San Francisco’s downtown skyline is outlined in yellow lights, and these days every other cable car that rolls past is filled with either carollers or brass bands. It was a rainy week here. Union Street at Christmastime is very pretty, with gold lights wrapped around the trunks of trees and dangling form the eaves of buildings. On wet evenings the reflections from pavements and streets make them brighter.

Thursday night we went to the Bulletin’s yearly Hannuka dinner a 9 Fisherman’s Grotto, walking to Fisherman’s Wharf straight over from work. The weather was still bad and walking down Hyde Street towards the wharf a bit iffy, the sidewalk very slippery. I was afraid of losing my footing and tumbling down the hill. Fisherman’s Wharf was almost completely deserted, perhaps because of the weather. Stores were closed up but still lit inside, dock workers relaxed in front of the closed doors of warehouses.

9 Fisherman’s Grotto was not hard to find, modern, flat-topped with broad windows overlooking the bay. Inside was a richly colored blue rug that would have invested the place with dignity if it weren’t for the cartoonish figures of a pipe-smoking fisherman in a yellow mac. The waiters were all male, formally dressed, either Italian or Asian. I was directed to the Bulletin party, walked through what felt like miles of dining room before finding a dense knot of people around a bar.

The publisher, a friend of ours, is a very tall, goodlooking man with gray hair and a beard. He had just finished writing a book after three years and was in a good mood. We talked about the election, and he shrugged. As a red diaper baby, he said, paranoia comes naturally to him, so the Supreme Court declaring Bush president hadn’t shocked him.

We ended up sitting at a table with him at the head. Across from us sat a young fellow named Josh and his strikingly prertty Israeli girlfriend, a Netanyahu supporter. (Josh tried to stir up a political argument between her and others at the table, but neither she nor the other guests took the bait. )

Much later, after the girlfriend left, Josh, who is in his early thirties, announced his doubts about ever having children and seemed intent on having a heart-to-heart with us all about it. The husky couple on my left, who are apparently in some sort of child-free organization, had strong opinions on the subject and leapt into the fray, the woman actually leaving her seat to argue with the publisher about it. This went on for most of the dinner.