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hawk versus pigeons at Jack London Square
Thursday, December 14 2017
location: Room 206, Inn at Temescal, Oakland California, California
We would be in Oakland for all of today, so this was our day to explore it. We walked east on MacArthur, passing a discarded snuggly pinkish-beige blanket similar to (but dirtier than) the one on our couch back home, beyond that was a package of mayonnaise someone had stomped on, and further still was a large mostly-undeveloped urban park (Mosswood). At Piedmont, we turned north and walked into a neighborhood that started having some of the hipster gentrification we'd been expecting more of. Our destination was Timeless Coffee, an all-vegan bakery and coffee place that makes no mention of vegan anywhere. I was mostly excited about the potato & sausage empanadas, though Gretchen also got some sweet bakery items. We also both had soy cappuccinos. Timeless Coffee actively discourages the culture of people drinking coffee and staring at their laptops, so there is no WiFi and no available 120 volt outlets. There were, however, a number of dogs, which seemed to be tolerated (and enthusiastically encouraged by the likes of Gretchen).
Back at the inn, we dropped off some stuff and prepared for what would be a long walking tour of beautiful downtown Oakland. Walking south down Telegraph, we passed under I-580, where the homeless were apparently allowed to build shelters on the west but not east side. Gretchen looked at the grimy clutter of their semi-permanent "yards" and wondered how anyone could live like that. Why wouldn't they at least be keeping their little worlds tidy? Maybe, she thought, it's possible to live like this when there's heroin in your life. I ventured that perhaps if they had the initiative to keep their homeless existence in order, they probably wouldn't be here in the first place.
Downtown Oakland is indeed beautiful, just like Roman Mars says in one of his podcast taglines. Its heyday must've been the 1920s and 1930s, since much of its architecture is distinctly Art Decco, though there are some late examples of Beaux-Arts as well.
Gretchen likes to duck into stores and museums in a way that I generally don't. My thing is more about going directly to a destination and then resting or eating or drinking. So this was how we found ourself in a smallish museum downtown dedicated to the contemporary black experience.
Eventually there was no more Oakland because we'd reached the shoreline of the a narrow straight between us and the small island of Alameda (where Mythbusters used to conduct their car crash experiments). There's a commercial block there called Jack London Square, and Gretchen kept referring vaguely to some realization I should be making about its metal-truss-covered entranceway. (Only much later, after we made it back to the room and Gretchen hinted at it with her body posture did I realize this truss and associated buildings had all been stenciled onto the wall of our room at the Inn.)
We sat for a long time on the concrete steps down to the water between two piers (37.794361N, 122.277437W). We took off our shoes and socks to allow our feet to breathe in the balmy conditions. Temperatures were in the 60s and in the sun conditions were ideal. Pigeons strolled about nearby, all of them aware we had nothing for them. In the water were a number of coots, but no ducks or other swimming birds. After a time, a small murder of angry crows chased a smallish hawk (sharp-shinned?) into our area, scattering all the pigeons. The hawk perched atop the mast of a sailboat for a time while the crows perched nearby, keeping watch. The pigeons gradually returned, only to freak out again when the hawk flew off to the west along the shoreline.
Heading generally northward on Piedmont, we saw some interesting figures made from laser-cut cardboard in a shop window for a place called Robotics For Fun. There were salamanders, elephants, turtles, bats, and, most impressively, a scorpion. Inside, someone came out to tell us about them. There were kits we could buy and assemble with the included zip ties. It seemed like a good business to support, so we bought a scorpion (or was it the salamander?) for $40. They didn't have it in stock, so would be mailing it to us. At some point, the genius behind the operation came out. You could tell that all his mental effort went into imagining robot designs and imaginative ways to cut up cardboard, because he didn't have a good sense of how to interact with customers. Gretchen and I were delighted to learn the random fact that the pincers on a scorpion are actually modified mouthparts, not limbs, but how many random customers would be interested in this fact of evolutionary homology?
It was finally time for lunch, and for that we went to a place called Hella Vegan Eats, which is also an antique car showroom and an outdoor beer garden. How fun! The audacity of the retail mashup reminded Gretchen of Portland, Oregon. The food was junky and quirky in the way that vegan fast food should be. I ordered the garlic fries and the quesadillas with "fried chicken." Gretchen went for a grilled "cheese" sandwich with tomato soup. We also ordered alcoholic beverages: a cider for Gretchen and an IPA with "ghost" in its name (it was perfect). I liked my food, but Gretchen reacted badly to sweet spices placed in otherwise savory dishes. She couldn't eat the soup, and she quickly gave up on some fried "chicken" fingers she'd gotten on the side. There was a breaded & fried cauliflower nugged abandoned on someone's plate that Gretchen did like, but overall it was yet another not-great meal, with not all that many mealportunities left in the greater Bay Area.
For some reason Gretchen wanted to walk along Lake Merritt, a uterus-shaped lake just east of downtown Oakland. When we arrived at its northwest corner, we saw construction and general ugliness along its west shoreline, so we headed out onto the cape separating its two northern lobes (similar to a cape we visited on the much larger Great Sacandaga Lake on September 1st of 2013). There were sunny places to lie along the footpath, and we did this until I became aware of some work I would need to do for my remote employer. [REDACTED]
We spent the rest of the evening back in our room at the inn. I'd eaten so much food at Hella Vegan Eats that I had no desire for dinner. I'm less sure about why Gretchen wasn't hungry, since she hadn't eaten all that much of her lunch. At some point I went on an errand to fetch some vodka to serve as my on-vacation booze supply. There was a booze store right next door, and there I got a largish plastic hip flask for $8. Then I realized I didn't have anything to serve as a mixer. This sent me on a long walk to find a store that sold such things (because I have a thing about immediately returning to a store where I just made a purchase). My walk took me at least a half mile north on Telegraph Avenue. The neighborhood near the inn is heavily Ethiopian, but where I went it eventually took on a decidedly Korean flair.
Baked goods for sale at Timeless Coffee. Photo by the old ball 'n' chain.
Me dining on a quesadilla at Hella Vegan Eats. The soup Gretchen would not be eating is in the foreground.
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