Maybe there was early morning San Francisco fog farther over toward the ocean, but here in the Mission the day started clear and warm at sunup and stayed that way, my idea of a perfect summer day.
I see many more tourists photographing the tall-towered basilica than the squat little 18th century Mission Dolores church next to it. The basilica has a cornerstone that says it was rebuilt in 1913 after the Earthquake (the little church did not fall down in 1906 when the big one did). The big one has a steel frame and is a molded-concrete imitation of stone-built Mexican Baroque churches. It is no more like a genuine baroque church than the castle at the entrance to Disneyland is like a genuine castle. But both at Disneyland and here, the fakes make a pleasing-enough silhouette for photo purposes. And so they are photographed – millions and millions of times.
At my barber's on Haight Street I found additional religious kitsch, but it lacked the basilica's pomposity and was mashed up comfortably with the secular variety. The barber and I almost always spend our fortnightly half-hour telling each other about our respective daughters. His is 12 and mine is 34, but the volubility of proud fatherhood is equal on each side.
Leaving the barbershop, I found this tree-shaded admonition on Market Street. There could be no doubt that divine intervention had put it in my path. What I needed to do was get home and get cracking on finishing up the long-lingering panels I have been constructing for about six weeks now, from charcoal-gray felt and hot-yellow oilcloth. These will mark the entrance to the baby dwelling conceived and built by my daughter and son-in-law for their downtown apartment, a dwelling all set to be inhabited except for these unfinished panels. Stories of my elaborations and consequent delays are spotted throughout the month of May on this blog, but I will refrain from linking to them and spare my blushes.
This morning I lined up the oilcloth circles that wrap around the inside edge of each of the two panels, circles that are both ornamental and practical, as handholds. It took some rather delicate trimming and adjusting to get the circles exactly matched on the front and back of each panel and to get them matched with each other across the panels. I used a hair dryer to warm the oilcloth (which would have melted under an iron) and make it flexible and then used the rounded edge of the scissors handle to enforce creases down the middles. My next step after that was supposed to be stitching around the edges, and I located a great big needle to help me pierce two thicknesses of oilcloth and one thickness of felt. But then I thought, "wait!"
When this plan was first conceived I pictured the circles somewhat smaller, and in that case the stitching would probably have been sufficient to secure all the layers where they belonged. However, collaboration in the various planning stages had resulted in circles with a radius of nearly a foot, and I perceived as I laid them out that they would need to be glued as well as sewed. And that meant another brisk walk (out in the fantastic Saturday summer weather) to Cliff's Variety in the Castro for Tacky Glue, which resembles Elmer's Glue except that Tacky Glue is perfect for fabric and doesn't cause ripples as any other generic glue would. By the time I got back home with the Tacky Glue I was starving, so stopped to make lunch. And after that, finally, I glued the yellow circles onto the gray panels. This process took some time, as great caution was required, but on the whole it went smoothly and the result was completely successful. NEXT step, then: the sewing around the edges.
I got out my heavy-weight perfectly-matching yellow thread (bought at Britex Fabrics yonks ago) and my great big sharp-pointed needle and set to work making the sawtooth stitches we had all agreed would look appropriately artisanal. This worked out well, too. No complaints. Except that the work was Extremely Slow, due to the need to make the stitches look uniform on both the back and the front of the yellow half-circles, and consequently to check the back and the front when making each stitch.
It is exacting work, but it is fun. I am deeply grateful to the sun god in charge of this day that no disasters occurred in this portion of the project, since disasters are not unlikely when you are making your techniques up as you go along. All too soon, however, the hour arrived when it was time to go to the gym, and I decided I had better go, because even if I skipped the gym, I would not be able to finish before the end of the day, and fatigue was setting in. Fatigue is a more frequent visitor in the middle years than it was in the youthful years, and the worst thing about fatigue is that the work starts to go wonky. So it seemed to be my duty to prevent that from happening, and go to the gym, which I did, and worked out fiercely to justify my dereliction. At the gym I did not feel at all weary. My overall physical stamina seems to be about the same as I always remember it. It is the stamina for hours of small-muscle dexterity that seems to be fading.