Flowers

Today someone bought me the most beautiful bouquet of flower. This person is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. And funny and generous. Oh, wait, I bought them for myself.

Midnight Call

On Sunday at 2 a.m. someone called on my cell phone. My alarm clock is broken so I have to use my cell phone for an alarm and I can't turn it off. My phone didn't ID the caller. I looked at the number and there were way too many digits. I put it down and went back to sleep. In the morning I looked up the country code. 88. Bangladesh. The only person I know from Bangladesh is my friend Raj so I sent him and email to see if he was there. Nope. Since my name starts with A I am often the first person someone's phone calls by accident. On Sunday night I was talking to a friend and he happened to mentioned that he'd gone out on Saturday night with his best friend to celebrate the Indian New Year. His friend is East Indian. Maybe it was just a drunk person celebrating and calling by accident. Then I realized there is only one other person I knew was in that part of the world that night. President Barack Obama. I bet it was him. I should have answered the phone.

Justice

Yesterday I was walking home and I passed a man who was yelling at his daughter because she was doing something very bad. He kept yelling her name and telling her what it was she was doing that he didn't approve of. Her name was Justice.

Will It Ever Let Up?

First there was Halloween, then the Giants won the World Series. Now it is election day and I just heard all this drumming and yelling so I went outside and the Day of the Dead Parade is passing by my house. Tomorrow the Giants will have a parade that winds its way around downtown. I wonder what Thursday has in store for us?

On Monday I was at my brother's house listening to game 5 of the World Series on the radio but I had to leave in the 6th inning to go to my meditation class. How distracting is that? In the middle of our trance we heard cheers coming in from outside. "A three run homer!" you could hear someone say outside on Valencia Street. It wasn't long after that the city burst. People were screaming and honking their horns. Pretty soon it was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think even though we weren't supposed to be thinking. When I left class I got on my bike and headed around the corner for a bar on 22nd and Mission where my friend the is the bartender. When I turned the corner all I saw was a mob crowding the intersection. I locked my bike outside the bar and walked into the middle of the madness. You couldn't tell how far in either direction the crowd extended. People were going nuts. They were dancing, drinking, yelling, and climbing buildings and street posts. There was an old woman capitalizing on the event by frantically trying to gather as many cans and bottles as she could. People were flattening their cans for her. I was standing there wishing I had a beer and, just then, these two men came up to me, one shook my hand and the other handed me a beer. Then they were gone into the see of orange. Every few minutes a car would work it's way into the intersection and peel out and excite and frighten the crowd. I imagine it is like this every day in Brazil. I ran into a friend and was talking to her when we both heard a noise and turned around. People were running full blast at us. Everyone ran to the sidewalks. Behind the fleeing crowd were the riot police making their way down the street. When they got to the corner they stopped. Immediately beer bottles started exploding around them. I tried to take a picture with my phone but I needed to get out of there so it came out blurry. I headed for the bar. Inside it was warm and cozy and there was a jazz band playing quietly. Outside was the crowd, sirens, and lights flashing. I was there for an hour before I decided to brave the streets. The riot police were still there but the crowd was much smaller. The intersection was between me and my house. As soon as I unlocked my bike the cop cars that were there went screaming off and I made my way through the glass to my home and my bed.

Halloween

Last year on Halloween I asked my friend, Raghu from India, what he was going to be for Halloween. He said that he wanted to be a cowboy but that he didn't have enough time to get the costume together. I was dying of laughter inside when he told me this. Raghu is pronounced just like the spaghetti sauce. So, put that together with a cowboy who is of the west and you get a Spaghetti Western.

OR

He would have been a cowboy and an indian at the same time.

Don't Do This

Don't ride your bike to the soccer field and lean the bike up against the fence without locking it then go play your soccer game and, when you are done, go get in Tony's car and drive away.

Chances

There are roughly 815,358 residents in the City of San Francisco and I can't find one man to go on a date with. OK. 49.2% of those are women so that leaves 414,202 men. 15.4% of all residence are homosexual so that means 7.7% or so of men are gay. That leaves 382,308 straight men. 45.1% are white so we will have to excuse them. That leaves 209,887. 13.87% of those men are between the ages of 45 and 54. So, now I'm left with 29,102 of which 44.04% are married. Subtract them and I'm left with 16,285 eligible bachelors. But, really, how many of those would I really be interested in? 1. Where is he? Maybe he's on the Peninsula.

