MUNI underground photo taken from Lucy's perspective in 2007
On this morning’s MUNI adventure to take Lucy to her summer day camp, we took the underground and then a bus. She’s been carrying her very precious prized small tooth fairy pillow with her because she has a loose tooth and wants to have the pillow with her at camp in case the tooth falls out at camp.
While we were stepping off the underground, she accidentally dropped the small pillow and I watched it fall towards the gap between the train and the platform. I held my breath and wondered how we’d ever replace it. Just as it almost fell into the gap and under the train, a small threshhold popped out, at floor level, between the train and the platform, and caught the pillow.
I picked up the pillow and we walked towards the stairs to leave the station. While we were walking towards the stairs, Lucy said, “I was so scared my body and head were shaky inside and then I was so glad I didn’t lose my pillow but my insides were still shaky.” I said, “That’s adrenaline, it’s something your body creates when you’re scared or excited, and then you might be relieved and let out a big breath and said, Whew! and still feel the adrenaline.” Lucy said, “I felt my body feel the Whew! but I didn’t say it, my body said Whew to itself and it still feels it.”
Can’t make this stuff up.
Categories: 1st grade · MUNI
Tagged: MUNI, platform, station, gap, falling treasure, saved by the threshold
December 31, 2008 · 1 Comment
My company spent 3 years (Dec 2005 – Dec 2008) on Folsom Street in San Francisco – a storefront on a noisy street said to have 80,000 cars pass by every day. When our lease was almost up, we found a new office – happy to leave behind an office where the windows were broken twice, a laptop was stolen, graffiti slashed into our windows, and regular leaks dampened our ceiling (amazing since we were on the ground floor in a 4-story building and the water would leak from the top floor all the way down to our space).
Moving is quite cleansing. There were things in the Folsom St office that had not been touched since we moved there. The new office doesn’t have a full kitchen and full bathroom. The Folsom St office had a fully stocked kitchen (baking! cooking! galore!) and a full bathroom stocked with plush towels. The towels were carted off to the SPCA for cats and dogs to snuggle in. The kitchen supplies went to my house or friends’ houses or Community Thrift. While purging the office and sorting through supplies, we (Thanks, Lori, for the help!) sorted through the earthquake/emergency boxes full of food and supplies and discovered one of the best earthquake/emergency supplies – Asyla Whisky! Only to be opened in case of emergency.
On December 23 the movers moved everything from Folsom St to my company’s new office on 2nd St. I moved Ganesha in my pocket that day on an underground MUNI train – I think he’s worth keeping around. I usually keep him perched on top of my computer monitor.
My new MUNI stop is Montgomery station (used to be Civic Center). My company is sharing space with a small very friendly architecture firm and I’m excited to be sharing space again. We shared some office space 4 years ago when we were in Hayes Valley. When I first started my company I shared office space in South Park (South Park, San Francisco not South Park, Comedy Central) and I enjoy the camaraderie of people working in the same space but not necessarily working together or on the same projects or in the same industry. I’ve noticed, in the few days I’ve been hanging out in my new space, that the architects seem to have very civilized consistent hours and they all leave for lunch in the middle of the day. I haven’t worked around people who take regular lunch in over a decade!
My conference room has a view of a new oyster bar and fish restaurant (Anchor & Hope).
And there are some windows that look out to this airshaft. I love airshafts — old space that got trapped in time.
Categories: MUNI · folsom street · san francisco · south park
Tagged: asyla, cleansing, emergency supplies, ganesha, moving, office move, purging, whisky
This morning Lucy and I walked to the F market, waited, then she requested the underground so we walked 3 blocks to the underground (basically circling our house). When we rode the escalator back up to the street at Civic Center and walked to her preschool, she said, “this a longer walk than the F.” Tomorrow, she promised, she’d just keep waiting for the F. We’ll see. Promises by preschoolers, and U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, are often forgotten and later denied.
Categories: MUNI · market street · preschoolers · presidents
