Sometimes I volunteer at the polls.
Author: Jinx
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We walked to Zarzuela. The hills, which seem normal to Michael and me, slightly daunted our visitors, who are used to Chicago. The restaurant is one of those little places on a Russian Hill street that curve up and down like a roller coaster, set in among the old apartment buildings and alongside the cable car track. Across the streets is the Swenson’s that Michael and I visit whenever we’re in the neighborhood. The walk was worth it. It’s a small, cozy place with the tables set close enough together so that you can see what other people are having and ask them about it. Unlike most tapas places, this one had large portions. We enjoyed fried potatoes, snails, baked goat cheese in tomato sauce, Spanish pie, marinated anchovies, olives, bread, etc. Afterwards, we walked across the street to Swensen’s and got some ice cream.
Another lost place that became familiar to us because we liked it so much. It went out of business just before the COVID shut-down. I don’t remember it as small, so perhaps it expanded after 2000 — two dining rooms, umber lighting with touches of red inside, Spanish posters of bullfighters and senoritas, and always, always delicious food that I would enjoy while glancing out the window at Swensen’s, brightly lit and waiting for us on the opposite corner. Swenson’s, at least, is still there. Where Zarzuela was is now a comparatively colorless restaurant. Which I unfairly resent.
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Just for one day. Proceeds to go to the charity of my choice.
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I was no fun today. Neither was anyone else.
Millie did not call until about 4;00, and there was some confusion about how I would get the forms – at her home, which is close to Charlie’s, or at her office, which isn’t too far from Tehama. I finally agreed to call her at about 5:00, when we both had some idea of how late we would be working. When I called her she was still at work, and she told me to come to the office and call from a pay phone so she could come down and let me in. After picking up Tim, quickly, in Alameda, we drove to The City.
There was some trouble parking near the post office on 1st. I ended up parking on 2nd and walking. There was no trouble finding a pay phone. Since someone was going in, I got to wait in the building lobby until Millie came down with my taxes.
Once I had my stuff, I dropped Tim off at home and drove to the 7th Street Post office. Very quiet. An oasis compared to the 1st street office. By some miracle I found parking place and went through my forms, signing them, writing checks, and sealing envelopes. Since I overpaid last year, I didn’t have to pay my first IRS installment at all, and I have an $800 refund only. Not bad.
Went in and got stamps at 7th Street, along with a few other frantics who fluttered in. I was told by the security guard, however, to go to 1st Street to get the envelopes postmarked. Thank God I didn’t slide them into a slot of 7th Street, as I saw one girl do.
1st Street was still a madhouse. Demonstrators passing out leaflets, people clutching forms and envelopes, security guards… I mailed my stuff, then went home. Tim and I argued about going out to eat, but I finally agreed to go to Houlihan’s. As always, there was a carnival atmosphere at Fisherman’s Wharf. Rambunctious college boys from Boston in the elevator.
I wasn’t hungry. Too strung out. So I just had a spinach salad served in a bowl the size of a small manger.
Got through it all only acting slightly psychotic.
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…is Apple. I got my first Mac in about 1984 and have stuck with it ever since. At that time I had a front-row seat to the burgeonining computer culture, and from what I saw, non-Mac computer engineers loathed Apple because their products were so easy for non-computer engineers to use. This has left me prejudiced in Apple’s favor.
Other brands I like:
At this moment, a local chocolate company called Dandelion Chocolate. I wrote a piece about them for the Nob Hill Gazette years ago when they were starting out and they were very nice about giving me a tour of their operation. Also, on Friday, I enjoyed a delicious cacao fruit smoothie at their Ferry Building shop.
Prager, a small port winery in Sonoma. Their dessert ports go down like velvet. And twenty years ago, when we visited, they had a very nice, friendly cat. With a loud purr.
Kuali Salsa Macha, a small operation manufactured out of Oakland. It makes everything taste better. Vanished back in January, but the local Mexitessen keeps promising jars will reappear on their shelves any time now.
Table Foods Dosa Chips. Good with labne mixed with Kuali Salsa and a squeeze of lime. Ostensibly healthier than potato chips. Don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what I tell myself.
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As of today, I am insured. I won’t be able to go outside because I’ll be too busy getting ready for tonight’s Cinema zoom, but tomorrow I’ll go for a long walk, maybe all the way down Polk Street to the Bay and back. I’ll have to make myself a mask. The prospect of walking even a couple of blocks away is a bit daunting. I can see how someone could develop full-blown agoraphobia after two months inside.
I am currently searching online for bok choy recipes, in order to deal with the massive amount of bok choy Michael brought home from Costco. He called from the store asked me “do you like bok choy?” and I made the mistake of saying “yes.”
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Does anybody?
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SF MOMA is, like most of the features in that part of the city, relatively new. Also like many San Francisco institutions, its strong features are its appearance rather than its mediocre premanent collection. The building itself looks like a CD player on the outside. Inside, it is light, airy, and quite beautiful.
Since it was the first Tuesday in the month, admission was free and the place was pretty crowded, but not unreaasonably so. Once we were let in, we filed slowly past the exhibits, from Magritte’s rather murky early work to the brilliantly colored canvasses of the ’50s and ’60s. Afterwards, we walked across the street to Yerba Buena Park.
Like MOMA, it’s new. When I first moved to San Francisco in 1988, that whole section of blocks was little more than a hole in the ground. Yerba Buena is now a nice little patch of green, with a fine, man-made waterfall dedicated to Martin Luther King. It was a pretty day, and the park was filled with people. We found a spot on the grass, and I went up a flight of stairs to a Starbucks on a terrace at the top of the waterfall, got some iced lattes for our guests and a frappucino for myself.
SFMOMA is much improved now. I’m afraid back then, my opinion about its permanent collection was formed by the prominent display of the polished , colorfully painted ceramic piece by Jeff Koons of Michael Jackson cuddling his pet chimp, Bubbles.
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It’s important.
And no, it’s not just a gesture, like genuflecting. It has real-world consequences. There are few things that make me angrier than people who treat voting like a game. We see them all the time interviewed on election day after coming out of the polls, smirking at the camera as they say, “I voted for Jill Stein/Ralph Nader/Mickey Mouse/Brexit. Wanted to send the durned POLLYTISHUNS a message.”In the 20th century American south, black Americans were killed for even attempting to register as voters, and even after the Civil Rights Act, every effort was made to prevent them from casting a ballot. The voting machines in black neighborhoods had a way of breaking down, lines would go around the block, people who could not afford to miss a day’s pay would be faced with the choice of voting or working. When Harvey Gantt ran against Jesse Helms in 1990, black districts in North Carolina were flooded with leaflets worded to make it sound as if anyone who’d moved within the last year would be arrested if they tried to vote.
I know someone who went door-to-door the day before the election, trying to convince voters that it was untrue. She got kind smiles from older folks who said, yes, they knew it wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter whether it was legal or not. They could get arrested for it anyway.
In 2004, I traveled to New Orleans, got up before dawn, and poll-watched in a neighborhood where so many voters had been deliberately left off the rolls they had to send out for more provisional ballots.
Hell yes. I vote.
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This morning, as I drove over the bridge, everything was suffused with a white glare, the sun reflecting off the mist that had rolled in. Almost as soon as I got to work, Charlie left with Shelly to take the issue in. He gave me nothing to do while he was gone, so I spent most of the day filing photographs. Boring.
The deer have not completely abandoned Charlie’s back yard. I saw a doe walk past, followed by a very young fawn, still in spots. They didn’t linger, but they didn’t avoid the new house. Maybe when plums start falling, they’ll hang around like they did last year.
The deer in the Oakland hills were (probably still are) very bold. One morning I pulled up to work and saw three does and a fawn standing — I suppose they were conversing — in my usual parking space. Pulling up close did not make them move. Honking my horn did not make them move. When I got out of the car and slammed the door, they just turned their heads and looked at me as if curious. Finally, they all sauntered away and I could park my car.
When we lived near Grizzly Peak, a young, antlered buck terrorized the local dogs. Our neighbors called him “Bambo.”
Pam Troy 