Left Coast Cowboys

San Francisco is not only full of wild and wonderful human characters, it’s also home to some of the most unique dogs in the world who often outstrip the humans in individuality. One of them is Otto the Wonder Dog who I met through his human companion, Ed, at one of my photography classes. Otto is a strange and serendipitous mixture — some Terrier, maybe some Beagle, perhaps some Lab. But his most amazing talent is his healing ability. Read Ed’s post, Dog is My Caregiver, about how Otto nursed him through some pretty grim health crises. Once Ed was on the road to recovery, Otto turned his powers to watching over a family of hummingbirds (that story also on Ed’s blog.)

Now I find myself the proud recipient of a limited edition Otto 2010 Calendar. That’s twelve months of Otto! These are hot commodities and sure to be collectors’ items. But you might be able to get one with postage, handling and a small donation for the dogfood fund by emailing Otto at otto0905@gmail.com. This is also the source for two Otto posters.

And check out Ed’s wonderful photography on Flickr featuring breathtaking California nature scenes, eccentric San Francisco city finds, and, of course, lots of Otto.

Here's one of Ed's pictures. The view of the Sonoma Coast from Goat Rock. Copyright ejbSF.

Here's another of Ed's photographs. Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park in the Fog. Copyright ejbSF.

Thanks Otto and thanks Ed. My Otto Calendar will have pride of place on the bar in our basement Pub.

For the second time in this first week of 2010, I hauled myself out on the road for a power walk. Monday was a Crissey Field 4 miler, today the venue was Golden Gate Park and the goal was 5 miles. I’d like to say it gets easier, and maybe two walks in a week isn’t anything to go by, but this walk seemed colder, harder and longer. Well, it was longer. I managed to clock 5.8 miles starting from Stow Lake, out to Ocean Beach and back up JFK Boulevard to the Boat House. I think I improved the pace, simply because I wasn’t pulling my camera out every two minutes to snap a picture. Not that Golden Gate Park doesn’t have scenery to rival Crissey Field. I just got myself turned around and failed to go out to the ocean on my planned route down Martin Luther King Boulevard. Instead, I seemed to pass only erosion control projects and mulch pile areas. Still, I kept up a good clip, at one point segueing into “Chi Walking”. I’d like to say I was gliding like a panther. But I was probably walking more like my feathered friend here.

Still even a cold, blustery day in the Park offers visual food for thought and a few photo opportunities.

Check out this interesting tree. Anyone have any idea what kind it is?

It looks as if it's made from green Ostrich feathers.

Seriously Jurassic. I was checking for Pterodactyls.

I stopped mentally complaining of the cold when I reached the beach and saw there were hardy souls surfing. Cowabunga, Dudes!

That’s when I discovered our Tsunami Evacuation Route. It’s good to know where these are.

When the water's rising, head for the windmills.

Speaking of windmills, Queen Wilhelmina’s Tulip Garden was looking pretty bare. But then it always looks bare, except for the two short weeks when all the tulips burst into bloom. Not yet, I guess.

The Park staff is apparently trying to fool the tourists with poppies. But we Natives know to accept no substitutes.

Back from my loop, I loaded myself into the car and drove home. And mentally calculated that I’d pretty much fueled myself on milk products: a Grande Mocha, a bagel with cream cheese and a yogurt. If I add a steak to that, I’ll feel like a Masai warrior.

Or maybe just like one more in the flock.

How boring is it to make a New Year’s resolution to get back in shape and lose weight? The only thing interesting about my attempt at this old chestnut is how long it’s taking me to get started. Well, of course I couldn’t start on New Year’s Day. Added to a regular hangover, I had the double-whammy of a cheese hangover from a most excellent fondue party. Then somehow Saturday and Sunday slipped by me and, four days in, no progress at all. So last night I tried all the tricks including laying out fresh gym clothes and shoes at the foot of the bed. Then the iPod was charged and filled with tunes. Add to that the prospect of another sunny, mild San Francisco day. No snow, no sleet, no excuses.

Except there are always excuses. First, my two terrier alarm failed to activate. While Oscar and Lucy usually wake between five and six AM desperate for a run to the park, this morning they slept in. I barely got Andy out of the house on time. Somehow that effort required draping myself back across the bed. Then checking out just one rerun cable episode of CSI: Miami. Then two.

But finally, finally, I got myself out of the house, across town and out to Crissey Field. Again, remind me to slap myself across the face. With this most beautiful of urban parks and the Perpetual Spring we live in here, we San Franciscans have no excuses not to get out and Just Do It.

Why am I not running every day when this is available? It doesn't even offer the last excuse of the San Franciscan: "I can't face the hills today."

Yeah, all those Red Staters who are hating on San Francisco: jealous! 'Cause we've got THIS.

In what other city can you walk past the place where Jimmy Stewart rescued Kim Novak?

And you know what, Rush Limbaugh? We have this place because of all of our Liberal, Do-Gooder, Tree Hugger values.

Okay, Liberal diatribe aside and back to fitness: I’d like to say I hit the ground running and knocked off a fast 5K. Not quite. There was a certain amount of meandering and looking and pausing to take pictures. The pace never got past a fast walk, but I did manage to work off 4.25 miles. In fact, I’d had the foresight to purge my iPod of all record of previous runs. So as far as my Nike-plus iPod “virtual personal trainer” knew, this was the first time I’d strapped on shoes. Lance Armstrong came over the iPod to tell me I’d set a “personal best”. It’s the little things, people, the little things. Well, not exactly an auspicious start. But it’s a start.

Finally got around to seeing the Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit that’s been showing at San Francisco’s De Young Museum since June. But as Steve Martin said: “If I’d known/They’d line up just to see him/I’d have taken all my money/And bought me a museum.” And yes, the lines have been long. Judging by the roped off entrances that wind around and around, the lines are still just as long. But here’s the trick. Be the first one on a weekday with your nose pressed up to the glass BEFORE opening. Better yet, be a member and you get let in a half hour before general admission. We had most of the exhibit to ourselves and even a fairly uncrowded stroll through the Tut gift shops (there seem to be three!) before all hell broke loose in the form of dozens of school buses showing up and disgorging class trips. By that time, we’d Tut Shopped until we’d nearly dropped and were reviving ourselves in the excellent De Young cafe.

Cool Tut Swag. Don't laugh, the bust is surprisingly well made with a marble base. Perfect for holding up that commemorative hardcover exhibit catalog.

I’m not going to tell you about the show, other than to say, “Go”. Apparently, the exhibit is bigger and includes artifacts not seen in the 70s tour (except for the death mask and sarcophagus which the Egyptian government won’t let out of the country any more.)

How can you resist a present gift-wrapped in hieroglyphics paper? And you get a great carry bag like the one at the beginning of this post.

But I’ll urge you to do what we did and spend, spend, spend at the gift shops. Apparently, income from these sales are key for the De Young’s operating budget. And what’s wrong with a little commercialism for a good cause? Don’t want to give anything away, but everyone on my Christmas gift list, be expecting Tut memorabilia. And since I’m just days away from my trip to Vegas and stay at the Luxor, I’m now loaded up on faux Egyptian wearable items!

The fridge magnet? I mean, Tut and the Golden Gate, together at last! And the earrings? Perfect for Vegas.

The exhibit moves on to Denver in March and then to New York. So, if you don’t see it here, see it there. It’s supposed to be in Toronto as well, but since that exhibit is scheduled now, while the best stuff is in San Francisco, it may be just a companion show. As in, not as good.

Come to think of it, the San Francisco venue has got to be the best. We've got Sphinxes. And palm trees. "Rockin' by the Nile".

The new De Young even looks vaguely Egyptian. Well, if the Egyptians built low horizontal buildings out of beaten metal.

And because, it’s the immediate association when someone says “King Tut”, how about a little vintage Steve Martin:

The King Tut skit first aired on NBC’s Saturday Night Live

Whole Foods has taken a lot of heat recently — mostly due to CEO John MacKey’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece on the Health Care debate. What sparked a lot of criticism was his somewhat clueless opinion that if people would only eat organic food, they wouldn’t need expensive health care. Aside from the fact that this doesn’t take into account accidents, hereditary diseases or the unluck of the draw that is most cancers that can strike even the healthiest, his comments, to anyone who’s ever priced groceries in Whole Foods, was laughably naive.

Even national chains like Aveda couldn't stay in business once our anchor store closed in a snit.

Even the Middle Class gasp when shopping at Whole Paycheck. And if you’ve ever read any of Michael Pollan’s books, you’ll know that American Farm Policy, which heavily subsidizes large agri-business, stacks the deck against the producers of good, nutritious food. Growing corn for high-fructose corn syrup, genetically modified soybeans or operating a huge warehoused beef or chicken factory? The playing field is specially leveled for you. Small farmer growing sustainable, responsibly grown produce? Good luck. The red tape alone might be enough to drive you out of business. One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the recent documentary, Food Inc., was of a Hispanic family that was barely covering their bills with three jobs between the two adults. They knew about good nutrition. They weren’t clueless. But they were shown trying to stretch their tiny food budget to cover healthy food. Couldn’t do it. Finally, they resorted to McDonald’s. The mother, with tears in her eyes, said she felt she was being a bad mother to succumb to Micky D’s, but some weeks it was the only way they could afford enough food for a meal for four.

