Parrots, neighborhoods and the elements of air and surprise

What a week! Work has gotten consistently easier and I had a half hour of unique value when I was able to converse with a Spanish-speaking couple who arrived to our shop for the first time. Overall, the shop is quite busy but I love the fact that it's a small, independent business that has a real family feel. My co-workers are great and you can't beat the location.

On Wednesday, this happened:

Two introduced species meeting for the first time!

There are several things to note about this photo. The first is that there is a parrot's nest somewhere made of my missing hair. The second is that the two winged cuties are totally mugging for the camera. And the third is that strange woman in the background. It's extremely hard to be anywhere truly alone in San Francisco. According to the 2000 census, there are 16,343 people per square mile in SF, second only to New York City. Seriously, there's always someone in front of you in line.

What's fascinating is that after I touched the parrots, I believe I took on the city's energy that I've been finding so hard to capture. Two minutes after this interaction, a young Japanese woman asked me for directions to the Ferry Building. And I was able to direct her correctly like a true native! These parrots gave me the element and energy of air and it's made me more confident and buoyant. Air works with innovation, opportunity, quickness and intelligence, something of a monopoly for the Bay Area who has given birth to Silicon Valley, the world wide web and the breathy spoken words of the Beat Poets.

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Today, Saturday, April 14th was terrific for me. For the record, I apologize for the bitter, defeated tone of last weekend's post. However, it did prove to me that I was able to weather a bad day in San Francisco without picking up a drink. This weekend, so far, has been decidedly sunnier. I rolled out of bed at 10 a.m. and dined at the famous Mel's Drive-In (where they filmed parts of American Graffiti). I then checked out a few SRO's in TenderNob. After that, I went to Lower Nob Hill, or less frequently, Polk Gulch (on the corner of Polk and California), where I picked up a neat, five-dollar, zipper-up hoodie at a place called "Fashion Exchange" (http://www.fashionexchange.net/). Then I crossed the street and hit up my favorite metaphysical bookstore, "Fields Book Store" (http://www.fieldsbooks.com/cgi-bin/fields/index.html). This corner in an area called Lower Nob Hill or, more infrequently, Polk Gulch, is a major shopping vortex for me. Nearby is another gem, "Out of the Closet" (http://outofthecloset.org/), a fun thrift store that benefits the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

I then caught a cable car and hung off the side as it climbed up and dipped down California Street. Somehow they forgot to charge me the $6. I took it to Nob Hill where I witnessed the grand mansion of the Fairmont Hotel. What a lovely and QUIET neighborhood. Doing a 360 on Mason Street, I had to  parrot a friend of mine who said "San Francisco is the most beautiful city in the world." Perhaps, Paris and Rio are in the running. Walking down Mason there was one point where I saw three different cable cars each going in their own direction. I then bumped into a vibrant Chinatown and the equally intense North Beach before I found another SRO right above the Beat Museum. Later on in the day, I found $5 on the F line! This was all too much.

San Francisco has a reputation of suffering an identity crisis. For sure, it is a large, teeming city compared with orderly Boston. But it's much smaller than Los Angeles and New York, the latter of which it admires greatly. SF not only has the element of air but also of surprise. There is deceit and surprise all around. Destinations that would seem to take ten minutes instead take an hour and ten minutes and landmarks that seem several neighborhoods away are actually right around the corner. This element of surprise also extends to the denizens. I've stopped trying to figure the people out, as they seem both warm and cool, friendly but a little harsh. If we could pin down its identity, it would be eclectic, flighty and hopelessly contrarian. For eclectic, I'm thinking of all the borrowed streetcar models: Baltimore, Milan, Toronto, San Diego, in full functional condition. For flighty, I'm thinking of the windmills in Golden Gate Park and the abandoned Sutro Baths near SeaCliff (my theory by the way is that they will rehabilitate these in ten years time). For contrarian, just take a look at last week's Hunky Jesus contest and Summer of Love past.

Nice to meet you, city of surprise.