Oct 16, 2018

San Francisco: Strikers on the sidewalk and rigs against the sky

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I began writing this while waiting for breakfast at Oren's Hummus restaurant in the San Francisco museum/convention area.  I love their French press coffee and potato-eggplant hash with eggs and chicken sausage, and also the yogurt with Muesli, apples and dried fruit.


Two tables down, men are talking business and also the cost of a haircut ($40-$60). Across from them sit three serious guys with name-tag necklaces, possibly among the thousands of anesthesiologists here for a conference. One wears a well-cut suit and tie shoes without socks. 


Outside, people rush on electric scooters — I think they've just been legalized after a fight. Many women wear tidy designer leather backpacks. And across 3rd Street, a man wearing bright emergency orange is hanging from a construction safety rig high against the blue sky. One block down, striking hotel service workers line the sidewalk, marching and banging pots like drums, hooked up to microphones; they plead for higher wages from 7 a.m to 10 p.m. 


Yesterday our LA cousin Judy and I went to a poetry reading in Glen Park, a neighborhood of smallish old houses that (according to the local paper) sell for more than $1.5 million. And this afternoon we will celebrate Christy’s birthday lunch  in a shabby neighborhood cafe where there are more homeless on the sidewalks than patrons inside.  


This is just a bit of San Francisco. There was also great talk and food, a Bay boat tour, and a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I don’t know if you can tell, but I loved the long weekend with cousins there. 
Love, k











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