Jack Frost nipping at my toes

Here is the phrase I wanted to begin with "my local nail salon" but, of course, that implies that there is only one, when in fact there are probably ten just in the immediate neighborhood.  So I considered "the nail salon that I frequent" but to use the word "frequent" is wildly inaccurate. A long-ago boyfriend informed me huffily that the way I carelessly hacked at my unpolished nails with a pair of clippers was "not very elegant." So I mended my ways. I find I like having painted toenails, but I don't much like anything about the process of getting them done (I am ticklish and have a low threshold for pain, which is a terrible combination for nail-salon enjoyment). If anything, I infrequent the salon.

The nail salon around the corner where I go when I cannot reasonably put it off any longer is long and narrow. It has six chairs and about three feet left over so you can walk the length of the room. It is not, in other words, an ideal place to bring a large dog. And yet.

The woman in the next chair had her dog with her. Something curly like a standard poodle, but bigger and bushier. A placid enough dog, to be fair, but a very large dog in a very small space. The dog when standing was equal to the height of the technician when sitting on the tiny pedicure-height stool. The technician was visibly uncomfortable having the dog wandering about in a doggisly curious way, often about two inches away from her face, but she was too polite to say anything, particularly in front of her boss, an exuberant and ambitious woman who would be more likely to welcome a pet Grizzly bear into the shop than turn away a client . Meanwhile, the dog's owner informed us all that the dog's cough, a case of "doggie bronchitis" was not contagious to humans.  Well, that's a mercy, I suppose.

When they left, I was glad. The technician was also glad. I would say that I relaxed, but since it was about 50 degrees in the shop today and the dreaded cuticle stabbing had yet to begin, that would be overstating things a bit. She knows me to be a flincher and a gasper, so she makes short work of the extra bits like the pumice stone rubbing (torture by tickling) and the massage (ow, ow, ow).  She went to get the post-lotion hot towel. When she returned, she applied hot rocks the soles of my cold feet, causing me to cry out "Oh!"  "No?" She asked.  "Ah, no, It's okay. I've just never seen them before."  It is not unpleasant to have someone rub smooth hot rocks on your feet, but it is also a little bit silly. It is not as though these ladies have extensive training in the ancient mysteries of hot-stone therapy. The rocks, as I say, are a new development. (Though, judging from the length of my nails when I walked in there today, it might not be that new of a development.) Still, I suspect that the boss decided one day that white ladies like having hot rocks rubbed on them, so why not?

As the stones clicked awkwardly over my ankle bone, I wanted to say, "Do you think this is absurd?" but the language barrier wouldn't allow for it. Nor, I suspect, would manners. I also wanted to say, "I'm so sorry that lady let her dog be in your face for an hour." but the lady's friend was still drying nearby, so I couldn't say that either.

Instead, I tipped her ten bucks and hope she knows what I meant.

$$$

My favorite florist shop was closed, a fact I was so reluctant to accept that I just stood there staring at the big turquoise doors as though they might suddenly spring open. I'd gone there specially.  At least, I comforted myself, I hadn't, in the end, come on the train. Making a specific and ultimately fruitless trip via public transport is worse. There was still the parking place to be considered though. You can't just let a perfectly good Saturday parking place in the heart of the Mission shopping district go to waste, after all. I got a burrito and pretended for a minute it was a burrito I'd come for all along. That was lunch sorted, but I was still flower-less, so I went, with some reluctance, to Bi-Rite.

I stood in front of the meager winter flower selection even longer than I'd stood longingly outside the florist's. Much longer. It wasn't so much that there was nothing that appealed to me, as that everything was $5-10 more than I wanted it to be.  Those branches of bright red berries that would have rendered any arrangement instantly Christmasy were, unaccountably, $20.  Three hydrangea blooms for $15. Ditto eucalyptus. While I stood there dithering, a man passed by with his father who was hooting with disbelief at the price of some two-foot Christmas trees.  "Forty dollars!  Forty dollars for that tree?"  "Yeah," said his son, "This place....The other day I bought a steak here.  Thirty bucks. One steak."  They had already passed the store, when they turned back.  The visiting father, grinning broadly, returned to the pricey pine and snapped a photo, which I'm sure will generate plenty of mirth for his friends back home, wherever that may be. It might be anywhere in the whole country, really, besides Manhattan, and be greeted with equal incredulity.

Recently, I had to purchase my first-ever pair of prescription glasses. That's another story. A sad story about being old and blind that will keep for another day. I went, as I have been programmed to do by word of mouth, good design, and marketing, to Warby Parker. I feel that most glasses look stupid on my face, so the trying on and rejecting of possible frames took a long time. I didn't mind. It's a shop full of pretty people (all of whom look to me as though they already own the glasses they are trying on. Am I the only one with stupid-glasses face?) and a strangely festive air. But as strangers and I gave each other feedback on our selections, two completely unrelated people said to me, "Well, it's only $95, so it doesn't really matter."

I have been thinking about this for months. I have been told that $95 is a great bargain for glasses (I wouldn't know, having only recently become old and blind), so possibly this is all they meant. But there was a tone. A sort of dismissive tone. A tone that suggested $95 was little more than one might be expected to pay for a passably drinkable cup of coffee. (Which it may be. I also don't drink coffee.) It bothered the hell out of me.

