A Sunday Stew

For many here in the States, the best part of Sunday is football.  Not so for me.  I’m partial to Sunday supper.  Sunday supper has its origins in Britain and Ireland where a hearty meal of roasted meat was served with a bounty of sides after the Sunday church service.  It’s remained popular to some degree in the former colonies, including The United States. 

Cora and I like to enjoy a peaceful, relaxing Sunday with a nice comforting meal in the late afternoon.  In winter it means the home warmed by something roasting in the oven or the genial aroma of a stew bubbling in a pot; reading a book on the couch while the dog is curled before the fireplace.  As the warm weather and longer daylight hours replace the dark winter, Sunday supper is steak or salmon from the grill and a refreshing salad; maybe some fresh pineapple.  Sunday in our home doesn’t include the Sunday news shows.  In fact I try to avoid the news altogether.  I crave Sunday serenity and repose free from shootings, wars, politics and celebrity drama.

Spring is 10 short days off and daylight savings is upon us again (yawn).  The roads were empty as I drove to the 8 AM church service.  I would say it looked much like a holiday but, do we have holidays anymore?  Everything is open.  Yeah I know I’ve complained about that before so I’ll keep that soapbox in storage today.

Church is at St. Alban’s Episcopal in nearby Albany about a 15 minute drive southwest on Highway 80.  That’s 15 minutes on a quiet Sunday morning.  Add 20 or more for rush hour.  Albany borders Berkeley and is known locally for Solano Avenue, the downtown main drag defined by small, mostly independent businesses.  Its feel is a blend of American Dreams; the small 

town fifties dream of Leave it to Beaver lore and the modern dream of eclectic contemporary chic; modern businesses sit in buildings that were built decades ago.  An old school toy shop, you know the ones that sell toys made of real wood sits near a running shop that displays high performance clothing, digital watches and GPS devices. There are only a couple of chain operations on Solano; a Domino’s Pizza shop and a Super Cuts; a pair of scabs in the diverse mixture of small businesses.  Solano Avenue is the perfect place for dinner and a movie.  The Albany Theatre, housed in a building dating from the 1920,s retains the building’s original art deco charm and only two screens.  It’s the type of theatre that I recall from my childhood; buildings that nowadays are often empty and decaying from disuse and loneliness or have been converted to a church of some sort with the marquee that once announced classic films now glowering that you will be going to hell if you don’t repent. 

What would you like for dinner before the show?  Solano Avenues menu is and eclectic blend; Italian, French, American, California, fish and seafood, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Japanese and more than a few that offer curries.  A few months back Cora and my son and I went to a little place called The Everest Café for some Nepalese food.  I’ll be going back soon for their goat curry. 

                                                

Solano Avenue is what our little town of Hercules covets in a bad way.  While Albany seems to be vibrant and thriving Hercules is just hanging on by its fingernails; the city coffers emptied by a combination of the recession and years of  bad decisions that ranged from greedy to imbecilic to downright criminal.  And so while Albany continues to have festivals and street fairs and vibrant life Hercules can't fill the poop bag dispensers with poop bags and is threatening the citizenry with a second straight year of tax increases.  Herculeans look at Solano Avenue and say, “that’s what we need,” as if it can just be dropped into a few blocks of Hercules.  They don’t realize that a Solano Avenue was nurtured and developed over many years.  Like a good whiskey it discovers its character over time.  Hercules doesn’t have the patience for a Solano Avenue and so the folks in charge at any given time constantly woo big boxes.  Years ago they courted Wal-Mart only to tell the giant to go away.  Now they’re making overtures to Wal-Mart again.  Herculeans want small town charm but they also want instant money in the civic piggy bank and in the end hit the replay button on past mistakes and get neither.   

Dinner and a movie in Albany might happen next weekend.  The Albany Theatre is showing Emperor, the movie in which Tommy Lee Jones portrays Douglas MacArthur.  My wife has decreed that we’ll be seeing it at the theatre and not wait for DVD.  Like many Filipinos, mostly of older generations, she sees MacArthur as something of a hero and was confused by my opinion of the general.  At first she may have thought I was talking about a different MacArthur; a fellow with the first name Thatasshole.  I had to explain that Dugout Doug, as he was known by many of his soldiers, had a career in which he managed to; gas WWI veterans who were protesting for monies owed them by the US Government; somehow get a Medal of Honor not only for not displaying gallantry in combat but for losing The Philippines to the Japanese, later make the critical and deadly error of staying several steps behind the chain of events leading to the Korean War.  All of that and he was insubordinate to not one but three, count ‘em, three Presidents while acting more like, well, an emperor and less like an American general.   

It’s usually a sparse crowd at 8 AM service; somewhere between 15 and 20, mostly older folk and usually the same cast.  This morning daylight savings took its toll and folks either didn't feel like rolling out of bed or simply forgot to set their clocks.  There were maybe 10 of us this morning. The elderly lady that always sits two rows in front of me was in attendance.  She always sports a sweat suit of some sort, what looks like a fishing hat and a positive, cheery attitude.  She speaks with an accent that hints of British and this morning she referred to me as monsieur.  I’ve never thought of myself as a monsieur – kind of liked it.  I think she's from over the border in Berkeley because she reminds me of the aging activists from the sixties.  The presiding priest, Julie, praised the few “early risers” as the young Korean seminarian off to the side watched through sleepy eyes and tried unsuccessfully to stifle his yawns.  During the readings Julie slipped a coffee cup to her lips.  The whole service was a little discombobulated this morning with readings and movements a few too many beats behind cue.

This Sunday in general is a bit discombobulated.  We’re both sleepy and with the lost hour it seems that the day is slipping by too quickly.  It seems to be confused, not knowing whether it wants to be a winter Sunday or a spring Sunday  Its daylight savings time and we have the World Baseball Classic on TV and we’d planned on bathing the dog in the warm sun on the front lawn this afternoon but there’s still too much of a chill in the air that might invite a book and a fire in the fireplace.  I suppose that later today Cora and I might take a nap in the upstairs room that gets warmed by the afternoon sun while Rainey finds a patch of sunlight to loll in.  Sundays sadly never seem to last long enough.  Sadder still, every week Sunday degenerates into Monday.