Happy Birthday Saturday!

Where there was one now there are two beautiful purple flowers out back.

Today, my graduate is 19. He was up early and ready to drive to his job in Glen Park, where he works in the produce section of a grocery store. He'll work a shift and then we'll gather to have a family meal with him at one of his favorite restaurants, then his girlfriend is taking him to the Giants game tonight.

It's a very warm summer day here in the city. September is often the warmest and least foggy time of year here.

I'm getting acclimated to my full-time job, developing routines and taking on expanded responsibilities as I'm asked to.

My two younger teens are still in bed, sleeping in one case and resting in the other, after the second week since high school resumed. From the sounds in the kitchen, they are starting to stir...

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A Flower and a Bridge

A flowering artichoke in our backyard.

I'm on-call today as the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is set to open this afternoon -- at least for an official ceremony and ribbon-cutting, if not to regular folks quite yet.

That is to start tomorrow morning at 5 a.m.

As always, with planned news events such as this one, we have both scheduled coverage and contingency plans, should something unexpected occur.

So I'll be paying attention and probably editing some posts this afternoon. This bridge replaqces the one that broke in the Loma Prieta 'quake 24 years ago.

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p.s. I've abandoned plans to republish my mother's memoir here via photographs of the pages. I'm going to explore other options.

Mom -- first two pages

If you click on these they should become readable. Someone please tell me whether that works...

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My Mother's Story

Today, for the first time in many years, I reread my mother's memoir. It is so much richer and more detailed than I remembered. The main characters include her parents, her sisters, Catharine and Elsie, and her beloved little brother, George, as well as her two husbands and four children.

Her life ran from 1915 until 2002, including the frenetic days of World War II. In the coming days, I will try to share some of this content here on my blog.

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Labor Day: How Strikes Have Always Been Portrayed

Happy Labor Day, everyone. Enjoy this old newsreel of the 1934 San Francisco General Strike, from the Prelinger Archive:

Labor Day Weekend Begins

My youngest needed to get to El Cerrito for a sleepover at a friend's house today. With the Bay Bridge closed, she had to go by BART. As she felt a bit uncertain about finding her way, I went along with her and then...

...Got to see my grandchildren also in El Cerrito.

We ended up gardening -- planting seeds for chard, tomatoes, beets, and lettuce.

After dark, I found my own way back to the Mission, to my parked car, to my street, to a parking place, and back home.

I know that sounds trivial, but with all the muggings around here lately (5 alone of KQED employees and a vicious assault that almost killed my neighbor Tom, who like me is an old guy with white hair), I'm truly grateful to have made it home safely.

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#2481

Part of me can't believe we are approaching my 2,500th post to this blog. That is an impressive number for a blogger.

Of course, we have done so in fits and starts, and in its present iteration, hardly anyone reads what I post here.

Today is my sister Kathy's birthday. Happy Birthday!

It is also the day my 18-year-old finally landed a job in the produce section of a local market. Congratulations, Aidan!

If I can make through 19 more posts like this one, we will reach the milestone.

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