I would like to go on record right now, San Francisco, and say that I think $95 is a lot of money. A bargain, possibly, but still not a negligible sum. I think, just possibly, that in our town of thirty-dollar steaks and four-thousand dollar one-bedroom apartments, we are losing a wee bit of perspective. And, frankly, it's making us look like jerks. Attractively bespectacled jerks.

Oh! In case you're worried, I should say that did buy some very nice and reasonably priced tulips.

Also, while we're in confessional mode, I will tell you that I considered titling this "dolla dolla bill, y'all" which is a phrase that I have just floating around in my head, plucked unknowingly from the Jungian soup of popular culture. So I looked it up and decided that, since I don't know the Wu Tang Clan from Wang Chung, I'd better just leave it alone.

Adios

photo: Steven Jackson/Hoodline

Though the summer of love seems long ago and far away except for the occasional tie-dye shirt t-shirt for sale, tourists can't seem to resist the Haight. To me, Haight Street is a street best avoided. It is dirty, crowded, bursting with street kids and their dogs, and comprised of shops that offer tattoos, bongs, miscellany scented with incense, or cheap clothes designed for people half my age. Unfortunately, I work there and have done for more than a decade, so I can't avoid it altogether, but I do navigate on parallel streets, turning onto Haight only when my destination is within half a block.

Yesterday, in a battle with what I feared was the Traditional Christmas Cold, I opted to get the curative soup from the place six blocks away instead of the mere pretender from the place one block away. I can't say why, clutching my to-go bag, I decided to walk back by way of Haight Street, but I did. And thank goodness.

One of the few shops of any real use is Haight Street Shoe Repair. It looks like it has been there since shortly after the invention of footwear. It is small and untidy in a way that aligns with my imaginary version of cobblers' shops. The shelves in the front of overflowing with shoes and the workshop in the back has still more. For many years, it was just Carlos you would see cobbling away back there, but in recent years there's been a younger man as well. I found this reassuring. I am always impressed by people who have the necessary skills to build or fix things. I liked to think that Carlos was passing on all his cobbler secrets so that the shoes of this bright new millennium might continue to be resoled until the Tesla shoe-restoration robots are invented or it becomes traditional to make new shoes at home with a 3D printer.

I've been there many times to have soles replaced on beloved shoes until there was barely enough shoe to sole. Even more often, I've gone to have a particularly untrustworthy piece of velcro resewn onto a sandal. For those two-minute sewing jobs on the industrial grade machine, Carlos never charged me. Even when I tried to give him token sums for his trouble, he waved them off. "You can give me something next time," he would always say.  His shop is next to the bookstore (another useful store), so I would pass it fairly often. I always waved. Carlos is a man who inspires waving. He is unfailingly kind. He makes you feel as though you are part of an actual neighborhood.

Yesterday when I passed, there was a large sign in the window:

RETIRING!
CLOSING DECEMBER 27
PICK UP YOUR SHOES!
 

My thoughts were variously:

1.  Oh no!
2. Why did I not take my boots in?
3. Good for him
4. Thank goodness I'm not too late

I walked into the shop where Carlos was standing not far beyond the door.  "Congratulations!" I said. "I hope you have a wonderful next adventure." I shook his hand. "Yes." he said. "Thank you." He gestured toward the passers by on the sidewalk. "I love the people. I love my friends. My customers. But...I'm 81 years...." I laughed. "It's enough," I said.  He smiled. "It's enough," he agreed. "We'll miss you," I told him and we shook hands again.

His hands are warm and his grip very light as though he hadn't spent the last several decades wielding tools and wrestling leather. He is a gentle man. And a gentleman.

Happy trails, Carlos. It won't be the same without you.

A one and a two...

There is not a lot of leeway when I pull the car out of the garage. The garage itself is quite narrow and then there's this concrete pillar to be navigated. All in all, it's pretty much a straight shot or nothing.  Once I get far enough out to leave space in the front for people to pass by on the sidewalk, without leaving so much space that a passing MUNI bus shears off my rear bumper, I stop, get out, and go close the garage door. We're old fashioned around here.

It was during this getting out bit a few days back, that I nearly soiled my shoe. Someone had taken enough care to scoop their dog's poop, but then, possibly in a moment of self-congratulatory glee, tossed the bag of poop into the gutter.  How else did it get there? 

Having unwillingly conducted a field study, I can tell you that once you have run over a bag of shit with your car, there is not much to be done about it. There can be no tidying up unless you have access to a power washer and, even then, there is a drought.  Of course, due to the very specific trajectory of my car twice a day, I run over this same shit over and over again and can say with certainty that it is not an experience that grows more enjoyable with repetition. Who just throws a bag of shit into the street? I ask.  What is WRONG with people?

This morning, as I do five mornings a week, I headed out to go to work and found that telltale sticky stains along the driveway.  Once again, someone has peed copiously against my garage.

Perhaps he felt I was looking for a complete set.

