[graffiti at 3rd Avenue and Clement Street]

There's a sort of conventional wisdom that the first question someone asks when they meet you differs greatly depending on where you live. In cities like Washington D.C. and New York people ask, "What do you do?" In Boston they ask, "Where did you go to school?" (meaning college), and in cities like Pittsburgh (or anywhere that people tend to stick around) they ask, "Where did you go to school?" (meaning high school). In San Francisco, where so few people actually grew up and status is not determined by your job or education as much as it is by how cool you project yourself to be, the first question someone asks is usually, "What neighborhood do you live in?" If you're talking to a hipster and you don't live in the Mission or the Tenderloin, you really feel the need to apologize to them. If you are talking to someone who lives in Russian Hill, they might stare at you blankly when you say you live in the Inner Sunset, and then they say something smug like, "I never go west of Fillmore." While the neighborhood apartheid can be a bit aggravating when under a hipster's scrutiny (our neighborhood is not the coolest), the unique culture of each neighborhood is one of my favorite things about San Francisco. Spending weekend days with Wood and Juniper exploring a different neighborhood is one of the things that I will miss most about this city.

So with twenty weekends left, Wood, Juniper and I are going to spend some time saying goodbye to our favorite places. And making fun of them through photography. Every week we're going to post a flickr set of pictures from our weekend adventures.

This week our neighborhood: Clement Street, in the Inner Richmond. To visit the flickr set, click here.

[with format credit to byrne unit's briantologist, whose flickr expeditions are legendary]

Yesterday, as the bug, Dutch and I were walking home from one of our long walks around town, we passed one of those stores that sell used kids' stuff that are usually called things like "Too Good to be Through" or "Twice as Nice." I think the name of this particular one is "Clothes-Go-Round." And of course they're pretty great -- like garage sales that are open Monday through Friday.

When we walked past the "Go-Round," it was long closed. But down on the sidewalk in front of the door was a single black and white plastic teething ring. I stopped, looked at Dutch, and we both looked down at the ring. We were both thinking the same thing: the bug would LOVE that ring.

At some point on the mile or so walk to our apartment from there, I rubbed the ring between my thumb and index finger and it occurred to me what could be on this ring. Clement street is one of our favorite streets in the city, but it's not known for its cleanliness (let's just say it's no presidio heights). Chinese fish shops throw still-wriggling chunks of bloody fish into icy sidewalk bins and after a long hot afternoon they just wash the sidewalk with a hose; Irish bars stay open well past the legal closing time and drunk expatriots puke all over the sidewalks until the wee hours o' the mornin'; cigarettes everywhere, fruit from Chinese markets rotting everywhere, and there is always a 37% chance you will end up with gum on the bottom of your shoe. so it's not the cleanest place in the world (nor is it the mission or the lower haight or that strip of golden gate park where all the pot-dealers hang out). With all this in mind, I washed the ring in hot water with antibacterial soap before handing it off to the bug. Who knows what would have happened if I had given it to her when Dutch wanted to, i.e. three seconds after picking it up off the ground.

The ring is black and white (which she loves, since she is a baby, and black and white to babies must be psychedelic or something). It has a pencil-like diameter, and is the perfect size for her little hands. And now it is her favorite toy. We had been looking for black and white teething toys everywhere, but I swear all these companies think parents will only buy colorful ones, and Dutch has just about had it with all of the damn colors this baby has brought into our apartment. Dutch spent two years buying sleek modern furniture for our apartment before I got pregnant, and he had at least two or three nervous breakdowns in the infant department of Target looking at multi-colored exersaucers and gingham winnie-the-pooh swings. So we love the black and white teething ring, and more imporantly, so does she. Of course some mothers wouldn't give their baby a little teething toy they found on the sidewalk near Clement street, but that's just not the kind of mother I am.