Watch Danny Kaye bicycle across the silver screen in the opening of his 1958 “Merry Andrew” singing Everything Is Ticketty-Boo…and you’ll get the idea. I was feeling splendid setting out on my gravity-assisted journey down the hill, and hither and thither, to Canyon Market and on, you guessed it, to Cup. This very morning. And it was a fine morning, this one, not a cloud in the sky nor a trembling on the San Andreas Fault. Ticketty-Boo. Because it’s true. The best things in life are free. Or if not exactly free, tax-deductible.

Rounding the corner, a corner that is itself rounded by some imprecise earthquake era street engineering circa 1906, damned if I don’t run into Jerry from Canyon Market on his break. Always good to see his face. And good, both ways, to inquire about his music. Jerry and his wife play the 55+ circuit. Giving me a chance to joke about retirement homes and their occupants, most of whom are younger than I am. Never mind. For the (somewhat) younger Manhal, proprietor of three neighborhood restaurants, happened to wander by. This gave me a chance to launch into my plea, eloquent and fruitless, regarding Le P’tit Laurent, the mothball jewel of his restaurant fleet…closed since early 2020. Why? Why? 

There followed a very convincing recitation of the restaurant business in San Francisco these days. I couldn’t argue. I also couldn’t resist wandering into Canyon to buy this and that. Actually, entirely that. Jane had given me a list. Jerry followed me in and helped. Mission accomplished, grocery bag left in the walk-in refrigerator. And off to Cup.

Where waiting for my cappuccino, an older woman in a scooter…a strangely euphemistic term for one of the mobility devices that disabled people use to get around, and steered by a sort of yoke…pleasantly accosted me. Do you come here often? She laughed. I laughed. And we had a pleasant exchange. She is post-polio. Making her at least my age. So we didn’t waste any time. Agreeing how it sucks to keep falling from one degree of incapacity to another over time. Thus, aging with a disability. Fuck it. But we had connected. That was the thing. And the next thing was to consume the rather vast and unadorned avocado toast Jaime had produced. There have been two eras of Cup, and in neither did I go there for the food.

Scott (I couldn’t remember his name) stopped me on the way out. And we had a brief discussion of the human element that propels Cup. In this era, it’s Jaime and Veronica who either charm, or don’t charm, the patrons. They have a hard act to follow. Sam could charm the pants off a scarecrow. Who wouldn’t roll in the door of an establishment whose owner wants you to know what a pleasure it is to serve you. And throws a body block in front of the Apple Pay device when you try to add a tip. But that’s history. Sam has had a stroke. There’s a new team in town. And Scott and I agreed that the new couple in charge are jointly sincere, do not possess a phony bone in their bodies. Being, I hastened to point out, introverts. And I was sad to hear from Scott that people are talking. That the Cup couple aren’t very friendly. Which I flat out refute. But I understand how patrons get that impression. They are artless Jaime and Veronica. And I wish them all the luck in the world. They will need it.

As for Scott, what does he do? An all-around consultant in affordable housing. Go, Scott. My Seattle nephew Chris is in exactly that field. And what a glorious thing it is to be part of the homeless solution, rather than the homeless problem.

That problem being only part of a much larger one that I now see through the lens of my 20 years in science and technology writing. Doesn’t that sound intriguing? Believe me, it is. But watch this space. All will be revealed.