Elite on Halloween

[Ya wanna know what's scaring me this Halloween? I walked from home almost all the way to work this morning with my coat's buttons in the wrong buttonholes, off by one. Once again, I seem to be making unconscious efforts to blend in with the Tenderloin denizens I see every day.]

[I don't think there's much celebration in the offing this year for me on what is one of the biggest nights in San Francisco's extensive party calendar. We did a practice exam yesterday in Ethics class for next week's MRPE, and I scored a leetle low. While everyone keeps telling me this test is nothing to worry about, I think some time spent figuring out where I went astray is warranted this weekend. Picking glitter from my eyelids and fighting a hangover may not help this plan along, so I think I'll give Halloween a miss. The academic spirit is willing...let's see if the party spirit is weak...]

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[John and I had a pleasant visit this week with the family, whom we'd not seen in a month or two. Dinner Monday was at the fantastic Elite Café, which does what is generally regarded as S.F.'s best stab at New Orleans cooking. (Mmmm, fried catfish in creamy "Creole" sauce.) It was just Mom, Dad, my sister, and me, which is good to do every once in a while.]

[We got into a heated discussion near the meal's end about Indian casinos. Several new projects have been fought over recently in my parents' county, and they've participated in the campaign against, at least to the extent of bumper stickers and T-shirts.]

[Having had my consciousness raised to a certain extent by having an Iroquois boyfriend (who, it must be said, isn't exactly on top of every indigenous peoples issue out there, but who has pretty strong views on this one), and knowing pretty well the locales where the casinos were proposed, I had to disagree with my family, at least on the one that might (or might not) be built in Rohnert Park, a suburban community about a 45-minute drive north of San Francisco. That town, instead of the rural, wine-country idyll we've had force-fed for years, is an unapologetically , Edward-Scissorhands, suburban area, composed solely many miles of tract homes and shopping centers. (All the streets in each of its particular maze-like neighborhoods start with the same letter of the alphabet - it's thatplanned. I went to a party in the A section once on a visit home from college.) A casino simply won't ruin something that was already ruined decades ago, and it will mean an incredible jump in quality of life for the small remnant of Native population still extant in Sonoma County.]

[It wasn't a mean argument, but I get the feeling the restaurant staff was glad they seated us in a booth, so that our, ah, strongly expressed views wouldn't impinge on the other diners' experience.]

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