Archive for August 3rd, 2002

Aug 03 2002

Saturday Surprise

Published by under City Life,Dogs,Family

When the phone rings at my house before 7 in the morning, I can be reasonably sure that it’s a member of my family, since they know I am congenitally incapable of sleeping in, even with the best of intentions. Of course, I can’t know if it will be bad news (my younger sister calling me at 6:30 a.m. to tell me that Dad was dead) or good. Wouldn’t it be great if they could make a caller ID that told you it was bad news so you could just ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening? I wish my reality was as stringently edited as “Jaws” playing on the Family Channel. I never want to know the bad news.

Since those in charge of technology development consistently ignore what I want, like the bad news caller ID and teleportation to Europe, I have to just answer the phone and hope for the best. Today, it was my city-hatin’ brother Jonathan, unexpectedly in town and inviting me for breakfast across town with a bunch of people I had never met before.

So I got dressed and took a cab to the Lower Haight. The Haight is not a place I go to very often, so it was fun to hang out in someone else’s neighborhood for a change. It’s a funny thing: although I live in a city, I don’t often venture outside my neighborhood or the Financial District, where I work. Jonathan’s friend C lives in a converted brake shop in a block of lovely Victorian houses. His place has a huge hammock hanging from the industrial-sized skylight in the livingroom, which also features a bar, found art, and a fairly impressive record collection. Definitely a bachelor pad.

A couple of C’s friends, who live around the corner, joined us for breakfast at the euphoniously named Squat & Gobble, where we had fresh OJ and eggs scrambled with chicken apple sausage. We sat outside with Jonathan’s faithful dog Jed at our feet, whose usual patience and good manners were rewarded by her very own plate of sausage, as well as miscellaneous breakfast food items that were surplus to requirements. It was nice to hang out and laugh and talk, especially since I had such an exhausting and horrible week. No-one can be uncheered around Jed. Happiness is, as Charles Schulz so truly observed, a warm puppy. Even when she’s almost 9 years old. Maybe especially.

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