on Haight Street

Today I got the call to pick up Lola, who was complaining of a sore throat, early. I sped off to get her, and as she didn't look too bad, I asked if she'd be willing to run an errand on Haight Street on our way home. I needed to get a pad of drawing paper, and I wanted to browse the magazines at the bookstore for possible collage pictures (my homework for my art classes this week is to draw every day, which I cheated on by doing five drawings this morning rather than one a day for the past five days, and to make a collage about a current event).

When I got out of the car, a raspy-voiced, rough-haired guy sitting on the street called out to me. "Lady friend!" As I fed the meter and got little Lola out, he asked me if I live in San Francisco, no doubt pegging me for a tourist. "Yes, I do," I informed him. (I talk to any street people who are polite, although I'm not as friendly as my old landlord, who made it a point of pride to have warm conversations with anyone who ever asked him for change).

"Have you lived here long?" he rasped.

"Since the eighties. Is that long?"

For some reason, he loved that. "She asks if it's long since the eighties!" he said delightedly to his companions, all sprawling about. (I thought about Police Chief Gascon's Haight Street-inspired crusade to get sitting and lying on the sidewalks outlawed).

We exchanged a few more pleasantries about the city and my raising a child here as I led slow-moving Lola away. When we got back to the car, poor Lola dragging, I found that the little crowd of street people were gone. There were two pages on my windshield; nothing on any of the cars in front or behind ours. Under the driver's side wiper, there was a full page picture of a beautiful woman with a caption, "Divine Domesticity." Under the passenger side wiper, there was a full page shot of a beautiful baby wild cat, a jaguar or ocelot kitten, wearing a collar.