sidewalk

Marlon called me yesterday while I was walking along Apollo Street, in Silver Terrace. I fumbled around for my phone and so had to call him back. I had some panicky thoughts -- maybe my house was on fire, or the front door was wide open, or the clothes that I had hung out back had blown over the fence into his back yard (it was pretty windy).

But no, he was calling to ask about the tiny fire that I put out last week. Apparently, his house guests didn't tell him about it right away. He wanted to know how it started (I couldn't help with that) and also to thank me. I told him he really should thank the woman who alerted me, even though I don't know who she is. I don't think he's ever called me before. He's almost always on the phone when I see him -- he usually ends his call so he can chat with his neighbor.

I have Schumann piano trios playing at a relatively high volume, as part of a morning-long effort to block out the drone of a generator or an engine of some sort. I think they must be doing work on the bulb-outs at the corner. It's probably a good thing -- the pavement has been all chewed up for a while now, and there are a lot of older people shuffling around the neighborhood.

Speaking of uneven pavement, a DPW guy wearing a mask came by last week to spraypaint and photograph the damaged sidewalk in front of my house. He said he was documenting the work that needed to be done by the Dept. of Urban Forestry. I told him that the sidewalk had been marked up last fall and that I had called the DUF -- hoping to prevent them from repaving the areas that I want to convert to a sidewalk garden. And that someone at DUF told me that the sewer contractor, not DUF, was going to replace the pavement. Of course, nothing has happened, except that the marks that were applied last fall have faded. He shrugged in a friendly way. So who knows what will happen or when.

little fires/fuegos pequenos

I put out a fire yesterday! When I was getting my Recology bins out of my garage, I smelled what I thought was somebody's BBQ smoke. A woman passed by and then lingered in front of my neighbor Marlon's house for a moment, looking uncertain. She turned back and asked me, semi-verbally, to read a sentence she'd typed on her phone, in Spanish. I guess she was trying to do the Google translate thing?

Anyway, after a lot of fumbling around I was able to parse the sentence, but I couldn’t understand why she was trying to tell me that there was a game in the yard next door. Eventually, she gave up trying to communicate verbally and walked me over to Marlon’s, where a very small fire was blackening several bark chips on one edge of what passes for his front yard. As I was getting water to put it out, I realized that she had intended to type “fuego,” not “juego.”

The woman who had alerted me to the fire said something about a cigar, but I didn't see one anywhere near the charred patch. While we were still standing there, two women came out of Marlon's house -- relatives who have been staying there since Marlon's brother-in-law was killed. One of the women thought she recognized me, said something about working in the same building. I thought about joking that we all look alike but then thought better of it.

now what day is it?

It is Sunday, of course. I downloaded the latest OS and now I'm regretting it because I think it's not going to like my very old version of Word. I kept meaning to bring my MacBook into work and ask Steve for an update but I never got around to it. In other fascinating tech news, I took my new printer out of the box and plugged it in yesterday. I was able to set up the print function on my MacBook but I guess I need help from IT to set up the lenovo laptop. Especially now that I might not be able to use Word on the mac.

The sky looks anemic. Pale blue, mostly obscured by filmy white clouds. I feel unrested because I woke up around 2 and had a hard time getting back to sleep. Questions -- and self-reproach -- are hard to suppress at that time of night. What if I lose my job? What if we have an earthquake? What if my front entryway collapses? What is that noise? How am I going to get to sleep? Should I turn on the light and read a little? Should I stream something boring and soothing? Maybe I should get up and pee. Why haven't I called mom and dad?

And so on.

I did call mom but she didn't answer. I am hesitating about trying dad. I do not like calling. And unless I call them I don't feel like I should be calling anyone else. So yes, I should try dad.

You think things will go on for a while but you don't really know.

walking downtown

Yesterday I drove downtown and parked in the garage at work. I walked to Third and Market to pick up two bottles of red wine at Cask, and then I walked over to Union Square to meet up with KW for a good long walk. The square was deserted. Most of the store fronts on the surrounding streets were covered with plywood. The Victoria's Secret mannequins decked out in skimpy, itchy-looking lingerie looked especially absurd. 

KW appeared, wearing a blue bandanna that matched mine. We hugged virtually and then started walking along a strangely empty Powell St.; we kept walking until we got to the bay, and then we walked back to Market on Mason St. We walked past a few city worker types and several sketchy-looking men. No tourists!

