Walking home: the fake Christmas tree

We are still walking east on Haight Street after having crossed Divisadero where we stopped to admire the median planting. In Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire, the interview with the vampire Louis takes place on Divisadero Street just around the corner from where we are right now.



There was a year, like 1990, when it seemed that everyone in San Francisco was reading two books: Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat, and Hayden Herrera's biography of Frida Kahlo. I saw people reading one or both those books everywhere I went--in every coffee shop, at every bus stop, in every office waiting room, on the bookshelves of every apartment I visited, in the window of every bookstore.

To this day, I have not read either!



When rents in the Haight-Ashbury started to get too expensive in the late 1980s, people started to move to the Lower Haight, called lower because it is downhill from the Upper Haight (which is what most people actually call the Haight-Ashbury). We've been walking downhill this whole time.



The Lower Haight was a lot edgier then, with fewer neighborhood businesses and some pretty grim public housing projects nearby. But gentrification was inevitable since in addition to being cheaper, it was also more central and accessible. Personally I prefer my Bernal Heights seclusion.



I don't know why the name Mythic Pizza always gives me the giggles.



On one had, it's like you're trying to say Mystic, but you're lisping or slurring your words. Or, maybe you were trying to say something like Epic Pizza, but all you could think of was Mythic. Truly mythic pizza wouldn't even exist. It would be mythical! Whatever. I get the giggles.



I also think it's funny that people spend thousands of dollars a month to rent apartments in San Francisco and have to use sheets from the thrift store as curtains.







Ice cream is the big thing now, or maybe it was a year ago. I don't know. But there are many specialty ice cream stores all around town making ice cream with ingredients you might not have thought of. My personal favorite is the bourbon and corn flakes at Humphry Slocombe but I haven't exactly tried them all.



We've turned right on Fillmore Street now and we're heading toward Market.









Pineapples are a nice hostess gift, I think.



At Market, we've reached another natural stopping point.



But there's one thing I have to show you and it's just across the street, at a bakery...

The best fake Christmas tree ever!



I think they make one every year.









Well, we're slightly more than half way home, and I only have one other stop to make, but I will save it until next time. It's a tiny, old cemetery.