Assumptions

If I made a portrait from the assumptions people have made of me over the past month or so I would be a 55 yr. old divorced vegetarian lesbian who only drinks non-fat milk and who teaches grammar school. Hmm. Interesting.

Looking Good For My First Week of Class

On Sunday Aug. 8th my soccer season started back up with my beloved Brazilian team. It was a good game but I got hit in the face with the ball. The next weekend I got hit in the face with the ball. Today I got hit in the face with the ball. I should play the lottery.

Year Without A Summer

The Eskimos have a legend about a year without a summer some time ago. The birds did not migrate north. The fish did not come home to spawn. The spring grasses did not sprout because the sun never shown through the clouds. Many people and animals died.

Escape to LA

I went to LA to get out of the cold foggy summer weather that has been plaguing us for months now but it was cold and foggy in LA too. So much for my summer vacation. So much for summer. School starts again on Tuesday. At least they have Balboa Bars down in So. Cal. A Balboa Bar is a block of vanilla ice cream with a stick in it. They dip it in chocolate then roll it in any topping you want. Crushed Oreo cookies, gummy worms, sprinkles, etc. I like the chopped peanuts. It was worth the trip.

Christmas

I woke up yesterday and thought, "It's so cold I'm going to go out and get a Christmas Tree and have a tree trimming party with egg nog and mulled wine." I think there is a Christmas tree farm just outside of Half Moon Bay. I'll have to be sure to take the coastal route just incase the pass is closed.

Winter Soup Recipe

Hi Everyone,

Since it is colder than fucking hell here in San Francisco this summer I thought I'd post the Winter Soup Recipe. Sorry I can't supply you with violent wind and the sound of an annoying neighbor dog yapping in the background. I'm sure that would make it taste all the better. Put on your wool scarf and break out the red wine (You'll need some for the soup too).

Winter Soup

3 teaspoons butter
3 medium onions, chopped
1 clove garlic
1 pound ground beef
3 cups beef broth
28 oz. can chopped tomatoes
1 cup cubed potato
2 celery stalks
3 medium carrots
1 cup green beans
1 cup dry red wine
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Cook onion in butter. Add beef and garlic and cook. Add remaining ingredients and cook. Goes well with buttermilk corn bread but you can find your own damned recipe for that.

Fuck It

Tonight I gave in and turned the heat on. It's July 20th and I have the heat on. Cold, windy, foggy, and dark. Summer in San Francisco.

Rapids

Over the 4th of July weekend I went on a 4 day canoe trip down the Eel River. There were 27 of us. 20 adults and 7 kids. My friend has been making this an annual trip for about 30 years. At this point it is so well organized you don't really have to think about anything except when you are going to have your next beer. I got so relaxed on the trip that all of my ailments went away and my sense of humor came back. On one of the days we only saw one other person besides the folks in our group. We also got to see a bald eagle. He was looking stoic high up on a branch of a big tree above the river. On the first day of our journey people were running into rocks and having to bail water from their canoes. I told my brother that we were NOT going to let that happen to us. The day after that we came into some rapids and hit a rock broadside and flipped the canoe. My brother grabbed his 3 year old son and I went after the canoe. We are still blaming the incident on someone's 40 lb. watermelon that ended up in our cooler.

Before I left for the trip I cleaned out some items from the pantry that I knew I was never going to use even if there was an earthquake. Like the non-dairy creamer that has been in there for years. In my neighborhood you can put anything out on the sidewalk and someone will take it away and use it. So, I gathered a box of food from the pantry and set it out for people to take. They took everything but the non-dairy creamer. I took it back inside and thought, "Well, maybe I should take it on the camping trip just incase we run out of milk."

When we flipped our canoe we were just around the corner from where everyone else had stopped to set up for lunch. As they were organizing lunch they noticed some mash mallows go by. Then a hat. Then they swam out to collect the rest of our stuff. It wasn't until later that night that my brother and I realized that a bottle of Maker's Mark and two bottles of wine had been lost to the river. But someone had managed to save the non-dairy creamer. It floated downstream upright in it's half empty plastic container.

It has been two weeks since our trip. Some of my ailments are back and I have forgotten what a sense of humor is. My brother came by today to drop off some things I had left in his car. Some sunscreen, a towel, and the non-dairy creamer. It is safe and sound back home in its place.

Go USA!

