I Segwayed out this morning to have lunch with Sybil and took 21st Street for a change. Another gorgeous day, so i made sure i had my camera in my pocket. I was feeling somewhere between adventuresome and foolhardy so i maxed my speed out as i crossed Sanchez street and then, as i experienced brief weightlessness plunging off the lip onto the steep downgrade, uttered a pretty much involuntary “Yee Haa!”
Alas, i was not alone. Construction has resumed on the big corner house, and one of the workers was standing in the lee of his red truck as i passed in full vocalization. He was richly amused, and shouted, “Go for it, Dude!” in what i tried to take as approval of my derring-do. My embarrassment knew no bounds but was instantly replaced with fear when i envisioned the result of losing my tenuous control – a long smear of my flesh on the rough concrete before i finally ground to a stop. At best.
Oh, and while i’m thinking about this sort of thing, does anybody know of a nearby short flight of steps with a wide tread and low rise that i can practice taking the Segway down in preparation for my planned death-defying descent of the Liberty Street Steps? I really must do that before i die. Most likely immediately before.
But for today i slowed to a reasonable pace until i reached my interim objective that i’d spotted a few days ago, an Agave attenuata in bloom on the north side of 21st Street just a few doors east of Dolores. I don’t recall ever seeing an A. attenuata in bloom. Blooming A. Americanas are common in San Francisco, and i’ve photographed them, but the attenuata has a very different type of inflorescence, and i am blessed to have discovered this one when it is nearly full grown but before a single bud has opened.
I’ll be back repeatedly to take advantage of this opportunity to document the bloom process.
Lunch with Sybil at the Civic Center Off the Grid location was great fun although it was marred by her having taken a fall a couple of hours earlier and being a bit banged up. My favorite truck, the Rib Whip, was not there today, and of the five trucks present we both picked Southern Sandwich Company. She got a couple of sides and described the slaw as having an “excellent spicy sauce” and the mac and cheese as “perfect”. So i should have tried those instead of the pulled pork sandwich that was good but not even in the ballpark with the one from Rib Whip.
Sybil is such a trooper, pressing on despite an injury, and this provided the occasion for a role reversal in which i, for a change, was cautioning a woman to be careful.
Did i mention it was a beautiful day? Actually, it was uncomfortably warm at the tables baking in full sun in the center of the ring of food trucks although it does seem perhaps a bit much to be complaining about a February day being too hot and sunny. On the way home up Market Street i spotted a local taking full advantage of the sun in the four foot wide strip of sidewalk between the street and a bus stop.