dappled shade

Canterbury Tales

Found a copy of the Canterbury Tales in the original English this weekend. What makes it even better is that it is small enough to carry on my morning commute. Now I just need to be able to read a page in less than 2 minutes.

Looking Out for Strangers

A lot happens on MUNI. Even when I'm trying to hide behind a book, a lot happens on MUNI. So much happens that my reactions are quicker and the book often gets put away.

About 6 months ago, there was a group of commuters riding the MUNI from downtown to the Caltrain station. An elderly gentleman got on. There were open seats so in my innocence I didn't worry about it. The MUNI train took off with a lurch (as they always do) and he fell over. Fell over doesn't quite do it justice. He toppled over, and slammed his head into the plastic siding. Fortunately plastic.

There was a nasty moment when he wasn't moving. Someone, who obviously had a bit of medical training, rushed over and by then the elderly gentleman had started to stir. This turned out okay in the end, but it left a lasting impression. Now, whenever the train stops, and people get on, I have a quick scan round to see if someone is likely to run into trouble.

This has been a good thing at least once. An older gentleman with a cane boarded the MUNI at Embarcadero and the train started moving before he got to his seat. I grabbed hold of him as he stumbled, and he held onto my arm and shoulder, so he managed to keep his feet.

Right now the MUNI trains are so crowded in the afternoon it's less of a worry. If someone starts to fall they can't go very far; they run into the people next to them. So trodden toes, but no concussions. I often brace myself against one wall in the afternoon. I'm young and healthy and always have comfortable shoes on so I'm more likely to stand and it's a good spot for a dash to the Caltrain.

On Friday, the train was already full when an older, not elderly, man got on. Old enough that he might come to harm, but young enough that he would be probably be offended if someone offered him a seat. I was standing behind and slightly to one side of him so I put away my book.

A young man who was also braced against the wall was beside me. The older man in front of us was not holding on when the train started and he lost his balance a bit. There was no thought involved, I just put up a hand to help stabilize him. I don't even remember lifting my hand. He got hold of the railing before he stumbled that far back, but the young man next to me smiled and said something I didn't quite catch. He'd obviously been watching as well and had been prepared to catch him if the older man had really lost his balance.

No crisis in this case, but it's refreshing to see people unobtrusively looking out for each other.

Graceful Courtesy

Each morning, hordes pound across the intersection from the Caltrain station to a single-car MUNI train. Everyone manages to cram in, but not everyone gets a seat.

I've seen young men sitting who have offered their seat to women. Unless the woman is old or pregnant, the offer almost always gets rejected. Even if the guy gets up anyway, the woman won't take the seat. It's a matter of pride along the lines of "My business shoes may be damn uncomfortable, but I'm still going to stand rather than be patronized to."

What does happen, though, is that in the mornings, when we're all crammed in, the seats tend to be occupied by women and men are more likely to be standing. It took me awhile to figure out why it wasn't an even distribution. Men are walking into the train, scoping out how crowded it's going to be and opting to just not take a seat. If they already have one, they'll get up and move away from it toward another part of the train.

I'm not sure how I feel about this socially, but it's certainly good manners graciously applied by some MUNI riders.

The Treachery of the Common Swimsuit

One of my ankles is a bit unreliable, and age isn't improving it. The elliptical runner with the shuffle on high is my favorite exercise at the gym, but because of the ankle, I'm moving more and more into swimming.

I started looking for a swimsuit earlier in the year. The timing was perfect - all the stores had pages devoted to swimsuits. These pages were often subdivided by "problem" areas - the waist, stomach, chest (too big or too small), and thighs. Unfortunately, nothing for an ankle so I didn't feel it was all that helpful. In the end I bought a red bikini and brown board shorts from a website that didn't worry about customers' problem areas, but did assure them that the outfit would stay on even in the ocean.

I swim for about 35 minutes and go two or three times a week. Speed is not one of my virtues in the pool as I refuse to put my head under water (water in the ears is just too annoying). But I keep moving, and get a decent workout. It also uses muscles that don't get used on the elliptical runner.

All was well with this routine until last week. After my swim, I hopped out of the pool and discovered that the colorful outside of the bikini had stretched - a lot. (Fortunately, the liner had more or less held its shape.) The bikini bottoms had had the same melt down. It looked like saggy elephant skin. Definitely not attractive, and also somewhat inexplicable. It was as if the bikini top and bottom had got together and decided to spontaneously lose all stretch, leaving a sagging mass where a cute little red swimsuit used to be.

So back to the drawing board for a new swimsuit; hopefully this time for one that doesn't fall apart quite so spectacularly or unexpectedly.

Ginger Tea Message

Note found in my Organic Ginger Tea:

"Help!! I'm a coffee drinker stuck working in a tea factory!"