I hurt my foot and can't play soccer for 8 weeks but at least I get to watch it. I haven't had enough sleep since the World Cup started. I have to get up early to find somewhere to watch it. I don't have a television anymore and my old computer won't support it live. Sometimes I watch the games at Lynn's house, sometimes at Bill place, but, most of the time I see the games at the new Hispanic rocker cafe down the street from my house. It's called Rock Nation. Usually it is just me, a huge leather couch and a big screen TV. Oh, and Sergio or Angelo. At first I thought they were the same person. They look almost exactly the same and they wear the same headband. The one who used to be a competitive bicyclist is the one who doesn't ride his bike to work. That's how I remember who is who.

Yesterday the US played like Brazilians against Algeria. Not the Beautiful Game but the exciting game. They pushed it right up to the end. Just to make everyone a little nervous and keep folks entertained. That's how the Brazilians I know play.

I heard that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were very invested in the US vs. Algeria game because Algeria is a muslin nation. They wanted to see the muslims come out ahead just this once. The guards were ordered not to respond to the outcome in any way.

On the world's soccer stage the once prevailing mullet seems to have been replaced by the gay mohawk. At least that's what we call it here. It used to be a gay signature but now even the muslims are sporting them. Do they know? Should someone tell them? No, it's funny. Like the Tea Party folks calling themselves "tea baggers." It gets a chuckle from us here in SF every time we hear it.

4X

My Brazilian soccer team won it's fourth championship in a row. It was bittersweet. That was good news but there was some bad news too. They decided to take next season off. What do they expect me to do with my Sundays now? Today I went to a yoga class instead. Yuck. Boring. I did not see one handsome Brazilian man there. Not even a sweaty Costa Rican or a hairy Portuguese man. Nobody gave me a hug and said, "Hello, my love," and nobody made me laugh my ass off. I did not get to sit in the sun and watch the next game then go out and eat a big breakfast with the other two ladies on the team. I can't wait for the next season.

Something I've Always Wanted To Do

This weekend the Psychic Fair was in town. I went down there with one task in mind and that was to have my aura photographed. I have a few books about photographs of "the invisible" and they all include aura Polaroid portraits and I've always wanted to have one of myself. I have to say that I've never seen so many kooks in one place at the same time. Well, except for the Renaissance Pleasure Fair when I was about 5. There were a lot of con artists the Psychic Fair too and they kept trying to get in the way of my mission. I got attached my a woman doing henna tattoos. I got cornered by a short, bald New Yorker with my phone number on his mind. There were people rubbing greasy crystals on women's faces to eliminate their wrinkles, there was a man playing a very long didgery doo that was pointed at the chest of a woman with her eyes closed, and people selling flowing gowns like the ones Stevie Nicks wears. Just to list a few of the things I observed. Before I left the house to go to the fair my housemate asked me if I thought my aura was going to be pink. "I'll just have to wait and see." Here is the photo.

Update

My brother thinks that the word "update" is dated. The word "data" too. He likes both of those words together. "Data Update." It does sound very 70's. I would tell you what I've been up to but, first of all my students find my blog so I have to watch my p's and q's, but, also, if I told you what I've been doing lately you would most likely think I'd lost my mind AND gone crazy. Nope.

My New Favorite Photograph

This is my new favorite found photograph. It's from a technical photography book called Photographic Printing published in 1977. I have no idea what is going on in the photo and the caption doesn't help one bit. I seem to be attracted to things that can't be explained. They can have so many meanings.

They Say Three Is A Charm

Today was one of the best days ever. I woke up to the sound of rain, had my tea, and walked over to the soccer field by my house. Our team made it to the playoffs. If we won the first round we went on to the final. We won the first game AND the second game. It's the third time in a row we have won the league championship. I didn't get a photo of the team to post on the blog this time because as soon as the game ended it started raining again. I did, however, become the new owner of a bright orange Norcal Athletics t-shirt that says that I am, in fact, a championship. After the game Lynn and I came back to my house and made a huge breakfast. Then more tea and more rain. After that I went to the movies. Then more rain. I'm not crazy about Sundays but I love the rain and I love my soccer team. It was a good day.

A Big Week

This week I had lunch with a friend because he wanted to let me know that he is going to put me in his will. A couple of days later my friend named her baby after me. The day after that I sold a piece of artwork from a show I am in with a bunch of Bay Area heavies. I am the only one to sell something so far! The day after THAT someone asked me to be their successor to manage an artists grant fund. I can't help but feeling very responsible all of a sudden.

And there is another one

This Is Why I Like To Read The Morning Paper