Sandy Claws

Time gave us a wonderful Christmas present this year: three days off in a row together.

We spent the first day downtown sightseeing. The ice skating rinks and glittery lights got us in the mood, but nothing says Christmas like a man snoring loudly in the Macy's furniture department while his wife shops.




Walking through the Ferry Building bookstore we found a book of quotes about San Francisco. My favorites:

"You are fortunate to live here. If I were your President, I would levy a tax on you for living in San Francisco!"
--Mikhail Gorbachev

"San Francisco is a golden handcuff with the key thrown away."
--John Steinbeck

And this from John Lennon and Yoko One: "We're crazy about this city. First time we came here, we walked the streets all day, all over town and nobody hassled us. People smiled, friendly-like, and we knew we could live here. Los Angeles? That's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco."

The next morning we treated ourselves to chicory coffee and beignets at Brenda's French Soul Food then we packed Pico and Elijah into the car and headed south for a stay in a beach-front, pet-friendly hotel in Monterey. Along the way we traded picture-texts with our friends the Daniel Family as they drove from Chicago down to Atlanta for the Holidays.

Seeing the Daniels in the car smiling and laughing and eating donuts reminded us once again of our powerful love for the people back home. And their photos of the slush and snow and miles of dead cornfields as they drove through Indiana reinforced our passion for where we are now.

As soon as we arrived at our hotel we hit the beach.


We toured Cannery Row the next day, Carmel by the Sea, Pebble Beach and Big Sur. We saw the 250 year old "Lone Cyprus," pelicans, sea lions, sea urchins and squirrels living in the rocks beside the sea.



If you enjoy happiness and squirrels and clear blue water and pictures of kitties and doggies and big Christmas smiles, please click on the video below and share our Christmas memories.

In the words of Billy Graham, "The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here."

I lift Patches up in prayer.

Love is a happy criminal, joyously stealing our focus away from our work and the lesser responsibilities of this life.

Our friends remind us that we are more than this world can possibly hold or understand.

Love reminds us, even when it is most difficult, to smile, to be content and to follow the path of peace.

Balmy Casa has lost a brave soldier--a friend to Pico and Eli, a rambunctious challenger to Mouse, a guardian of the compost bin and licker of the grill. We say goodbye now to Patches.

Patches, we barely knew you. And we'll never forget you.

To our neighbors and friends Erik and Kristen, thank you. You are loved for your compassion, humor and gentility. Thank you for escorting the friend you brought into our lives into the ever-after. She clears the way for us now wherever's next, bravely swatting at the departed souls of bigger cats in the next life.

Patches, you were a welcome and endearing member of our little habitat. Wherever you are now, licking the sweet grease from heaven's spatulas, may you dream forever of sunny spots, tomatoes, banana trees and cheese.

If they have belly rubs in the next life, may you finally get your fill.

Thanksgiving Roll Call

What am I thankful for?

Friends!


Family!


Pie!


San Francisco!


Random word verification combinations!


Ocean Beach!


Jellyfish!


My favorite song right now!


My Marriage!


Day of the Dead!





Dolores Park!



My job!


Sleepy Time!

Proposal for an Art Project

(The following is a transcript from a meeting that never happened between people who don't exist discussing an art project that would be great to do in response to events that really did happen this week in America.)

Cruz: Hi everybody, thank you for coming to this meeting of the Arts Council for Democracy. I want to start off by saying this coffee is delicious. Make sure you thank the guys over at Four Barrel next time you're in, and they want me to let you know the public is invited to their coffee tastings every Thursday at two. They'll teach you a thing or two.

(laughter from group)

Now I'll hand the floor over to Suzy who has a report on the progress of Project C.

Suzy: Project C, you know it better as the Confessional Project, or Congressional Confessional, is almost ready to debut. We need a couple more actors and we'll have the whole troupe, and we still need a truck. Did anybody happen to buy a truck this week?

(laughter)

Suzy: Rats, I guess not.

Cruz: Never hurts to ask!

Suzy: No, well, I don't know, sometimes it hurts to ask.

Cruz: But, that's another story.

