Saturday, October 16, 2004
Fruit smoothie, bagel and cream cheese with Patrick for breakfast. Called the Sunset Sewing Center (415-564-5200, 1512 Irving Street) to see if they have the Singer 6038 in stock and to find out their price. The man who answered was very rude saying that he only deals with the "regular line" of sewing machines. When I told him I had no idea what that meant, he said that he would be happy to discuss it with me but he has other customers he's waiting on in the store. (Aren't I a customer, too? Why did you bother answering the phone?) When I told him that the 6038 was the only machine I was interested in, he said I had to buy it over the Internet, and he also claimed that I would not get a warranty if I bought over the Internet. Amazon's description clearly states that a 25-year warranty is included, so I think the man at Sunset Sewing Center was lying to me in hopes that I would switch to a different model and buy from him instead. It seems that he and Singer don't have a good relationship. It's quite possible that if I buy the 6038 from Amazon I might have to mail a problematic sewing machine somewhere for service instead of carrying it into a store, but I was expecting that anyhow, so I don't have a problem with that. Errands in the Castro, the Mission, Lakeside Village: returned a movie, bought flowers and cookies and dishwashing detergent. Patrick made a French dinner for me and Tony and Bobby. Pan-roasted with microfine-salted almonds; large green olives; brie; Red Dragon Somerdale mustard seed cheese; organic greens frisee salad with basil, black forest ham, aged cheddar, walnuts, homemade vinaigrette; cassoulet with duck breast, pork loin, salt pork, lamb stew meat, Italian sausage, great northern white beans; pumpkin creme brulee. Tony and Bobby brought a bottle of 2002 Yellow Tail shiraz-cabernet sauvignon which I liked a lot for its mild flavor. I helped Tony figure out if a problem with Xanga was due to Firefox or not (answer: not necessarily). We talked about Chinese characters and what ming ming means. At my insistence, Patrick showed off his artful flash cards.