A French Friend Asks for Feed Back from Us Bay Area Folks

After hearing the good news that Biden was the predicted winner of the presidential race, a good French friend, Annie,  sent a message to three of us Americans and two French friends living in the Bay Area, where Annie and her family lived between 1999 and 2003 or so.  Here's her message and my response:

 Finally!!! 
> I want to share your relief and rejoice with you, mostly for your new gorgeous vice president!! 
> 😉👍😍🙏😀💐😊💕😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘
> 

So nice to celebrate with you, Annie, and the others included in this message!  Hours before the election, I'd gotten good wishes from Jutta in Germany and Daan in the Netherlands--two friends I've known since 1963, when Jutta was my penpal, and 1972, when I met Daan in Amsterdam on my way to Madrid.  They said they hoped the Democrats would win and that there wouldn't be violence.  

I got the good news from Jonathan, who texted our little family in the Bay Area at 8:49 am PST yesterday.  What a relief!  I was on my way to a rally called, aptly, "Count Every Vote" at the Embarcadero and wanted to take a walk before joining the rally.  I feel that we've gone from Attila the Hun to Mr. Rogers, but of course Trump has not gone yet and continues making threats.

Not to dampen spirits, but some of the Senate and House races have been disappointing, as have some of the state propositions.  Poor Biden!  He's going to have a recalcitrant Senate to work with, and even though the Democrats flipped two house seats,  the Republicans flipped four.  (If this has changed, I think Nicole can fill us in.)  There are still more Democrats in the House than in the Senate, but it's a narrower margin

Prop 15, the one so many of us worked on for so long, did not pass.  It would have brought the schools and communities $11 billion by closing the loophole in Prop 13 from 1978 that helps the richest commercial property owners not pay their share of taxes.  Those opposing it used scare tactics that were dishonest and misleading. 

Prop 16, to make it lawful to bring back affirmative action, was voted down.  I think it was from the NYTimes podcast that I heard people wondering, "What's happened to California, which was once so progressive?"  But San Francisco voters once again voted to tax ourselves in several different ways to support the public good.  

I was campaigning for Anita Martinez for CCSF Board of Trustees (still too close to call), and a man saw the sign I was carrying.  He said, "I wouldn't vote for any of those damn people!  I have to pay $449 in four parcel taxes on top of the $4000 I pay for my house taxes.  Damn them."

I thought, "Oh, how grateful I am that I have a roof over my head and even own it.  I'm so glad that I am in a position to pay parcel taxes."   Of course, parcel taxes aren't really the solution.  We should have income taxes that are really fair, but unfortunately Americans have been trained to think of taxes as an infringement on human rights.  

Anyway, I appreciate your asking, Annie, and it's nice to be joined together  with Debora, Nicole, Francoise, and Christiane--like (well, not quite like ) old times!

Love to you all and hope for the world and our nations.

Tina

Downtown San Francisco for "Count Every Vote," but Took in Joice Street and the Embarcadero

 

How Jim Herlihy's novel "Deceit and Dirty Money" Relates to My Son's Change of Jobs and Cities

 I miss my every other day workouts at the Stonestown YMCA--the people as well as the exercise!  I was lucky to have two good conversationalists --Jerry on my left, Jim on my right.  

One of the things Jim mentioned to me on one of those mornings before March 16, 2020 was a novel he'd written that was published in 2000.  Since the Y closed, Jim has started a podcast--The San Francisco Experiment---which I've listened to scores of times, and now I'm reading his book Deceit and Dirty Money.  It's a page-turner, and it's especially fun to be reading it now because one of the characters, Chris Callen, is changing jobs and moving from New York City back to San Francisco at the same time  my son is doing that!

 "He had a lot to do before leaving...First the run:  one last time through Central Park...."

My son lived a block from Central Park and went running there too--an important part of his life.

Strangely enough, Chris Callens hasn't given notice on his apartment, and he has a car he has to ship.  But when he gets to San Francisco, he says, "Slow down.  I want to remember this moment.  My return to San Francisco...I love this town and now I'm back."  

I used to visit my son in NYC in September, so I couldn't resist writing a reference to this in the book over the sentences describing May as "one of the few times of the year New York's climate is pleasant."

Hoping for a Positive Outcome Peaceful Election

 This morning I got a message all the way from Germany, where my penpal from 1963 lives.  She and her husband were concerned about our election and expressed

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hope that the Democrats "may come to the White House  without dangerous protestations in the street."

I told her that that was our hope too.

Ready, Get Set, Go!

