7 Things I Loved in September

a book, a movie, an exhibit, a podcast, a bistro, an indulgence, and a foggy escape

If you are wondering how to help those affected by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina: North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund (NC government website) / How to Help NC in Hurricane Helene Aftermath (Charlotte Observer)

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It feels strange to be writing a September wrap-up when it was 89 degrees on the Peninsula yesterday and it will be 88 in normally-frigid San Francisco this week. But here we are. In this post, I’ll share a few things that made my days happier in September. In the comments, I’d love to hear what you loved this month.

Less Is Lost, by Andrew Sean Greer (book)

Why did it take me so long to read this novel? It has been out for a couple of years. I absolutely loved Less, and I will read anything Greer writes and have done for many years, so the fact that it took me two years to get to this one is crazy. But it was worth the wait. Funny, poignant, and—as with everything Greer writes—clever and beautiful at the same time. If you haven’t read Less (which won the Pulitzer, by the way), read it first, and then read Less Is Lost. It’s about a writer, it’s about grief, it’s about love, it’s about aging. And it’s laugh out loud funny.

There’s plenty to love about Greer’s style, from the clear influence of Nabokov to the charming breeziness of his writing. But one thing I find striking is his use of repetition. I’m not talking about lyrical repetition within a sentence, or repetition for the purpose of parallelism, but rather a kind of repetition that is more in line with the best stand-up comedy. Greer uses call-back repetition: repetition of a line or phrase, slightly changed, two to three pages after its first iteration. (The poet and essayist Maggie Smith also does this beautifully, though not comedically, in You Could Make This Place Beautiful).

Thelma, written and directed by Josh Margolin (film)

My husband and I stumbled across Thelma a couple of weeks ago on streaming. It’s one of my favorite movies of the year. June Squibb stars as a 93-year-old widow who goes on a quest to find the people who scammed her out of ten thousand dollars. Thelma steers clear of the dull, ageist stereotypes that are so ubiquitous in movies. Sure, Thelma needs some help from her grandson Daniel (played by Fred Hechninger) navigating the internet, but when it comes to seeking justice, she’s the driving force and the moral center of this story. The film manages to be sweet without being saccharine, and it’s very funny. It also looks frankly at the diminishment of age—the fact that bodies in their eighties and nineties simply can’t do the things younger bodies can do—without playing it for cheap laughs.

I also loved the portrayal of the relationship between Daniel and his parents, in which Parker Posey and Clark Gregg are perfectly cast. Daniel is an only child, and boy are they invested. The film shows the sweet side of the relationship between parents and their single children, while overplaying the concerned-parent trope to hilarious effect. Posey leans all the way in to physical humor of the role. I usually dislike the “frantic” play in films, because it often is just a stand-in for substance or emotion, but Parker does frantic like a meerkat on adderall, and it works.

Galinette in the Outer Sunset, San Francisco (restaurants)

When I read an article in SFGate about a new French bistro in the Outer Sunset last week, I felt compelled. Galinette is the sister restaurant to Union Square’s Bouche, which Julie Fulton and Jeremy Blaringhem opened with Guillame Issavenden in 2011. The coastal origins of Galinette’s owners appealed to me, as the Paris food scene can be a bit stuffy. Even the website, which features a video of two beautiful people battling it out with baguettes on Ocean Beach, is fun and whimsical. The least French thing about Galinette is that it has “daily nonstop service from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.” In Paris, this is called service continu, and it’s rare outside of tourist spots.

My husband and I arrived just after two p.m. on a weekday afternoon and were immediately greeted and seated by Fulton. Her warm, welcoming, joyful presence permeates the restaurant. We started by sharing a cup of onion soup, which could have been a meal unto itself. For the entree, I had the roasted air grilled chicken, which was as juicy as it was huge. It came with green beans—crunchy and mildly seasoned, the Frenchiest of French veggies—and a decadent mustard sauce. My husband had the jambon beurre, which was quite different from the anemic jambon beurre sandwiches one finds at every boulangerie in Paris. Parisian ham and cheese sandwiches are made with thin-sliced deli ham and a slice of Emmental, while Galinette’s version is made with ham on the bone and Comte, a nuttier, altogether more delicious cheese.

Even though it was early afternoon, we ended with the chocolate pot de creme, which my husband declared the best dessert he’d had in weeks. This led him to wax poetic for a few minutes on his favorite aspect of French culture, which is that you always get dessert with lunch. Every restaurant in France, from the humblest to the fanciest, serves dessert with lunch. It’s just a normal part of the French workday. In our time in France, I never met a single person who ate low-carb. They ate carbs and butter, not to mention cheese, every day, yet remained remarkably svelte.

Salted Butter (indulgence)

Salted butter is one of France’s greatest contributions to mankind. We have six different brands of salted butter in our fridge at the moment, because we’re conducting an extended taste test. The best way to experience salted butter is on a baguette tradition, but if you can’t get your hands on one of those (they’re unfortunately difficult to find in the US, even in the Bay Area), you can try salted butter on anything. By which I mean, you can even just eat it with a spoon. It’s so wrong but it feels so right. (I wrote a very long post about this subject, Salted Butter: A Love Story, on The Wandering Writer).

