Author: FauxPaws

Slow-down, crash or soft landing?

The most-commented stories on SacBee.com always seem to be about the Sacramento housing market. Yesterday’s piece is no exception. with people arguing in the comments section that the market is a) vastly overpirced, with up to a 50 percent price reduction on the horizon; b) in stagnation, with no price increases in the future, but no “crash”; or c) just taking a breather.
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Here it comes

101 … 105 … 109 … 109 … 108 … 109 …100 … and then a cooling trend next week, all the way down to 98. Read it and sweat.

I have to admit to feeling like I brought this all down on us, after spending the better part of an hour talking to my native San Francisco pal about how Sacramento really isn’t hell on summer earth, touting the Delta breezes, lots of shade, two rivers, etc. “Well,” she says. “At least your housing’s affordable,” which is something only a San Franciscan would say.

Fill up the kiddie pools, folks, it’s going to be a long week.

City vs. County

Which is best, city or county?

I now live in the county, just outside the city limit. But I still miss the city. I grew up in East Sacramento, next to East Lawn. By high school, we’d moved to the edge of Carmichael; by college, I’d moved back downtown. I’ve lived city, suburb and rural, in every corner of the county. I still like the city neighborhoods best, but a couple years ago I happened to trip across the perfect house for me in the county, so there I am.

In my dealings with the various bureaucracies, I have to say that the city beats the county every time, in my experience. Overall, I found living in the city much more pleasant and interesting.

Let’s go to the list:
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Signs of summer

Is anyone really missing triple-digit weather? Pleasant as the temperatures may be, it’s difficult to believe it’s almost officially summer without one or two of those sizzling Sacramento days. Without them, you have to look for other signs.

Here’s one: The first stack of wood spotted piled in parking lot, soon to be a fireworks stand.

Others?

The tail end

Long before Paris Hilton started dressing her Chihuahua, long before anyone ever dreamed about putting a small dog in a baby stroller … there was a place in Sacramento where you could buy a leather biker jacket for your dog, and much, much more. East Sacramento’s Reigning Cats and Dogs (56th and H) has been open for something in the neighborhood of 20 years, and in that time has become a favorite among area pet-lovers. Where else could you get a kitty tree-topper for Christmas? A bereavement card for a pet-lover? That perfect set of cat or dog earings or cufflinks?
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How high-tech is the Big Tomato?

In a front-page article this morning on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign — and fast-changing political views — the Wall Street Journal referred to “the technology-obsessed streets of Sacramento.” (Article here, but subsciption required, alas.)

The phrase really stopped me. Does the WSJ have us confused with San Jose? Granted, we’re likely higher on the high-tech scale than a lot of places, but aside from having Intel and H-P in the ‘burbs and wi-fi on the Capitol Mall, I can’t say I’d describe us as “technology obsessed.” Not like Orlando, where every place you open your laptop you have a wi-fi connection (or so it seemed to me).

Am I wrong here? Are we really the high-tech paradise the WSJ seems to think we are?

Red state, blue state

Ms. Paws is on book deadline, and so not much allowed out of the house. But … she did allow herself a trip to the Whole Foods, to stock up on healthy eating during the final deadline push.

Is there any place in town where the reds and the blues mix so easilly as at Whole Foods? Just look at the parking lot. Shiny earth-fuckers with their Bush-Cheney stickers still proudly displayed, parked right next to battered old Subaru wagons with 20 year’s worth of tree-hugger bumper-stickers plastered over every inch of rear space. Everyone seems to “support our troops” but the way to do that seems to differ. You can see those yellow ribbons next to a “somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot” sticker or a “these colors don’t run” one.
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An endorsement with teeth

Politicians love endorsements, and I’d guess that supervisorial candidate Larry Carr is no exception. But I can’t imagine he’s feeling all that excited about having locked up the dog vote.

In fact, the news that he has came not from his campaign (which doesn’t even mention this on a rather long list of supporters), but rather from the Sacramento Dog Owners Group, which endorsed Carr because he “used to have a dog” and because he showed some support for SacDOG’s ongoing push for more off-leash recreation areas.

Still, with County dog owners likely outnumbering Bee subscribers — Carr picked up The Bee’s nod, too — maybe it’s not that bad an endorsement after all.