Made me laugh, but not sure why it was there. The best suggestion so far is that it was an employee on their last day, but, if so, it's a weak protest. Whoever it was, I hope they found some coffee.

The Bonding Power of MUNI

Talk to anyone from San Francisco long enough and two things are guaranteed to come up in the conversation: the price of housing and MUNI. These two topics alone can get most people through a long lunch with a total stranger.

For those of you who are not from the Bay Area, MUNI is the public transport system in San Francisco. When I started my job I was introduced to the joys of this system. I have to admit, that for the first few months, it really wasn't that bad in terms of timing. The trains were usually on time and they generally didn't break down.

Recently, though, they changed the lines around. In theory, twice as many trains should be running and since the trains are running twice as often, they halved the size of the train. This sounds logical, except that people come in waves, not spread out evenly. So we all get packed in like sardines (or as one person, whose grasp of English was a bit tenuous, put it, like sausages).

I'm convinced that someone with a nasty sense of humor came up with the new system. There are two possible platforms to board the trains from; to get from one platform to another requires crossing lanes of busy, fast traffic. There is no reliable way to tell which train is coming next, so hordes of people stampede across the lanes to the train that they just spotted pulling in.

Since this is obviously extremely dangerous, they have crossing guards now, whose jobs are a little trying. One was desperately trying to get us all to stand on the pavement instead of spilling out into the street. People wanted to be in a good spot for a run to catch the Caltrain, though, so they weren't co-operating. Eventually, the crossing guard gave up and said words to the effect of: 'Fine, get hit.'

Before the re-arrangement to the schedules, strangers didn't talk to each other much on the trains. Now they do; whole conversations revolve around "What's wrong with the MUNI system" and my personal favorite "Are we going to make our connection?" One guy even successfully managed to get a petition together and showed up on the local news.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that there's nothing like a shared complaint to bring people together. If that's true, incompetence at MUNI may be a major force holding the social network of San Francisco together.

Springtime Celebrations

When I was a kid, like all children, I used to get very excited about my birthday. I was born on Easter and I would check every year to see whether my birthday would fall on Easter again. I was always disappointed. (I checked this year, though, and I'm only two days away, so that's pretty good.)

I trace my attachment to Easter to this coincidence of dates. It was helped by the fact that we never celebrated Easter in church, so I don't think of it as a Christian holiday. As a child, it seemed like a celebration of spring and new life, and it still gets me that way.

And right now in California, even with its two seasons of rain and drought, it feels as close as it ever does to spring. The wildflowers are blooming and the hills are properly green. We've also had some gorgeous weather recently.

Last weekend, my husband I went hiking out at the coast with my in-laws. We had a very nice time as we always do with them. Three of the 4 of us had cameras so it was a meandering walk involving a lot of pauses for photographs — I've attached a couple that I took.

I'm hoping to go hiking again this Easter Sunday — being outside seems the proper way to celebrate a spring festival. And while I have asked for no birthday presents from my husband, I am looking forward to this year's Easter basket.

Spilt Cream and Other Misadventures

Over the holidays I spent some time with my parents. While I was staying there, they were also looking after Gravey, my brother's dog. Gravey is a bulldog and a very nice animal. She views all people with huge amounts of enthusiasm (with the possible exception of my father when he wants to take her for a walk in the early mornings). She's also 30 pounds of solid muscle at about knee height.

This became a problem one day; I was walking across the kitchen, looking at the bowl of cream in my hands, and never saw the dog. I tripped over her and came down hard on the kitchen floor. I wasn't hurt, but I was slightly stunned. My first thought, with perfect clarity, was "Oh hell, the cream."

It was a few minutes before I was really to rights, and by the time I was, the dog had retreated to her bed in the living room. While she wasn't physically damaged, she clearly felt that the kitchen was not a safe place to be. We made a fuss over her to try reassure her, but my parents said that ever after Gravey viewed that spot of the kitchen with deep suspicion as a place where people were likely to trip over her without warning.

Since this was the first time I'd fallen over since I was in high school, I figured I probably wasn't due for any more accidents for at least another few years.

Earlier this week, though, I was hurrying to the train station to catch the train in to San Francisco. I was all dressed up for a big meeting at work, but had tennis shoes on with my dress shoes in a bag. The pavement is very uneven because it's old and tree roots have pushed it up. I caught my foot on an upraised piece of pavement and down I went.

This time I was a little more badly damaged. My knee still stiffens up if I sit too long, and people keep looking at my hand and saying "My god, what did you do to it?" (it looks like I rubbed it vigorously on a cheese grater).

Fortunately, the people I met with that day were very tactful and didn't ask too much about what happened to me. I also managed to avoid bleeding over anything. So it could have been a lot worse.

