Tag Archives: Bay Area

They have bigger squirrels — plus other sights of Berekeley

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I watched this squirrel who is much larger than my little Harris’ Antelope Squirrel of the Sonoran Desert. I watched this guy scramble up the chain link fence and dance around the tennis players.

Our trip to help our son post surgery plus spend time with our daughter and DIL, has come to a close. We’ll see them in a few weeks at Christmas, which seems unbelievable! Time flies when you’re having fun.

Here are a few sights I saw on my way to the French bakery near the hotel:

Morning Glories!

This was a Bonzai in front of a house.

A very happy house, indeed!

I think this is some sort of a maple, but I’ve never seen one shaped like this.

At the bakery waiting in line. My son said this is the best bakery in the East Bay.

When a place is good and has a reputation there is a line. I waited in line for 30 minutes for sandwiches. They sold out within an hour Saturday, so Sunday I went right at 11 a.m. when they start selling them. Once inside, I read the sign that said: “Sandwiches Tuesday through Saturday.”

Oh well. I found a few other things to try.

Whew! Back at the hotel with a box of goodies. Ready to visit the kids for one last time before we head home.

Once home, it’s unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping and feeling grounded again.

What on the agenda for your week?

Worrisome news

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Cloudy sky during our walk
We took a long walk, bundled up, between rainy days.

We were supposed to get together with our friends this weekend. I’m talking about the couple who moved from our old hometown to one mile away from us in Arizona. We were out for our walk when I got a phone call from them.

It turns out my friend was headed to UCSF — the same hospital where my DIL is receiving treatment for cancer. One of her daughters was mugged by a gang of teens to 20-year-olds during her lunch hour. They punched her so hard she has a torn esophagus. This was a gang from Oakland. She was mugged in San Francisco.

Less than two weeks ago, my DIL’s sister was mugged in Oakland. They stole her iPhone. Because it has tracking on it, the police were able to arrest the mob of teens to 20-year-olds and return her phone. She was punched in the face, but didn’t need hospitalization. The police told her that this is an ongoing problem and they were thankful for her help to catch the thugs.

I wonder if it’s the same gang that attacked my friend’s daughter and if they were released to mug more people within two weeks?

If I know two people mugged in a short amount of time, this must be happening frequently. My kids, my DIL and siblings and my friend’s kids are the only people I know who live in the Bay Area — besides a few bloggers I follow.

In my neck of the desert, there is an outbreak of burglaries. So far none in my neighborhood, but in the surrounding area. According to the Sheriff, it’s a crime ring from South America who hide in the washes behind houses and break in once the lights go out.

I have felt so safe here that we rarely lock our doors. I do now.

Do you feel safe where you live or have you noticed an increase in crime?

How odd do you think it is for me to know two people mugged in the same city within two weeks?

Why not call 911?

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I had to share these lovely blooms in a planter in our backyard.

If you watch news, you probably heard about two employees at Lululemon who were fired for calling 911 when a robbery occurred. They also recorded the thieves in action on their phones.

Jennifer Ferguson and Rachel Rogers told local outlets they reached out to authorities after a group of robbers came to their store in Peachtree Corners, despite company policy that says employees should not intervene in robberies. 

“We didn’t really feel very protected or know what else to do,” Rogers told local TV station 11Alive.

“We are not supposed to get in the way,” Ferguson told the outlet. “You kind of clear path for whatever they’re going to do. And then, after it’s over, you scan a QR code. And that’s that. We’ve been told not to put it in any notes, because that might scare other people. We’re not supposed to call the police, not really supposed to talk about it.” 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/former-lululemon-employees-say-they-were-fired-for-breaking-store-policy-after-calling-police-to-report-a-robbery/ar-AA1bMqry

I learned that this was the fourth or fifth robbery at that store by the same men.

Both my son and daughter have worked retail, my daughter at Lululemon in Scottsdale during a Christmas season. My son worked for the now defunct American Apparel while a student at UC Santa Barbara. When he moved to the Bay Area he transferred to the store outside Chinatown.

The manager who approved my son’s transfer was gone when he showed up. Nobody knew that he was supposed to be employed there. A massive robbery occurred one night after the store was closed and they lost $50,000 in denim. The alarm never went off and the manager, who hired my son, was fired.

