Fall Fever

“I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal.”

From the excellent McSweeney’s essay, It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.

This essay put into words exactly what I’d been trying to write about for the past few weeks. What is it that causes people to bust out their pumpkins as soon as the calendar turns to October? What is it about fall that inspires such devotion, such a need to acknowledge the season?

Other seasons don’t get the same attention. No one hangs decorative icicles from their SF home to mark the onset of winter. No one runs outside in SF wearing shorts when June arrives. But if it’s October, then Decorate Gourd Season takes hold –  and SF doesn’t want to miss out.

When you’ve suffered through months of hot weather, I can understand that you might welcome a new crispness in the air. But in San Francisco, there’s little sign of fall in October. Sure it gets dark a little earlier, but we don’t have trees turning vibrant colors. We don’t hear fallen leaves crunching beneath our feet. October is the end of San Francisco’s short summer so temperatures usually rise in October rather than drop.

But a lack of fall elements doesn’t deter the Decorative Gourd Army. If the calendar says it’s fall, then they have to mark it. As the McSweeney’s piece says, it’s about looking ’so seasonal’.

When I see fall decor appear in San Francisco in October, I get the same uncomfortable feeling I get when Christmas cards appear in stores this month. I thought I was alone in this feeling, that maybe I was some sort of fall scrooge, until I read the fantastic McSweeney’s piece (and laughed until I cried).

Another excerpt, because it really is a masterpiece:

“I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up.“

Go read it now.

We Found the Light

Many San Francisco homes have fireplaces. Or at least they have the makings of a fireplace: the mantel and the hearth are still there, but the actual place where a fire would burn is just an empty space.

In our last SF apartment, we put a shelf in our empty fireplace and used it to hold some of our books. My sister uses her fireplace to hold her record player. Perhaps because they had so many grandkids, my grandparents kept a crate of dolls in their fireplace.

Our new SF apartment, however, has what may be the best replacement for a fireplace: a working gas heater.

It looks right, providing that essential image of fire, and it actually does provide some heat without filling our place with smoke (although I do miss that satisfying crackling sound that comes from a real fire).

It’s just one of the many things I’m appreciating about our new apartment, especially as our nights turn colder.

TGIF

I have a pretty standard office job. Monday through Friday, I’m in a tall building in the financial district, sitting in cubicle, wearing business casual clothes and surrounded by people saying business-y things like “ramp up” and “market action”.

But my job does have one thing that most financial district firms don’t: a bubbly, not-quite 5 feet tall Vietnamese man with a one-of-a-kind take on the English language. His constant and surprising references to American popular culture are a welcome change from the business jargon common in the office (as well as a respite from our right-wing receptionist who tends to foam at the mouth about immigration, environmentalists and how “globalization sucks”).

If someone isn’t at their desk, he’ll ask, “Is she Gone with the Wind?”, or “Is he Bye Bye Birdie?”.When woman in the office was trying to get a friend a job, he said she was “a desperate housewife.”

He doesn’t just walk to work. He says he “walks like an Egyptian.”

Any problem is “a May Day”, as in: “We’ve got a may day over here!” when someone’s toast is burning in the toaster oven.

A celebration is “happy hour” or “party time”.  Most company events offer a chance to “Eat all you can eat!”, while Friday’s are a double whammy of “TGIF! Happy Hour!”. If he has too much to drink during a happy hour, he says he is “hanging over”.

Most of what he says is fairly self explanatory, but it’s not always easy to piece together. A few years back, someone asked him how long he’d worked at the company.  “Six years,” he said. “Sweet Sixteen!”

Recently, he uncovered a box of supplies and he said it was “a miracle on the Hudson.” Eventually, I remembered the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York City earlier this year, and how newspapers used the headline, The Miracle on the Hudson.

Instead of asking if you’re happy, he asks, “Are you happily ever after?” And with someone like him around, it’s tempting to say yes. Yes, even in this tired office environment, I am happily ever after.

Starting Now The Wait Is Over

My sister says that one of the differences she notices between NYC and SF is that SF residents wear their political affiliations on their sleeve.

And on the Left Coast, it’s clear that there is great joy and relief that we are at long last putting these past eight years behind us. In my old SF neighborhood,  homes and businesses are showing their enthusiasm for Inauguration Day.

This house was a block from our old apartment:

Two blocks away at Castro Village Wine:

Another Vision of Us

Mr. WholeHog and I finally found the sort of place we’d been looking for: a house to rent, where we won’t be woken early in the morning by the neighbors above us or kept up late by the person living below us; a place that welcomes dogs –  real dogs, not the dog-like “under 25 lbs.” animals; a home with some neat architectural details (and, of course, like so many rentals, it also comes with some deeply random touches that only a landlord could love).

Because it is within walking distance to a vibrant neighborhood and reliable public transportation, it allows us to continue living a mostly car-less life.