KW and I parted ways on Market St., which has been overtaken by the Tenderloin. When I got back to the building I had to let myself in with my keycard and then I had a long chat with Tommy, the security guard/building manager. He is the nicest guy I've ever met, bar none. His wife is very pregnant with their first child, due next Friday. He said that there had been a spike in craziness and crime in the first few weeks of the shutdown -- people shooting up in the building's "breezeway," people breaking car and store windows, even some guy driving around in a rental car looking for pedestrians to mug. So now he sits in the lobby for 12 hours a day (not his normal shift) with the doors locked, which is safer for him. A couple of building tenants are still coming on some days -- an accountant and a lawyer. And I guess Tommy's presence is a deterrent. Oy. Sometimes it feels like civilization is a very thin veneer. Then again, people in the security realm tend to fixate on threats to security -- like the cop who once told me that I should never walk alone in my own neighborhood (whut?).  

Anyway, it was great to have two in-person conversations in one day. I also had a brief interaction with Faud, the building handyman/porter -- he also seems like a very nice man, but we don't get much beyond "hi, how are you?" because there's a language barrier. He was hanging out in the sixth floor lobby with a friend when I went upstairs to water some of my coworkers' plants. I heard them from the fifth floor, talking in Arabic, so I was prepared to see them, but they were surprised to see me. I felt bad about interrupting. 

easter sunday

I ain’t one to knock religion, though it’s always knockin’ me.
-Kacey Musgraves (I think?)

It's a little sad not to see the women in bright-colored hats going into and coming out of the church or to hear the pastor sermonizing from across the street, but I'm glad the congregation is following the rules. I baked banana bread today. It came out of the oven about an hour ago and the smell has taken over the house. I haven't tried it yet, because the recipe (a new one, for me) suggests waiting overnight. I hope it was worth the use of two eggs and some flour.

I'm almost out of peanuts, which is making me sad. I can't remember when I started eating a handful of peanuts mixed with semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips for dessert -- it was a year ago, at least. I discovered that Good Life charges about a dollar less than any other SF store for milk chocolate chips. The last time I went there, the bulk bins were gone, and I can see why it would be a good idea to remove them. But . . . I loved those bulk bin peanuts!

I ran out of wine. I ordered several bottles of red from K&L -- at least, I think I did. I got an error message but then I got a confirmation email. They are doing local delivery. I'm not sure when I'll get mine but I will survive! Generally speaking, it is not hard to survive, for now. I listened to The Weeds while I was baking and got a little scared about how we (as in all of us) are going to recover from this pandemic.

friday feelings

I don't have anything to do, work wise. I realized yesterday that I could be buying bread from the neighborhood, so I signed up online for a subscription. I walked over to pick up my loaf (or round?) at midday; it was still warm from the oven.

Yesterday I walked around Silver Terrace and encountered Jennifer outside her house again, this time with her dog, Lonny. I was taking a photo of an interesting front door across the street and heard my name. This time I stopped to chat for a while. It was a beautiful late afternoon for being outside. She said that her bee colony collapsed, at least partly because she didn't tend to it carefully enough. Some day, when we are no longer distancing ourselves, I hope to hang out on their back deck.

On Wednesday I texted Ann to ask her if she wanted to walk with me to pick up my CSA delivery. She met me at the corner of Newcomb and Mendell, wearing a bright yellow mask. It was good to see her in person.

In a few minutes I'll be getting online for a happy hour with N, J, and maybe M. I'm feeling quite warm -- probably because I'm wearing a wool sweater, sitting in my sunny living room, and I just spent half an hour vacuuming. I haven't taken a shower since . . . Tuesday? So I am probably a bit smelly. But nobody is smelling me.

I had a long video chat with KW yesterday evening, and I have a google hangouts date with VH tomorrow morning. I've been emailing old friends, including Carl, to find out how they're doing. Only one is sick with some kind of flu -- he hasn't been tested, and his symptoms are mild -- though they seem to be lingering.

performative fundraising

Jake Bernstein, "The Fundraising Pulpit," NYRB:

Performative fundraising is a prism through which to understand not only the GOP activity during the impeachment hearings but also the Republicans’ Benghazi hearings and the endless posturing around repealing Obamacare. It’s not about achieving policy goals as much as energizing the base and separating them from their cash. Performative fundraising favors simplistic narratives, melodramatic rhetoric, an implacable enemy, and rote phrases to crowd out reasoned debate. Snippets of the act become fundraising pitches. Facebook microtargeting and e-mail lists ensure that pitches reach conservative retirees, especially in sunbelt states like Florida, California, and Texas. 

Where the money winds up is increasingly suspect, thanks to a deliberately hobbled regulatory system. Today, it’s perfectly legal for officeholders to spend contributor money on an opulent lifestyle as long as it’s called fundraising. It’s also legal for unaffiliated campaign consultants to raise contributions in the name of a candidate or cause and then pocket the money for themselves.