I am a bit stubborn.
That is an understatement. But not the point of this post, so for the purposes of the post, ‘a bit stubborn’ will do.

So I decided, weeks ago, that I wanted to walk all the way down Golden Gate Park. However, at the moment I decided this, the person I was with was not only jetlagged, but had just been force-marced around a museum for several hours - and every other time since, a similar ‘actually, it’s not the best time’ vibe overruled, and I didn’t get my walk.

But in the littleredboat household, Saturday is officially CityHike day: I plan to do a whole post on this at some other point, but the basic thing is: I love walking, hiking, whatever you want to call it, but in cities rather than countryside so much. A tree is a tree and grassy slopes are nice but … I am mainly a city girl, I like the places where people live and work and grow. I am a city girl born and bred and find cities endlessly beautiful and utterly fascinating - changes in architecture and cultural history from area to area … And I said I was going to write all about this another time, and will. Basically, I try and make sure we do a walk of between 5-10 miles that helps us learn about or piece together the city we’re living in. We take pictures, talk, and if we see things we’re confused about, we note them down and read about them later. It is Brilliant.

But I just was proud because today I finally got to walk all the way down Golden Gate park, like I’ve been meaning to. And it being City-hike saturday, I made sure we walked all the way TO it too, to make it a proper walk.

We went, then, from loft-filled industrial-carville to crack-central to civic-centre to yuppie-valley to painted ladies to hippie haven to …well, all the way down the park from there.

And it was nice, because it was a beautiful spring day, and there were impromptu barbeques and ball games and picnics and just general hanging out … and, interestingly, the ethnicities shifted as you walked down the park - as happens randomly in any bit of most US cities I have been to - but what didn’t shift was what people were doing: enjoying the green bits in the middle of their city.

Oh, well, apart from the people who’d chosen to drive into the park, having only just noticed how beautiful their saturday was. They were mainly driving around in circles, slowly, looking cross and for somewhere to park. That’s just silly. But then: I’m walky, so think any such behaviour silly whatever the occasion.

Anyway, today I walked out of my front door, and paddled in the pacific.
There just happened to be some eight miles of walking and at least one stupid hill in the middle. (There should have been six miles, but we took a couple of detours because I announced they were worth seeing ‘on the way’)

But I did it. And I am proud, and so I am saying so.
I’ll tell you about the other CityHike Saturdays another time.

It’s the best idea ever.

We went to Sacramento on our most recent spate of family-entertaininging (yes alRIGHT before any of you say it, Sacramento IS one of the most boring places in the world, but … oh I’ll explain another time.

Anyway, we popped into the State Capitol building, which is, of course ruled over by republican governor Arnold Schwarzegger (sp? Whatever, it’s Arnie). So many of the trinkets in the gift shop were not really to my - ahem - politcal or aesthetic tastes, shall we say.

I was, however, impressed to find them still trying to sell ‘McCain For President’ jigsaws … and not even at half price.

Seriously, it’s too late. He lost.
I mean, why would you think you would even get 7.95 for something that isn’t even attractive enough to be funny in an ironic way?
It is a puzzle.

The other nice thing about going to the academy of sciences at night (see post below) is that you can feel free to spend time taking pictures of things without worrying you’re getting in the way of eager young hordes of children beetling about and trying to *learn* things everywhere. The blighters.

Anyway, it was because of this, that I managed to get some nice pictures, and am particularly fond of this one of two treefrogs. One is stuck to the glass, so you can see her undersuckers. And the other one blends in with the leaf. I think they are beautiful.

Later in the evening, after a couple more cocktails, I mainly took out of focus pictures of tropical fish. About seven hundred of them. Man, I loved those fish.

There’s a thing at the California Academy of Sciences - like the Science Museum in London, but not free, and with more butterflies and fish and stuffed animals and an alligator; so, you know, swings and roundabouts, really (there are no swings or roundabouts in either, it was just a thingy of speech. Pattern? Manner? No, wait, I go ask someone. Figure! It’s a figure of speech. I remembered half way through asking My Beloved. Always the way: I turn to him with a pained and angry look on my face, having spent ten minutes trying to pull the word out of my head already, and say ‘What’s the … what’s the WORD?! When you mean the thing that’s a bit like … OOOH! SPORK!’
And then he’s safe to go back to work and I can go back to work and everything’s fine. It’s a good thing I don’t have to share an office. I’m sure proper journalists or writers never do that ever. Am I still in brackets? Yes, I am. I’m in brackets in the middle of a sentence, in fact. I should probably just start the whole paragraph again, but that feels wrong. Hmmm. Ok, lets try this) and really, each has it’s benefits.

Anyway. SO. Every week there’s a night at the Academy of Science Place Thing Building (official name) where they open at night - on a Thursday, if you happen to be in town. And not only is it the only time when the place is completely free of school groups and other forms of children, but it’s 21 and over only, there are bars, a DJ, food, more bars (I’m a bit drunk. Sorry. Look, you get an excuse to go to a museum and get drunk, what would YOU do?), and a good lecture by a local or visiting scientist, if you book ahead - it’s a brilliant idea.

