exactly what I had expected, go figure. Half way through Marianne's show Smithy and I got up, because we were bored. I still had a half an hour before Neko Case started. Smithy said she wanted to get some water, so we started walking towards 19th Avenue. Right around the Arrow Stage she decided she was done and said she was going to check out whatever was happening on the Porch Stage, because it was the smallest stage and would probably have the least amount of people. Her plan was to leave from there. There was no way she was going to walk back in the direction of the rest of the stages through most of the people and all of their accessories. She reached her limit.

I decided to go to the bathroom, I mean port-a-potty down by the Arrow Stage and then worked my way back up to my chair at the Star Stage. I reached the the area where I left my chair with about five minutes to spare. However, I couldn't find my chair in the throngs of people. I knew if I could just find my chair, that gesture alone would be enough to ground me and keep me from running all the way to my car, trampling right on blankets, pushing babies out of the way, knocking joints out of people's hands, wrestling with dopey dogs, and colliding with bicyclists screaming my head off and crying my eyes out like a lunatic.  I just needed to find my chair, the last thing I wanted was to have a meltdown.

I saw a guy sitting on a chair that looked a lot like mine. I asked him if he brought that chair and he said yes. A stoned guy laying on a blanket told me that he had seen another guy just come and take a blue chair. I think I gulped with the loudest sound I've heard myself make without having actually swallowed something. I didn't want to panic, so I questioned the guy sitting in the blue chair once more. Basically, it turned out that he dropped his chair off early (like me) and when he came back he simply assumed the chair he was sitting in was his. After closer inspection we both concluded it was mine and the one that was taken was his. Whew, disaster averted. However, I ended up standing the whole time during her set anyway. I was going to stay and watch the blind couple from Mali, but after Neko Case the sun was setting and it got really cold. Barbara had found me right after I found my chair so we left together. We were done, we reached our limit.

Check out my pictures on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/20746592@N00/sets/72157622398260057/
 

I Love San Francisco

Today, I love San Francisco and I love living here. Lately people I meet, freely tell me how much they hate it or that they will "NEVER, IN A MILLION YEARS, EVEN FOR A MILLION DOLLARS, EVER COME TO SAN FRANCISCO" when I mention I live in here. Albeit it seems like I am meeting more people from places I would NEVER, IN A MILLION YEARS, EVEN FOR A MILLION DOLLARS, EVER go to myself, but being confronted with that kind of bias, rocks me a little bit and forces me to look at who is saying this and why.

Last year a couple of months after I sold my second store, I sublet my apartment and went to Vegas. My plan was to stay for three months in the vacation condo (nobody lives in) my family has. I ended up staying in Las Vegas for eight months. I mostly played poker with men ranging in age between 22 and 70 years old who were visiting or had moved to Vegas just to play poker. Sometimes I would be at a table with the same guys for more than five hours, so chit chat was inevitable. Mostly, the banter was stuff like, "Where are you from? What do you do for a living?" That kind of thing all very calm and mundane. However, if and when I mentioned that I was from San Francisco, all Hell broke loose.

Mostly, the reactions were things like, "My wife wants to go there, but I refuse!" or "I'm not gay." Which at first was rather amusing, but eight months of this day in and day out, coming from different people, became a little macabre and quite a bit funnier. Here's a perfect example of that delightful combo of hilarity and perversion.

During the presidential campaign last year, playing a low stakes no-limit game at The Palms, I noticed that the guy to my left kept calling the Asian dealer Kim, when her name tag clearly read some thing else. So, I turned to him and said, "Her name isn't Kim." So, the 45 year old man with a front tooth missing, wearing a T-shirt two sizes too small that had a picture of President Obama dressed like Mr. T (with the Mohawk, gold chains, and earrings) looking ragged like a homeless guy with an outstretched hand saying, "Got Change?" asks me, "What the hell is wrong with you?" But, before I could answer another guy at the table chimes in with, "She's from San Francisco."

I want to hear your stories about meeting people from places (other than here) who find it necessary to tell you how they feel about San Francisco...good or bad...or the types of people you have confronted who throw around the word, "liberal" like it is a weapon.

I could not find the actual T-shirt online, but I found this...you get the picture!