Category: optimism

Fi-yah!!

One of the amazing, fabulous, so-cool-I-can’t-believe-it aspects of our new apartment is a real, actual, honest to goodness wood burning fireplace.

No pellets. No gas. No “oh it’s just for show we don’t use it.”

A real fireplace! With fire! From a log!

Yowza! [ insert cavewoman grunt here ]

Fire, good. Warm. Unh-huh.

However, since there are several units in my building, and who knows what sort of yahoolios I have for neighbors, today I called my insurance agent and double checked that I’m super duper double covered for such things as fire. And you know…burning.

Turns out that I am covered, and that’s good. I was raised with a healthy respect for fire. When my mom was just a little girl, her brother was using a burn barrel (or maybe burning leaves, I can’t remember) and he accidentally set several large farm fields on fire. My mom can vividly recall the huge flames and ever since she’s kept a healthy distance from any sort of fire.

So of course, my dad used to load up our 1970’s burnt orange free standing fireplace with lots of sappy New Mexico piñon logs. Then he’s say “what?” when mom mentioned that maybe that was a little too much fire for such a small fireplace.

I mean, as a kid I learned how to make a darn good campfire and over the years I’ve always really enjoyed cooking over fire (both bbq and camping), however, in my adult life, I have never lived anywhere that had a fireplace. Most apartments don’t offer this feature because the property owners don’t want to assume the risk.

Last night, I pondered while looking at this particular fire:



The first fire in our new place!!

For as much progress as we have seen in the world including technology, medicine, engineering, etc…meaning, of all the amazing tools that we, as humans, have at our fingertips, it’s still the tool of the caveman that can wipe the whole thing out.

One flickering flame. One spark from a burning fire is a lifechanger.

And so today, when my insurance agent asked me the all important question “what is the distance to the nearest Fire Station” and I answered “less than a mile,” at I first felt worry over having to even discuss the probability of tragedy. Then I felt thankful that the fire station is so close. Then I felt doubly thankful for all the people who work at that fire station and are willing, as a normal part of their job, to come and save me, and The Good Man and, yes, even The Feline, from a possible terrible situation.

Being a human is full of risks. Even if I choose not to use my fireplace, I can’t control all the others in my building. So yeah, I’m going to use that fireplace and I’m going to stand in front of it and warm my rear end. I’m also going to be very careful and very respectful.

And very grateful.

Regarding the fire, the Feline says, “where you been all my life?”.



Yes, that’s a box of Duraflame. Real logs are on the way.




Except where noted, photos Copyright 2012, by Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.

Photo at the link to the freestanding orange fireplace is from UglyHousePhotos.com. That is not a photo of my family’s home.



In This Technological Age

Considering how nomadic the people of the world have become – moving streets, cities, states, countries at a whim – you’d think the art and science of moving would have improved.

But really, it hasn’t changed much since the settlers moved west in covered wagons. It’s still just your stuff, a lot of cardboard boxes, a big truck and some muscle.

That’s it. No better. No improvements.

I need some razzle dazzle technology here, people. Can’t the finest minds in Silicon Valley and beyond get on this?

If they can build a better toilet and build a better thermostat then they can build a better moving system.

Let’s think beyond the cardboard box, people!

I’m talking about something like Star Trek transport. Push a button. Boom baby, your crap is at a new address.

Or levitation. Alakazam! Your sh*t’s in the truck!

Or wiggle my nose Bewitched style and it simply happens. Move house and cook a post roast, all in three shakes of a nariz.

Something better than boxes and packing tape rolls that always run out just at that crucial moment.

*sigh*

I say all of this as I take in the view at my home. Boxes everywhere. The Good Man and I wondering why we both have so much crap. Wondering if we can cull it down more. Wondering how in the heck we are going to get this all done.

Moving sucks.

However.

Because perspective is a lovely thing, on Monday, I was chatting with a coworker who also has an upcoming move. We were talking about packing and shredding and donating and both of us were tut-tutting and shaking our heads at it all.

He asked me “how far is away is your new house?”

“Oh, a few miles,” I said.

“Imagine being me moving 6,000 miles. To a new country.” (he’s moving from Dublin to San Francisco in two months)

So ok. He’s got to pack all his crap into wooden shipping boxes. Talk about space limitations! Talk about a man who could use an easy transporter.

Ah well. Hand me the bungee cords. Let’s get back to work.






Today’s Theme Thursday topic is: view

Photo from Lavazza Article


Ignore the Early Indicators

The other day, I was out walking with my lunchtime exercise pal (for regular readers, the Worm Girl) when we had occasion to cross paths with three different redheaded men. Of the bright orange and freckles variety.

