A bit before the end of lunch here.  Blue skies and white caps in San Francisco.  I can see the froth clearly from 14 stories up in the air.  Flags whipping about.  There were leaves, branches, depris shrewn across the bike path on my a.m. commute thanks to the storm.  "It rains on the just and the unjust."  You see them everywhere today, clinging to their collars, shoulders bend toward the wind.  No one likes being pushed around.  But are you a pusher?

Penny Farthing

     As I was pulling out a fistful of coins to pay for my sub par bagel at Lee's this morning, I noticed a shiny new penny in the pile.  I took a closer look and discovered that the penny had been newly minted in 2010.  What's more, the design was also brand new, hence to me unfamiliar.  When did this occur?  I'd like to take a picture of it, macro, a penny instead of the stamen and pistil of an orchid, for once, but alas I do not have a working digital camera.  "A king without a sword!  A land without a king!"  
     I like the new design, something reminiscent of either the Roman Phalanx or the US Olympic Skiing logo.  I haven't seen the penny's design modernized in my lifetime, so it is indeed a Major American Event.  I salute the American government!  I salute the U.S. Mint!  I spent the other coins on my onion bagel toasted with butter from Lee's around the corner from Embarcadero 1, but I held on to my shiny new copper penny.  Good luck charm for challenging times in American society.  I will try to post a picture soon.  Everyone should have a look.  It may provide much needed perspective on the Present Day.
     Breakfast for me early this morning consisted of a thick slice of my homemade Right Bread, toasted and buttered, and spread over with organic apricot fruit preserve.  I picked up a new brand of preserve yesterday afternoon at Rainbow Coop Vegetarian market, my favorite spot for produce and dairy, cheese, salsa, dry goods, tea, soap, chocolate, nuts, olive oil, honey,  etcetera.  I love this store.  It's great.  I typically spend much more time than originally planned meandering about the co-op, looking at this vegetable, investigating that instrument, sniffing fruit, weighing bulk heirloom beans, or just look-seeing.  Generally milling about the nutritional supplement or kitchen utensil aisles.  It is indeed a cherished SF pastime, to get lost in Rainbow Coop.  Time well spent out of the wind, cold, rain, away from the red meat chewing general public. I'd like to post pictures of my purchases along with other lists and measures.  Perhaps once I have the proper instrumentation.
     

Saturday ruminations

     Sipping tea steeped from teabags Lily Langois bought in Barcelona back in July.  Feels like ages ago,  that journey, worlds ago.  Honey and milk added, good.  Clears the mind.  What was the name of that store, hmm, and what street was it on?  A picture would jog the memory.  They're so handy.  I like tea.

     I just recently switched a normal folding chair for a big purple exercise ball to sit on here at my desk.  It is said to be better for your back and posture than a standard chair.  I don't know about the truth of that advice on sitting isometrics.  I sense my back aching now, sitting on this ball of air.  Though I do enjoy thinking on the act of sitting on a rubber ball inflated with air while I blog away.  It somehow adds a peculiar stamp of non-legitimacy to my writing's content, allowing my mind to wander off, drift into this place, then that place, mentally free associate.  Give my dirigible a pass.  All clear.  Airhead blogging, as it were.  I haven't typed that phrase, "as it were," since  university.  Sounds so collegiate.  

     Yes indeed, I once, years ago, wrote with a certain brand of self-righteous levity.  Don't ask me why any self-respecting writer would tag such an imprecise phrase as having "levity."  But this is what I mean when I say that writing one's blog while sitting on a big purple rubber ball filled with air can be so liberating.  All you need to do to stir the mental pot when you brain becomes cottony and ceramic is push down on your feet and rotate your hips in little circles.  Ten circles later, the ideas will sprout like gangbusters.  A bumper crop of brilliantly turn phrases, a tract of maxims worthy to be .pamphleted and handed out on Christmas Day instead of candy canes.  Tie a string to one or two and hang them from door jambs and kitchen entrance ways instead of mistletoe.  The possibilities defy imagination.  Don't they?

     I'm considering taking a picture of myself atop this purple sphere, blogging.  The dream may vanish, however.  The thought bubble might just go pop.  Instead, I may consider reading through to the end of the final chapter of "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food Life," B. Kingsolver's nonfiction narrative about farm living out East.  How long have I been reading this book?  These days, too long.  Milk toast.  Just wanted to write that.

Friday off day

At home on a damp afternoon in San Francisco. It's been raining here, yesterday, the day before. The roads become very treacherous in this weather, and it's imperative that you cycle with great care, particularly on slick surfaces like rail tracks and painted lines. Crosswalks, intersections, and the like. One particularly sketchy spot is on Church St. where the Muni trains emerge from the tunnel heading west into the Sunset district. Years ago, a friend of mine's front tire slipped on one of these steel rails, catapulting his body forward over his handlebars. He failed to let go of the handlebars in order to use his forearms and hands to cushion the impact and protect his face and head. Also, he was not wearing a helmet. I still can hear the sickening thud when his bald head hit the wet concrete hard and full. Incredibly, he did not crack his skull open or suffer major head trauma.  He was able to stand, shake it off, and after a short break remount and ride on. We must have had a strong drink or two soon afterward to dull the pain. Russians, they are indeed hard-headed.

Hola telemundo que vaio!

By extension, vicariously, I return to this musty, decomposing blog. Let's hope on in rewards come. I'm dreaming of ginger & toffee cookies while watching chunks of pebble & marblized meat skim off the surface of my skin, slough off into misty floors. Who knows why we do the things we do?

Vincent van Gogh wrote, "We must accept the reality of our fate, and that's that." Who was that painter? I tend toward Gauguin in style, but am charmed by philosophy. A pity I lost my polaroid. For here I would slide in a picture of a Moto Guzzi. Time to gargle and promenade.