Happy Birthday Sacramento Public Library! 150 years old and celebrating it this weekend.

I’m not especially religious, but if I was, my church would be the library. I go every week (yes, really) and every week I am inspired, soothed, and excited about something I saw at the library.

Libraries are the last great sanctuary, and librarians are its keepers. My boss, after reading another depressing political article and a response from the ALA, recently told me, “Librarians will save the country!”

I would have to agree. Congratulations to all the local librarians, active and retired. You have earned this Sacramentan’s respect.

…between neighborhoods, that is.

Recently I was identified as a Greenhaven resident in a new, debuting Sacbee column. There was another mistake that was later corrected, but the Greenhaven resident reference actually bothered me. I think I am becoming a snob–heaven knows I pay enough rent to be one.

I am “technically” (according to several Sacramento sources) a resident of the Pocket (make sure you lift your nose in the air as it is said) neighborhood.

This is due to the fact that said high rent residence is on the west side of Florin Road, and not the east.

And do be sure to take note that this is Florin road BEFORE it crosses the I-5 and enters…Danger Island. Yes, there is such a place. It is not on the maps, but anyone who has ever been there knows why it has that name.

Intrigued by the last couple posts, I did some combo-googling and found this post on some apartment rating website. It involves both Natomas and police helicopters (as well as a heaping helping of vitriol.) I recommend you check it out just for the sheer volume of bile squeezed into a relatively small space.

In other news, today was pretty much a perfect Sacramento day, with high clouds, some periods of sweet sunshine, and general all-around good karma. I spent much of the day with a family who purchased a super-cute first home in DP Heights: 4 beds, 2 baths and a whoooole lot of pride of ownership. It was really great to see some Sacramentans who are doing well in the housing market amid the doom and gloom showered upon us pretty much every day. As he was being interviewed by Univision, the husband kept repeating, “Si se puede, si se puede.” Yep. It can be done.

About 1:30 in the morning, I was awakened by a helicopter circling…RIGHT over my house. I had the window open, and it sounded like the whirly-bird was going to land on our (tiny) backyard. The spotlight was on as well. I thought someone was running along the canal–maybe a fugitive.

Come to find out, they were “illuminating” a traffic accident that resulted in a fatality.

I wish people would slow down, pay attention, and drive like they have something worth living for.

Whilst jogging ’round McKinley park today, I came across a new thing. Having been jogging around this particular 1.02 mile stretch of Sacramento for over ten years now, I thought I was pretty inured to the sights: sorority girls busily eliminating incipient beer guts, soccer moms pushing BOBs, that one guy with the half shirt who looks like he’s doing five-minute miles, alterna-weddings in the rose garden, and hosts of other things. Today, however, brought a bit o’ the auld sod, as a bagpiper in full regalia was laying down some phat skirls over by the tennis courts.

This is the kind of thing that makes me happy to live here.

Natomas is a catastrophe waiting to happen, the tortured fever dream of land-happy developers and tax-hungry city officials who find it very hard to say “no” to more people and more tax base. There are just so many reasons to be uber-skeptical of North North Sacramento:

1. People who bought houses next to an airport and then complain that the airplanes are too loud.
2. The Army Corps designating the area as having 100-year flood protection so developers could have their saucy way with the land, and then after Katrina telling developers, “oh, just kidding–it’s more like 50.”
3. Thundermall and its sole means of ingress and egress: Two Cars Go In…One Car Comes Out.
4. The rash of foreclosures looming on the horizon as more and more of the adjustable rate mortgages on beige homes start to ratchet up. Cue brown lawns and discoveries of Elk-Grove-like pot houses.
5. How horrible it will be to live and drive out there when I-5 is undergoing construction downtown to fix the leaks in the boat section.
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Not to sound like Jerry Seinfeld, but what’s the deal with Natomas? I was in the Del Paso/East Commerce Shopping center yesterday and it looked like a lot of the food court restaurants were closing or about to close…one said GRAND OPENING, which I think took over for a failed restaurant. I know the restaurant business is hard, so I’m wondering what they key to success is here…

What type of food court selection could be successful in Natomas (that doesn’t have the name Quizno’s or In-n-Out attahced to it)?!??! Do you think success will come to some of the small guys? Is the market just so overssturated that these small, non-chain restaurants will never turn a profit?

I think things will get better once new office spaces open, since theses places offer traditional lunchtime fare…but I’m not sure that’ll be enough.

Better Question…When is a Trader Joe’s coming to Natomas? It seems like the perfect suburbia haven for the company…lots of single-family homeowners, plenty of Type A yuppies to choose from…

If you’re on a budget and have kids, you might want to take trip over to Land Park. It’s a little bit of country in the middle of the city. There’s an interesting little lake/pond on Land Park Drive with funny ducks and fountains and (gasp) you can fish there, too. I am not sure what the folks we saw fishing there caught on Sunday (other than a cold) but hey, the number 6 bus drops passengers in the area, and parking in the park is free, if you’re driving.

On another recent weekend, I took my rambunctious kids to Funderland, which is a cheap thrill for kids of their age (under 12). It’s relatively quiet and clean, and there’s no entry fee. Once you go in though, be prepared to be whined at by small children (your own) until you purchase a pack of tickets. Each ride is only one ticket per person–no math.

When we pulled out of the Funderland parking area, though, there was a little boy in the middle of the park, peeing on a tree. Two adults stood near by, having an engaging conversation. I guess the toilets were too far away for said urinating kid to walk to with preoccupied adults…as always, Sacramento, I am impressed by our collective couth. (Notice dictionary link so one can find out what “couth” means.)

Check out the website for the 49er truck stop here in Sacramento, where the I-80 crosses the I-5. I was “blessed” with an opportunity to meet a friend there recently (longer, more convoluted story). And no, I was not purchasing drugs or a companion for the evening, but I suppose you could do that anywhere, even at Mikuni’s or Rick’s Dessert Diner–if you look hard enough for purveyors of such things.

As with all things truck stop like, I was concerned about the appointed meeting place so I looked it up on the web and was reassured. Seemed like a nice place–online. But it wasn’t AS nice and pretty as it is on the website. Overall, though, it wasn’t as bad as a truck stop might be. (I worked at one once when I was in my teens, back in the Dark Ages. Scary.) The staff was friendly and it reminded me of the Midwest–yes, right here within a few miles of the center of the city.
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Squirt guns.
Espionage.
Subterfuge.
Deception.
Synonyms.

Sacramento City Assault.

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