Short stories

I’m on a short story spree, reading as many as possible, as of late. Today, I came upon one that I absolutely loved called The Silent Year by Kevin Brockheimer. Check it out.

Starbelly

The other weekend, I overheard someone on the street in the Mission call himself a meatatarian. That of course doesn’t exist but, it’s very cool in San Francisco to eat a lot of meat, right now. The restaurants around these parts are cooking up duck-fat French fries, steak three ways, and greens cooked in bacon grease. There’s almost always a roasted bird on the menus, as well.

Last night, I went with some friends to a new restaurant near my new neighborhood, called Starbelly. It was delicious! We had butternut squash, sage and goat cheese pizza; wild mushrooms with a duck egg sunny side up, and croutons; French fries with a trio of dipping sauces; blackened Brussels sprouts; and for dessert, I had a couple spoon fulls of salted caramel pot de crème. Oh my!

The San Francisco Diet

Currently, I’m on a cow’s milk-free, tomato-free, corn-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free diet. This is an anti-inflammatory diet that an integrative doctor put me on about six months ago. It is very San Franciscan to have a restricted diet. Many times I’ll go to a restaurant and not only will there be vegan options on the menu but, I’ll inevitably overhear someone requesting something on the side that is a likely culprit in food allergies.

Two of my colleagues, at work, have recently been on similar restrictive diets per doctor’s orders. Over the holidays, I brought in dairy-free, processed sugar-free, gluten-free gingerbread cookies to share with them. All this special diet-ness has helped broaden my burgeoning cooking repertoire and has led me to some great websites and resources:

CUESA

Becoming Health - Marnie Northrup recently came to work to talk about healthy eating

Eatwell Farms - I'm a CSA member of this local farm

World's Healthiest Foods

More to come.

Haiti

One of the big reasons I like working in a non-profit is the people I work with all want to make an impact on the world we live in. Whether that be by helping promote change in our government or by helping feed the rural poor, we all want to make this world a better place to live in, fundamentally.

Everyone has heard about the earthquake in Haiti, by now. A former colleague of mine is in Jacmel right now. She stopped off on her way to a wedding in the British Virgin Islands. She left a hotel in Port au Prince the day before the earthquake demolished it. She’s ready to leave but there still isn’t a way out.

At any rate, I’m proud to say that some of my organization’s donors are pooling their money in a fund that we administer, called the Relief and Reconstruction Fund. One of our major donors recommended $600,000.00 worth of grants to large aid organizations yesterday for this cause. When Katrina happened, it felt so far away and I don’t remember feeling like I could make a difference. Same when Myanmar suffered from a tsunami and China was hit with a large earthquake shortly thereafter.

With this earthquake, I feel like I’m part of a community of people who care and are doing something about it. It makes me feel proud of my organization and the community of people I’m a part of. Maybe it’s because we’re reading our friend’s daily blog posts, maybe it’s because some of our staff have a real connection to Haiti, maybe it’s because Haiti is like the dog that keeps getting kicked when it’s down. Maybe it’s all of the above. All I know is I and my friends and colleagues are awake to this tragedy. It is not lost on what we are capable of.

The firehouse

After I’d been living in San Francisco for a few years, someone told me that “San Francisco is a small city.” They also said, “Don’t burn bridges and don’t piss anyone off. You’ll always run into them again.” I’ve found this to be very true but, even more so, I’ve found that San Francisco, for all its 800,000+ residents is a very small city.

There’s a renovated firehouse at an intersection about a half block from my new place. Now, it’s a beautiful home with a nice sized backyard and they must have gorgeous views from their second story. It rises on the corner, presiding over the intersection. It has always caught my eye, ever since the first time I saw it. Most recently, my old landlord told me that because it is a historical site, the owner is not allowed to make external renovations that will alter the look of the building.


Getting back to how small this city is, today I found out that the firehouse belongs to the woman who will be the landlord of one of my colleagues.

Pants

Today, as I sat in the food court of the big city mall with all of its overdone restaurants and people, a pair of pink panties caught my eye. They weren’t on a mannequin or a hanger. They were on a young lady surrounded by young men wearing boxers.

It was Pants Off day. This annual day of wearing no pants started in New York in 2002, when a few men directed by Improv Everywhere hopped on the NY Subway to go to work in their skivvies. It has, of course, been taken on by the young people of San Francisco as an opportunity to (yet again) expose themselves in public. Santa Con and Halloween are not enough for these exhibitionists!

The last train to Colma

There is a sound like a train horn that ricochet’s off the hills surrounding my new neighborhood. I’ve been off sick from work for a couple days and heard the horn hooting for a good 5 to 10 minutes, just after 10:00am. The interesting thing is that I’m not sure it’s a train; I’m not anywhere near Caltrain, Amtrak, or the freight trains that still blow into the City. And, I’m pretty sure the MUNI metro trains don’t have such powerful horns.

A few months ago, my old roommate’s boyfriend asked me if I’d ever heard a freight train horn, at night in my old Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. I used to hear one on a regular basis so we discussed how it might be possible and made educated guesses about what the sound was. Richard did some internet research and called San Francisco’s 311 city information hotline.

We searched the net and found information on the freight trains coming from the peninsula that didn't quite add up. And, then we found several theories based on Yelp posts by residents of other neighborhoods who have heard the horn and other residents making fun of those of us who can hear it. Alas, it's still a mystery!

Enjoy Life

Maps for blind people

Who knew that spatial organization is not lost on blind people? Quest recently aired an amazing radio show talking about how this San Francisco based organization is helping blind people to “see” where they’re going. I especially love when a young woman exclaims, “Market Street is at an angle! I always thought I just had a bad sense of direction!”

The Amish and their quilts

I’m a member of the De Young museum, one of the fine Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco. This Sunday, I spent the morning poring over the amazing Amish quilts and exploring some parts of the museum that I haven’t spent time in. While behind the times in their quilt styling, the Amish quilters used an incredibly unique technique that mimicked how they lived their lives. It was important for a community to make decisions about quilts which were given as gifts at weddings and baby showers.

Here is a link on the history of the Amish quilt.