“Must be a ginger convention,” I quipped.

She laughed, then my newly on-the-market friend commented “You know, I can’t explain why, but I’ve never been attracted to redheaded men. There’s no good reason, it just doesn’t work for me.”

I replied, “Yeah, me too. Though I know why. When I was in elementary school, I went to school with a ginger kid. He had a lot of troubles with wetting his pants. I felt so bad for the guy. He was a nice kid, but he used to make puddles everywhere.”

We walked for a while longer. Then I said “you know, I should look him up. I wonder what he’s up to these days.”

“He’s probably a CEO and incredibly rich,” my friend said, and I agreed.

So that night I went online to look up my old schoolmate from my formative years. The pants wetter.

Well. He’s not a CEO. It’s better.

He’s a pretty darn successful race car driver. His posted record is awesome and now he owns a racing company with his parents.

Guess we all pegged that kid wrong didn’t we?

Which makes me think about all of my friends with young kids who struggle with the weird culture of mommies that insist on comparing “my little Tommy” to other kids. They always make sure you know that their kid is better than yours.

It’s evil and it’s wrong and it makes me UTTERLY mad. You have no idea how many mom-friends I’ve had to talk down because of this nasty culture.

One might think that my school chum was a less-than kid because of his bladder issues.

Since confession is good for the soul, I’ll admit I was the class nose picker. When the teacher got boring, the treasures of the nostrils seemed far more interesting. I’m not proud of it and I took a lot of guff in first and second grades for it.

At close to forty years later, I think it can be said that I turned out pretty well too.

Power to the pants wetters and the nose pickers and that kid that barfed on the school field trip and then no one wanted to hang out with him. They are your future race car drivers and CEO’s or just your average soul with a decent job and a good spouse who does her best to be a good member of society.

Blessed are the weirdos, for we shall inherit the earth….right after we’re done skeeving everyone out.








What Makes San Francisco Fun

Had to smile when I read this bit today in the SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle’s online home:

__________________

From Leah Garchik’s column:

“On Upper Grant one recent Saturday, Mal Sharpe and his Big Money in Jazz Band were playing at the Savoy Tivoli, which has windows open to the street. When Sharpe sang out to a group of passing German tourists, reports Lucy Johns, no one responded. But their tour guide, Tara, said she was not only a guide, she was a singer. This spurred the crowd to demand a song. She sang ‘All of Me,’ and ‘we all swooned,’ said Johns. ‘Then she tromped off down the street with her bullhorn, leading the Germans to City Lights,’ said Sharpe.”

__________________


I love the visuals on this bit of North Beach storytelling. I adore Mal Sharpe, he’s a SF Bay Area legend, and one of The Good Man’s favorite jazz musicians. When you see a Mal show, you are completely engaged by his charm. So this story, inviting a passerby to come up and sing (and she knocks it out of the park), comes as no surprise to me.

It’s one of the many reasons why I love North Beach.

These kind of things just happen every day in San Francisco. It’s just how we do things…especially in North Beach.

Here’s another example. One night I was sitting at my favorite family-owned Italian restaurant called Sodini’s (it’s a North Beach icon). The restaurant was crammed and I was alone, so I manged to squeeze into a nice seat at the bar next to an older gentleman.

He and I got to talking when he offered to buy me another glass of Chianti. The man turned out to be Leo Riegler, current owner of Vesuvios, the world-known bar next door to the City Lights Bookshop where the Beat Generation used to drink and write and fight.

Leo has owned quite a few businesses in North Beach through the years. That night he told me about the coffeehouse he once owned (on the site that is now the Lost and Found saloon). I asked him about the bands that used to play there, as that coffeehouse was well known to host Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and more. He told me a long and involved story, the punchline of which was…

He used to pay Janis Joplin $20 a night to play his stage.

I mean. Wow.

All this over a simple plate of ravioli and a glass a wine. Leo is a walking musical history lesson.

That’s just how it goes in North Beach. That scruffy guy in the corner of Caffe Trieste who looks like he just dragged in off the street? Probably a world famous poet laureate. That run down guy who looks like he’s about to pass out on the bar at The Saloon? Likely a multi-millionaire musician.

And then sometimes you just meet a random German tourist who can’t believe that his tour guide stepped in off the street, did a set with a local band, wowed the crowd, then kept going.

How beautifully inspiring. The Muse always does a little dance inside of me when we walk together up Grant street. It’s her fault I moved here, after all…..


Stockton Street, looking toward the tunnel, 2:51 a.m.





Photo by my North Beach friend, Scott Palmer.