Poking around Polk Street

Wednesday, my department spent our day hanging out on Angel Island for our yearly retreat. It was a gorgeous day, more like September than July, so I took my time as I headed home.

It occured to me as I was walking along, after imbibing a fine pastry and coffee with a friend at Polk boulangerie, that Polk Street is just about as perfect a cross section of San Francisco as you can get: one end sitting at a tourist destination, the other at the civic center; it edges the Tenderloin (and area known for its drugs and prostitution), past one Megaplex, past one indie theater, past bars of all manner and clientel, coffeeshops, a bookstore or two, odd little stores, junk shops, specialty shops, gift shops, second-hand stores, frame shops, all manner of restuarants from haughty french ones to the greasy Picaddily fish and chips shop.

It's a great street.

Carless not careless

We gave up our car this past week, sold it to Liz's cousin who needed it much more than we did. Our new neighborhood's parking situation killed any desire to keep it. It simply no longer made economic sense, but it was a hard thing to do, especially when the car seemed intent on making it a long and difficult process. It failed it's smog test which led to costs higher than what we'd planned to sell it for, not to mention several frustrating days for Liz trying to deal with car mechanics. If you counted the maintenance we had earlier in the year and tickets, and insurance and all that good stuff we sold it for probably a third of what we paid into it.

Both of us drove it around the last couple days timidly, fully expecting it was going to get hit by another car, have a window broken, be towed or something else to further incur hardship and pain.

Liz's cousin was very excited to have it, and in the end, I think we feel good about it being in her hands. In lieu of our own car we are now signed up for City Car Share which provides cars, insurance, and gas to get you around the city and locally on short hops. We'll see how it goes, but I have high hopes for it -- even though it means we have to plan our car trips more carefully.