Queen of the Con, Season 6 (podcast)

Queen of the Con, Season 6, will make you look askance at anyone wandering around Sephora in a big coat. The queen of this particular con is Michelle Mack, who ran a multi-million dollar retail theft operation from the garage of her home in affluent Southern California suburb. Mack employed about a dozen women to shoplift from Ulta, Sephora, and other stores. She then turned around and sold the products at a steep discount on Amazon. Mack is just one of many fencing operations that pay individuals to bring them stolen goods from large retail stores.

The takeaway: If a high-end moisturizer is cheap on Amazon, it’s probably stolen.

I first got into this podcast with the Irish Heiress season, which tells the story of Mair Smyth, a self-proclaimed “Irish heiress” who charmed her way into the lives of trusting men and scammed dozens of victims out of nearly a million dollars. The podcast’s creator, Jonathan Walton, was a successful television producer (American Ninja Warrior, Shark Tank) who considered himself a good reader of people, Walton himself was a victim of Mair, his neighbor, to the tune of $63,000. Walton started the podcast to find other victims and to encourage them to come forward. As he says repeatedly on various seasons, victims of a con artist often remain silent because they are ashamed of having been duped. When victims are silent, con artists win and are free to prey on other victims.

K-pop Fashion, Parasite Core, and Watermelon Soju Cocktails at The Korean Wave Exhibit, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

My niece, who works at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, invited us to the members’ preview of Hallyu! The Korean Wave. And even though I know almost nothing about K-Pop, I can (and did) get behind a watermelon soju cocktail served in a bag. My favorite part of the exhibit was the display of Korean fashion, and my second favorite part was getting to walk into a replica of the bathroom from Parasite.

the Parasite bathroom, K-pop fashion, and Korean dresses

My third favorite part was the gift shop, where I drooled over a hot pink furry jacket. I said to my husband, “That’s what I want for Christmas!” The next morning, after the watermelon soju cocktail had worn off, I said, “Remember what I said about the hot pink furry jacket? I don’t actually want it.” He informed me that of course he knew I did not, in the light of day, want that jacket.

Costumes and cocktails in a bag at the Asian Art Museum

There was also food on the roof, and karaoke. Every now and then I have to leave the house at night to prove to myself that I can do it. Sometimes I drag my husband with me, so that he can later say, “But remember that time I went with you to name-of-random-nighttime-outing?” This was just such an event.

Fog at The Sea Ranch

The drive along the coast road from Jenner to Sea Ranch is harrowing, but the destination is always worth it. We’ve been going to Sea Ranch for about fifteen years. Our son says it’s a boring place for boring old people, which may be true, but it’s also magical…if you’re into fog, silence, and long walks on the bluffs. My husband and I spent a few days there this month.

We even played pickleball! In the first game he beat me 11-0. In the second game he beat me 11-5. In the third game he beat me 11-2. I said, “Don’t you ever consider just letting me win? Like, for your own personal amusement?” He said that no, he did not ever consider just letting me win, because that would be an insult to my intelligence. I said no, it would be an insult to my athletic ability, of which I have none, so I would not be the least bit offended. Anyway.

Pictured: coffee at the Sea Ranch lodge and a breakfast biscuit from Two Fish Baking. Before the pandemic, Two Fish Baking had its own storefront up in the hills near the tiny Sea Ranch airport, but in recent years it has moved to the historic and delightful Stewarts Point Store, where we always stop on the winding road into Sea Ranch.

Last minute addition (roll tide)

Oh, one more thing…a late addition, which makes this technically 8 things I loved in September. If you happened to catch the last five minutes of the Bama-Georgia game on Sept 28th, and if you happen to have certain loyalties, you know what I’m talking about. If you missed it, Bama was way up in the first half, then Georgia caught up and made a touchdown in the final minutes of play, so that it looked as though Georgia would win…but then Bama pulled out all the stops, with two big game-changing plays by freshmen. Roll Tide!

Speaking of Less Is Lost

And by the by, a very San Francisco story: About ten years ago, Greer and I did an event at the Booksmith on Haight Street, at which we both noticed that the bathroom door featured a poster of an event we had done together a decade before that at the same bookstore. Sometimes San Francisco is one big time warp, and around every corner is a time portal to a literary event of the past. Which reminds me: Litquake is coming up! It’s the 25th anniversary! I remember doing the first Litquake outside at Yerba Buena Gardens a million years ago (okay, it was actually the first time the festival was called Litquake, although it had started three years before as Litstock at Edinburgh Castle). The weather was perfect and I was young, friends!

Well, the weather is still perfect in San Francisco in October, and Litquake, the brainchild of San Francisco literary icons

Jack Boulware

and Jane Ganahl, is still the most fun you’ll have at a litfest anywhere. It’s also home of the original Lit Crawl, whereby thousands of writers descend up on the bars of the Mission to read and drink and holler and hawk their books. If you write, if you pretend to write, or if you read, check out the Litquake schedule.

What did you love reading/watching/eating/drinking/listening to in September?

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Michelle Richmond is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books of fiction, including The Marriage Pact, The Wonder Test, and The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress.