Sometimes, San Francisco really frustrates me; other times, it surprises and amuses me. Two instances:
Story #1
A couple of months ago, I was walking with my brother to buy groceries on Masonic. We were laughing about something else when suddenly we heard a skateboarder coming down Masonic, down the hill from Trader Joe’s. The guy was carrying a bag of groceries and trying to balance himself on his skateboard (a mighty feat) when he got distracted with a Jaguar on the road. We didn’t realize until he started speaking that he was really a pirate in disguise.
“Yargh…Jaguar!”
He looks at the Jaguar, and suddenly, he falls off his skateboard. My brother and I stand in shock as we both are afraid he might get run over. Traffic stops.
The skateboarder then picks himself up from the road.
“Yargh…ye bastard!”
He notices that his skateboard went flying across the road.
“Yargh…me skateboard!”
And then he hurls himself across traffic to retrieve his skateboard, as if nothing happened and that it was all normal to him.
Story #2
Today at work, I noticed across Market Street there was a guy with an easel and he looked like he was painting/sketching a man in a wheelchair a few feet away. I pointed out the scene to my co-workers and immediately felt curious about the situation; the artist looked deep in thought, as if studying his subject and making sure he was accurate with his depictions.
Well, a co-worker went to investigate the scene, and sadly, it wasn’t as poignant as it appeared from our office: the artist was drawing something abstract, and the man in the wheelchair? He wasn’t the subject; it was merely a coincidence that they were both in close proximity.
Still, the scene struck me as something unique for the city; we have street artists, sure, but this guy was really, well, taking the term in a different way. He was dismantling his easel and work by the time I left work; I wanted to catch a glimpse of his progress, but I decided it was best to let it go.