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Ten Years On: A Dying Mother, The Invasion of Iraq, and Samsay on the Porch

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Memory is a capricious thing- it shuffles all of those cards that signify the days, weeks and years of our lives and lays them out in a manner that doesn’t necessarily cleave to chronology– or even the truth.

 

I cut the deck, turn two cards face up on the table- the Queen of Hearts and the Jack of Clubs. It is March 13, 2003. I say that with certainty even though I do not trust my memory.

I have finished zipping up my suitcase and am nervously walking around the house stroking the cats and staring at the art on the walls as if it were for the last time. I will be taking a red eye flight to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. My brother and sister have persuaded me that our mother is close to death. I would have one more chance at total denial of that indisputable fact.

My normal propensity for high drama was heightened significantly by the war drums that had been sounding for weeks, the rumblings that we were about to go to war, to invade Iraq. The sheer loathsomeness of Bush-Cheney had turned into something much darker, frightening and utterly incomprehensible. I was going to be 3,000 miles from My Beloved and my home while George W. Bush was explaining why war was necessary and inevitable.

So there you have the setting- The Queen of Hearts. The Jack of Clubs. But now one more card- The Joker. City Heights is always the Wild Card, the Joker, that becomes part of the mix. This place that I have called home for longer than anywhere else is a shape shifting character that looms large in my life, and so it was on March 13, 2003.   [Read more…]

San Diego For Free: City Farmers Nursery – Plant Paradise in City Heights

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A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.

City Farmers Nursery

Address: 4832 Home Avenue, City Heights CA 92105
Hours: Monday – Saturday 9 AM – 5 PM, Sunday 9 AM – 3 PM

Best For: Gardeners, do-it-yourselfers, fresh produce eaters, learners

Serving San Diego for over 40 years, City Farmers Nursery is a one-of-a-kind destination in the heart of San Diego. The nursery features a wide selection of plants including sections devoted to California native plants, butterfly gardens, fruit trees, garden selections, and many more. All of the plants in the nursery are raised organically and the staff is extremely helpful and knowledgeable. If you are buying a plant at City Farmers you can be confident it will grow in your yard – they test every product on-site and don’t sell plants unless they are proven to be well-suited for the San Diego climate.   [Read more…]

Live in North Park, City Heights, University Heights, Normal Heights, Rolando or other nearby areas? Like to ride a bike? Like to ride a bike without fearing for your life?

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If some or all of the above apply to you mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 6, from 6 to 8:30 PM.  SANDAG is holding the second open-to-the-public meeting soliciting community input for the North Park – Mid-City Bike Corridors Project.  The meeting will be held at the Sunset Temple in North Park at 3911 Kansas Street, San Diego, CA  92104.  If you’re looking for a spot to park your bike one of the city’s 4 bike corrals is conveniently located two short blocks away at the corner of North Park Way and 30th Street.  Bonus: the corral is right outside The Linkery restaurant which features Belgian-style drafts for $4 on Wednesday nights.

Think this is just another meeting to attend, voice your opinion, and have no real-world result for the investment of your time and efforts?  Well, you might be right.  But SANDAG has ponied up approximately $1 million for the planning and preliminary design stages of this project.   [Read more…]

Bicycling Moves Forward in San Diego – CicloSDias Event Announced for August

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Streets to Be Closed to Cars in Grant Hill/Stockton, South Park, North Park and City Heights

On the beautiful sunny morning of February 25, bicycle enthusiasts, city residents, and local politicians gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at San Diego’s newest bike corral in Hillcrest.  If you’re unfamiliar, a bike corral is an onstreet parking facility for bicycles, typically taking up the space of one or two automobile parking spots and providing parking for ten to twenty bicycles.

This new installation is San Diego’s fourth bike corral, all of which are located in District 3.  For those of you scoring at home that leaves us only 87 bike corrals short of the 91 boasted by the bicycle mecca of Portland.

The new bike corral is located on the south-west corner of the intersection of Richmond Street and University Avenue in Hillcrest, next to Filter Coffee House at 1295 University Avenue. The Uptown Community Parking District paid for the corral and the Hillcrest Business Association will provide for upkeep and maintenance in the future.   [Read more…]

A City Heights Response to the State of the Union Address (and the Responses to the State of the Union Address)

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I crawled groggily out of bed this morning and ambled out to the kitchen. My Beloved turned to me and said “I don’t know how many more State of the Unions I can handle.” Last night we listened to President Obama’s hour long speech, then Republican Savior-in-Training Senator Marco Rubio’s, followed by Congressman Rand Paul’s, as the voice of the Tea Party, which is the other white meat of the Republican party. Afterward, we smoked.