Then my son was robbed while he worked there. The policy was not to interfere with the criminals for employees’ safety. I heard about this much later because it was one of those “Don’t tell Mom” events.

Yes, I was terrified when I found out about it. I’m thankful my kids have moved on from retail in their careers.

It is said that theft in stores is a victimless crime.

What are your thoughts? Is shoplifting a victimless crime? Do you think employees should be allowed to call the police? What can be done about the current crime wave?

What does qis mean?

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alphabet board game bundle close up
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

While I was with my kids, my son asked me to drive to Target and buy a game of Scrabble. I’m not keen on driving in the Bay Area — really not driving anywhere. I’d walk everywhere if I could.

If you were watching the weather, a bomb of a storm was predicted. Fortunately, where we were in Berkeley — it wasn’t hard hit. There was a ton of rain and wind. Some houses were flooded, but we were fine.

Still. I wasn’t excited about driving. I walked to my daughter’s apartment, which is less than two miles from my son’s house. She asked me to walk Waffles the pug while she was at work. I asked if I could borrow her car to go to Target and the grocery store. The answer was “of course.” She left the car keys for me inside her apartment. She’s so close to her job, she doesn’t have to drive.

Scrabble wasn’t at the Target .2 miles from her house where I could walk. I had the choice of two Targets in other towns. I buckled in and found my way with little trouble except for dodging massive potholes — which must have cropped up from the storm. They were tire or car killing potholes. I avoided all but one and felt proud of myself.

Armed with Scrabble and groceries, I returned to my son’s house. He and his fiancee have been playing Scrabble online as of late. I haven’t touched the game since I was around 10 years old?

I played my son who was home alone (and doing very well after surgery FYI.) His first word he laid down was qis — notice there isn’t a u after the q. His word was placed at the center star where you get a gazillion extra points. I challenged the word.

“Look it up,” he said. “Google to see if it’s a word in Scrabble.”

I had my laptop handy and BINGO! Qis is a “yes” for Scrabble.

The next word he played was drat.

“That’s not acceptable. That’s slang!” I said.

“Slang is allowed.”

“Not in my day,” I argued.

Needless to say I lost by more than 100 points. This is not the Scrabble of my childhood.

We both broke out in fits of laughter when he built a new word and it resulted in a second built word “za.”

“You can challenge that if you want,” he said. “I’m not sure za is a word.”

“What do you think it means?” I asked.

He said it was short for pizza — but we were laughing and he admitted he had no clue what it meant or if it was a word.

I checked the laptop. Za is a yes for Scrabble. Short for pizza.

Do you remember slang words in Scrabble? What are your thoughts about what I believe are new rules for Scrabble? Is this the Scrabble of your childhood?

Another life saved

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my daughter and Waffles
Waffles the pug with my daughter during a beach vacation.

My kids like to call me when they’re walking. Yesterday, while my daughter was walking Waffles around her neighborhood I heard her say “Oh no!”

“What?”

She talked softly, “There’s someone laying on the sidewalk. Probably a homeless person.” My daughter explained that they look away from homeless people, that they don’t want to engage them. My kids live in the Bay Area where homelessness is a problem.

“He’s bleeding!” she said. It looked to her like he had slit his wrists. She ended her call with me. Minutes later she called me back and said he was conscious and was trying to get up. I suggested calling the police but she didn’t think they would help. She tried calling some mental health crisis centers, but nobody answered. Apparently crisis hotlines are staffed at night, not in the morning.

She called me again and said she asked if he wanted her to call someone or if should she call 911. He told her to call 911 because he couldn’t get up. She did and asked for the police and an ambulance. She waited with him until they came along with the fire department.

Another life saved by my daughter.

As a lifeguard she saved a drowning young boy. Then one evening in Laguna Beach, she and my husband went for a walk and a swim. She saw two people struggling in a rip tide. It was hours after the lifeguards were off duty. She swam out to them and told them what to do, to stay calm and helped them in. My husband swam out after her and they were able to get the people — who were drunk — safely onshore.

