I had a fantastic time today at "Lindy in the Park," a weekly outdoor swing dance that happens every Sunday afternoon in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. A mainstay of the Bay Area lindy scene since 1996, Lindy in the Park is a great public outreach for the dance, since it attracts hundreds of passersby,…
Category: SF Bay Area
Following a Leading : a two week update on my Bay Area move
"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." — Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 1973 So it's about two weeks into my big move from New York City to the Bay Area, which has been really wonderful so far. Mole and I are mostly…
My elderly mom tries out the Prius electric/gas hybrid (video)
My sister rented a Toyota Prius hybrid electric-gas car yesterday and really likes it. Here's her giving our mother a quick lesson in driving the Prius. I think it's interesting how nervous mom is getting the thing started, but once she was driving for a couple of minutes, it just became another car to…
An Epic “Homecoming” Party with Family and Friends
This weekend, my awesome sis Cori threw an incredible “homecoming” party for me and her with a bunch of our friends and family in the San Francisco. The celebration had it all: a hilariously cheesy San Francisco photo backdrop, a huge Filipino feast from Goldilocks bakery, Karaoke on a big flatscreen, and hits of the…
Strawberry Creek Meeting: Sun-drenched Silence in Downtown Berkeley
Today I continued my Tour of Bay Area Quaker Meetings by visiting the Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley. I arrived at the location a few minutes late, where I found a dozen or so people sitting in on folding chairs in the middle of a school courtyard. "I guess this is the Meeting," I thought…
The 9:20 Special: Where the Bay Area Lindy Hoppers Gather Every Thursday
Last night I headed out to the Russian Center in San Francisco for the weekly "9:20 Special" lindy hop dance held there every Thursday. The 9:20 takes place in a beautiful old ballroom with a gorgeous sprung wooden dancefloor that packs a couple hundred dancers from complete newbies to oldsters like myself. Classes at various…
Worshipping with Quakers in Palo Alto : Red Means Ministry!
This morning I continued my "spiritual tourism" of the Bay Area, visiting the lovely Palo Alto Quaker Meeting. A number of Friends recommended this community to me, knowing of my plans to relocate to the Bay. While it's probably too far to be my main Quaker home here, I thought it was still worth a…
Mole and I Chillin’ in Cali: From Snowstorms to Sunshine
So my cat Mole Negro and I took a fairly smooth and drama-free trip from Brooklyn to my mom's place in the Bay Area yesterday. Mole was a trooper, even when he had to be carried through the security scanner, suffered through a long and bumpy plane ride, and then a short drive to my…
Fun Facts about Pleasanton, California
In late January, I’m moving back to my mom’s house in Pleasanton, California, a place I spent most of my childhood in, but don’t know much about. I did a bit of research today, and here’s some interesting tidbits I came up with: Pleasanton is a mid-sized city in the Southeast Bay Area with a…