I am hoping, though, that is not the start of a trend; neither my skin nor my clothes are likely to be able to take much more of it.

Standing on a Baseboard

I decided today was the day and that I was going to go into San Francisco and refurbish my wardrobe. I've been trying to buy new clothes for at least the last two years. Most of the problem is that I keep looking at tops and thinking, "I'm not going to spend $60 for that." The rest of the problem is that serious shopping bores me to tears. Inevitably, I give up, buy some long sleeved t-shirts, and hope for a better selection next season.

To make sure I actually got on the train to go into the city (a point at which these plans often fall apart), I arranged to meet an old friend for lunch. This certainly got me into the city, but the shopping trip didn't quite work out as planned. The end result was three books (definitely not clothes), a Ghiradelli mint chocolate bar (very enjoyable, but not useful as apparel), and a top (which will most likely be returned).

I enjoyed the ride in on the train. Yesterday it poured and today was warm and sunny; I could almost see the grass growing from the train window. As long as the wet weather holds, California's spring will soon be here in earnest.

Once I got into the city I spent a very enjoyable time browsing in a book shop and then headed to downtown on the Muni. I made the only clothes purchase of the day and then met my friend for lunch. We went to a little restaurant that is either run by French people or by people who desperately want to be French. The food was excellent; nothing fancy and certainly no huge portions, just very good. (The waiter who served us was somewhat amusing; attentive doesn't seem to quite cover it. He was absolutely delighted to take our orders and bring us food. I suspect he was a born sales person because no one can be that happy about bringing someone a cup of coffee.)

After lunch, my friend humored me and we headed off to look in some shops until my small store of patience and interest was spent (about 15 minutes, though it felt longer).

We were down at the end of Powell so we decided to hop on the cable car (we walked up the hill to the next stop and jumped on there to avoid the line at the bottom of the hill). My friend managed to secure a seat (and took possession of the bags) while I stood on the baseboard that runs along the side, clutching a bar. We took the cable car up a very steep hill and down the other side to the end of the line.

The cable cars make a racket, move roughly and go so slowly that I can't say that they're exactly exciting (even when I'm hanging on on the outside). They are a lot of fun, though. The cable cars feel very much a part of San Francisco and it's interesting to imagine all the people who must have ridden in them. They're also a good way to see the city on a warm day; I enjoyed admiring all the old Victorians which were on the cable car route.

The end of the line was just outside of Ghiradelli Square. We had a bit of a walk around and then stopped for some tea. (I didn't want caffeinated tea so ended up with a very peculiar fruit tea that had coconut in it. I'm still occasionally surprised by what people decide to put in teas.) We had a very satisfying conversation about books and then got a seat on a bus (not so appealing as a cable car, but much faster).

We parted ways at the Civic Center and I picked up the Muni and headed for the train station. I made a start on The White Goddess by Robert Graves which I think will keep me happily busy for awhile. Once I got back, my very sweet husband picked me up from the train station (to save me the walk home in the cold).

A nice day filled with people I like and care about. The defining moment for the day, though, was hanging onto the side of a cable car full of tourists in the sunshine.

Hiking in the Rainy Season

Over the holidays I bought myself a new pair of boots. Unfortunately, after wearing them around the house for awhile, I decided they weren't going to work. So I took them back to REI, and made the mistake of wearing a skirt.

I have terrible feet to fit and it's important that boots fit well, so buying boots is often a long, involved process which I avoid whenever possible. The people at REI were actually very nice, but they clearly chalked me up as a woman with a New Year's Resolution to start hiking (which the skirt only reinforced). There was a certain amount of hand patting and "You don't really need boots which are that heavy duty." Eventually, I managed to walk out of there with a really solid pair of boots which will last me at least until next year.

I went for a hike in them a little over a week ago at Pacifica. The trail we took crosses back and forth through a Eucalyptus grove, and ends up with a view over Pacifica and the ocean. From there, we could either keep climbing over what becomes a fairly rough trail but ends at the top of the mountain or turn left and loop back. We decided to loop back and stopped at a bench for lunch on the way down which has a view of a waterfall (at least during the rainy season — the rest of the year, it's just a scrubby hillside).

We didn't linger because it was cold. At the bottom, I took some photographs, a couple of which I've added to this post.

I have spent most of my life in California and, when I was about 12, I was given a math problem in which I had to divide up the year and calculate how much rainfall there was each season. I had only the vaguest idea when the four seasons were supposed to be. I remember that the teacher, who wasn't from California, wasn't remotely sympathetic. The source of my confusion, though, is that in California there are really only two seasons — the time when it rains and the time when it doesn't.

The Bay Area is undoubtedly at its best this time of year, during the rainy season. It's cold and sometimes wet, but it's also clear, crisp and the hills are green.