But there’s one problem and it’s a doozy: it isn’t in San Francisco.

2009 marks my 10th year in S.F. and I’m not ready to leave yet. It was Mr. WholeHog and I’s first home, and the first time that I’m choosing to move out of a place I really love.

Everywhere I look, I see things that I’ll miss.  On a recent walk through Dolores Park, I tried to ask Mr. WholeHog if we’d still come here on warm days and picnic in the park, but my voice broke. I was relieved to be in sunglasses so the hipsters couldn’t watch me try to hold back tears.

I got choked up again this weekend at Arizmendi Bakery, our old neighborhood haunt, when Howard greeted us with a cheery, “Hello friends!”. We met Howard simply because we showed up at Arizmendi nearly every day when we lived in the Inner Sunset. He is one of many people and places that make me feel like part of a community here.

I know I’m overreacting. We’re only moving across the bay, a short 22 minute train ride from the City. We’ll be coming into the City for work during the week, going to our same yoga class and to our farmers market on Saturdays. (We refuse to give up our Primavera breakfasts!). But it still feels like a loss to me, even if it is only a loss of convenience.

As much as I don’t want to leave, this move feels necessary. We’ve looked for dog-friendly apartments in S.F. for years, we’ve long craved a little more space from neighbors and hoped for an outdoor space where no one would dump the grease from their BBQ down on our plants. But in S.F., the trade off was often lack of a neighborhood or a longer commute.

And we can always come back. This move is a trial run, a year to give another city a try. A year from now, maybe this blog will be focused on all that I love about the East Bay or maybe we’ll be ready to move again and more willing to accept the City’s trade offs.

No matter what, San Francisco will always be Mr. WholeHog and I’s first home, and now, the East Bay will be where we lived in our first house, together.

Collect The Moments One By One

I don’t like New Year’s Eve as a holiday. There’s too much pressure to have the BEST day of the year be the last day of the year. But although 2008 year-in-review pieces are all over the place right now, I do like the chance to take stock and remember what moments, foods, travels, etc, made up that particular year.

For me, 2008 was pretty eventful year: I got engaged, went to Italy, and saw my sister move to S.F. after over four years in New York. A year ago this week, we saw our friends off to Oregon, and in their absence, we found time to explore the Bay Area more, spending our weekends hiking on Mt. Tam or in the Marin Headlands.

2008 Discoveries

• Bay Area Hiking – We unfortunately didn’t get in any camping this year. But we did lots of hiking, discovering a favorite trail on Mt. Tam, exploring the Headlands, seeing osprey and a waterfall in the Marin Municipal Water District, and wandering the hills above Muir Beach.
• International wines – In Italy, I gained an appreciation for decent, low cost wines, and we’ve continued drinking more international wines this year.
• Vintage pyrex- Something about the bright colors and old patterns appeals more to me than the boring old stuff available today.
• Good Society jeans
• Fatted Calf’s store at Oxbow Market
• Homemade Granola
• Breakfast at Blue Bottle’s Mint Plaza Cafe
• Anchovies! In the Cinque Terre, I learned to love acciughe (anchovies).

Re-Discovered in 2008

Ashtanga yoga – I practiced ashtanga when I first started yoga seven years ago. But this year, I came back to ashtanga and remembered what I loved about it. I also gained a tremendous teacher and new friends.

Pilates – With my sister teaching, I found myself back on the mat or on the reformer about once a week.

2008 On the Road

We got engaged in Point Reyes on a sunny weekend trip in March, but Italy was our big trip of the year. Going overseas ate up most of our vacation time and kept other vacations closer to home. Having 2 weeks off really felt like a vacation. If you can, take a 2 week trip somewhere in 2009.

A full week up at Tahoe with my extended family was a splurge. Heading back up to the lake in September, the almost off-season, was dreamy.

We went to Eugene, Oregon in October to see our friends, but my favorite fall excursion was spending my birthday weekend in Calistoga.

2008 At the Table

I tried a number of new-to-me restaurants this year: Laiola, SPQR, Bar Jules, Dona Tomas, Little Star Pizza, Uva, Berretta, Ad Hoc, La Ciccia, Chenery Park. But my favorite meals this year weren’t in normal restaurants at all. Instead, they were from Primavera, eaten outside at the farmers market, or at 18 Reasons, an art/event space run by our friends at BiRite. We attended what had  to be the best dinner party in town at 18 Reasons: dinner with wine, beer and cheesemaker Fritz Maytag. My best meal of the year was at the home of a butcher in Chianti: a six-course meal of meat at Solocicca.

2008 Soundtrack

Music often took a backseat to This American Life this year. But I listened to Jim White, Bonnie Prince Billy, Fleet Foxes, and whatever else Mr. WholeHog played for me.