Suzy: Yes, a very sad story between me and my girlfriend.

Cruz: Ooh. Okay, but we digress.

Suzy: Yes. Sorry. Anyway. The actors. We have a George Washington and a fantastic Benjamin Franklin. We signed up a passable John Adams yesterday. He's working on his hair and his accent a little more. What we really need is a Martha Washington and a Thomas Jefferson. We've got to have Thomas. Without Thomas we won't get the press we need, and he has to be brilliant, educated, he really has to know his stuff. We can feed him his lines in the confessional, but if he gets interviewed outside the confessional, on the sidewalk, we need him to be able to bury anybody in good, solid understanding of constitutional principals. So ideally, a constitutional lawyer, philosopher and historian who also happens to be an incredible actor.

Cruz: And he has to look like Thomas jefferson!

(laughter)

Suzy: No, actually we're beyond that. I forgot to tell you our Benjamin Franklin is Ugandan.

(spattering of applause from group)

Suzy: Seriously, he really is. He's awesome. So anyone, man, woman, any race or age, anyone who fits all of the quantitative requirements of the Thomas Jefferson and is willing to put on the wool underwear and the poofy pants and ridiculous shirt and wear the wig, they'll do. We just really need he or she to truly believe, at least while they are out there, that they actually are Thomas Jefferson. That's the only way for this to work.

Cruz: They have to channel Thomas Jefferson. That's really the point, not even being funny here, but if we can get the right person, with enough power of personality to channel Thomas Jefferson in front of the steps of the Congress the impact we can make might be personal. You know, we are not trying to embarrass anybody or just to make a spectacle. I mean, yes, installing confessional booths on the sidewalk in front of Congress is going to create a spectacle, of course it is, and seeing the founding fathers waiting in the confessionals for the Congress People to come out and confess to them their sins will definitely cause some to feel embarrassed, but what we truly hope to accomplish with Project C, the Confessional Project, is to inspire the hearts of our elected representatives to reclaim their heritage by channelling the wit and wisdom and appreciation for all people inherent in the original constitution.

Suzy: We are especially trying to get Jason Altmire out there in a Congressional Confessional, pronto.

Cruz: Yes, Pennsylvania Democrat Jason Altmire.

Suzy: You guys probably didn't hear this yet. Oh man. It's going to erk you. But it's just such perfect timing that we got these confessionals built at this time, and that we are ready to deploy them, the timing is perfect, as soon as we get a truck...

Cruz: Yes, a truck! Anyone!

Suzy: Listen. Let me tell you about Jason Altmire. yesterday, on the floor of Congress--the effing floor of effing Congress!--Pennsylvania Democrat Jason Altmire stood up and announced that he would not vote for the health care bill unless he was told it was appropriate to do so by Catholic bishop in his home district.

(excited murmering)

Cruz: Seriously. He is taking orders from the Catholic Church. A democratically elected United States Congressman, who is sworn to uphold the Constitution, is taking orders from the Catholic church.

Suzy: So there goes our separation of church and state. Our legislators are officially taking their orders from the church now. This is real.

Cruz: Tell them why he did it, Suzy.

Suzy: He did it in reference to an amendment Pro-Life representatives added on to the health care bill at the last minute. It is called the Stupak Amendment, and it threatens women’s reproductive rights by severely limiting insurance companies’ ability to cover the cost of abortions.

Cruz: A gigantic step backwards for reproductive rights, if anyone is interested. Not as egregious as a democratically elected legislator taking orders from church leaders, but still...a little egregious.

Suzy: We need to get a truck and we need to find our Thomas Jefferson and we need to get Congressional Confessionals onto the sidewalk in front of the House of Representatives ASAP and we need to give these poor sons of bees a chance to confess their sins against us. We are supposed to be who they worship. We are supposed to be the ones they serve. They can come to us and confess and ask to be forgiven and we will give them a penance. That reminds me, do we have the penances written yet?

Cruz: Yes we have one for each representative, so if any of them come over we are ready.

Suzy: What if Jason Altmire comes over. What's his penance.

Cruz: He has to write the First Amendment on a chalkboard a hundred times.

