It was well after 6 PM when I realized that the day was gone. How could a Tuesday be entirely spent indoors...at this particular moment in my new San Francisco neighborhood? Actually, there was a break to the bakery down the street. I got the residents of the new house happily fueled on scones and sticky buns. But that was it. Oh, there was time outdoors after all. I forgot the long wait in front of the house. But I digress. Unfortunately, the day began at 3 AM. There was a mishap. Jane is traveling Read more [...]

The term 'moving' describes so little, particularly in my case. Yes, recently I have shifted domiciles. In leaving one apartment of 22 years for a larger and shared home marks a considerable change. Moving from a benign suburban to a buzzing city marks something else. But the strangest sensation has to do with the sense of pioneering. We are camping in our San Francisco home. I look at the beautiful tile in the bathroom shower and temporarily forget that on the floor above me an entire room still Read more [...]

I find myself staring, for long hours, at the website of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the city's anachronistically named public transport. What I expect to find is unclear. The diagrammatic maps are singularly maddening. Yes, I know the streets. But in San Francisco there are too many known unknowns, to quote Donald Rumsfeld. Google Maps has at least an inkling of this truth, offering a view that is not available in most cities: terrain. Since our move 10 days ago, Jane and I have been Read more [...]

It was more than disconcerting to return from lunch at Draeger's, our upscale suburban food emporium, to find some of my finest kitchen pieces scattered about a drought-stricken patch of apartment lawn. Not that it was surprising. This is what's happening at the 11th hour, pre-move. We are jettisoning possessions, Jane and I. At times this is an orderly process. But as the departure hour nears, there is less order and no process. On the apartment grass were two glass canisters with cork stoppers, Read more [...]