And I've been waiting such a long time for Saturday in the park.

A real celebration... Waiting for us all... If we want it, really want it....

This picture is for Maxine.

She wanted to inspect the reverse side of the plate (seen earlier, here).

"Vavro." That would be a good brand name for....

... maybe I shouldn't come right out and say it....

I gaze out my hotel window and think about whether there's enough vortex on the blog today.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendshop.

In the previous post, I remarked on one shopkeeper's disinclination to talk me into buying a hat, compared to "so many sales people [who] have nudged me beyond my initial resistance." But now that I think about it, I think there's a general difference between New York and San Francisco shopkeepers. The culture of shopkeeping is entirely different.

In New York, when you go into a nice store, a salesperson takes charge of your emotional experience. There is no aggressive sales talk, but that is what is so completely psychologically aggressive about it. You are being managed. You feel welcomed, befriended. Suddenly, a beautiful girlfriend (or boyfriend) is shopping with you, talking intelligently with you about the things you weren't really thinking of buying, getting you to feel that a normal part of this friendshop — oops, I mean friendship! — will be a discreet exchange of credit card for shopping bag. You walk out the door, fulfilled, and it won't be until later that you'll wonder why you bought something again. It's like these stores are hypnotizing me.

But that's New York. It's not like that in San Francisco. The people who work in the stores are hanging around, perhaps chatting with each other. They may notice you and say hi, but they don't envelop you and affect your mood. They'll be there to take your money if you choose to buy. But you're on your own. You can look around and leave, and it doesn't seem to matter. How very odd!

I mean, it seems odd to me because I've been under the spell of New York for 75 days.

"I would say, 'Go, Obama, you're black enough for me.'"

I was traipsing about San Francisco yesterday, and, snapping dozens of pictures, I made my way over to Fillmore Street for a little window shopping. I saw this...



... and was struggling against the glare and reflections to frame my shot — and also, idiotically, talking on my iPhone — when a woman — who I now understand to be Ruth Garland-Dewson — swept out of the store and flung herself between me and the picture of Barack Obama.

"Are you trying to take a picture of my man?" she said dramatically.

But she wasn't what I for a second thought she was: one of those shopkeepers who are touchy about having their place photographed. She wanted to come out and talk — about Barack Obama and other things as well. I got off my phone conversation and complimented her on the great shop and asked if she had extra large hats. I love women's hats, but since I need a men's extra-large size, I can never find a woman's hat — aside from something stretchy — that fits. She found me what might have been her largest hat, and it almost fit. You know, I should have bought it! It was ocher-colored with a dark purple spiral — a felt hat with a large brim. I think I would have bought it if she'd tried to talk me into it (as so many sales people have nudged me beyond my initial resistance — it's not very hard).

But she wanted to talk about Barack Obama. Do I like him? Yes! I think he's a good man, and that he would be able to do a lot of good. I added, "But I kind of like Giuliani." That was okay with her, it seemed — so long as I don't like Hillary.

So here's the shop, Mrs. Dewson's Hats:



And here's a San Francisco Chronicle blog post calling Ruth Dewson "a fixture in the African-American community," and quoting her saying "I'm not a Hillary fan."

Here's a Chronicle article about her and her store (and the musical "Crowns"):

She grew up in Paris, Texas, where people always wore hats to church. She grew up making her own hats because, like lots of people she grew up with, she didn't have any money.

"You take a piece of fabric and put some binding inside and put it on your head, adorning it with different flowers, feathers, things like that," she said.

Her favorite hat was a little yellow bonnet with a big bow under the neck, worn with a yellow dress.

"Hats really empower you," she said.

I note that Hillary Clinton doesn't wear a hat — although she did at least once and got mocked for it.

Here's the website for the store Mrs. Dewson's Hats, with some nice pictures of Dewson. I'm kicking myself now, not only for failing to buy the ocher-and-purple hat, but also for not asking Dewson if I could take some pictures of her in her store. If only I'd been wearing a hat, I might have felt empowered enough to ask.

And here's her book about her hats:




ADDED: Here's her "black enough" letter printed in the Chronicle:

I agree wholeheartedly with the views displayed in this Open Forum ("Black American from Africa offers his view on Obama's 'blackness,' '' March 1). At this time in America, who or what determines our blackness?