Suzy: Seriously?

Cruz: Yes, we have a giant chalkboard on wheels and everything.

Suzy: I love that!

Cruz: We just need a truck. One truck. Nobody has a truck? Anybody know how to steal a truck?

(laughter)

“How come there ain’t no money here? Hmm! Whitey’s on the Moon…” -Gil Scott-Heron

A fun game I like to play with my friends is called "This is happening."

The point of the game is simple: to try and stump everyone by knowing something about current events that nobody else knows.

The game starts when somebody says something that is happening right now and then says, "This is real. This is happening."

For example someone might say, "Human embryos are being baked into pies in Scotland and served to rich people. This is real. This is happening."

(A hypothetical example.)

Then if someone else is familiar with the story, that person says, "I heard that, too" then that person has to provide some additional, verifiable tid-bit certifying their au fait.

Like, "Embryo pie goes well with sake they say."

(Another hypothetical example.)

My friends at work and I have been playing this game, formally or informally, on an ongoing basis for about a year, trying in vain to come up with some story that hasn't made it onto the rest of our radar yet.

Last night we had a winner.

The winner's name: Jo Boyer.

Jo's winning entry:

"America is going to bomb the moon next month. This is real. This is happening."

Nobody stepped up with an "I heard that, too." We all just stood there like a bunch of moon imbeciles.

In the past, I personally have easily and with extreme prejudice struck down far more trivial and way less interesting entries--stories from the foreign press or community newspapers that should have easily claimed victory were it not for my relentless commitment to, shall I say, information gathering.

Missing this one set some of us to wondering if maybe we're slipping.

Congratulations Jo, and thank you for making us aware of something we probably should have already known about. And for the rest of you out there who somehow missed this story too, let me help you catch-up:

Original Story
Planning the Assalut: Why Bomb the Moon?
Protest Site (one of many)

In the words of The Pretenders, "We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars."

The Story of My Life

Given three days off in a row, Audrey and I found three different ways this week to enjoy the Golden Gate Bridge, in order to see as much of heaven as we could on earth.

Day One, East of the Bridge: Treasure Island

In the bay between San Francisco and Oakland lies a man-made island, constructed in 1937 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

This is Treasure Island, World War II departure point for American soldiers embarking on their journey to fight the Japanese Empire, and home of the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, ironically titled "Pacific Unity."

Currently covered in dilapidated, toxic, asbestos-filled naval buildings, and gradually sinking into the bay, this oddity of oddities is virtually abandoned today except for the Treasure Island Bar and Grill (home of the best garlic fries in San Francisco), plus a couple of movie companies who lease the abandoned airplane hangars, and a small community of impoverished families housed in makeshift barracks on the north end of the island.

The Island Bay Homes Community Housing Project offers not only a roof over our less fortunate neighbors' heads, but unrestricted views of the San Francisco skyline, including both bridges, the Bay and the Golden Gate, the construction of which the World's Fair was intended to celebrate.

This photo from the 1930s shows treasure Island being constructed (foreground) simultaneously along with the Bay Bridge.


By 1939, the year the Pacific Unity fair opened, Japan had been at war with china for eight years and out of the League of Nations for six. During the course of the fair, two participating European countries had to close their booths as their real-world borders were being overrun by Nazi forces.

Day Two, West of the Bridge: Baker Beach

Just west of the Golden Gate Bridge lies Baker Beach, famous for its views, both of the bridge and of the clothing optional sunbathers. (Eli and Audrey were a little shy their first time at a nude beach.)


Looming above Baker Beach is the affluent neighborhood of Sea Cliff, where mansions rise above cliffs of Serpentine, California's State Rock, seen here being dominated by Audrey.


Day Three, Over the Bridge: American Normandy

Right across the Golden Gate Bridge lies miles of vineyards and local farms, appropriately dubbed the American Normandy for its landscape, its coastline and of course for its cheese.

It is here among the idyllic pasteurs, happy cows and swaying palm trees that the current world financial crisis has manifested its positive side: The best use for an abandoned bank building ever.


Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, whose home base is situated in the Ozark hills near Mansfield, Missouri, is the world's largest heirloom seed project. They opened their second location, the Heirloom Seed Bank, two months ago in the town of Petaluma, 20 minutes north of San Francisco.

As you may already know, massive food conglomerates have been endeavoring for years to genetically modify food crops so their seeds will not reproduce, forcing farmers and consumers to buy their homogenized produce.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has stated the goal of turning all of Sonoma County into an heirloom seed zone, where every plant grown in this region is sustainable, unique and most importantly non-GM.

We picked up some American huckleberry seeds, Italian artichoke seeds and Mexican pepper seeds. The world is in our garden again.

While in Petaluma (previously also home to our friend Sarah, owner of AV Framing back in Fountain Square), I also managed to fall down for no reason for the second time since we moved to California. This time I only scraped my hands.

After coffee at a waterfront bistro, we took a short drive from Petaluma to the Cowgirl Creamery, home of some of our favorite local cheeses. We picked up a quarter pound of "San Andreas," an unpasteurized, vegetarian rennet sheep's cheese to enjoy with the bottle of Sorrentino Gragnana Audrey bought from work and made the journey through the coastal farmland of Pt. Reyes to the famous light house, where wild deer keep watch over the Lighthouse Watcher's apartment.

Three days, three ways to take advantage of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Please enjoy this happy slideshow of our recent adventures, if you like happiness.

Donut Picnics with my Wife

The first time in our love affair Audrey and I were on the same work schedule, I was waiting tables at Mezza Luna in Broad Ripple spending many a gun-shy hour staring longingly across the bushes at Audrey bartending next door at La Jolla.

I thought she was too young for me. Too adventurous for me. Way too pretty for me.

I still think I'm right about the third part.

The second time it happened was in Chicago. I was bartending at the Roxy Cafe in Evanston when Audrey quit her job as a flight attendant and started working as a server at Club Lucky in Bucktown.

Precious daylight hours together were suddenly bestowed upon us in the Windy City to invent a terrific romantic pastime: Donut picnics.

Donut picnics by the lake shore. Donut picnics in the park. Donut picnics at the museum. Donut picnics on the L.

Now that Audrey is back in the restaurant biz once again, we happily share the same schedule a third time, a first since we moved to California.

Donut picnic revival.

We finally have time together to get around to trying those seven thousand breakfast places we've been wanting to try. And to look for that herd of wild billy goats that supposedly lives near Glen Park. And to make that video we've been wanting to make for our friends so they would know what to do if they come and visit us for a week but we end up having to work one of the days...

Claudette's Greatest Hits

The world throws itself at our feet in a heap of art and love.

San Francisco is a matchmaker. Connections made so far: Terra Haywood, Brian Ransom and Anya Prinz, two bartenders and a server at Ramblas Tapas where I work, who became my team mates for the 2009 San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project.

In one weekend last month the four of us managed to write, shoot and edit a film together (starring yours truly as the Hit Man).

With narration composed and read by D.D. Porush and music by Yes Alexander with Slow Burning Lights, it is my pleasure to present to you our film, "Claudette's Greatist Hits."

The Senate, Audrey and the Roman People

Attn: All Team Members
Re: "Life" System Upgrade

Celebrations are planned this weekend to mark tomorrow's eight month anniversary of last November's launch of Job Search: San Francisco Bay Edition (JS:SFBE). So be on the lookout for fireworks in your area!

In order to prepare for this important milestone, we here at Mission Control ask all team members to please delete all files relating to the application CENTER DIRECTOR: SYLVAN LEARNING CENTER (CDSLC) from the Audrey directory of the "Life" Operating System (OSL).

CDSLC officially winds down its operations on July 3rd, and is scheduled to be replaced on July 5th with GM@SPQR, a more streamlined, user-friendly application promising fewer interruptions of, and more resources for running "Life."


Some of you may have already noticed GM@SPQR running in the background of "Life" since last Thursday. We here at Mission Control apologize for any temporary drain on "Life" caused by the increased energy demands of our nightly testing of GM@SPQR alongside CDSLC's daytime operations.