Our new Whole Foods has a nice meat counter. But my local independent butcher will still get my roast orders. I bet Drewes Market can still do a better job sourcing local specialty meat, like game.

But, I’m here to tell you, that, at least in my neighborhood, I think Whole Foods has gotten it right. A little background: it’s probably naive to think that a purveyer of organic foods would have a stronger social conscience than another retailer, but call me naive. Call my whole neighborhood naive. That’s why it hurt so much when we were royally screwed over by The Real Foods store when the chain was taken over by the Utah corporation Neutraceutical International. When Neutracuetical took over, they promptly fired all the employees in a union busting move (I’m calling it a union-busting move because that’s what the courts deemed that it was. The former employees won the case.) In a snit, Neutracuetical boarded up the store, let it become a magnet for graffiti, and refused to talk to neighborhood leaders or our City Supervisor. They also refused offers to buy the building by some very interested parties. Our neighborhood is pretty small and it’s not on the way to anything famous in San Francisco, so we don’t get much outside traffic. Our little neighborhood is filled with small mom and pop shops that have relied on a large “anchor” store to bring in the outside traffic that keeps our retail strip viable. Many merchants reported their business dropped off as much as 40% once Real Foods closed. After five years, our high street was looking like a ghost town. Even the Aveda outlet and GNC, national chains, couldn’t stay in business.

Then Whole Foods negotiated to buy the sadly outdated Bell Market that had been across from Real Foods. Bell had just never kept step with the times. In a neighborhood of crunchy granola activists and increasing gentrification, it was still selling buckets of lard, the cheapest canned goods and wilted produce. From the start Whole Foods reached out to the neighborhood. They sent representatives to City Council meetings and community meetings. They always had time for our District Supervisor. As the neighborhood became more desperate and more and more stores on the street closed, they accelerated their opening plans.

The day before they opened, they had a little party with live music and free food in their parking lot. It was unadvertised and was clearly for the locals. Today at opening day, they had masses of smiling aproned workers walking through the store with clipboards ready to answer any questions customers had. (Contrast that with the parking attendants who were running their small lot like a Police State. That’s okay if it brings more foot and bike traffic down past the other local shops.)

Walking in today, I was stunned to see that most of the promises they’d made to the neighborhood about the store, which I’d read skeptically in our local rag, had been kept. My complaint about Whole Foods has been that they have a lot of organic produce that is shipped up from Chile and other places. At that carbon cost, it’s better to eat conventionally grown as long as it’s local. Whole Foods also, at least in their bigger stores, seem to pay only lip service to local sourcing. They show lovely pictures of local farmers, but if you read the small print on the bins, you see that most of the stuff doesn’t even come from California. And most is out of season.

Well, not in my store. As I strolled through, I noticed every bin and produce rack had large signs telling you the origins of the food: Petaluma, Marin, Monterrey. The most long travelled items were from Washington State and Bakersfield. Well, that’s still pretty local. Maybe the difference is that our store is about half the square footage of a normal Whole Foods. They don’t have the room for six large tables of oranges. There is just one table. And it’s showcasing California grown.

Another big difference, I’m hypothesizing, is the local Whole Foods team. Apparently, they were a pretty autonomous group that was responsible for getting this store up and running and integrating it into the neighborhood. I’m sure there are corporate perameters they must follow, but is it a coincidence that so many local suggestions for the store were realized? I think not. Which is a good reminder that a company isn’t just the CEO. It’s also dedicated field people and local branches. Judging from this case, when those people are given enough latitude and autonomy, they’ll do the right thing for the neighborhood they’re in.

Yes, there are several local merchants who are worried. There’s a wonderful cheesemonger, The Cheese Shop, down the road. They don’t need to worry. Whole Foods has the popular basics covered, but for those exotic cheeses and a greater variety, I’ll still stop there. The local butcher shop, Drewes Market, will still get my orders for sausage, holiday roasts and game — all of which they source from Marin and Sonoma. I was disappointed to see that Whole Foods was running a coffee stand in the store, something they had hinted they wouldn’t do out of respect for our local coffee shops. But I popped into Bernies and they said they’d been mobbed. With the increased traffic coming to the neighborhood, they felt there was enough business to go around.

Bernie's has better coffee than Whole Foods, plus Wi-Fi and places to sit. They aren't worried.

So kudos to the local team that put together this Whole Foods. It’s not the whole answer. If you are really concerned about supporting sustainable agriculture, you’ll still go to the farmer’s market and to places like Drewes Market. But, let’s be realistic, not everyone has the time every day to make that trip. And Farmer’s Markets don’t always run year round, even in California. So my Whole Foods will now be part of the mix when I’m not in Sonoma.