After thrashing around uselessly for months trying to penetrate the brambles of bureaucracy surrounding senior housing, i finally tracked down a Senior Advocate at OpenHouse to see how i might get into some housing. Certainly i am well qualified, what with income well below the SF poverty level, 70 years old, and AIDS that’s causing a cascade of increasing medical problems.
I saw Ellyn this afternoon at the GLBT Center and just loved her. And oh, was she ever informative. I came away with a fistful of listings of housing and, even more importantly, with tips on how to get on waiting lists. I haven’t felt so encouraged in ages.
And oh, is there ever icing on this cake. When i arrived for the interview, Ellyn told me that an emergency had come up with some even older people who had been brought up unannounced from San Jose to see her and asked if i could possibly move my interview out a couple of hours so she could see them. Not a problem at all since i had just picked up at the library a critical analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire that i was dying to read.
But first, i went off to the gym, since i’d forgot to bring my lock when i’d stopped off in the morning. And then, since i’m always starving when i get out of the gym and i was just around the corner from it, i swooped down upon Chile Pies on Church. It’s connected to Green Chile Kitchen on Baker Street, where i was totally unimpressed a year ago. Now i’m thinking that maybe i just had exactly the wrong things there because i was blown away by the food at Chile Pies.
The only posole they were offering was a red chile version but i ordered a cup anyway. It was delicious! And it was accompanied, unannounced, by a blue corn muffin that was so good that it made me consider being disloyal to my grandmother’s cornbread recipe. I gotta try making something like that muffin.
And then i noticed the pie case out of the corner of my eye and thought i’d grab a slice of the Mexican Chocolate Pecan version to take home to share with my voracious house guest, Jeff, who’s back again for a week while he waits to move into his new apartment. Unfortunately, i decided to taste a sliver off the end before i returned to the Center for my interview.
We know where this went, don’t we?
Yes, i couldn’t stop. I think they might use lard or something in the crust, which in any case may have been the best i ever ate. Sorry, Mother.
Then i raced off to meet with Ellyn, but i did have time to make a stop inside the Center before my interview.