Sage Implement

Last Friday evening, I started to watch 2 Guns, with Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington. I thought I might like it because I loved The Other Guys, with Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, and while I could see that Mark Wahlberg was going to be just as funny as in the other movie, 2 Guns was a lot more violent, so, after an early act of animal cruelty, I stopped it and went on to Detachment, with Adrien Brody and Marcia Gay Harden, an absolutely harrowing tale of incorrigible high school students and their traumatized teachers; it also featured an act of animal cruelty. It was beautifully made and Adrien Brody is wonderful, but it’s difficult to watch.

Last Saturday, I met Ann Marie for lunch at the café one block down Page St. from the San Francisco Zen Center. I had two poached eggs atop tomato slices on crispy biscuits, along with rosemary home fries. Ann Marie had passed by a farmers’ market on her way to town and brought me a handsome baton, you might say, made of freshly harvested sage wrapped in red twine. Or perhaps it was more a thing, or a bat, or a clump. Anyway, it was a pleasing item with a  lovely smell.

After lunch, we walked in Hayes Valley, spending a good while in the sake store, looking at all the lovely bottles. We also thoroughly investigated the objects in Zonal and I bought a yellow bowl. Next we went in search of a pair of shoes Ann Marie had noticed in a window while on her way to meet me, red lace-ups with metallic elements. When we got to the store, she spotted a 50% off corner in the store, so we went in, and lo and behold, the wondrous shoes were among those on sale, but Ann Marie murmured, “They’re $300 shoes.”

“After or before the fifty percent off?”

“After.” Sure enough, these shoes cost $595 (for both of them). Hayes Valley underwent gentrification long ago, but at this point, it seems to have shot a level or two past that.

Next we went into Ananda Fuara for light refreshments—I had ginger tea and a side of naan—and then Ann Marie headed home and I walked up to 24th St. via Folsom St, for a 13,000-steps day. I stocked up on novels at Modern Times, picked up a burrito at Papalote and came home.

I’ve changed my mind again about eating fish, inspired in part by my father, who said he plans to keep eating Alaska salmon; he thinks it’s probably far enough from Fukushima. I just don’t feel well without that little dab of animal protein, it seems, and let’s face it, it’s a person-eat-fish world. If God didn’t want us to eat fish, he would have equipped them with middle fingers to flip us off with and funds to hire attorneys. I did some Duck Ducking (i.e., I employed the excellent search engine Duck Duck Go, which does not gather data about its users) and have ordered some canned Alaska sockeye salmon from Vital Choice, which tests for common pollutants and also for radiation.