April 17, 2004
An engaging conversation
Stopped in at the Casa Jender-Vollrath for some merriment and house-warming. Little did I know that Pete (Mr Full-of-Wrath) had given Jen the biggest engagement ring ever.
It is a luxury sky-box!
Would you want to live on a roof? Perhaps not atop NYC public housing, but in Berlin it becomes an appealing possibility.
Here in San Francisco, perennial mayoral candidate and all-'round rabble-rouser Jim Reid may have a sympathy vote in his campaign to provide miniature earthquake shacks for the homeless (who don't seem interested). Reid was recently evicted from his house for contructing a prototype.
It's the heat, not the humidity.
Something about this morning in the 'hood was fraying my nerves. I went out for a ride early in the AM, stopping for a cup of coffee on my way out. While I was pedalling past the beautiful mural in the Duboce Bikeway with the steaming coffee in one hand, I turned to get past a sleeping drunk. Just a little coffee splashed over the edge of the cup and all over my nice grey sweatshirt. It only takes a little to stain. That's twice in one week.
Later in the day, I was walking across the idiotic roundabout at Waller and Steiner. Two uniformed SFPD riding bicycles cut through the roundabout, neatly coming within a few inches of hitting me. I yelled at them, but they didn't stop. Mere seconds later, at the intersection of Waller and Pierce, a squad car stopped southbound on Pierce, and then forcefully turned east onto Waller, where I was already well in the intersection -- and quite nearly a hood ornament on car 1100. I hollered after the cop that he almost hit me, generalizing that cops were jerks. He agreed and sped onwards.
I rang 415 553-0123, the SFPD non-emergency number. Dispatcher 98 advised me to call the Park Station (415 242 3000), where I spoke with a desk commander; he calmly pointed out that police officers have more things to do than show courtesy towards pedestrians.
I suppose he's right, although these incidents both took place within a few feet of where a tully-loaded prowler pulled me over four years ago, and took my licence, preparing to cite me for cycling without lights. Just as one of them was whipping open the ticket-book, a call came over the radio; the officer literally threw my ID back at me, hopped in the car, and said, "Lucky for you we've got bigger fish to fry!"
Is it worth complaining about police procedures and officers? I haven't had a single positive encounter with SFPD in the years that I've lived in the Lower Haight: they've responded adequately to calls regarding neighbourhood violence, people passed out next to the house, but tend to ignore pedestrian- and bicycle-related calls. I've been hit or nearly hit by cars many times while riding my bicycle, and not a single time have the SFPD actually caught or pressed charges against the vehicle driver (Golden Gate transit operator; private car; that irritating post-ballgame incident last year right outside the Hall of Justice). Now I just wonder about the roundabouts and the recklessness they engender.