A reasonable amount of trouble

An odd confluence of events happened to me in SF this week - coincidence? I think not.

First, I am walking up the hill to my apartment in SF, and in the block between Stockton and Powell - the steep block that causes me to pause from time to time to catch a breath - I see a sign in an apartment window that says "Spade and Archer". Hmmmm. In the next block there is a street - Monroe, actually, but its been re-named Dashiell Hammett Place, and evidently is the street on which Hammett lived in a little studio apartment in 1926. Interesting.

I get back to my place, and there's a stack of newspapers at the front entry - and the words "Maltese Falcon" catch my eye. It appears that someone has broken into John's Grill, a local restaurant that was a haunt of Hammett's back in the 20's. And what was stolen? - vintage copies of some Sam Spade books and a statue of the Falcon that was on display. (Link) The plot thickens - the game is afoot (no, wait, that's somebody else!)

So then I felt like I just had to go to John's for dinner - and did a little boning up on my history in preparation. During the time he wrote the Maltese Falcon and most of his other well-known works, Hammett lived not on the street now named after him, but at 891 Post Street which is at the corner of Post and Hyde. It is this apartment that is also the model for Sam Spade's apartment.

John's Grill is at 63 Ellis Street, between Stockton and Powell. Its one of those traditional restaurants with wood panelling, leaded windows, a great old-fashioned bar. Their menu is a step back into the past - not a single concession to the modern California food that pervades the rest of the city. Here you find steaks, grilled seafood, salads with bay shrimp, avocado and blue cheese, crusty sourdough bread. No tall food, no flavored foams, they don't tell you how the beef was fed or what method was used to catch the salmon. The 'Sam Spade' special is one that Spade actually orders in the Maltese Falcon: ""Sam Spade went to John's Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, sliced tomatoes and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee when... ". I had a steak and a baked potato, with a salad - and a martini, homage to tough guys. Though it was crowded and busy, the service was friendly and efficient, food was good and about as over-priced as you expect in a restaurant like this. I've been to Tadich Grill as well, which is comparable - I like John's better.

Other locations that are in the book which can be visited are the top of the Stockton tunnel (where Bush crosses over Stockton Street), which is where the beginning scenes of the book and movie take place. And around the corner is Burritt Street - a short little alley which is where Miles Archer gets his.

Anyway, schweetheart - gotta get back to work. Maybe next time I'm in SF I'll hook up with Don Herron, who leads a city tour based on Hammett's life here and writing. Meanwhile, I'm bidding on a copy of a Hammet anthology on eBay, and plan to re-read all those great novels. And I hope they get the guy who stole the black bird, 'the stuff that dreams are made of'.

Knitting

Lately I've been doing a lot of knitting. Awhile ago I noticed a woman crocheting in an airport and I struck up a conversation - told her I was a knitter, but too bad you can't take knitting needles on airplanes. Oh, she told me, yes you can - its right in the TSA rules, knitting needles and crochet needles are allowed as long as they are plastic or metal. So now I am a peripatetic knitter, and always have at least one project in my bag when I travel. Its especially great for long-hauls, and also nice because its something you can do besides read while you're taxi-ing, taking off or landing, not just flying or waiting in the airport. You do have to be careful, however. On one trip last year to Australia I flew from New York to Los Angeles, LA to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne - and it was going out of Melbourne for Wellington that the airport security guys told me 'you can't fly with knitting needles'! I said 'how do you think I got here?' Anyway, long story short, he was a complete hard-ass and my 'little old lady who knits' act did not go over well, and so I wound up pulling the sock off the needles and mailing the whole thing home. Now I travel with stitch holders and an envelope just in case.

Projects need to be small - who wants to lug an entire sweater on a trip, especially one you can't wear yet! So I've taken up sock knitting. Socks are fun to knit, small, and the new sock yarns are fabulous. And short, double-pointed needles are great if you have the misfortune of sitting in a center seat. I've just finished a pair that will be a gift for KB, in a very pretty burgundy superwash wool - they are called "Eagles' Flight" and thank you to Megan Humphrey for the free pattern on the PT Yarn website. Another sock 'artist' on the web is 'Cookie' over at Knitty, a great blog with really innovative patterns. Check out her latest sock here.

So - if you play your cards right and be nice to me, you just might get a pair of lacy, hand-knit cashmere socks in your favorite color, that have been around the world!

Groundhog Day

Last week was, of course, a major weather holiday around the country - Groundhog Day. Nowhere could the prognostication of this rodent be more important than in the snow capital of Northeast Ohio, Chardon. In trying to find out whether the groundhog did see his shadow in Chardon or not, I ran across this useful site to bookmark for future reference - Groundhog Central captures news from groundhogs (and even some other animals, including Furby the Wonder Chicken and a llama named Mr. Prozac) around the country. And it has some pretty cute pictures of groundhogs as well!

Winter is finally here

Well, its been an incredibly mild winter here in Connecticut so far - absolutely no snow to speak of until this week, when we finally got a couple of fluffy inches. Its really pretty out, and cold too, but when the wind isn't blowing and the sun is out it's very energizing.

I've noticed something interesting about the rhododendrons when it gets cold - you can tell how cold it is by looking at their leaves. When it gets really cold, they curl up tightly into little cylinders - you can see what I mean in the second picture in this post. Today it was about 15 degrees F, and you can see how they are curling. When its even colder they curl up almost all the way. I am thinking of doing the experiment to measure the diameter of the curl versus temperature, to see if this is at all predictive. Hmmm. Like I don't have enough to do.



Even though it hasn't been that cold and snowy, we are getting a lot of use out of our fireplaces and especially the Vermont Castings woodstove I had put into our bedroom when we remodeled a few years ago. For a long time, it just sat there and was a convenient place to pile laundry, but this year we've started using it and it is soooo nice to sit there and knit in front of the cozy warm stove or especially to fall asleep with flickering firelight and then the glow of embers. I got the smallest model they make, and still if I have the doors closed and operate it as a woodstove (and not a fireplace), I can get the bedroom up to 80 degrees in the dead of winter.

Anyway, it's kind of nice to have winter this week -

New pix of Brynn and Parents

Isn't my grand daughter growing up nicely? It is hard to capture her on camera, as she is always in motion. Its like doing nature photography, you have to just take a lot of pictures and hope you get one great one.

I love Brynn's energy and determined spirit. I would not say she is a fussy or demanding baby at all, but she certainly knows what she wants and is not shy about going after it. And you'd best not get in her way!

Dave and Claire's big news is that Brynn is expecting a little brother this coming May. Only three months to go! Then Brynn gets to be the big sister. Wonder how she's gonna like that!