San Francisco is My Home

16
Nov

Aww!

Author: kris, Category: News, Shopping

Every year, our awesome SPCA branch does a promotional holiday window display at Macy’s. It earns a ton of money for the SPCA, helps find homes for shelter animals, and is just ridiculously cute.

I just got home from the unveiling ceremony of this year’s windows, starring former 49ers quarterback Steve Young. I remember my dad having a sweet sports crush on Steve Young after his favorite football hero, Joe Montana, left the 49ers, so I have fond feelings for the man. The fact that he donated his time to come pull back a curtain for the SF/SPCA also speaks highly for him.

You can watch the little window scamps playing around on webcam shots that are updated every three seconds, or just head on over to Macy’s and do your oohing and awwing in person. Added bonus: there’s a big one-day sale going on at Macy’s today.

13
Nov

More on the oil spill

Author: kris, Category: Nature, News

One of the Chron website’s top headlines this morning reads “Cargo vessel may have strayed from its course before striking bridge and gashing its side, records show.”

May have strayed from its course?

I was worried it was too soon, but I guess if the Chronicle can be funny about the oil spill then I can too. And so I present to you five possible ways to make lemonade from the newly-oiled San Francisco Bay:

1. Declare it a swimmin’ hole for the Tin Man.

2.  Turn ferry building into refinery, Coit Tower into giant gas station. Rake in profits.

3. Use natural disaster as an excuse to admonish other political leaders in an attempt to appear helpful and concerned, fooling no one.

4.  Three words: dead bird soup!

5. Do nothing. Oil is the new water.

12
Nov

Oil spill in the Bay

Author: kris, Category: Nature, News

On Wednesday, an oil tanker ran into the Bay Bridge and sprang a leak, releasing an estimated 58,000 gallons of oil into the Bay. (The Coast Guard initially, bafflingly, estimated this as 140 gallons.)

This disaster reads like something Aaron Sorkin might write. The Mayor is out of town, so we’re under the control of an acting mayor. The city’s offer of personnel to help with cleanup was essentially ignored by the (apparently criminally incompetent) Coast Guard. Birds are dying off left and right, the oil is becoming thinner on the water and harder to scoop, and because of its hazardous nature the scores of volunteers showing up are not permitted to help. All we need is a screwball comedy premise involving Sam Seaborn and a call girl and we’ve got ourselves a fine episode of The West Wing.

Here’s an image of the oil spill, courtesy of Kurt Rogers from the SF Chronicle:

31
Oct

Earthquake!

Author: kris, Category: News

Remember that time that I was so cavalier about earthquakes? Well, we had a 5.6 last night and I am not laughing now.

Actually, now I am laughing, but at the time not so much. That sucker was long. My thought process was: What’s going on? Is this an earthquake? No. Wait, is it? No. I mean, it’s still going on though. No. Okay, yes. Doorway!

Then I stood in the doorway for a while and watch the lamp rattle and thought about the pictures of what happened to some of the buildings in the Loma Prieta quake and hoped my apartment wouldn’t fall down.

It didn’t. And none of my neighbors even came out into the hall afterwards, in a building full of people who flock out into the hall at any excuse: power outage, solicitor in the building, decorating parties, friendly chats. (Seriously, guys: it would have killed you to step out into the hall and reassure me a little?) So I figured everything was fine, and it was, even though today’s Chron is naturally full of dire predictions. (”Sure, it’s fine this time…but what about next time?“) I guess you’ve got to fill your 500 words somehow, even if your headline pretty much tells the whole story.

I am still unafraid of the tiny shocks and rolls we normally get. But a 5.6 is, well, unsettling. Ah well, at least it gave me something to blog about today.

29
Oct

Arsonist threatens Grace Cathedral

Author: kris, Category: News

There was some unexpected arson at this year’s Burning Man festival. As you’ve probably heard, this year’s giant man was set alight a few days prematurely by a fellow who claimed he wanted to restore spontaneity and anarchy to the festival. The giant man is created every year to be set alight on the last night of the festival. This is the event from which the festival takes its name.

