Jan 03 2002
Sunny day
Something seems to be wrong with the sky. It’s a strange color: blue. And no rain is falling from it. Instead, the mythical Sun, which I have heard of in legend and may even have seen, long, long ago, seems to be smiling down on us. I’m blinking like a mole who just left its cave and am very surprised that I haven’t burst into flames from the unaccustomed sunlight like a vampire.
I took the cable car home from work today, and the driver (I use the term loosely) of a very large truck had seen fit to double park it with the greatest possible illegality, and also right on the cable car tracks. Now, cable cars are pulled on giant, H.G. Wells-type pulleys underground, and have to travel on their silvery tracks. They can’t go around obstacles. So we were stuck there for almost 10 minutes until the truck driver came back. By this time, traffic was backed up to the foot of California Street from Montgomery Street. Miscreant, you know who you are!
On the other hand, the brakeman forgot to make me pay and also stopped traffic for me when I got out at Hyde Street to do boring, boring grocery shopping, which somehow made it more fun. If my memory of French is correct, that language differentiates between grocery shopping and other shopping. So do I.
You may remember that the apartment across the hall from ours was bought in the dark days of August by a young couple whose last name is the same as Rufus’. What are the odds? I kept my maiden name when Rufus and I got married, and this has led to confusion (are we really married?) and every possible variation on our names on our mail. The best is our friend Mike in Toronto, who addresses everything simply, “Rufus & Suzy”. And we always get it.
Now we and The Same Names get each other’s mail quite often, but we cheerfully exchange it. Also they are the only other people in the building to have a cat, so they can’t be all bad. But here’s the latest coincidence: Rufus was coming home from his temp job last week, and got on one of the most crowded buses in the city and sat down right next to…Mr. Same Name. They laughed most of the way home. San Francisco is just a really big small town.