The Great Shoppening and other things, 2025

I have today off from work, but will work manana and did work through the weekend up to yesterday. The chocolate shop I work in continues to make between15k and 20k daily in the lead-up to Xmas. The title of this post comes from a friendly shopper who visited late in the day on Saturday; I recall her being in a bit of a rush to get her errands done. I think she had meant to say, 'shopping' and, also perhaps, 'happening' and those words came out combined to sound like an almost ominous/comical event. It's the GREAT SHOPPENING, Charlie Brown!  I am also reminded of our dearly departed Sue and her word, I believe it was, 'embiggen', as in: if you're having trouble seeing the image posted, then embiggen it. :)  We miss you and your wonderful contributions to Blogland, Sue! xx

Speaking of ominous events, we here in the city experienced a rather prolonged and far-reaching black-out Saturday. A fire broke out in a PG & E substation at Civic Center and power was out for over 100k residents and businesses. Some folks went without power for approximately 30 hours. We in the Outer Avenues by the zoo did not lose power (for once) and about that fact I am feeling both glad and grateful. I am thinking of the restaurants, hotels and other businesses reliant on visitors boosting their revenues over the December holidays and I really feel for them. Their financial losses must be tremendous. 

Affected areas in red.

What was really freaky for me and so many others was trying to get home Saturday evening on public transit. The fire at Civic Center coincided with police activity at the very tony Palace Hotel on Market Street a few blocks away. Market St., incidentally, is a major east-west thoroughfare for transit downtown and beyond. Police had cordoned off the area of Market where the hotel is located as there was an armed man who had barricaded himself somewhere within the hotel. The cops were attempting to safely extricate him from the building and their efforts took hours. Subway lines were interrupted due to the fire and attendant blackout. Folk were awaiting bus replacement services (we really just guessed at where they might pick us up by standing at an already existing bus stop and hoping for the best) at street level. There was no communication from SFMTA as to what was happening and how one might use public transit to reach their destinations. The Muni subway was simply closed. There were no personnel, no signage, no nada showing folk what to do. A bus driver en route to SE SF pulled up at the stop and we asked her if she knew what was what. She said, 'There's an F (a street car line) right around the corner and the K-L-M bus (bus replacement service) is running every 12 minutes. Dear reader, she lied. The F never arrived. And the bus replacement service showed up an hour after she continued on her route. Most of us stuck it out. Some of us called Lyfts and Ubers and paid $$$$ to get across town. Talking to my fellow travelers, some people were going home, going to work, going to their accommodations, going back to where they had parked their cars earlier in the day. I was out from work and at the bus stop by 6.15p. We were on the bus replacement service and driving through a near pitch black downtown by 7.25p. We had to divert around the hot spot at the Palace Hotel on Market Street. I can only surmise based on movements made by the bus driver that we drove along Mission St. parallel to Market St. for a number of blocks before returning to Market St. east of the Palace Hotel en route to West Portal Station (where the bus terminated). 

Our bus, as one might imagine, was standing room only in a few, short stops. One dude, a vato wearing a cap that read: Outer Avenues, was playing really chill music on his phone and I have to say that that helped keep the mood on the bus rather light. At one point on our literal dark journey, however, the bus jerked to a sudden halt and stayed stopped for a few minutes. Maybe a glitching WAYMO (self-driving car) was blocking an intersection and our man nearly didn't see it? (Learn more about the dipshittery that is WAYMO in an emergency here.) Anyway, at that point, an old duffer at the front of the bus began to curse about needing to get home and couldn't the driver just 'go around?' At the same time, Outer Avenues homie switched the music to: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. And I gave him a smile and a nod as it helped to break the tension somewhat. Imagine if we had experienced a natural disaster (Loma Prieta earthquake, anyone?) or a terror attack? SF would have been effed, to put it bluntly. 

It took 2.5 hours to get from the Ferry Building to the Outer Sunset that night. And as of this morning, power has been restored to all businesses and residences here in town. The subway is still not running fully; I'll be taking a replacement bus to work tomorrow. As we brace for impending severe weather--heavy storms are set to touch down here on the 24th according to the news--I do wonder how we will fare.