No on G, car show and flowers.

After campaigning fairly regularly for the past month to Save Sunset Dunes park, I've learned that some surfers are, in essense, NIMBYs for the ocean and attendant environs. Not only do a squeaky wheel minority of them hate the park, they 'fucking' hate it. 

Last Friday afternoon, a couple of us were out with signs on sticks urging folk to vote No on G and an older surfer (read: 50s, white, kinda bloated-looking) came up from the beach with board under one arm and yelled 'I fucking hate all of this!' and 'I can't wait for all this shit to be gone!' while making a wide sweeping gesture with his other arm. It was a really warm day that day and there were about two dozen folk just sitting around enjoying the weather and the view. We said nothing while looking at each other in stunned amazement. Well, I did respond snarkily with a 'you seem nice!', but I doubt he heard me.

The rage that folks have about not wanting a park at the beach is brutal to contend with out in the wild, if you will, but I think I get their upset, however much I do not dig it. They don't want to share 'their' parking spots close to the beach. They don't want to share the waves that they surf on. They want to be wrapped up in some fantasy that Ocean Beach is a sort of 'hidden gem' surf spot for them and them alone. It's nuts.

***

Last Saturday I attended the car show in Golden Gate Park. A buddy of mine runs it, so I get to hang out a bit with him and check out some really cool, older vehicles from the US, Asia and Europe. It's a hoot. Here are a few snaps---

Bitchin' Camero!

Baja Bug, baby!

Funky USPS vehicle from yesteryear! 

***

We planted some Dahlia bulbs this summer and this is one of the beauties that grew. She has just a whisp of white and I love her. 

I decided to treat myself to some cut flowers from the Farmers' Market last week. Cosmos make me smile. In fact, I have tried very unsuccessfully to grow Cosmos in the garden, but they always stay spindly before dying entirely. -lucky to be able to have the cut variety whenever I'm feeling fancy, though!

Oct. 9

Ballots have been mailed and we're barrelling toward Nov. 3 faster than I would like. I've yet to pour over the voting guide; I am not really looking forward to it. A small group of us Sunset Dunes (the park at the beach) supporters were out handing out campaign materials last evening at an event in the Mission. Most folk, as one might imagine, were not there to talk politics. Fortunately, those who did interact with me were pleasant. One comment by a park-supporter was akin to the 'bridge building' rhetoric from some Democrats regarding how we must treat Drumpf cultists. He said something like: We must be nice to those who are for Yes on G (aka the proposition, if it were to pass, would destroy a park). Why do we have to be nice to people who are not voting for the greater good? Why do we have to placate people who cannot see beyond the end of their own nose? 

Anyway, I will end this bit with a snap from last week of the sun setting at Sunset Dunes, the new park at the beach. Ahhh...so lovely. 

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the annual music fest in Golden Gate Park, was last weekend. I didn't go as I had my volunteer gig and work to keep me busy, but I could hear strands of music playing all the way at my place some 2 miles away. Crazy how sound travels. What wasn't crazy, but felt insane, was the THUNDEROUS noise of Blue Angels practicing overhead yesterday. I was in the backyard and both felt and heard the oppressive ROAR of the fighter jet engines. The sky was mottled with clouds, so I couldn't immediately see what was happening (I also hadn't read the news that the Blue Angels would be flying/practicing this week). The sound of the aircraft made me think of Drumpf's cavalier remarks about how Iran could 'take out' (read: bomb) major Southern California cities. 

I don't know about you, but I am not looking forward to the Blue Angels' upcoming air show.

Door knocking in Duboce Triangle and beyond...

Wednesday two weeks' back saw a small group of us go out knocking on doors for No on G, save Sunset Dunes Park. We tackled an area of town called Duboce Triangle, a densely populated strip between Haight St. and Market St. near The Castro, handing out literature to interested parties who opened their doors to us. 

Highlights of the event: A shirtless man answered his door, looked at us, then bellowed NOT interested in our faces. A middle-aged woman barked at us about the city of San Francisco trying to take away parking spaces for cars. (And what does that have to do with the park?) 

I have committed to spending two hours each week at Sunset Dunes with literature and a smile to share what voting for Prop. G would bring. It would bring, should it pass, an end to the park. All of the park infrastructure would be ripped out--benches, refuse bins, hammocks, play structures, the skate park, parallel bars, art installations, the kids' pump track, etc. It would all be removed and the city would have spend circa 10 million dollars to convert the park back to a road for cars. 

Highlights so far: Multiple older white men feeling no compunction about screaming FUCK in my face in order to emphasize how much they hate the park while USING the park. I did respond to one such an individual with, 'Why don't you go walk in the street then?' while gesturing toward a neighboring road. Spying my narrow-minded anti-park neighbor walking in the park until she was close enough to my contingent of pro-park peeps at which pointed she pivoted away, removing herself from the stretch of old road she professes to hate.

***

I had an interesting interaction with a customer at my job the other day. He'd mentioned that he'd moved away about 20 years ago and that it was nice to be back in town. -turns out he grew up in Pacific Heights in the 80s and 90s. For those who are unfamiliar, Pacific Heights in one of the poshest sections of SF. I don't know how we got on the subject of the current Mayor of San Francisco, Dan Lurie, but we did. This customer had attended private school with Lurie. I expressed a distaste for the Mayor, citing his having grown up an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune as being one reason why he was unfit for the job. There was no way, in my opinion, that Dan could be a man 'of the people' as he had grown up in rarefied air, if you will. I knew that the person with whom I was speaking would, too, have grown up in priveledge based on his zipcode and the fact that he now lives abroad in one of the richest countries in the world. What I didn't know was that I was speaking to someone who was the son of billionaires who were decades-long politicians in their country of origin. He listened to me spout upset about Mayor Lurie and then said something to the effect of: People are complicated; many politicians publically espouse positions that they then do hold personally. That is, of course, the case, but it doesn't make fighting for what is right any easier.