On her way back to the vacation cottage, she spotted the neighbors dog loose. She brought the dog back safely to its yard.

Yes I’m proud of my daughter to have empathy and to be able to help those in need. She said people were walking by ignoring the man. She was the only one who stopped to help.

What would you do if you saw someone who was probably homeless, bleeding on the sidewalk? Do you think you’d try to help? Or more likely walk away? Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do.

What a week

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Sunrise in Berkeley from the front steps
Sunrise from my son’s porch Thursday morning.

I arrived in Berkeley Saturday night to help my son for a week post surgery.

I called my husband repeatedly who remained at home. Normally, I talk to him lots of times each day when we’re apart. Even when he went into an office for work, we called each other several times a day. When I hadn’t heard from him in 20 hours — I was worried.

Finally, he called me back and he sounded horrible. He said his throat felt like razor blades and he was congested and had aches and pains.

He called his doctor for an appointment when he felt even worse. No appointments available for two weeks. You know where this is headed, right? He found a tele-med appointment and called me Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m. — after his appointment. The diagnosis was Omicron. (Razor blades painful sore throat is the number one symptom.)

I was sitting in my son’s house with the kids begging me not to go home to my COVID-infected husband and house. They want me to stay. I’m sure my son and his girlfriend welcome my help, but don’t want me to catch the virus, either.

I’m terribly worried about my husband all alone in the state of Arizona with COVID. He’s already sicker than I remember him ever being.

We’ve been double vaxxed and boosted.

The kids received rapid tests from Amazon and they made me take one. It was the longest ten minutes waiting for the line to appear on the test.Two lines COVID, one line Negative. I cooked my son his slow cooking oats — waiting for the results to show.

Negative.

My husband works remotely from home. I’m home all the time. We’re together whenever we go out — at least this has been our standard operating procedure since COVID hit the country and we moved to a new state. How did my husband get it and not me?

I went back and forth on whether I should stay in California for a few more days, or whether I should take a flight back immediately. I finally decided to stick to the original plan and to take my noon flight home today. I’ll take a Lyft from the airport and move into the casita. Hopefully far enough away to not catch Omicron, but close enough to be there if my husband needs medical help.

What a stressful scary day. The other weird thing is when COVID hit so close, I felt like we had done something wrong. Like we’re guilty or dirty. I never felt that way with the flu or a cold. I think it’s because there’s so much politics going on with this virus.

If anyone in your family or close friends have gotten COVID, did they have a mild case or was it severe? How long did the symptoms last? Did part of your family get it but not everyone?

Another week, another surgery

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Rainbow in Santa Barbara during Christmas week.
A rainbow over the Christmas week VRBO.

This week I’m back taking care of my son in the Bay Area. He had surgery a few days ago. He heard the garbage truck coming, realized he forgot to take out the bins and raced down the stairs, breaking his foot. The last time I was here taking care of him, he had shoulder surgery from overuse injuries caused by swimming and rowing. That was several months ago, but not long enough for him to be healed and to be able to use crutches.

At Christmas week in Santa Barbara in the VRBO, he stayed on the main floor with us (mom and dad) and scooted around the kitchen and living room on his knee scooter. The main floor had the master bedroom and a small second bedroom. The rest of the “kids” — ages 21 to 34 — were on the lower level and out by the pool. I can only imagine how frustrating it was for him to be stuck with mom and dad.

He made the best of it and hopped down the spiral staircase a couple of times so he could sit with everyone by the pool.

I’m not sure what this week will bring. I’m sitting in his living room while he sleeps on the sofa with a cast on his foot. He has to return to remote work so I may be sitting quietly by getting ice for the ice machine and filling his water glass.

I brought a book I thought I’d read while I hang out in his house this week. But I finished more than half of it during during the plane ride. (Chanel Cleeton’s “When We Left Cuba.”) The good news is he and his girlfriend were Literature majors and they have a nice supply of books. I don’t need to get worried about finding another book to read.

shelves full of books and a knee scooter
Books and the knee scooter in my son’s living room.

What are you reading now? Have you taken care of your adult kids after surgery? We went out to dinner with friends the night before I left and they said they’d never do it. That their kids are on their own. What are your thoughts about that?