My cousin has lived his entire life in a tiny town in Massachusetts. He’d only been out of that state a few times before he came to visit us in California. At the time (a dozen years ago) I enjoyed giving folks tours of San Francisco. The first day, we would drive over Bay Bridge, have tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens, lunch at the Cliff House and then drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to end the day in Sausalito.

On the second day we would take the BART to the Powell Street station and grab a trolley over the steep hills to Fisherman’s Wharf.

On the second day of my cousin’s visit he confessed that he really wanted to see the Haight Ashbury district instead of Fisherman’s Wharf. I could have told him that area’s not what it was back in the hippie days of yore but I figured he probably just wanted to tell his buddies back home that he’d been there.

We had to take a city bus that passed through many iconic SF neighborhoods all filled with people going about their business on a sunny day. After several blocks, my cousin turned to me and asked “Where are all the gays?” I guess he thought that there were no straight people left in San Francisco and that gay men dressed like this every day.

He certainly didn’t mean it in any way negative. If there’s one person on earth who doesn’t judge others, it’s my cousin. He’s spent too much of his life branded as hopeless to ever judge another human being. He’d just gotten the idea from the media that San Francisco was a human zoo filled with zoned-out hippies and flaming drag queens roaming the streets for the amusement of out of town visitors. Instead he saw businessmen in suits and families out and about. Even a straight couple here and there holding hands.

I can understand my cousin’s misconceptions but I can’t understand politicians who should know better promoting the conspiracy theory that drag queens are out to indoctrinate the children of America. Drag queens have been around for a long long time and except for the most radical right wing evangelicals, politicians haven’t put them in jeopardy for the sake of sound bite on Fox News. Until now.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were recently uninvited from an award ceremony meant to honor their charitable work. The reason? Influential people complained that they mocked the Catholic Church. Really? Sister Anita Blowjob and Sister Gladass? Nooo. Say it ain’t so. Here’s the thing, this group was founded in 1979 at a time when the Catholic Church shunned gays and people with AIDS. They were all going to hell. I volunteered for Make-a-Wish around that time and have seen first hand how the parents of children with AIDS … through no fault of their own … were treated by churches and communities. So sign me up Sister Irma Geddon and Sister Gard N O’Pansies. I’ll be Sister Know P’nis but Who Cares.

By the way, groups of Catholic nuns familiar with the work of the Sisters spoke up and now they will get their reward and an apology from the pansy asses who uninvited them.

I have to admit that I’ve been depressed lately. Nothing personal. Just the general state of the world. So when a lovely lady I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for many years posted this video of the students at her middle school (I believe she is the vice principal), my hope level went through the roof.

I hope these kids know how lucky they are! My junior high school days were more like prison. Enjoy! And I dare you not to smile.

Flowers, candy and breakfast in bed … well, they’re all very well and good but I prefer a handmade card! Believe it or not, the artist of the above card is only twelve years old! Miss Audrey Gould, artist, actress, dancer, and just about anything she sets her mind to be.

This is a bittersweet day for those of us who’ve lost mothers over the past few years. Whether or not you were close to your mother, it’s like losing an anchor.

There’s an event pavilion on the slopes of Mt. Diablo about forty-five minutes from my house.

You can either pay extra and sit under the canopy or bring a blanket and sit under the stars. I’ve done both and prefer to spread out on the grass and take my chances with the mosquitos. The sound is the same and maybe even better.

I don’t know how many concerts I’ve seen at the Concord Pavilion over the years but without a doubt, this guy and this song made the biggest impression on me.

For one thing, Lightfoot had a mini-orchestra on stage behind him and when they ignited, we were all on that doomed ship, thrown about in the merciless waves and counting the last moments of our lives.

The other song that electrified the crowd that night was “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” It tells the story of the men who built the railroads across Canada, the men now “too silent to be real.” But also of the “green dark forests” that covered the wilderness “long before the white man and long before the wheel”… also too silent to be real. It felt like, in the dark hills surrounding us, druids watched and wept.

He’s gone, dammit. Another chunk of my soul just chipped away. He wasn’t a young man (84) but then, like Leonard Cohen and so many of the legendary poet/folksingers, he never seemed like a young man. They came to earth as old souls, flawed old souls who made mistakes just like the rest of us but were able to confess in word and song.

Fella, it’s been good ta know ya!

Lately my eye has been drawn to images of loneliness. Like this guy who sits on our railing and coos all day long. For a long time I thought I was hearing owls but then I caught him in the act.

According to the experts, owls hoot for a variety of reasons but the mourning dove, well, he’s just horny. According to my husband, who also loves to postulate about animal behavior, this guy’s beloved mate was chased into a window by a hawk. She broke her neck and died and he’s not horny; he’s in deep mourning and will be for the rest of his life.

These two guys are not cooing at each other. The man on the left is wondering if the man on the right is the person responsible for upending his well-ordered life. Not on purpose but as the result of poor timing; the wrong word said at the wrong time. In the above scene, for over four minutes there’s no dialogue or music. Just scenes of a wasteland through the eyes of a doomed man. And then Cary Grant (as Roger Thornhill) crosses the damn road and the action begins again.

Next to our house is a vacant lot with a lone birdbath. When we first moved in there was a teepee village next to the birdbath only we never caught a glimpse of any children at play. But we had nine to five jobs and teen age children to keep us hopping and thus no time to get to know the neighbors.

Then one day I was gardening when I heard a child’s voice: “You’re not supposed to go barefoot in the garden.” I looked over to see a girl of about eight draped in the fence. “Where’s Betty?” she asked. Betty was the previous owner of our house. I explained that Betty had remarried and moved away. “I liked Betty,” she said in a way that made it clear she could never warm up to someone stupid enough to go barefoot in the garden. I didn’t find out until years later that the little girl’s mother was dying of cancer and that Betty was someone she could confide in.

I never saw her again. She abandoned the teepee village. Years went by, the teepees fell apart and someone started dumping tree trimmings on the lot. The swimming pool behind the house next door filled with algae and the property became run over with weeds and overgrown bushes. However every summer someone comes by to trim the weeds around the birdbath and where the teepees once stood.

At some point this little maple will probably grow large enough to disguise the rather odd architectural feature behind it. Right now, it just looks lonely to me. Which is okay. Far by better to be lonely and know you have a purpose than surrounded and lost.

All great and precious things are lonely.”

John Steinbeck