I discovered (was reminded?) this year that Mother's Day didn't start out as a time to send cards, candy, and flowers to your mother. It began in the US in 1870 as a fairly radical Mother's proclamation for peace. The author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe, issued the first Mother's Day Proclamation urging mothers to keep their sons and husbands from fighting in war.(Wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day_Proclamation ).This year my church, the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist church at Franklin and Geary, is celebrating Mother's Day by gathering on the church steps at 9:30 am and talking about [...]

Yesterday The City was warmer than anywhere else. People I spoke with from Ashland to Phoenix were in cooler weather, and the computer screen showed that all of my favorite cities were cooler. I was tempted to whine when the inside temperature went over 90 yesterday afternoon. Instead, I changed into shorts for the night baseball game we had tickets for. About 5:30 redozdachs and I took an empty MUNI car to the first surface stop along the Embarcadero. We walked along waterfront, past Red's Java House and memorial columns to past seafarers to the cleaned-up grassy area around the [...]

A business associate of redozdachs mentioned that she was getting new clients because of favorable reviews in Yelp! So, as redozdachs's PR person, I decided I needed to check out the site. In a typical Internet free-association foray (like the ones where you start off looking for your Congresswoman's web page and you wind up reading about yak breeding in New Zealand), I spent several hours on Yelp reading and writing about San Francisco businesses and organizations.  I started off looking for an alternative to Wolf's camera. I found a couple stores to check out, and then, of course, I had to add [...]

These folks have perfected the "It's not my fault -- what do you expect?" attitude once you've bought from them. An under-warranty sensor cleaning of my Canon EOS RebelXT will take at least 2 weeks, maybe 6, maybe more, who knows? The store has to send every repair back to mother Wolf in Minnesota. The guy I gave the camera to originally said 2 weeks but told me to call after a week so he could see if he could expedite it. I called and a veteran clerk who answered the phone was immensely patronizing as he ridiculed any idea of getting [...]

The breathless media questioning frenzy to discover why the mentally ill man killed 32 people stops me cold.  What made him so angry? What happened that day? Why did he pick the buildings he did? Just what part of "schizophrenic" don't reporters understand?

I hadn’t realized that crazy-quilt pricing, perfected by the airline industry, had moved into the land of white-bread electronics stores.  Sure, I know that you have to bargain when you buy in the low-rent camera stores on Market, Grant, and Kearny streets.  When you buy at specialty stores like Wolfs I expect to be rewarded when asking for bundles, cheaper extended warranties, or items to be “thrown in”. But, I didn’t expect the pricing at Circuit City to vary depending upon where you are when you ask the price. […]

Another 40-something friend is in the hospital, recovering from cancer surgery after months of chemotherapy designed to shrink the tumors.   The operation was about a week ago, and I think he's cleaned up enough now for his three- and five-year-old daughters to visit him without freaking them out too much. Good surgical results, apparently, but not really good times. Nothing for friends to do. Fortunately other church folks worked with the family and set up an online needs list at Lotsa Helping Hands. Behind a password we see what help around the house is needed (a meal on this day, shopping on that day), and [...]

I made flight reservations to the Denver convention without much problem today. (Okay, no seat assignments on the way home, but standing for 2 hours won't be bad, will it?) However, it looks like the hotel block is filled on some days and filling on the others.  The online site showed most days sold out for either a normal room or a "Regency Club" room from our 5/23rd arrival through our 5/28 departure. The toll-free number reservation number found a Regency Club room for the 23rd and regular rooms for the remaining nights. But, we have to move on the [...]