Category Archives: Home & Family

San Jose City Hall 1887, 1967, today

San Jose City Hall 1887, California

Born and raised in San Francisco, I have lived in San Jose, California, for over 15 years but am still learning its history.  Last summer I found some old postcards. Since we were downtown today, I took a photo for comparison:

  • Above is a postcard of the San Jose City Hall built in 1887 (which was torn down in 1958).
  • Directly Below is a postcard dated in August 1967 of the San Jose City hall with text: “This magnificent steel and glass structure has a curved design which has won nationwide acclaim.  Set amid pleasant lawns and beautiful gardens this ultra-modern building is the dominant structure in the new Governmental Civic Center.”  The building still exists at Hedding/Taylor but is no longer used as City Hall.
  • Lowest is today’s photo of the newest City Hall of the “Capital of the Silicon Valley” (first opened in 2005).

I have not been able to find any information about the mid-century City Hall other than this postcard.  Despite having “won nationwide acclaim” in its own time, it seems too recent to have a history…

San Jose City Hall 1967, California

San Jose City Hall 2005, California

Image Copyright 2016 by Katy Dickinson

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Easter Egg Hunt 2016

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Sunday morning was our annual backyard Easter Egg Hunt – a very popular event among our friends, family, and neighbors. Children ages 20 months to 20 years joined the search for hundreds of plastic eggs filled with chocolate candies. For the adults, there were two specially hidden eggs: gold and silver. Only the following unreasonably-hard poems gave clues to their locations:

Silver Egg
(Hidden in the thatch of a jasmine vine on an arbor)
A Silvery Sonnet in Iambic Quadrameter

You’d have to share Bruce Banner’s height
to see me, though Scott Lang’s would do.
I spy Prince Adam’s gift and strong
John Henry’s lifelong deadly work;
those battlefield banner icons
of Henry IV and Richard III;
Cascadian separatists’
beloved Doug rises near me.
You Ravenclaws’ll examine text,
Those Gryffindors’ll fetch ladders,
Gauche Slytherins will counterfeit,
my badgers — Hufflepuffs — prevail!
I shine like the good captain’s shield,
keep on your search and don’t you yield!

Gold Egg
(taped to the top of a tree branch ten feet above the ground)
A Golden Sonnet in Rondel Form

From my stand I see tall privets
and high above me is a tree
above which trucks flew high & free
that now shade stones & thin rivlets.

You ate breakfast warm off trivets
while I perched here meek with glee
from my stand I see tall privets
and high above me is a tree.

My neighbor’s the joy of kid-lets
and grown-ups too shade in her lee
warm on her couch you can see me
above kitty’s curling ringlets.
From my stand I see tall privets.

Thanks to the Associate Easter Bunnies: my daughter Jessica for the poems, and son Paul who stuffed 775 eggs, and to John and Matthew and all the friends and family for helping create the festivities.  Such a delightful celebration of Spring and renewal!

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Images Copyright 2016 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Understanding King Lear

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Our Shakespeare reading group met on Sunday to read his 1606 masterpiece King Lear aloud, and share a potluck meal in a local home.  I wrote my Honors Thesis at U.C. Berkeley on King Lear, so I felt very well prepared for this reading.  John Watson-Williams presented the part of Lear wonderfully, and I very much enjoyed reading both Cordelia and The Fool (as a doubled role).  We had fifteen readers in all to cover characters of the court and countryside.   It is delightful listening to good people enjoy developing nasty roles like Edmund the Bastard, Goneril, Regan, Duke Cornwall, and Oswald.

When I wrote my thesis as a university student, I understood the interaction between Lear and his daughters in a 21-year-old’s context. Now (a few years later), after my father passed on at 85 (about Lear’s age), and I am managing my 84-year-old mother’s affairs, I hear the play differently. I know Goneril to be greedy, vicious, and unfilial but her plea to her father in Act I, Scene IV rings true:

Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, that of late transform you
From what you rightly are.

King Lear is part of my life: a play that is deep and broad and always fresh, offering new understanding with every reading.  The Shakespeare reading group is based at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) but we welcome readers from the community.  We meet every other month: next up is Richard II, in April.

On 24 January 2016, I asked John Watson-Williams to pose as King Lear in front of St. Andrew’s Mark Adams stained glass window of Chaos. John WW gave me three aspects of Lear: benign, stern, and mad:

John Watson-Williams as benign King Lear 2016 . John Watson-Williams as stern King Lear 2016 . John Watson-Williams as mad King Lear 2016

Top Image: King Lear Act I, Scene 1: Image from Shakespeare-Gallerie, printed in Berlin around 1885

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TechWomen Photo Exhibit, Delegations to Jordan and Zimbabwe

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This week will be the first TechWomen photography show: TechWomen: Impact through Imagery at White Walls SF (in San Francisco, California):

Since 2011, TechWomen has been empowering women to be change agents – exposing more women and children to STEM and leading efforts to address social and economic challenges. Last year, TechWomen awarded $15,000 in seed grants to support six action plans. Donations from TechWomen: Impact through Imagery will fund 2016 seed grants.  Bring your friends for an opportunity to share what TechWomen is about: Thursday, January 21 at 6:30 PM

Next month, I am looking forward to joining the TechWomen mentoring program Delegations to Jordan and Zimbabwe, with a visit to Israel and Palestine in between. I am delighted that my daughter Jessica can join me in Israel and Palestine.  These will be my 7th and 8th delegation trips, and my third trip to the Middle East with Jessica. We look forward to visiting STEM programs for girls and women – like the Injaz program we visited in Jordan in 2013, pictured here:

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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews

Front Yard Done and Growing Well

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I wrote last month about putting in our New Front Yard as part of the Landscape Rebate Program of the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD). I started working on this project in April 2015. The yard has already passed its final inspection and our refund check should arrive within the next eight weeks.

The drought-tolerant plants are growing happily and my hope is that the winter rains (should we get any!) will not cause mudslides in the new dirt mounds.

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing – GHC15 in Houston

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At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Houston, Texas, with my daughter Jessica and 12,000 other geeks, mostly women – including over 20 TechWomen mentors, fellows, and emerging leaders! Jessica and I presented a custom playing card to US CTO Megan Smith (and took the photo below with her).

15 October 2015 Update: We planned to sell our Notable Technical Women and TechWomen playing cards and posters at the GHC15 Duke University exhibit hall table (with Dr. Susan Rodger) on 15 October and 16 October.  We are very disappointed that the shipment of Notable Technical Women and TechWomen playing cards did not arrive – although the posters did.  The posters will be for sale on Friday 16 October until 2 pm at the Duke University exhibit hall table. Playing cards continue to be available for sale on the Notable Technical Women website.  We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this shipping mess up!

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Photos Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Hopper - Anita Borg Institute, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

New Front Yard

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During the last week or so, we have been following up on the water conserving landscape plans I wrote about in August. So far, we have removed the old lawn, brought in new topsoil and decorative boulders, created Paul’s seating area, and placed hundreds of new plants. While I am in Monterey tomorrow with the TechWomen mentors and Emerging Leaders from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, John is going to finish installing the new watering system. The last step is to put mulch (bark chips) around the plants to conserve water and protect them. So far, I am happy with the results!  Once everything is complete, I can submit receipts to the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) for a refund of part of the cost of this big project.

August 2015:
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October 2015:
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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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