The Designated Survivor One odd little factoid that was revealed during the pre-speech(es) buildup was that Energy Secretary Steven Chu was selected to skip this year’s address.

Because the president, vice president, lawmakers, Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices and members of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are all sitting together in a confined space in the Capitol, one Cabinet member is chosen to skip the speech every year.

The concept of a designated survivor is an interesting one.   [Read more…]

Graffiti and Shattered Glass on 45th Street: Unknown Causes, Unclear Remedies

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A few days ago I was sipping my morning coffee and heard loud voices in front of our little house on 45th Street in City Heights. I walked outside to find two neighbors gathered around the broken windshield of a car parked there. Their voices were strained and angry. Then they would go quiet for a few shocked moments before resuming the conversation.

This is the third time that the windshield of this particular car has been smashed. James poked around in the plants outside my fence and found a large triangular rock that fit the bill for the weapon used to smash the windshield. I learned that this particular car has also been hit in the past with graffiti and its tank filled with sugar.

The conversation changed to one of speculation about motives. Was there something about the owner of the car that engendered these acts of vandalism? This is City Heights, so the first question is whether the vandalism was gang motivated, right?   [Read more…]

The Inexact Cartography of the Heart: Going Home

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When neighbors in City Heights talk about going home, that home may be as close as Los Angeles or Tucson, or as far away as Vietnam, Eritrea or the Philippines. My neighbors have family in Mexico and make an annual December pilgrimage to Mexicali or Oaxaca so that their children can spend Christmas with their grandparents, their abuelos.

Distance, which translates into time and money, and unstable political circumstances in one’s home country are limiters on whether the wish to return home for a visit is ever realized. But beyond those considerations, can you go home if your home no longer exists?   [Read more…]

A Different Kind of Listening: John Cage on 45th Street

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It is only half past January and I have had it up to here, estoy harta, with the right wing rage and whining that followed the election; enough, basta already, to the manufactured misery of the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling threats that immediately shut out the voices of citizens who made their intentions and desires known in the November election. There is a ringing in my ears from the dreadful noise, and I worry about my ability to hear what is really important and stay focused. …
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Dear Mayor Filner: Can We Talk about Gun Violence and City Heights?

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Dear Mayor Filner: The Sandy Hook school massacre last month has opened a national conversation about gun violence in this country, and well it should. The lives of twenty-six human beings, the majority of whom still had their baby teeth, were snuffed out in the amount of time it took to discharge a high capacity magazine from a gun that was developed for the military’s conduct of war.

It didn’t take much time and the devastation was total, consistent with the military’s expectations in the conduct of war, and so not consistent with our assumptions of what it means to send our children in safety to elementary school.   [Read more…]

Field of View: City Farmers Nursery in City Heights

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Family owned and operated, City Farmers Nursery is the lifelong and ever expanding passion of Bill Tall — a man who’s on site daily in his signature blue jeans, forest green company t-shirt and yellow measuring tape suspenders to help customers, share stories and offer sage gardening advice.

Bill Tall has spent most of his life on the property, and currently lives in the house he built there in 2001 — a handcrafted upgrade from the trailer that used to be called home. His three children, Rebecca, Sam and Sara, grew up on the nursery property. They are currently each pursuing their own careers, but are never too far from the nursery for too long.
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The Euclid Tower and the Ghost of Christmas Past

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I’m sure that there are a number of us who can still remember the Euclid Tower before it was re-imagined with bright paint and a dazzling design. In 1988, when My Beloved and I moved into our little house on 45th street, the Euclid Tower jutted above the streetscape like a grey missile poised for launch. Its graceful art deco architecture and lovely leaded glass lotus windows couldn’t redeem it from a peeling cold war paint job.

I can also remember not only the grey paint job, but the smiling face of Old Saint Nick providing some inscrutable message of good cheer for a number of years over the neon signage of the Tower Bar. There was nothing quite like the 4th of July and looking up at the peeling Tower with Saint Nick beaming down upon us. This was how I knew I was home in my thoroughly mixed up community of City Heights. And stone cold sober.   [Read more…]

Searching for City Heights: The 47th Street “Olivia” Canyon, IRC Aqua Farm and El Rey Tattoo Parlor and Barbershop

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It is not unheard of for someone to tell you that he intends to move to San Diego from some other state. It is frankly rare however, for someone to say that she is planning to move to San Diego and wants to live in the community of City Heights. Out of all the other communities in San Diego, she wants to live in City Heights?

Back in June of this year when my first City Heights Up Close & Personal column was published, I received an intriguing comment from Mary Best that she wanted to move to City Heights within the year. We exchanged emails and spent a long afternoon together a few weeks later when Mary came to town.   [Read more…]

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