Communications Manager Phillip, Minister of Defense Elijah and Chief Pillow Tester Pico report feeling a general sense of positivity and excitement about the increased functionality offered by GM@SPQR.

Team Leader Audrey invites all other team members to take a few minutes to become acquainted with GM@SPQR's many delightful features via the online user manual located here: http://www.spqrsf.com/

Activity Report:
Username: AUDREY
Jobs Secured: 1
Title: GENERAL MANAGER
Location: SPQR
Directory: SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Sub Directory: FILLMORE DISTRICT
Start Date: 07.05.2009
Distance from Mission Control: 2 MILES
Approximate Salary: CLASSIFIED
Operational Parameters: FULL TIME
Benefits: FULL

Please celebrate responsibly.

The Sidewalks of San Francisco.

Click the HQ button to watch in high quality. Best viewed in full screen.
Visit Real San Francisco!

An email from me to Audrey's favorite author, and the author's reply.

Just to say thank you Inbox
Phillip Barcio
to tim
Apr 14 (20 hours ago)
From: Phillip Barcio Mailed-By: gmail.com
Date: Apr 14, 2009 2:48 PM
Subject: Just to say thank you

Mr. Sandlin,

When I first met my second wife she amazed me, initially by agreeing to be seen with me in public and secondly by encouraging me to keep writing. During one particularly melodramatic episode up in Chicago when the rejection letters were first starting to pile up from agents and publishers, Audrey wrote to you, her favorite author, and asked for some encouraging words she could share with me.

I admit I cannot remember exactly what you said, only that it translated into, "Tell him not to give up."

That letter is in a pile of other treasures stacked in boxes back in Indianapolis in my dad's storage barn. If we ever get settled out here in San Francisco maybe we'll send for it.

Anyway, I just got my first article published. It only took eight years.

The publisher asked me for the names of ten people I would like a copy sent to, you know, in lieu of monetary consideration, you know, because of the economy.

Yours was the second name that occurred to me, after my father's.

The magazine is called Tikkun. It's a spiritual/political magazine, but I don't mean to insinuate anything. I hope they don't try to get you to buy anything or subscribe or anything like that, or to change your religion. Let me know if they do and I'll go put a turd in their mailbox. Turds are plentiful and should be used for something.

The article is about an artist, and about what it might mean to be a saint nowadays, a subject I intend to drink more on and maybe write some more about later, and one I thought you might think was interesting.

Thank you for the encouragement. I wanted to share my success with you because your words, whatever they were, meant a lot to me. It mattered mostly that you took the time to respond. You are a good man.

Sincerely,
Phillip Barcio

Reply
Tim Sandlin
to me
More options 10:38 am (9 minutes ago)

Hey Phillip,
When I read your first sentence I thought you were some guy stuck in Chad with fifty million dollars he needed help getting out of the country. I'm glad I kept reading. Thanks for the kind words. I'm happy for you and I hope this is the first of many. If those guys want to send me a copy, my address is Box xxxx, Jackson, WY 83001.
Tell your wife she chose well.
Tim Sandlin
307-xxx-xxxx

A Little Treat.

The final art project I worked on in Indianapolis before moving to San Francisco was a mural celebrating Mother Teresa in the alley behind Halstead Architects in Fountain Square. A true collaboration between many of my artist friends and I, including my dad who painted flowers on the ground in front of the image, the mural featured the following quote by this indelible soul:

"If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world your best and it may never be enough;
Give the world your best anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway."

Late one night as we painted a man passing through the alley approached us, read the quote and broke into tears.

A stripper who lived in the house behind the alley came over and asked if she could help. We gave her a section of the wall to cut loose on. She painted flowers and a spider and tiny mushrooms and a shining sun.

I lived at that time on a street called Prospect. Almost everyone on the street was an artist or a musician. We called ourselves the Prospectors. Almost all of the Prospectors chipped in on the Mother Teresa mural one way or another, either with their time and talents, by loaning me a laptop or a ladder or brushes or paints, or by bringing food and beer over at two in the morning.

One of those who chipped in, Darren Chittick, took over the Fountain Square Mural Project from me when I left. His unrestrained self-expression on the piece let me know I passed my baton on to the right runner.