Apropos of this post, I will leave you with an image of the stunning Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in existence in the world. 

Today

I am unable to comment on posts, at present, and that feels weird. Delighful-looking crab-apple jelly, beautiful Dahlias in NZ...all these lovely posts read that have brightened up my mood. Thank you, bloggers, for your thoughtful posts. 

***

I spent two hours yesterday canvassing for No on G--save Sunset Dunes Park--at the old Great Highway. What never ceases to amaze me are those who would gladly use the new park while knowing that they will vote to dismantle it come November. It's not necessarily what they say, but how they say it. One younger fellow walking with out-of-town visitors said through clenched teeth that he had already 'made up his mind'. I had to fight the urge to say with a huge smile, 'Enjoy your park walk!' at him in response. Many who are in support of Sunset Dunes gave the pro-park signal of a thumbs up, a raised fist, or a peace sign while walking, biking and jogging by me. That felt good. One old coot on a bike bleated an anti-park slogan while tooling past me on Sunset Dunes. I wanted to tell him to go bike in the street with cars, if he didn't like the park, but thought better of it. While many are steaming mad that they cannot drive down ALL ROADS all over town, I can't mirror their anger when engaging with them, but I sure do want to. 

*** 

The woman who designed this bad-ass symbol---

died a couple of days after the great Gloria Steinem. Her name was Robin Morgan. I grew up with Ms. magazine, and am, myself, a 'Ms.' I knew that Steinem created Ms. magazine, but what I did not know was that R. Morgan had been an editor at Ms. for many years until reading her obituary. She was a radical in the best sense and I am so glad that we had the pleasure of having her on the planet. 

Aug. 26, 2026

Everything makes me cry these days. I blame being a huge sack of walking hormones and mine are in meno-flux. 

Things that make me cry without fail: 

• how fucked our country is in so many various ways and I will not illustrate them here because it is such a fucking downer
• the loss of blogger friends
• any part of the UK suffering from wildfires right now
• the loss of long-term clients from the memory care center where I volunteer
• Dolly Parton's death

***

School is back in session where I live. I can hear the school bell, the kids' voices and see the cars a-clogging the short block on which I live twice-a-day from my living room window. Well, I COULD see them if the window were not covered in a thick sheet of plastic. We are having the facade of the house spruced up. The cheap-o 70s siding has been removed and the old stucco struck off. The aluminum windows, another relic from the 70s, will be replaced with something a bit more modern and energy efficient. Underneath the old stucco is Douglas Fir framing. The boards are thick and rich in color. They've been put up in a diagonal design that almost looks to be a herringbone pattern. It's really rather attractive.

***

To mangle B-rate movie actor Ronnie Reagan's jibe at Senator Cranston: Here we go again! The cranks who want to return car traffic to a two mile stretch of road along the ocean have managed to secure enough signatures to bring this issue back to the voting booth. If anyone cares to read about this latest development affecting the west side of San Francisco, here it is!

I will leave you with a bit of beauty from our garden. The mini passionflower plant has, after four years, finally produced one wee flower and it is spectacular. 

Late July

It's been a series of highs and lows of late, both literally and figuratively. There was my exceedingly warm birthday in the middle of July that, traditionally, was neither hot nor very blue-skied along this part of the California coast. Given the toasty forecast, I threw caution to the wind and held a BBQ in my backyard and it was glorious. -no long sleeves, no goosebumps. Last week, I had a serendipitous meeting in my hometown with a former colleague from 20 years' back. She happened to pop into a shop that a friend of mine runs while I was there making chit-chat. I should say that I bump into people from seemingly almost all decades of my life living very near where I grew up, but this particular former co-worker, originally from Minnesota, bounced around the country a bit before returning to California post-pandemic and landing in the small city in which I grew up. -kinda nifty! 

In May, my husband was laid-off from a job he'd held for more than a decade. He has since rediscovered his love of fishing. The hubs grew up fly-fishing in Colorado. We live near the Pacific Ocean. There was a slight adjustment to be made before he felt confident in his efforts surf-casting, but his near-tireless efforts have paid off--

Striper, approx. 26", caught 7/31/26

Yesterday was gorgeous, so we took a bike ride up and through Golden Gate Park en route to the Dahlia Garden as it is in the early stages of blooming. It's an annual must-see. Here is some of the bounty--

Cats and country

My husband took this picture yesterday afternoon and it makes me want to turn it into a 'Happy Summer from the Cats!' card to send out to friends and family. 

The below snap is one of the many pictures I take of Bartie in repose. I send these types of pictures to my sister and her response is ever thus: HE LOOKS LIKE HE'S DEAD!

We're sliding toward 250 years of being a country. I am not excited about this marker, to be honest. The usual BOOM! BOOM! fireworks will stress out the cats, of course, and we're in a shit spot (understatement of the year) as a nation. What's to celebrate? 

I have vague memories of our bicentennial. I was in kindergarten; red, white and blue streamers and liberty bell images figure in my mind when I think back to that time. The line: The spirit of '76! is also coming up for me. -must have been part and parcel of how we decorated store-fronts and the like. Although I think that it was also the tag-line of the gas station chain called '76. 

In other news, an active-duty serviceman recently protested on the Capitol steps against our current Oval Office occupier and his vice-president. He was then arrested by Capitol police. According to reports, Major Watkin would be the first-ever active-duty commissioned officer in the military to publicly protest for the impeachment, conviction and removal of Trump and Vance.