Blog This!

Blog-worthy things that have crossed my path lately:

At Scala's Bistro on Union Square, our party of three entered the bar. No tables were available. Suddenly, my attention was caught by a kind-faced man waving at us. "Shouldn't waste a whole table on just one. I'll sit at the bar," he said as he scooped up his martini and cocktail napkin and took the seat at the end of the line. As a writer, I want to build my character by telling you this man was rather short, bald, and somewhat portly. But such descriptives fail me the most beautiful creature in sight. It wasn't that our dogs were tired or we were dying of thirst; we could have headed over to the Saint Francis for our booze. It was this: he was a good neighbor in a world that has lost touch with the concept. My friends are from a few neighborhoods over, a place called Reston, Virginia. I lifted my shoulders in pride at how grand, how escquisite my city looked under the tweed vest and wool trousers of this gentleman. This San Franciscan. Pay it forward.

The Hawks are coming! A red-tail's screech woke me out of my decadent Saturday morning slumber. I nearly tripped on the bed sheets as I leaped into my slippers and ran out to the street. There on the top of a lone redwood, a broad-shouldered commander surveyed the morning's smorgasbord of mice and moles below. It turned its head in my direction, and as if to say "you think this is swell. . . " lifted off and soared over the tree tops. Coming home from Muir woods the day before, just before we reached four corners, I spotted its cousin on a tall pine. "George, stop!" I yelled to my Reston-friend. And as he did, the raptor spread its majestic wings across the entire view of the distant foothills.

Speaking of birds, Jinx caught a hummingbird and ate it for lunch. Isn't that some kind of sin? Some sort of line crossed for which she is heading to cat hell? I wasn't home, but the sin is probably mine. I have pots full of trumpet-shaped flowers and a hummingbird feeder that lure them to our deck so that I can relish their luminescent beauty as I sip my morning coffee. One of these visitors, after gorging on the hibiscus, turned left instead of right and got trapped inside the house. Jinx made a meal of it and Malcolm hurried upstairs with the vacuum, following the trail of feathers before his mom got home. He knew. Cat hell, fraught with licking, scratching, feral felines, here I come.