This seems to be my week to be sociable.
Monday evening we had dinner at Caesar’s for the quarterly meetup of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers. Program was a guy from “the” local polling firm talking about what the vote results meant for San Francisco, that bastion of blue. Being as we’re pale blue bordering on pink (or vice versa), the conversations with our fellow (blue) travellers, who just assume everyone is as blue as they and who assume that their passions about what should be built where and by whom are universally felt, were um. interesting.
Nan, who sat across from us, proceeded to tell us what ratfinks our friends Gail and Paul were because of the things that happened while G&P were building their place up the hill from Nan and Nate. Gail and Paul, of course, are out of town and weren’t there to defend themselves and Nan had strong views about some of the hoops and loops that Gail and Paul had to jump through to get their place up near Coit Tower built.
Tuesday I joined four buddies plus two daughters of buddies to attend the annual fundraiser for the YWCA-Silicon Valley (note new name!) with Sally Ride giving an interesting talk about space and her astronaut years and her push now with her summer science camps for girls to keep girls hooked on science through those dangerous years when we get labelled geeks or worse (definitely unattractive and blue-stocking) for being the smartest in the class.
Thursday I had lunch with my little bro’ as we checked out a new local falafel place, which replaced a donut shop in the same location, followed by a dinner at the San Francisco Italian American Club, a fundraiser for North Beach Citizens, honoring Ed and Mary Etta Moose.
Francis Ford Coppola did his thing. Willie Brown was MC. Dianne Feinstein stop by to read a proclamation. Nancy Pelosi was in town and talked about what a treasure the Mooses are. A good time was had by all. Our table companions had strong views on various subjects. Strong views. Can’t we all just get along?
Today is lunch with Don May and BillT. over in Berkeley and an event of some sort at Bonhams and Butterfields tonight with Dessa Goddard of their Asian Art department.
Let’s see. Then I have a day “off” before a Sunday meet-up/do down at the Wax Museum for the 40th anniversary of the California Republican League. Don’t know what the League is all about? Follow the link. (And, yes, whoever pulled the page together does not know how to spell “hors d’oeuvres.”)
Is the social whirl my choice? I guess, in a way. His nibs wouldn’t sign up for these events without asking me first, asking if I’d like to go. I do like to go, mostly as a cultural anthropology sort of look-see at what makes people and groups tick. Last night, f’rex, our table had folks who meet at 8 a.m. at a local coffee shop and conspire to make their community a better place.
I’m not the world’s most outgoing person, I don’t work the room like some people did last night, but I do strike up conversations with people and everyone is always interesting in some way, even if that “some way” is that they are the most self-centered being in the room.
Speaking of which, Willie Brown was charming, funny, self-deprecating. I can see why people like him. Having only read about him in the papers, it was interesting to see him in action. Nancy Pelosi was shooting off showering sparks of energy. Dianne Feinstein was gracious. Fun to actually see these people in the flesh and in their political ‘sonas that I’ve only ever read about before.
We also met the Mooses and were charmed by them. I’d struck up a conversation with a woman who was standing alone while the cocktail party chatter swirled around her. Turned out she was Mary Etta’s younger sister, down from Sebastopol for the event. She wanted to make sure we met her sister and her brother-in-law.
Gotta go. Lunch with Don and Bill, so I need to zip over the bridge and into Berkeley before noon.