When Jennifer first began working at her new office in October, she mentioned that the Jordanian consulate was also in her building. I’d forgotten this until Saturday, when we stopped by to show off her new digs to Jen’s parents, who’d flown up from LA for the weekend.

Unlocking the front door, we noticed that the country’s coat of arms had been pasted inside the building’s Mission street entrance. Though the details are slightly obscured by a mid-afternoon shadow, its hard to miss the archetypal Bedouin icon, the desert falcon, symbolically holding up the Hashemite royal crown.

Walking up towards Union Square afterwards, I wondered how many people took notice of it, and if they did, understood it – the falcon, the importance that Bedouins play in Jordanian politics. Overhearing Arabic on the street, twice in the course of the next ten minutes, I figured, most likely, more than a few.