Tears in my ears

A Kathleen Lipinski landscape, such as might have been seen in my real dentist's office

In Which I Disgrace Myself at a Dentist's Office
(Not, Alas, for the First Time)

Although I live in a metropolis, I go to my little hometown to see the dentist because I've been going there since I was a child and who wants to look around for a new dentist?  No one. So, I drive at least 30 minutes to get there, which is not ideal in the middle of the workday, but the drive is beautiful and so is the dentist's office. It's in a little office suite with other tooth specialists of various sorts (back in middle school, I got my braces a few doors down [tears were shed]) under a modest grove of redwood trees. It has good windows so you can think about trees instead of teeth. The waiting room is a place of perfect calm: white walls, cushioned benches, muted tones, one potted ficus, more windows, a small painting of a bird, a larger painting of a local landscape. It is what a waiting room should be. It is a good place to kind of/sort of not freak out about imminently having someone put metal sticks in your mouth. I've been going there since i was a child. Over the years, there have been some personnel changes, but I've managed to build enough of a relationship with some hygienists that I can relax a little (there is gum recession. there are places that were you to poke them with a metal stick, I would reflexively rip your arm off).

Recently, I got yet another letter from the dentist who, having long ago moved on to the greener, indeed dollar-colored, pastures of cosmetic dentistry, finally gave up trying to manage two practices and passed along his remaining patients to some other guy. Whatever. I never see the dentist anyway. My relationship is with the wielder of the metal stick, with the receptionist, with the bird painting in the lobby.

Today was not a great day to have to leave town. I had a headache and possibly a blossoming sore throat. There were things to be done at work. A lot of things. But I need my teeth, so I went. I arrived just in time and walked into the familiar lobby.  No one was at the reception desk. "Hello?  Hello?" someone called from the back.  "Hello!" I called back. A woman I didn't recognize walked out.  "Are you here to see Doctor Blahdyblah?" I honestly didn't know who I was there to see, but I assured her that I had an appointment.  "Dr. Blahdyblah's office is across the way," she explained "we're leasing this office."  I just stared at her.  She led me across the way to some door I'd never had the occasion to open and left me to it.

It was a dentist's office. That much is true. A dentist's office with not one person in it I'd ever seen before. A dentist's office with plastic chairs in the bird-painting-less lobby, wood laminate trim on the reception desk and lurid green paint on the walls. A dentist's office where the exam room was clearly visible from the reception desk and appeared to have fashioned itself after a nail or hair salon. A row of chairs all in one long line, small partitions between them, cubicle-style. A dentist's office with windows looking out over the wrong tree. 

I fucking hated this dentist's office.

I was handed a new patient form by a friendly stranger and I did what any grown woman would do. I began to cry.  I took my form over to the plastic chair and tried to fill in the pertinent medical history while tears streamed down my face. The more I chastised myself for behaving in this disproportionate and humiliating manner, the less able I was to stop. Was I crying because I'm afraid of the dentist? Was it because I felt I'd been duped? Was it because when I left work, we were still in the throes of communication logistics about a young man's suicide? Was it because I was exhausted and very likely coming down with the Traditional Christmas Cold?  All those things, probably.

Whatever the reason, when a different stranger came out to collect me for the actual cleaning, I just cried harder. I should have just left, but I'd come all that way and I'm a periodontal high risk case with three yearly cleanings instead of two and surely I'd stop crying eventually.  I did sort of, until I would think about what a complete spectacle I'd made of myself and then it would start up again--politely, silently, like a slow leak. The hygienist kept telling me how great I was doing. When someone tells you in a soothing tone that you're doing great, it usually means the opposite. I've learned this in other health care situations. She and I were doing okay though. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly and dug my nails into my arm and she tried not to do anything that would make me rip her arm off.

Then the dentist came by. Someone had tipped him off about me: Crazy Crying Lady. He was in major management-of-the-mentally-unstable mode.  "How arrrrrrrrre you?" he sang.  "Not great," I said, "but we're working it out." I said, meaning, "please go away now. I am holding it together by a thread and I can't talk to you rationally, which embarrasses me. Also, I hate your office."  He didn't intuit the unspoken bits, unfortunately, and persevered, saying a lot of things and nodding like a cartoon of sympathy "A lot of transitionnnnnn," he cooed.

The tone he was employing tapped right into my misery/humiliation cortex and the slow leak became more like a faucet accidentally left on in the bathroom, a steady stream. At this point, since I was wearing enormous protective eyeglasses and lying with my head slightly lower than my feet, I just let it happen. This unknown, patronizing cartoon dentist sing-songing away while tears slipped constantly from the sides of the glasses, following their natural downstream current straight into my ears, the overflow absorbed into my hair.

He suggested, ever so carefully, that he might examine my teeth sometime when I was "feeling better." "Yep," I said, twin rivulets flowing freely. What he didn't know, of course, is what was clear to me the instant he began speaking. Simply that I will never be back. Even if I could bring myself to face those people again "when I'm feeling better," I see no reason to drive thirty minutes to lie prone and helpless in an open-plan exam room painted by a colorblind sadist ever again. I'm sure there's somewhere closer to home where I can disgrace myself without having to pay the bridge toll.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take some vitamin C and cry myself to sleep.