Thursday, November 7, 2002
Patrick and I woke up this morning to find that last night's storm found its way into our small first living room. Water was dripping in through the ceiling fixture, and the fixture glass was filled with a small pool from the night's collection of slow drips. We called our landlord Norita who came to assess the situation while we hurriedly moved out as much of our furniture as we could from the area. Our front living room is at the back of the house, and above it is our landlord's deck. Only the carpet had a little damage from the drip drip dripping. Worked on the student database, set up a new old computer for Chris, put in a few more admissions pages changes for James and sent him the link for review. Lunch at desk: pasta leftovers from last night. Dinner with Patrick at Catch (2362 Market Street, 415-431-5000), a brand new restaurant near Castro and Market. I called it a baby version of Stars because it's reminiscent of Stars except that most everything is smaller. The bar is smaller, the piano is a baby grand instead of a grand, the food portions are sometimes slightly smaller, even the prices are smaller. Live piano (20th century American classics), a full house at 6:30 PM on a Thursday, a mixed crowd but mostly men, some dressed businesslike, some casual. We had: baguette and butter, French onion soup, caesar salad with bay shrimp, roasted half chicken with pomme frites and skinny green beans, 2 iced teas. All the food was prepared very, very well. The only exception I found was that the chicken could have been juicier, but I couldn't say it was dry. The baguette was very fresh, and Patrick and I are both partial to delicious bread. The flavor of the chicken was particularly savory. We didn't have time for dessert. Our server performed mostly well, occasionally disappearing for noticeable lengths of time. The name on our receipt said "Angela." She checked in on our table shortly after the deliverator had brought our entrees, realized instantly that Patrick's small caesar was missing the added shrimp, and promptly corrected the mistake while also bringing us a late-ordered cup of soup. Our bill after a $4.25 tip was $29.75—cheap eats, I thought, for such a pleasant experience and great food. After dinner we went to a reading with Paul Lisicky and Michael Lowenthal at A Different Light Bookstore. Both readings were worth hearing; Lowenthal's slightly better—Patrick thinks it's because he read slower than Lisicky. Lowenthal read from Avoidance and Lisicky read from Famous Builder all while the passing storm continued blowing strong gusts of droplets all over the city. Afterwards, Patrick introduced himself to both of them and bought copies of each of their books and had them signed. Lowenthal is another writer represented by the same agent as Patrick, so he felt at least that in common with him. Patrick also chatted with Krandall Krause and Matthew Bernstein Sycamore, who were also at the reading. When we got home, the power was out on our block—the forceful winds must have taken down some power lines. Patrick had just finished lighting candles all over the apartment when the power suddenly came back on. We found a plastic tarp covering the leaky ceiling areas and eventually learned from our landlord that the construction they started 2 days ago could not have been timed more unfortunately as it rained both nights since then. They have sealed up the work they had been doing, and he says the rest of the water must be allowed to drain out and then they can patch up the holes and everything should be fine. None of our stuff has been damaged, so if he's right we can certainly live with just these few days of inconvenience. Tomorrow I'm supposed to work from home, but I think I'll go in to the office instead because they'll need to clean up the tarp, the wet-dry vac, and the various drip containers left behind. Patrick ran in to Nico and Lil Brian today and invited them to my birthday dinner on Sunday.