Librarian: Angel

This isn't a particularly Happy Halloweeny post except for that it happened to me on Halloween and I'm trying to be better about timeliness around here and anyways, haven't you had enough Halloween yet for one year? No? Well then: a trick or treat for luck lovers.

The mailman today brought this large flat envelope to our house, with my name carefully written across the front, with a stamp from the San Francisco Public Library as the return address. I of course assumed the worst: that somehow I'd forgotten to return some wildly valuable book and they'd sent my overdue bill in this envelope, so large it required over a dollar in postage to send. Happily, this was not the case, and rather carefully wrapped up inside was the book present I received from Elana as an early birthday gift three weeks ago, still with gift tag and wrapping paper in tact.



I realized at once that I'd slipped the little Russian children's book into my library book for safekeeping the day I received it and then upon my last visit to SFPL, unknowingly returned them both to the depository. If my life were a dramatic movie, there would be a close up of me dropping it onto the conveyor belt at the entrance (San Francisco is so fancy like that) only to realize the next day that the treasure had been lost forever. Antics would ensue to get it back. In real life, I had just this week begun to wonder where exactly I'd put that little book and some lovely person at the library happened to be looking over me all along.


Since I can't thank this lovely man or lady personally, I'd like to state for the record that this person has something really good coming to them. Twenty dollars found on the sidewalk or two desserts or SOMEthing. Hear that universe? What a nice thing to do for a total stranger.

Full of Beans

Check out the texture on these beans that Bert brought us. He's learning lots in the way of roasting coffee, and shared a miniature batch of French roast with us last week. Grinding them up for brewing in the French press, they dissolved into papery, oily little flakes before my eyes; like some precious metal, they actually sparkled a little. The whole pot felt very ceremonious, delivered in that hand stamped tiny bag. It was a nice treat, a step above our usual fare.



I've been feeling like an especially lucky person recently. Bert brought us coffee and gave us a really amazing old Indian cookbook. Miriam gave us surplus heirloom tomatoes and quince jam. And Karrie gave me recently TWO lovely bottles of bitters out of the goodness of her heart. Whatever I did to have such generous friends, I do not know, but I'd like to become that sort of friend myself one of these days.

Today though, I'm happy to count these blessings and put off repayment until tomorrow.

Safe Travels

Sunday we rode up to the Albany Bulb, the man-made trash heap turned peninsula park up north of Berkeley for a soiree in honor of Kurt and Hubert before they depart on an epic bike ride. Multi-national, and multi-continental for Kurt. It was my first time visiting the Bulb, though I'd heard quite a bit about it: a pile of trash from the 1906 Earthquake grown almost completely over in flora. We were able to follow the Bay Trail most of the way up at right about the time of sundown, an impressive trick intended to woo Lauren. I think it worked.

The trail out along the bulb was a bit rocky, and tired (literally, tires buried in the ground like boulders) and we had to walk a stretch of it that was too mountainous for our road bikes. After some brief wandering through a grove of wild fennel, we made it to the clearing just as the light was waning and took in as much as we could.



There were bikes walled up along the outer edge and people all over the place, dogs all around and did I mention all the bikes? Someone (Kurt, probably, who crafted my new front bike rack is even more unstoppable than I am when it comes to hauling) carried an entire keg of Sierra Nevada out by bicycle. (!) Meanwhile, all this mangled, gnarled metal embedded into the landscape hung around the party like vines, making it hard to decipher boundaries and depth. Hall and Oates playing on the boombox.

There was some more contemporary trash strewn here and there, brought out here by other punks over the years. And all of it manages to enrich the quality of the natural space; an extraordinary case study for a landscape architect, for sure.


Before long, the fire was raging and the air had turned chilly. So we huddled and chatted and nibbled on puppy chow and drank a few and then before the stroke of 11 wandered back out and headed for civilization again by the glow of our bike lights. The whole evening was so unreal that I might assume I'd dreamt it, except for how the next morning my clothes smelled of bacon, the way they do after camping.





And looking back through the pictures, the firelight makes everything even more romantic.

Cupcake For Your Troubles

Turning in job applications for food places & retail spaces, I often feel pressure to purchase something while handing off a resume as a matter of course. The times I haven't done this, I feel like I may as well drop the crisply printed copy of my sum experience into the trash can instead.

On Thursday I went to apply at Love At First Bite, a small cupcakery in Berkeley and following my usual regimen, ordered a coconut cupcake while applying for their recently posted counter position. To my pleasant surprise, Pat (the bakery's owner & very nice lady) offered me a complimentary cupcake in exchange for my application. As by now I've learned, this is not customary in other such places and I so appreciated her respectful gesture, a subtle nod to my lack of income, that I tipped her a dollar. The little exchange put me in a lovely mood the rest of the day.

By the way, that 80's-issue athletic themed Pee-Chee folder is my new resume holster and I rather like it...


**EEK! Not five minutes after posting, Pat called me for an interview....EEK!