With the imprimatur of Banning, California, always upon me, the quest for urban life is always upon me too. So it was with great delight that things fell into place for Jane and me to convene at Dumpling House, a date we had been meaning to have since my birthday, which was last December. But so what? The days are long. Life is short. And so it came to pass.
Jane was driving back from an appointment with Messrs Kaiser, healthcare providers extraordinaire, and I was rolling aboard the #35 Muni bus. Let me make several observations concerning the latter. Observations from this bus are splendid, rolling as it does over one corner of the Twin Peaks massif, down into the Valley of the Shadow of Noe…where Walter Haas Park signals the beginning of stunning views of the city center, the Bay and so on.
Muni. I like the name. Municipal Railway is the full name, and damned if it doesn’t sound so, well you know, urban. To a little boy in Banning, this would have been an intriguing mystery. And although it’s less mysterious now, it’s still exciting. One cause for excitement in this 76-year-old is the tendency of my wheelchair to slip its rubber moorings at several points of the mountainous bus ride.
“Would you like me to tie you down, sir?” the Muni driver often asks. No, I always say. It seems unsporting. Much more interesting to slip and slide rather precariously. No, not safe. But what is?
There are problems in the Castro District these days. There are problems in San Francisco these days. But although many neighborhoods are showing signs of rapid recovery, not here. The Castro Theater, currently hosting the annual gay cinema festival, is in the urban crosshairs. A concert entrepreneur wants to buy the place and have pop music events. Initially, this meant tearing out the seats. Fuck that. However, it must be said that the concert managers acknowledged the stupidity, not to mention sacrilege, in this idea and quickly changed course. The San Francisco Film Festival takes place there. Now and then famous people appear there. No. We do not rip out the seats so that there could be some kind of rave dance floor instead.
Their counter proposal? Install a mechanically tilting floor, adjusting the rake as needed. The Paramount Theater in Seattle has one. Seems to work fine. The Paramount houses Broadway touring shows all year. So, I am tilting, no pun intended, in this direction. My only qualm? Well, a lot of noisy rowdy young people going to concerts when the floor is flat.
And this is bullshit. A sign that I’m getting old. So, once I can establish the bona fides of the concert promoter, I will let my feelings be known. Which doesn’t matter in the slightest, of course, but it does suggest that I’m not that old. The Castro neighborhood currently has a commercial property vacancy rate of approximately 30%. This is not good.
What’s good is the Dumpling House. So fresh, Jane remarked biting into one of their steamed shrimp and leek dumplings. Nothing to sneer, at in the scallion cake either. But the stunning wonton in chili sauce, well that has left its mark. We will be back.
Meanwhile, the urban dream renews itself within me. I have somehow imagined that I would hang out in cafés, doing interesting things. This has never worked out. People in the cafés huddle over their iPhones, get caffeinated and head out. No, that’s not fair. I can huddle quite effectively over my own cappuccino, scrolling through the iPhone version of the Washington Post as well as the rest of them. It’s just that hanging out isn’t really my thing. And what is? Well as I always urge, gentle reader, stay tuned.