How very odd it is to see a friend of several decades in an urn beside an altar. Jeanette's photo stood behind. And about 20 of us sat and watched. I was struck by the beauty of the church. Perhaps I shouldn't be. What else would a church be? Jeanette was beautiful herself, by the way. We can see that in the photo taken in midlife. Behind the altar is a wall of glass. It frames the field behind the church. Nothing special but California oak and grassland. One of the state's major ecological zones. Read more [...]

I suppose it was a bit of island-lag or Polynesian nostalgia that made me look up the price of kona-coffee-coated macadamia nuts online. Surely they couldn't cost as much as the ones on offer at Honolulu airport just yesterday. Wrong. There they were at Amazon, sporting the same $18 price tag. That's the thing about Hawaii. Rolling waves and languid air aren't free. Actually, they are, but that's another story. As for this story, it is continuing in San Francisco where tomorrow's high is forecast Read more [...]