So if you want to talk to a friend, instead of going to a noisy bar, you can wander around with a beer or a cocktail looking at exhibits about near-extinct turtles and sit by a huge tank of tropical fish, and it puts it all in perspective a bit.

So anyway. There was a point to this.

We went, my friend and I. We had a lot to talk about, as ever, so we went and we walked around and looked at things, and sipped on drinks and watched the other grown up grown-ups go by.

We found ourselves by a Foucault Pendulum - some big crazy pendulum that demonstrates, through the clever application of ‘Science’, that the world turns and gravity exists and all of those things.

And we stopped, and looked at the pendulum.

Swing, swing, it went. Swing, swing.

Isn’t that amazing, we said? How the earth turns, and the gravity holds us to it and all of this can be summed up, at least a little, by this pendulum?

Swing, swing, it went. Swing, swing.

There were pegs all around the edge of the circle - propped up at points to demonstrate that as the pendulum swung, the axis on which it swings changes as the earth turns. So they get knocked over as the circle turns. Over the course of 39 hours, or so, all the pegs get knocked over.

We’d just missed a peg we thought.
So we thought we’d stand there till the next.

Swing, swing, the pendulum went. Swing. Swing.

We stood, and we talked. Some people breezed by and may have been trying chatty uppy things, because that’s the kind of place people might do that, but once they saw how dedicated we were to the falling of our peg, they left again.

Swing, swing.
Swing. Swing.

It moved, a fraction of a centimetre every second. I’ve never been so aware of the movement of the earth as I was standing and waiting for the couple of inches between those pegs to pass.

Swingswing. Swing, swing.

We talked, about this, and also about that. Helped some Italian students translate the informative sgn, with hand signals, and pointed some other people toward an official scientific explainer when they wanted to know in detail what we were looking at.

Swing swing. Swing …

OOOH, it’s really close now, we said.

We had attracted the attention of the people gathering nearby, who’d noticed how intent we were on being there for the pegknockingovering.

Swing, swing. Swing. Swing.

Will it be a clean hit, we asked? It’s kind of curved toward the bottom of the pendulum, said the hopeful guy next to us, so it might happen before you think … It might happen at any swing, he said.

Swing swing.

I’d run out of drink fifteen minutes before, but knew what would happen as soon as I went to the bar: the earth would start turning quicker, just to spite me.

But no. We were here, and we were waiting, and we were going to be there to watch the peg fall, whatever happened.

Swing, swing, it went. Swing, swing.
Swing swing. Swing

OOOOH did you see?! It wobbled!

Swing swing, it went.
A dozen of us now, were crowded around one side of the giant pendulum, waiting.
Swing, sw …

tinkle!…

“WHOOOO!” we shouted in an American kind of way. “YEAHHHHH!”, we shouted. A sudden and liberating exclaim that I don’t think any of us were expecting.

We looked around. Some people who maybe hadn’t been there so long looked a little surprised.

“SUCK IT, PEG!”
“Yeah! Go gravity!”
“WOOT!”
we added, for emphasis. And explanation.

“YEAH!”
And then we walked off, quickly, toward the bar and the aquarium.

Museums + Booze might be my favourite sum in the history of sums.

GO PENDULUMS.
[Wait. Pendula?]

update

I have uploaded my video!

But you don’t get to see the peg fall over.
Because You Didn’t WORK for it.
(and yes, by work, I mean stand there gabbing for half an hour while the world turned)
So there.

“Please enter your zip code, followed by the pound key”

Says the automated lady on the other end of the phone, using whole bundles of words that only a few months ago would have had me yelling for My Beloved to “Hey! C’mere! Listen! She said pound key! Zip code! She means HASH KEY and POSTCODE! Hee hee hee!” … because I was (still am, really) amused by such things.

The woman who takes the punched in numbers for my phone top-up still amuses me. But for slightly different reasons. Something which, frankly, seems like the weirdest addition to a automated service … it’s the sound of a robot typing. Which is kind of Zen, because it’s kind of like the sound of one hand clapping, but with typing. And no hands. Just a disembodied voice.

So the woman says “Please. Hold on. I’ll just pro. Cess. That for you.” half way through the call. And then, suddenly you hear a rash of typing, like someone actually having to type some numbers into a computer. And you’re thinking “Come, now, you haven’t got any hands, you’re fooling no one” and you want to mention this to her when she returns … but you can’t, because she wouldn’t hear you. Or worse, she would, and then say “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that …”

That’s the funny thing, though, I’m no longer surprised by talking to robots - but it confuses the hell out of me when they suddenly appear to be something other than what they are. When they suddenly pretend to be human.

My other favourite robot is the one on the airport train - the little train that trundles around on the high up track around the terminals and the parking garages. She says, as you might expect her to say: “Please hold on. Please set baggage trolley break to ‘on’.”

But she says it, you see, in the saddest possible voice. It’s the same tone of voice a mother would use to say “Please stop doing that Tommy. Please. STOP it.” - not too firm, but oh, so sad.

Every time I hear it, and that’s quite ridiculously often - and not because I’m going anywhere - I end up repeating it over and over again for hours afterward, in the same plaintive tone.

