Some things that surprised me about San Francisco

There were some things that surprised me about San Francisco.

There is a really high tolerance for bad behavior by street/homeless people. Here in New York we certainly have our share of homeless and crazy people. But if your behavior is inappropriate, people in New York will call you on it and expect you to not infringe on the rights and space of others. I think that New Yorkers are more willing to yell at even a homeless crazy person who is behaving badly.And the crazy homeless here will back off of crazy behavior if called on it.
Haight Asbury is a weird Times Square like homage to the Grateful Dead. I love The Dead, but I hated the fake frozen in amber quality of the place. In answer to my son, it isn't like a giant version of the East Village...it's a t-shirt and Tibetan clothing mall.

For some reason I had assumed that Golden Gate Park was a scruffy kind of a place.

I could not have been more wrong. It was like a far more spacious and well maintained version of the best of Central Park.

LOTS of people have signed up to get medical marijuana. You smell it EVERYWHERE.
San Franciscans are incredibly helpful to people who aren't sure where they are going. You don't have to approach a native to ask for directions, If you look puzzled some will ask if they can help you get where you are going.
San Francisco drivers always yield to pedestrians. If you behave like a New Yorker and step into the street all traffic will screech to a halt. We mostly broke our habit of stepping off the curb anticipating being able to at some point crossing the street.

San Francisco looks disconcertingly like Boston, but hillier and with palm trees. This looks oddly like Beacon street, with palm trees
Every bodega sells wine and booze. Gas stations on the highway also sell a pretty full selection of booze. This seems not all that wise to me. But what do I know?

Comments

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog