Rice-a-rena, the San Francisco Treat

A series of errands lead me to various corners of San Francisco this cool, sparkly morning.  I started south of Market where we dropped Peter's car off to be serviced and encountered a power outage.  Without traffic lights, each intersection became an awkward dance of the hesitant.  Drivers seemed to forget the basics of stop sign etiquette.  You go first...no me...no you...okay me...wait you...  Eventually, we wound our way through one way streets to one that would lead us across Market for me to drop Peter at his French class in the Tenderloin.  A few minutes early, we waited outside his teacher's apartment on what we call our "stake outs."  Self-consciously we wonder if we look like under cover cops (in an orange Honda Element), as we watch a steady stream of neighborhood characters.  Transvestite prostitutes walking confidently to their favorite corner.  Unbathed men projecting drug dealer/pimp energy skulking slowly in the entrances of tenement apartment buildings and SROs.  And the occasional junkie shuffling zombie-like past our car windows.  At 7:45 Peter exits the car and I move on to the Wells Fargo ATM at the mood-lit Safeway on Market followed by the used-to-be an ARCO gas station at Castro.  Cash in my pocket, gas in my tank, I roll down 18th Street towards the Mission towards my ultimate goal of a cafe where I can recaffeinate and do a little writing.   As I approach Church Street, I get caught behind my latest pet peeve: a car driving well below the speed limit, missing their right of way turn at Stop signs, remaining parked at green lights until the last minute.  Obviously someone texting or playing Words with Friends while they drive.  Vehicular manslaughter in-waiting.  My state of annoyance is lifted when I look out at the tennis courts in Dolores Park and see a dozen elderly Chinese doing a vigorous Tai Chi on one of the courts.  In unison they stretch their arms forward, palms facing up.  They cross arms to opposite shoulder.  They reach their hands to grab their buttocks and swivel their hips in a gentle, geriatric rotation.  And then they all leap forward in unison.  Oh my God.  Is it the Hokey Pokey?  No, it's the Macarena.  Or, in this case, it's the Tai Chi version.  I'll call it the Rice-a-rena.   Maybe it's the newest thing in Shanghai, but I bet not.  Only in Dolores Park.  Only in San Francisco has the graceful, elegance of morning Tai Chi been fused with 1990s dance craze once named by VH-1 as the "greatest one hit wonder of all time."