Filed under This City Makes Me Smile Every Day …

Palm Service

The warm, twinkling glow of Christmas lights framing the window of Snowbird Coffee lured me in at primetime– Sunday, midmorning, on the Inner Sunset main drag– after previous attempts to lift myself from the morning fog were thwarted by long, chaotic lines at neighboring hotspots. Snowbird had zero line, and almost zero people–attractive in satisfying the immediacy of my coffee … Continue reading →

A Stranger’s Poem

Perhaps it was the obsessive-compulsive twirling of my long blond hair while my forehead rest in my other hand, shaking back and forth which each word I read. Or maybe it was the involuntary mutterings and sighs emanating from my mouth as I typed furiously, racing against the clock. I was a massive ball of … Continue reading →

Fear Not in the Face of Absurdity

11:00 pm, Thursday, July 3rd: “I think we can put the GPS down, we’re almost there.” The car full of heads nodded in agreement as we passed a sign indicating that it was only 52 miles east to Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park. “All we have to do is stay on 36– it will take us … Continue reading →

Idle Moments Are Expansive

Pushing the pedal hard, up hill, I knew I couldn’t win. Turning the corner at the head of the Tenderloin, a fierce wind blasted me. There was no way I was going to to make it. My brake cable–the soul of getting from A to B– snapped. Instantly everything changed. I was stuck in the … Continue reading →

Jam Man

“Ratta-tat-tat, tat-tat-ta-tat” began to slowly pound on the bottom of the Muni train as a man leaning against the closed doors slipped into a trance. Hopping on the K train at the Castro stop, the man, likely in his late 20s, appeared to be dressed for work: black dress pants and matching black dress shoes, … Continue reading →

Spinning in the Sun

A one-legged twirl with a kick. Matched in grace by a seamless transition into a single leg high-kneed spin. Airplane arms. Another spin, another kick. But not just one kick, this man is counting— One finger up as one high-legged kick unwinds in a counter clockwise direction. Two fingers up as the second high-legged kick … Continue reading →

A Hidden Paradise . . . kind of

Alone with four cuddly cats in a 3-story house with a backyard on the edge of Potrero Hill and the Design District, I was in heaven. I was catsitting for a week and decided to take a ‘staycation’ from work to soak up every morsel of space– both physical and personal– and finally just kick … Continue reading →

The Immaculate Man

Immaculate. Cleanly cut.  A stoic old man steps boldly onto Bus 22 on an early Monday morning. Contrasting sharply with his dark, charcoal complexion, his white hair and matching white beard are impeccably groomed and accentuated by the stiff brim of his fedora floating gently atop his head. Cleanly pressed, the crisp edges of his … Continue reading →

The Woman Who Laughs

Riding on the Number 5 bus, something caught my attention. Well, perhaps it’s more accurate to say something caught the attention of every single person on the bus. Even if you had headphones on, blasting your favorite music while singing along, this something was so piercing that nothing was impenetrable to its force. Nothing. So … Continue reading →