Old man yells at cloud
Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that there’s a specific date for our departure from this rathole of a city? And how glad I am that said date is growing closer and closer?
Sorry. It’s amazing how this place can wreck a really good mood in such a hurry…
David is very happy. David popped into the Grocery Outlet in Redwood City yesterday on a whim and found contraband you can’t purchase in California: Grape Pop-tarts. David bought three boxes, which should cover him until his visit to North Carolina in November…
And then, this morning, David woke up, pulled out his earplugs, and realized that the first rain of the season was falling outside his bedroom window…
It’s too bad David’s husband was out of town and wasn’t able to see David running around in circles in the living room wagging his tail…
Abraham and Strauss. Stern’s. Davison’s. The Broadway. Weinstock’s. The Emporium. Bullock’s. Jordan Marsh. Maas Brothers. Liberty House. I Magnin. Rich’s. Bon Marche. Lazarus. Burdine’s. Soon, every department store will be Macy’s. Except, of course, for Dayton’s and Hudson’s, which are now Marshall Field…
I haven’t purchased much of anything in a traditional department store in years. I generally don’t even visit them anymore, except for the occasional moment of desperation around Christmas. But I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the history of the big regional chains and the architecture of their older stores, and it’s sort of sad to see so many grand old names disappearing so quickly over the past few years…
Although some people undoubtedly do, I don’t see some sinister plot here. And make no mistake: none of these stores has been locally-owned for decades anyway. Marketing consolidation was probably necessary for a troubled industry which so many people apparently find — as do I — to be such an utterly irrelevant part of everyday life. It’s just a shame that we have to bid farewell to century-old names and that we must forfeit one more little bit of regional identity in the process…
I’m typing today to the sound of loud saws and hammers. They’re working on the four-unit apartment building next door. It doesn’t phase me as much as it might, because they’ve been working on the same building with the same saws and the same hammers for TEN FUCKING YEARS…
Think I’m kidding? No indeed. I’m quite serious. It all started about 1993 or 1994, a couple of years after I moved into my apartment, when they extended the back of the building and enclosed some balconies, turning the air shaft which provides the windows for my living room and bedroom into a very narrow tube. This wasn’t a problem; I’m not a big fan of overabundant light, although I think my downstairs neighbor was less amused. Actually, I think the city was a little miffed too, as certain permits hadn’t been filed…
For the next decade, the construction continued off and on, sometimes much more “off” and sometimes much more “on”, but always there lurking in the background. Almost any time I sit in the living room during the day on a weekday, I hear the workers chatting away, since the deck where they evidently spend most of their time is about eight feet from my window. This chatter doesn’t really phase me either, since I also hear it at night from the very loud residents of said building. Once or twice when it extended past midnight and was accompanied by (really bad) music, I even called the cops…
Today, it’s a little noisier than usual. We heard some pouding late last evening too, which suggests to me that the noisy residents themselves might be doing some of the modifications. They’ve done enough pouding and sawing over the past ten years that they must have gutted and reconstructed the whole goddamned building at least three times…
Hmmm. I wonder if they have the proper permits this time. Maybe I should check into that…
I’m sweaty from the heat, sniffly from being perpetually in front of slightly dusty fans, and dehydrated and groggy from not having been able to sleep for the past three nights. I feel like my entire long weekend has been wasted. So, if I hear one more moron on TV (or anyplace else) gushing about the “nice, warm, sunny weather we’re having this weekend”, someone may die…
I hate September in San Francisco…