“PLEASE hold on” she says. Because if she’s said it once, she’s said it a million times (and she has).

So Yeah. Robots taking on human traits.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD, I TELL YOU.

No, wait, that wasn’t my point.
It’ll do, though.

The other day, I was in need of a spatula. Which was lucky, because after a very brief scout around the kitchen, i found one.

I know. Great story, right?

The point is, as I sought for the spatula, while singing a song about the spatula in order to persuade it to appear sooner …

(I have a habit of making up very bad songs while doing things as it helps me concentrate and not forget what I was looking for. They are mainly If you really want to know, it kind of went
Spatula, spatula,
la la la.
Um.
La la la …
you were here, in your pot…
yes you were, now you’re not.
Here’s a spoon, here’s a tong!
no - pair of tongs; ‘tong’ was wrong.
Dishwasher? Spatuless …
Fucking kitchen’s a mess.
Ser-yously, where the hell
now that wooden one’s lost as well.
Spatulating-cunting-sod.

And then it descended into a whole bunch of swearwords and really heinous spatula-related suggestions that frankly I shouldn’t put here where my mother can read them (hello!) but that was basically it.)

but my point was:

I was overjoyed when I found it.
It lifts, it flips, it stirs, it cuts:

The spatula, is, I contend, the king of the kitchen.

Think about it: nothing is as versatile, is it? I certainly can’t think of a thing I use as often while cooking.

LET THE DEBATE BEGIN.

It’s: Kitchen IDOL - the nominations for finalists start here.
(spatula is already in the finals. Since you ask)

There are lots of things you can do in San Francisco. It’s well known, in fact, for being a very permissive, open society. Perhaps not compared to how it was in the sixties and early seventies - but compared to a lot of other places - very liberal. Veeeeeeeery liberal. Very very liberal. Veh.

I mean, I’m not saying you can walk down the road with your genitals hanging out. Not every day, anyway. There are high days and holidays for that, after all. But generally, very progressive, very positive, and with an emphasis on what you, as an individual CAN do. Except ….

Except for the botanical gardens.
It was the sign at the gate of the very lovely botanical gardens. Where they would like you not to do quite a lot of things, that inspired me. I’m going to start a collection.

Because this? I mean, this is just an awesome list of things that are not allowed.

It’s like a totem of ‘NO’. A monument of DON’T’.

It is a DON’TUM pole. For the Stoppit tribe. And every generation - or more often, gazing upon this - they think of something else you absolutely no-questions-asked should NOT do (ever), and then add it to the pole in some kind of solemn ceremony.

“From now on, until the sun is eaten by the moonwolf, there will be NO putting feet on the benches. So is it graphically represented: So shall it be.”

You can’t cycle; you can’t skateboard. You cannot … well, at this resolution it looks like they’ve tried to outlaw walking on thick-soled shoes, but trust me if you look quite close up you realise they’re rollerblades. You cannot ride on stupid little scooters, you cannot own a robot dog, no bad football skills and no …

Well, these are the ones that are quite specific to the botanic gardens - the rest could be signs on any public green space determined to stop people having fun.

- Don’t - no, again, looks a bit like setting alight to, it isn’t - don’t pick the flowers.
- Don’t STAMP on the flowers.
- Don’t tickle squirrels under the chin. or perhaps feed them.

 

And, you know - a lot of these might be unnecessary. Cyclists would be annoying on the winding paths hidden by tall plants. Very bad.
- The most fun thing about skateboarders is, I think most people agree, the hope that they might fall off during one of their more showyoffy stunts so you can point and laugh. So also a fine rule.

But here’s the thing: I’m just not sure how many people would go to a botanic garden with the purpose of stamping on plants. And if they DID want to do that, I’m just not totally sure a graphic on a pole would do the job, you know?

And then there’s the other thing - the fact that once you get up to banning nine, ten things - where do you stop? Don’t you then have to draw pictures of EVERYTHING you don’t want to happen, just in case anyone takes the fact something is missing from the sign as tacit agreement that it is therefore ok?

 

So what then? You start making graphics of not only bonfires and alcohol bottles and other normal banned things - but all the other things that wouldn’t be appropriate no matter whether people might ahve though of them or not?
Couples mid-coitus?
People swearing loudly?
Disemboweling yourself?
Out of hours opera singing?
Murder? (no murder! - it would be a great - and applicable - graphic almost anywhere)
Undue criticism of pruning methods?
Sneak sodomy?
Clashing clothing?
Indiscriminate Toiletations?
Impressions of a Mexican wrestler in the rare orchid house?

I wonder about the efficacy of trying to pictuate EVERYTHING you disapprove of, but can’t deny I look forward to seeing the graphics on some of those.

Anyway.

That is only my first for now - I mean, I am a fan of pictures of signage in general, but this is my new quest:

Here in California, land of the oversignage (due to a litigious culture, I assume), I will be collecting DO NOT signs in search of the most HEY YOU! STOP THATs.
If anyone happens to spot any others, anywhere else in the whole wide world, feel free to let me know.

That is something you CAN DO.
For things you CANNOT do, please see a later post.