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…
Category: SF Bay Area
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…