Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Thanking Things Up
This just seems like an excellent time to recognize a few things that are going right. The old bitch-and-moan thing is getting a little tired, I think, and I’ve had cause lately to be very grateful for many things. Without getting maudlin about it, life could be one hell of a lot worse. And here’s a nice decipuntal list of just what I mean:
Delessio Market just opened up a second location at the foot of the panhandle. For outliers, that means they’re just one neighborhood over from my home. And that means easy access to fresh rabanada. Good in some ways, very very bad in others. I’m gonna label this as “thankful but ominous,” and move on.
My niece Rebecca’s bat mitzvah was celebrated this past weekend. She did a fabulous job under challenging circumstances: it was a long service; she had a special old rabbi come visiting from India and he was a tough act to follow; and she was at Sherith Israel – a damn fancy synagogue. Regardless, she did great. Congratulations, Rebecca! Remember, only fakin-bakon and s-ham from here on out!
We attended, right after the bat mitzvah, an important and informative preschool fair and application seminar. It’s not the sort of thing I’d get overly excited about, except we needed the information and now we’ve got it. Thank you, SFUSD. You’ve got some really good child development centers out there, and now I know exactly what I’ll have to do to tunnel my child up into one of them.
Yay – more babyproofing! This weekend saw the removal of the lame toilet-lock in anticipation of the good one (that he can’t open and that I don’t need to hold up by hand when circumstances so demand), and the application of several new restraining and thwarting devices. It seems that Zach has suddenly learned to overcome almost all our initial babyproofing efforts. He’s very creative, that boy. It’s not like we’re safe now, but we’re safer, and that’s a positive step through the maze of electrical, choking, and shattering hazards that we now call home.
AK Subs is in the ‘hood. Don’t know how SoMa hipness got over to Outer Clement, but there ya have it. Damn fine pastrami and truly exceptional service butcher counter and charcuterie. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to eat fat.
The new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is looking super dooper uber ultra cool. I go by weekly now to check the progress. They’re decking the roof and finishing the second four-story globe – this one, I think, will house a rain forest exhibit. I cannot wait for them to open it. Because then the guys in hard hats will stop throwing me out every time I wander through.
Zachary got his social security number. It took way too long and I still have more federal paperwork to deal with, but a number has been assigned. He’s in the system. Good luck telling me it’s all been a clerical mistake now, suckers.
Pho Tu Do is back! These guys were the best viet place around, and then they got all snooty and full of themselves and “pan-asian with a vision of local influences and world sensibilities” or some such crap. Anyway they turned into a restaurant named after a non-existent address, to which no one went, so now they’ve wised up and they’re back at their old game. Hot pho tai, onion crepes, and a glass of coconut milk and grass jelly threads for dessert…. It’s what we really needed in the face of the oncoming winter. I guess they got rid of the cool bamboo-forest wallpaper, but I can still just bring my own from home.
They’ve finished seismically bracing my office building. It’s taken many months of scaffoldings and irregular grating noises after 5 pm, but it looks pretty good as far as these things go – heavy iron brackets rising from the corners of the building to a peak at the center of the third floor. Well, it’s better than it sounds. Mainly because it sounded like hell with all the drilling and grinding and scaffold-building and such. But now it’s done, and that is truly a great relief.
A few weeks ago I was heading home on my familiar bus when I noticed that a woman’s clothing store had closed. I think it was The Limited or something like that, a place with a big high-traffic location at Geary and Grant right off the square. Well, I guess I’d seen before that they had closed. What I hadn’t noticed, and it shames me to realize how long it seems it had been that I hadn’t been noticing, was The Weinstein Gallery that had opened in that location. Damn, that place is totally loaded with good-ass art. And for the record, that’s just how Picasso would have said it. Come on, the man has “ass” right in the middle of his name.
As do I, come to think of it – as do I. One more thing to be thankful for, among many. Hope your Tuesday goes easy on you. Just because I’ve stopped listing things, that’s no reason to stop being thankful.