2008 Bookmobile

My reading habits are sadly on a steep decline. It took me a good 6 months to finish the new David Sedaris — a book that should have been polished off in one afternoon. I took Haruki Murakami’s After Dark to Italy, but it didn’t do much for me. The one book I still think about is Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.

(I posted my 2007 list until late last year but if you feel like reviewing it, click here.)

Where Is The Love?

I want to feel elated today because last night, we officially ended these last horrible eight years. Years when some of us were wrongly arrested, and others were spied on for no cause. Years that people were tortured in our name and wars were based — and lives lost — on sheer lies and political manipulation. These years have permanently shaped my political outlook in the way the ’60s, Vietnam and Nixon influenced my parents.

It’s a momentous and hopeful time.

And yet, how can I celebrate when Californians voted to put discrimination in the California constitution? The same voters who helped elect our first black president also voted to prevent same-sex couples from marrying. We took a step backwards in California, while the rest of the country moved forward.

But then an unnamed commenter (identified only as a newly married friend) on Daily Kos put it in perspective for me:

“This may be a setback, but really, it’s just a single slap. I do not intend to cringe and sulk in the corner. I do not intend, even for one tiny second, to let the forces of intolerance think they have won even a battle. They haven’t. They want to rest now. They want to think that this is it, that they can go back home and sleep because they’ve stopped something they hate and are afraid of. They haven’t. We’re not down. We’re not wounded. We’re not battered or bleeding. We’re in love.“

This was exactly what I needed — a reminder that this is about love, and love doesn’t end because of some state ballot measure or some hypocritical religious belief.

Because of love, consenting adults have committed their lives to each other, even though their government doesn’t recognize their union and even though their commitment doesn’t provide them the same rights as other loving, committed couples. And this love is what fuels all of us, gay or straight, who fight to end discrimination.

Animal Dreams

I read Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Animal Dreams years ago and it got under my skin. I’ve thought about and returned to the excerpt below many times and it feels especially apt tonight:

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for.  And the most you can do is live inside that hope.  Not admire it from a distance but live right under its roof. . . Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.  And I can’t tell you how good it feels.“

Falling Back

I used to dread this time of year, when we set the clocks back and allow the dark to set in early.

It was a time of year I associated with depression and sickness (this was long before I’d discovered the neti pot and before I even knew I had coastal allergies that generally kicked in around this time).

But this year, I welcomed the darkness. I looked forward to turning the clocks back. This year, I’m ready to turn in a little early and to spend a little more time at home.

My life has felt so busy lately. September and October bring SF’s best weather, so there tends to be more City events, like the always-amazing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. There are a lot of Fall birthdays in my family, and since this year was my cousin’s 40th, my aunts, cousins and I all rented a house in Sonoma for a weekend. Mr. WholeHog and I found relatively cheap flights to Oregon — our first trip up to see our friends in their new home.

These were all good things, of course, but things that kept me out of the house, out of SF, and, perhaps most difficult for me, out of a record three (!), consecutive Saturday farmers markets. No Fatted Calf bacon. No Primavera breakfasts.

And then there was the election, yet another worthwhile time-suck. We volunteered on a few weekday nights, encouraging voters to vote No on Prop 8. It’s such an important issue, but it also meant arriving home at 10pm some nights, only to realize that we hadn’t had dinner yet.

This first November weekend was a much needed break. Saturday’s rain couldn’t keep me from the farmers market, although apparently it was too much for Primavera (damn you, Primavera!). But otherwise, I stayed close to home, reading back issues of the Sunday New York Times and SF’s crazy ballot measures. As we turned the clocks back Sunday morning, I found my way back to the kitchen.

I’m sure there will be times in these next few months when the dark evenings will get me down, but my hope is to have more nights like this one, where I sit on the kitchen floor writing while a gingerbread cake bakes in the oven.

Another Time or Place

Since San Francisco doesn’t have normal seasons, I often rely on the farmers market to let me know when the seasons change. I know it’s Fall when the peaches are gone and only Bay Area farmers bring tomatoes.

In SF, Fall takes longer to arrive. This time of year is about as close to summer as we get. Our days are more reliably warm and even or evenings have been fairly mild. But there is still a hint of Fall in the air, a feeling that even the warmest days won’t be stifling.

We began to get a glimpse of Fall around SF this past week. The gingko trees that line many of San Francisco’s streets have started to turn, their fan-shaped leaves changing from green to gold.

First Sign of Fall in the City: Gingko leaves on Eureka St.

The gingkos are about all we get in terms of foliage in the City, and while lovely, they pale in comparison to the vibrant Fall colors you see in the wine country this time of year.

In Sonoma this past weekend, it was a shock to see how dramatically Fall arrives. The trees seemed on fire, their leaves a mix of bright oranges and deep reds (“Those trees don’t look real,” one of my cousins announced in awe), and the grape vines turned the color of cabernet.