Media portray blacks as low income and uneducated. Therefore, does success and education remove any trace of blackness? The truth of the matter is, most black Americans are of mixed ancestry. Maybe genealogy should be a required course in every school.

I would say, "Go, Obama, you're black enough for me."

RUTH GARLAND-DEWSON

She's responding to this, from Willis Shalita:

The recent rumblings from some quarters of the black community that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is not black enough or that "he has not lived our experience" because his ancestors have no ties to slavery, are utter nonsense....

The black author an essayist, Debra J. Dickerson, said, "His father was African. His mother is a white woman. He grew up with white parents." And then she goes on to say; "But there's a lot of distance between black Africans and African Americans."...

If the credential for being black enough is growing up in the "hood" and experiencing the ugly side of our race-conscious society, Lord have mercy. Obama has lived the American experience, has worked hard for his community, has never denied his people and he is uniquely qualified to run for president.

Interesting enough, many great black Americans, such as Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, civil rights activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Stokely Carmichael, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, -- to mention but a few -- are, like Obama, descendants of African immigrants.

White America never questions those white immigrants who have paid their dues and made it to the top, such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, retired U.S. Gen. John Shalikashvili, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others of European descent. Leave it to black America to lay the land mines that will sabotage meritocracy.

The blogger meetup.

Were you at the blogger meetup last night? The setting was very pretty:



And the company was much, much better.

Uh-oh.

I'm in a contest.

UPDATE: I see John Cole has attempted to pick up Kevin Drum's meme, and he begins his list of worst posts ever with:

1.) My first selection is Ann Althouse video wineblogging, but I am not sure whether to put that in my top five best post list due to the sheer joy it brought me, or the worst because of how truly awful it was.

Later he crossed this out and wrote:

Disqualified because it looks like she sobered up and edited out most of the drinking. Damnit.

Uh, John, maybe you sobered up. These videos were never edited after they were posted. I have various vlogs where I hold a glass of wine and take perhaps a sip or two (while talking about something other than wine). But thanks for making your own mental distortions so crushingly clear.

And I hate the spelling "damnit," you damned nit.

UPDATE 2: John Cole writes that he's sorry for writing that my video was edited. Bizarrely, he goes on to grovel in an apology to Juan Cole for something entirely unrelated. He has a 353 word post and exactly 20 words of it are the apology to me, and he only says he's sorry for saying there was editing, not for smearing me with statements about drunkenness. Moreover, he titles this post with my name and uses the word "wineblogging" to further insinuate that I was drunk, which was always a lie.

Writing about his smearing of Juan Cole, John Cole says:

I have no excuse, and the only explanation I can come up with is that I was still completely un-moored regarding my politics at the time... and I lashed out at what I felt was a safe target. It is embarrassing, because I like to think of myself as a good person despite my launching pointed barbs from time to time, but this truly was a shameless and vicious post. That post had the potential to do real damage to someone’s integrity and reputation, it was completely unwarranted and baseless, and I am truly ashamed for writing it.

John Cole is unconcerned with my reputation. For him now, I am a "safe target." Maybe if he switches political sides again, I'll get the abject, groveling apology some day. For now, it's to his political advantage to suck up to Juan Cole, so here he goes. And watch his clueless commenters laud him for his impressive humility. Enjoy thinking of yourself as a "good person." You pathetic hack.

UPDATE 3: In the comments here, Reader Iam writes: " Cole's never gotten over Thanksgiving 2005, and other events November and environs that year (no typos there). That's clear." I'd totally forgotten his role in that little blogstorm, which is explained in this old post of mine. Here's the part about John Cole:

And what about this character, another PJM insider? He writes about my post, saying I'd "lost my mind" and titling the post "Ann Althouse's Integrity"? All for a little old "Yikes"! Oh, I see, he was over here commenting and I deleted his comment. Yeah, because it was too abusive. Now, on his own blog, he's calling me "a liar ... spreading malicious untruths." Where's the lie? He thinks it's a lie to have written about the accident in this post when I wasn't watching the parade on television!

Let the historians of blogging judge who's lost their mind....

Truly pathetic. Nursing his hurt feelings for 2 years. Is that what the good people are doing these days? Loser!

UPDATE 4: To the other loser who posted to note there are edits in the video, I never said the video wasn't edited. It was edited before it was posted and never edited thereafter, contrary to what the pathetic hack John Cole lied.

Heroic...

... baby.