“No back up for 176 days,” warns a small message on the top of my MacBook screen. I like this message. It is spot on. The degree of prescience involved in this astonishes me. Yes, we all need back up. And where is mine?
Forgive the silly pun. But it’s true, I am lacking some kind of support. What that support would look like I cannot say. And this is a bad sign. What I can say is that this morning began with great promise. It continued toward noon on a spiritual high. And by that I simply mean that I was putting out effort and getting a neuromuscular reward. That is to say, I was doing my morning round of exercise, stretching and standing that constitutes, more or less, physiotherapy. And, yes, it has paid off. Here I am. That is all there is to say about that.
What there is to say about the ensuing lunch experience is an entirely different matter. Thing is, I roll off into the Richmond District of San Francisco full of enthusiasm. But sadly I still run out of steam. Perhaps this is one of the consequences of attaining 75 years of mortal existence. I don’t know. I don’t like it.
I had lunch with Donna, an old friend and colleague from my days in gun control. Whatever happened to gun control? It is out of control, wouldn’t one say? Well lots of things are out of control. And for the time, as Donna and I discussed this over lunch, it became clear that my priority in the near-term political future is to support two causes. One is Progressive Pipeline. And the other Is Democracy Docket. One is devoted to saving whatever slim majority might be eked out in the House of Representatives. Democracy Docket is devoted to saving democracy. And these days, let us face it, either goal is a lofty one. And perhaps unattainable. But I don’t want to go there.
In fact, all I wanted was lunch. And there were complications. Turns out that there is a pandemic on. And this has turned off many a thing. For some reason, restaurants in San Francisco no longer operate with reliable hours. The Turkish restaurant on 7th Ave., for example, is supposed to be closed on Mondays. Which is a splendid practice. Who needs Monday, anyway? And if it wants to close on Tuesdays, as it did today, some official notice would be handy. Such as little something on the website announcing “closed today.” Or even “fuck you.” Anything to prevent Donna and me from taking the #44 Muni bus, in my case, and driving, in Donna’s, some distance…only to find ourselves without kebabs or hummus or dolmas. An outrage.
Or an inspiration, if one wishes, for what I did was to go spinning around the neighborhood checking out the availability of lunch. I looked at a crêpe place. Too crowded. An Indian/Pakistani outlet that looked a little too bare-bones, and not supportive of dining, more of camping. And then there was the ridiculously haute boulangerie where everything was priced at the brink of credibility. And drafty (it’s downright cold today in San Francisco). So what else but to settle on the redoutable Pacific Catch, where the food is mediocre but one thing you cannot catch is COVID-19, owing to the presence of a large enclosed heated patio, electric fires blazing, breezes blowing, viruses wafting toward Golden Gate Park which happens to be just across the street.
But by the time I got there, lunch, that is, something in me was giving out. And that something was my back. Put your back into it, people used to say of some mighty job of lifting or leveraging. And now I am putting my back into…my back. Which has become the weakest link in the musculoskeletal chain. I was tired. I wanted our lunch to end. And I realized the next time I did this, I would have to ask Donna to come to my neighborhood. A bit boring for me, for I enjoy touring the city. But I enjoy having lunch with friends even more. And lunch shouldn’t be tiring. Not that tiring.
So that is my lament of the day. My complaint. And there will be another day, and another complaint. I hope.