I do think it’s a little funny that all these free-wheeling folks got so mad about the early burning. The festival was originally intended as a way for artists to have a colony of creation without a lot of rules and regulations attached, but over the years it’s grown an expensive, bureaucratic exoskeleton that seems to contradict the happy-go-lucky air of earlier years.

However, I don’t think it’s funny at all that the same guy was arrested yesterday on charges of intending to burn down SF’s Grace Cathedral. I love that cathedral. You can take a free weekly yoga class there. They exhibit the AIDS Memorial Quilt when it tours through the city. It also boasts an outdoor and an indoor labyrinth: despite what the movie Labyrinth implied, a labyrinth is not a maze but a repeating pattern. Walking the pattern is a meditative process, and so far as I know, the cathedral’s labyrinths do not feature singing Muppet goblins, talking Muppet worms, or David Bowie.

This Episcopalian cathedral is beautiful, and is an important venue for many community services, and I am baffled as to why anyone would want to harm it. However, this fellow has not had a trial yet, so I am reserving judgment.

26
Oct

National Novel Writing Month

Author: kris, Category: Events, News

November is National Novel Writing Month. This is a writing project that began in the Bay Area with just a handful of people, but over the years has expanded into a nation-wide event.

The challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel in just one month. The fun part is that many, many thousands of people are trying to do exactly what you’re doing, and there are write-ins, parties and online forums to help you share the misery with the other participants.

The kick-off party for San Francisco is happening this Saturday, October 27, from 7 - 10 pm at Olive. After that, you can sign up for any number of writing groups in the city, or meet up with writing buddies through the forums, or just check the boards every day for your dose of friendly support. Me, I’ll be meeting some writers on Tuesdays at Cafe H from 12:00 - 2:30, unless I chicken out. This is a meeting to write together, not to read our work to one another. If you’re signed up for NaNoWriMo and you want to join us, everyone is welcome.

22
Oct

The sheeted dead did squeak and gibber and stab each other

Author: kris, Category: News

I don’t know what your Halloween plans are, but if you were thinking about coming to the Castro, don’t bother. The party is canceled.

The Castro Halloween celebration has been going on for many years. It began as a spontaneous street party, as the fantastically costumed residents emerged in their feathers and facepaint to rock out through the holiday that is sometimes called the gay Christmas.  Gradually, the party began to attract outsiders. And then, inevitably, tourists. Now about half the people you see aren’t wearing a costume at all — the ultimate social gaffe in a neighborhood that takes costumes seriously all year long, and especially on this most holy of days — and the crowds are overwhelming. In the last few years we’ve had some exciting violence, everything from people being trampled to stabbed to shot, and often the crowds are packed so tightly that it’s impossible for people to get out or ambulances and medical personnel and cops to get in. Nine people were injured in last year’s shooting.

Fun as this touristy, violent party must sound, this year it has been officially canceled. Many stores in the area are displaying signs indicating that they’ll be closed on the night (though some who can’t afford to turn away the business will be staying open) and the Castro Theater is sporting a huge banner reminding people that the party is off. The whole neighborhood has the tense, hunkered-down air of a French coastal village where Viking ships have been sighted on the horizon.

So how do you convince several thousand people, many of whom don’t even live in the city, that there’s nothing doing this year? The answer is obvious, right? Get rid of the toilets. Unlike all previous years, no portable toilets will be put on the streets for revelers. Yes, that will show them.

Oh no, sorry. I mean us. That will show us. When the people still show up, then wind up peeing all over my and my neighbors’ flowerbeds, we are the ones who will be shown. Although the city is planning to spring for extra cops, so at least after the revelers water our lawns they will be arrested. Yes, that makes us feel better.

So what have we learned from this?

1.  Don’t come to Halloween in the Castro this year.

2. If you do come, don’t wear a costume — that’s so last season.

3.  If you must wear a costume, do not, whatever you do, dress up as a port-a-potty.

19
Oct

Loma Prieta rocks the house

Author: kris, Category: News

Two of the Chron’s headlines this morning: “Bay Area Home Sales Crash” and “Spate of Stabbing Deaths.” Related, perhaps? I’ll live in an area where an earthquake could flatten me, and that’s fine, but if there’s like a plague of stabbings then I’m less enthused.

Actually, I should address that earthquake issue for the benefit of any non-SF-based readers, because when I go abroad I notice people are pretty astounded that I choose to live somewhere where the earth will periodically rise up and attack you.

The first earthquake I remember was the last big one, the ‘89, and I remember it well because it happened on October 17, which was my tenth birthday. (This already sounds like a story that a grandmother mutters to herself in the corner, doesn’t it? “Eh, the ‘89, that were a humdinger. Get out of my rosebushes, you whippersnappers!”)

My dad was the first one to know it was happening. He happened to be looking out the window and saw the water in the swimming pool rise like a small tidal wave before he felt the floor start to move. The rest of us were standing in the kitchen — my mom and my grandparents and I — and when it started my grandmother looked at me with this fierce panic in her eyes and opened up her arms. This is the thing I remember most strongly: she was so afraid and still felt like she could shelter me from what was happening. Even at the time I was pretty moved by that. But then my dad hollered at us to get in the doorway, so all four of us packed in there while my dog ran back and forth between us and my dad’s doorway. She seemed pretty delighted by the game.

I think if you were on the Bay Bridge when it happened, with the upper span collapsing onto the lower span (miraculously only one person was killed on the bridge; think about that for a minute, because it’s almost impossible to credit) , then you would feel less cavalier about earthquakes. And if you were at Candlestick Park, where our two local baseball teams, the A’s and the Giants, were battling it out in the third game of the World Series, then maybe you also weren’t too happy.

But for me, the earthquake meant my whole family went outside and barbecued (in case the gas was leaking inside) and it was strange and cool and fun. (Because in California you can barbecue in October if you need to.)

After that it’s all been small quakes, over before you realize they’ve happened. And, yes, one day there will probably be another huge quake and all the buildings will fall down, and the new Bay Bridge that they’ve been planning since ‘89 and have only begun constructing will maybe turn out to have a big design flaw, and all kinds of problems will occur. But on the bright side, it’s totally possible that global warming will be in full effect by then and most of the city will be underwater anyway.

Sorry, was this supposed to be a comforting post?

16
Oct

Lights off for Earth

Author: kris, Category: News

Caltrans and the Transit Authority are planning to turn out the lights on the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge this Saturday in an attempt to demonstrate how much energy can be saved with a flick of the switch. (Streetlights and anti-planes-flying-into-the-bridge lights will remain on, of course.)

I, for one, find the whole business inspiring, and am considering turning the lights on my own megaton commuter bridge off in solidarity.

But seriously. The idea is to remind people to save energy, which includes replacing normal lightbulbs in your home with energy-efficient bulbs. What doesn’t get mentioned a lot is that these bulbs contain mercury. It’s not going to give you weird tumors or anything, but if a bulb breaks you need to open windows, cover your mouth, stay away from fumes, all that fun stuff. And when the bulb eventually burns out, it is absolutely vital that you don’t throw it away. There are special disposal places for bulbs that contain mercury; tossing it in a landfill will undo all the earth-friendly work you did in buying it.

15
Oct

Doing time

Author: kris, Category: News

Sheriff Michael Hennessy has been forced to release a bunch of petty criminals back onto the streets recently. As taxpayers demand more arrests of drug users, petty thieves, etc., the jails fill up way beyond capacity and we wind up drastically curtailing peoples’  sentences to regain bed room. 

In The Wizard of Oz books, L. Frank Baum describes the jail of Oz as a luxurious palace where every want is provided for — except the desire for liberty. “Yes, we have to lock people up, but that’s no reason to treat them like animals,” says the Clockwork Girl of Oz or someone. Even as a kid I remember wondering who exactly was paying for all this luxury.

Anyway, that’s a digression, but one that often comes to mind when I consider our penal system, especially when I consider that inmates were being forced to sleep on the floor before the Sherriff started releasing people.

Maybe the jail overload will turn out to be a blessing, forcing judges to start getting creative with sentencing. Maybe it will lead to more treatment programs and less useless jail time. I will continue to be happy and optimistic about all this, right up until I get mugged by a recently-released felon.