Dunlap Dabbles

One of my favorite things about San Francisco is how health conscious everyone is. I don’t mean that Los Angeles health consciousness either where you can go to a restaurant and tell the waiter you’re trying to eat healthy and he’ll give you a knowing look, leave without taking your order, and reappear holding a large bowl of ice cubes and an ornate set of tongs. No, people here are always lauding the benefits of granola and “good fats” and scrutinizing my menu selections by way of bio-chemistry. Even if their advice turns out to be misguided they still aren’t wrong because they have succeeded in creating a healthy body image.

It is this relaxed and, depending on how you look at it, classic or advanced view of health that allows San Franciscans establishments to have resident animals. As someone who has had pets for most of their life and less than exemplary kitchen maintenance I personally see no problem with a cafe worker petting their dog before preparing my food but it is still surprising to see how common the resident cat or dog is here. After all, I assume that most of the sophisticated people living here don’t share my sentiment that any meal where they avoid giving themselves food poisoning is a step up. As far as I know the FDA still exists in San Francisco; but, now that I think of it, I can’t actually recall seeing grades displayed in any windows.

The phenomenon of the resident animal is not limited to the food services industry, they can be found anywhere from book stores to other book stores. Any such establishment is a guaranteed “STD” candidate, especially if you are currently living sans pet. Being near an establishment with a resident animal is much like being the cool aunt or uncle. You get to enjoy all the perks of hanging out with a baby like having an excuse to play with legos or model trains and a peek-a-boo partner is never far away. All of this is entirely on your own terms though and there is absolutely no excrement to deal with. So far I have only found two caveats to my resident animal relationships and they are quite minor and should be common sense for anyone who has any experience with animals.

1. A cat is still a cat no matter the setting and a keyboard by any other name is still as comfy.
Yes, the love affair between cats and keyboards has been extensively documented and you would do well not to forget it.

These are just a few images from the historical cheezburger archives and they are why I build an extra thirty minutes into any visit to Local 123 on San Pablo. Local 123 is an ordinary coffee shop which I would normally write off as overpriced, especially considering their inconsistent internet connection, but their outdoor back patio and resident cat Billy the Braggart have helped establish it as a standard in my cafe migration pattern. Here is some documentation of a recent trip I took there

2. Like a sarcastic gay man, kitty has claws. A recent post gym visit to Comic Relief on Shattuck for a casual Brian Wood fueled comic read/pet sesh took a tragic turn when their resident cat got his claw caught in my the basketball shorts. As the feline in question, who I have not yet named, became increasingly alarmed, so too did I. I tried to calmly extract his paws from my shorts but this proved impossible once the proprietor saw what appeared to be a frantic interaction between his cat and my crotchal region. The upside of this was that he didn’t seem to take any issue with the fact that I had effectively read a DMZ trade in his store. Maybe this point should be retitled “cats are masters at misdirection.”

In any event, I highly recommend that if you find yourself simply sitting in your apartment, get up and set out for someplace. It doesn’t matter where. Even if you find yourself just walking into stores, which is something that makes me feel guiltily unimaginative and brainwashed at the same time, you may just find a resident animal that makes everything better. A pet, especially one that isn’t yours, doesn’t care if you have no job; they only care that you are warm and are wearing soft clothes. These priorities are something we could all stand to be reminded of once in a while.

*If anyone knows how to insert photos without having them get included in a gallery please let me know in a comment.

To enlarge a gallery photo click it, then click it again. For those who have seen Zombieland, “double tap.”