Cru Warren, the artist who spent the most time working with me on the mural, didn't live on Prospect Street at the time. Cru and I got to talking while painting and realized his lease was up at the same time as Audrey and I were planing to leave for California. Without hesitation we pulled our house, an 1890s Victorian Farmhouse that Audrey and I and our parents spent five years restoring, off the market and rented it to Cru and his girlfriend Danielle.

Audrey and I know every splinter and crack in that house. We waited out countless tornados huddled in the tiny root cellar with Pico and Eli, listening to the walls creak, in awe of their tenacity to stand in defiance of more than a century of Indiana wind.

We couldn't have passed it on to better hands. Cru and Danielle take care of the squirrel family who lives in the walnut tree and their two little dogs guard over the back yard.

This is the 50th post on Notes From the Drain, my online record of our transformation since leaving Indiana.

To commemorate this milestone, here is a video shot yesterday half a block away from our San Francisco home, a garage Audrey and Pico and Elijah and I rent for $1650 a month on Balmy Alley, the most mural-filled block in the most mural-filled city in America.

Or as we call it in The Mission, El Paraiso!

I love the smell of inert gas in the morning.

Mark Twain pointed out that "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."

I would like to add that a man who has an airbag deployed in his face smells something he can smell no other way.

Whatever preconception the phrase "inert gas" used to conjure up in my mind, I now realize inert is a relative term and in no way relates to scent.

On the bright side, the Dodge Behemoth bestowed upon me by Enterprise Rent-A-Tank still has that "new monster truck smell," an aromatic delicacy Audrey and I can expect to enjoy for the next two months as the kinks and dents and wobbles are worked out of our poor little Prius.

To all of you information gatherers out there who have been on the fence about whether to invest in a Hybrid Electric Vehicle, let this be a lesson to you. We paid $13,000 for our used Toyota Prius four years ago. After my accident last week, the Geiko insurance adjuster informed us the damage came to $9,400, a number that did not require totaling the car since it is not even 70% of the car's estimated current market value of $13,400.

The Prius is worth $400 more today than it was worth four years ago. A rarity in the automotive world, to say the least. Considering our $500 deductible, we're still down $100, but who's counting?

Underground Music

The streets sing to me. Pigeons sirens horns little children freestyle but its the cable car that somehow steals the show. The same predictable riff. Ding ding ding. Man, but it gives me chills. Makes me realize exactly where I am.



I go underground and the underground whines, "What are you doing here?

Don't you belong in the sun or under the stars or whatever?

Well as long as you're here, I might as well play you a song."

Public Displays of Affection

Day Off

San Francisco is Calling You

The View from Dog Park Mountain

A Shameless Expression of Joy

To all my loved ones back in the Midwest who are literally freezing right now, I offer the following, with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Ocean Beach, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways...

The art of squeeze box.

Just another day in paradise.

A Heffelfinger by any other name...

A little bit of love goes a long way.

Thank you, friends, for all of your soulful comments and for the loving vibes you put out into the universe about Pico.

You have friends in high places.

Against the odds, we found a new vet on New Years Eve, got an appointment the same day, and now Pico appears to be recovering nicely from what Dr. Perry Heffelfinger diagnosed as an intestinal bacterial infection from an unknown cause.

With an name like Perry Heffelfinger you pretty much have no choice but to enter the field of small animal care.

Despite my initial disappointment, upon arriving at Arguello Pet Hospital, of learning that Dr. Heffelfinger was not three inches tall and did not have a high, squeaky voice, I was quickly converted to a major fan by her smiling eyes and gentle bedside manner. This angel in a lab coat performed with integrity, inquisitiveness, compassion and, as you might predict, a sense of humor.

I am in wonder at how so often a mission embarked upon in love ends well.

So grateful am I that this wonderful vet has made our acquaintance, and so relieved am I that she saved my friend, that I hereby vow in earnest to never again, outside of this blog post, attempt to get a cheap laugh out of the name Perry Heffelfinger.

Thanks, Dr. H. This is for you.