As an editorial in this Monday's SF Chronicle pointed out, "Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

There's an open letter that, for some reason, we're supposed to keep confidential, so I'm not identifying it, but it's asking our city, county, and state leaders what they plan to do to assure a fair election if the Trump people turn violent.  I pointed out that it's not just the Trump people.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Punches-thrown-as-left-wing-protesters-show-up-at-15655621.php#photo-20124414

My comment:  Please add my name.  

I was listening to a podcast in which several people were being interviewed.  It was quite apparent that the Right-Wing fears violence from the Left, too, and 46% of the new gun owners are people who've never before bought a gun.  

I'm so glad that this open letter specifies "non-violent action."

I think it was in Sunday's  SFChronicle that this observation was made:  

"Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

  

Tina Martin

New San Francisco Vistas for My Son!

 It's 10:07 am on Sunday, November 1, 2020, and my son is due to land in San Francisco at 11:30 am.  

After being sure I'd see him in the summer here in SF, and then finding out that the pandemic wouldn't be gone right after we spent Easter at Puerto Backyarda, I knew at least I'd see him in NYC in September.  Nope.  I started to doubt that I'd see him at all this year.

I knew he was looking for a job that required the same skills but didn't have the same responsibilities as the one he had in NYC, but I didn't know he'd gotten a job offer in the Bay Area until early October, when he let me know.  After living in NYC for more than eleven years, he accepted the job, gave notice at his place of work and on his apartment, looked at about a thousand Bay Area places online and then got the one he wanted the most, arranged for movers, and got airlines ticket that's bringing him here today!

 I first found out that he'd be moving to San Francisco when a new book by Gary Kamiya (with illustrations by Paul Madonna) was coming out, Spirits of San Francisco.  Jonathan and I had read Gary Kamiya's book Cool, Grey City of Love:  49 Views of San Francisco in 2013, when we first discovered Grandview Park and other wonders of the city described in the book.  So I let him know when I heard that Gary Kamiya and Paul Madonna were appearing online at the Commonwealth Club.  He said it sounded interesting, but he wanted to spend the last couple of days with Diana, the girlfriend he'd be leaving behind for now.

By this time, I'd made two pilgrimages to his place--one by myself from 555 California Street, where we had a rally for Prop 15, and another from the Ferry Building, where Erika joined me.  We met a charming young woman who took us to a higher point where we could see the balconies overlooking the Bay.  She mentioned what I'd already heard from Jonathan: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived in his building briefly in 1940. .

So that was the question I put in the chat box:  Do you have anything in your book about places where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived?

They didn't get to my question.  

 I bought the book  this past Thursday, at Bookshop West Portal.  On Friday morning, when I sat down to start it, I looked more closely at the cover picture, which looked so much like Calhoun Street--the extension of Union Street where Jonathan would be living.  So I looked at the index and found 9 pages about the history of that street.  Sure enough, it was the one on the cover of Spirits of San Francisco.

The "spirits" include "the haunted balcony" and a character from the Gold Rush days, Doc Robinson.  There have also been movies made there at the intersection.   

What a welcoming gift for Jonathan!   I wrote an inscription to him, underlined key passages (because we know from the book Marginalia that that increases the value of a book), and got it in the mail on Friday.  I hope he'll receive it on Monday, but maybe he'll get it on Tuesday, Election Day!  

We're hoping for good things to come!  I just this moment got a message that Jonathan has safely landed.  (It's his wish that I not be at the airport and that he have the chance to settle in before we meet tomorrow.)

Hues

Two nights ago a spectacular sunset came to my gate and awed me with its hues.  It was like being serenaded visually.

 

That Fly on Pence's Head

 Wednesday morning's San Francisco Chronicle (borrowing from an Associated Press article)  pointed out that the fly allighting in Pence's hair created more buzz than nearly anything else!  Stephen King tweeted "The fly knows," and it may now have to be tested for Covid-19.  

Biden tweeted a photo of himself clutching an orange flyswatter under the heading "Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly."  

I listened to a podcast on Tuesday night's debate and was surprised that according to some kind of gauge, Kamala Harris spoke about 3 minutes longer than Mike Pence.  She interrupted him at times too, but I thought he interrupted her a lot more.  How do they gauge the time when they're talking over each other?  Does that count as the total time for each?  

For your amusement, here's a message from Siri even though I didn't ask!  I guess she picked up on what was coming from the TV--largely from Susan Page, the moderator, who kept saying, "You  have two minutes, uninterrupted" but rarely got the uninterrupted.

For some reason, this won't enlarge.  What Siri is saying is "Start a timer for two minutes."