Category Archives: News & Reviews

March 18, 2013 · 12:06 pm

Sacred Threads Embroidery – Chairs

Yesterday, the Sacred Threads group at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) displayed the first two of the chair seats they are replacing – which look very good! I wrote about the Sacred Threads embroidery ministry last year when they finished a set of beautiful kneelers for the sanctuary.

The current project is more ambitious: re-covering the many dozen chairs in both St. Andrew’s chapels. The original 50-year-old chairs were caned – but those seats are falling apart. After research, Sacred Threads group leaders found it would cost about US$300/chair to re-cane (lasts about 50 years) but only about US$250/chair to replace the old cane seats with embroidery (lasts about 200 years). Caning has to be done professionally but church members can embroider once the materials are purchased. This was an easy decision! The new chair seat designs are inspired by the stained glass church windows by Mark Adams.

October 2012 – chair project presentation:

Original chairs:

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Filed under Church, News & Reviews

Tagged as St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

March 12, 2013 · 11:00 am

Lions Environmental Photo Contest

The Willow Glen Lions Club voted to submit my January 2013 backyard photograph of a California native Arboreal Salamander mother with eggs to the Lions Environmental Photo Contest. WGL Club member Carol Worthington-Levy generously made a professional-quality print of the image. This is the first time I have submitted a picture to a national contest. Wish me luck!

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Tagged as garden, San Jose, Willow Glen

March 11, 2013 · 6:16 pm

TSA Afraid of Rocks

Ever since I read “Why It’s Time To Break The Code Of Silence At The Airport” by Christopher Elliott (15 February 2013, TheHuffingtonPost) and my daughter’s TSA posts (including “TSA Touching Crosses The Line: Update”), I have been considering how much more invasive and offensive the TSA has become over time and how we enable this behavior by not objecting to it.

This weekend, I flew from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles for training (to renew my mentor certification with Education for Ministry, a program of the University of the South – School of Theology), and to visit my brother and family in La Crescenta. I used two small-ish airports, San Jose (SJC) and Burbank (BUR) for convenience.

This morning, I walked quickly to the head of the extremely short security check point line at Burbank, hoping to have time for a quiet coffee before boarding my flight home. However, I was pulled out of line in the nearly-empty security area not once but twice.

The first time I was pulled from line was so that the security lady could feel my face – after her full-body scanner drew a little yellow box around my apparently-dangerous earring. As you can see from the picture below (and as she herself could clearly see), there wasn’t anything for her to find while she patted down my ear, cheek, and short hair.
The second time I was pulled out a few minutes later was so that the security man could unpack my small roller bag, re-scan my toiletries, and try to take away my rock. I was bringing home a small piece of granite as a souvenir of La Crescenta. He said, after feeling my rock, that I had to get rid of it or check my bag because a rock could be a weapon. It seems that there is a TSA rule saying that rocks over five pounds are dangerous. I chose to keep my rock, so I was escorted out of the security area, then had to walk back to the airline counter (where the counter lady told me that she hears an unusual number of complaints about the Burbank TSA), check my carry-on bag, and go through security all over again.

I made my flight home, but no quiet coffee for me. I object.

Goats Happen

In one of the many long bus trips that the TechWomen delegation took around Jordan recently, our guide told us the story of being awakened one morning in the middle of the capital city Amman by the sound of a goat herd being driven through the streets, to which his neighbor remarked “Goats happen”. From the ruins of Jerash, to the streets of Petra, and alongside every highway, we did indeed see sheep and goats (and occasionally camels) everywhere we went. Sometimes the herds were associated with the flat tents of transient families or refugees but more often they were just moving along the road. Most of us mentors are city girls, not used to the urban goat.

5 April 2013 – Goats even happen in in Palo Alto, California: herd clearing weeds (the fence sign says CAUTION / Electric Perimeter – Area Closed / Do Not Feed Goats / Keep Dogs on Leash):

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Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Jordan, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

February 20, 2013 · 3:46 pm

Heating, Cooling, New Ironwork

Since I returned from my most recent trip to the Middle East, we have installed a replacement home heating and cooling system (furnace and air conditioning units), plus the last pieces of ironwork for our new porch finally arrived. Our 1930 Willow Glen house upgrade is almost done!

We won a certificate from Valley Heating and Cooling for a new, efficient Lenox furnace in the auction at last year’s VIA charity ball and just got around to having it installed. We needed to balance the house air flow in any case, so we added two more air registers plus cooling and humidifying units at the same time. Given the changing climate patterns (“Seven of the top 10 warmest years on record for the contiguous 48 states have occurred since 1990” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency), it seems wise to plan for hotter summers.

At the same time, Brian’s Welding finished our porch railing, breakfast bar, and handrail. We still need to get the tile installed on the breakfast bar. I am glad that we added the elegant scroll handrail – and am very happy to get this project almost completed – we started work in July 2012! Now that the railing is in, I can finally replace the mud in my former-lawn with new garden plants.

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as garden, House Work, San Jose, Willow Glen

February 16, 2013 · 1:20 pm

Phoenix Cities: Beirut and San Francisco

I was born and raised in San Francisco, a city destroyed in a major earthquake in 1906, whose flag symbol is the Phoenix – a mythic bird that arises from the ashes of its prior life. In SF, the ’06 quake is still a matter of common reference, over a hundred years later. Last week, I visited Beirut, Lebanon, a lovely and energetic city rebuilding itself after the devastating 15-year civil war which ended in 1990. Just as with San Francisco, Beirut seems determined to rise up again without forgetting or pretence. My daughter Jessica and I were visiting our friends from the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen mentoring program, and Al-Makassed (the Makassed Philanthropic Islamic Association of Beirut).

I grew up boating on Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park, which features the “Portals of the Past” – the white marble portico of an elegant Nob Hill house destroyed in 1906, donated to the park as a permanent remembrance of the great earthquake and fire. In Beirut, I saw a similar desire to honor and remember in the preservation of the Martyr’s Square statue, with its bullet holes unrepaired.

There are still many evidences of the Lebanese Civil War but as buildings are renewed or replaced, most blast marks and bullet holes will quietly disappear. Beirut displays evidence of its ancient Roman past – a visitor can see corinthian columns next to the downtown shopping area, a Roman bath near the government buildings, and old foundations preserved behind glass under a modern building. I respect the city’s desire to acknowledge and preserve its more recent history as well.

Beauty in Jordan and Lebanon

In my last two weeks traveling in Jordan and Lebanon, I was delighted by the beauty of both places – different as they are. Here are some images I took not to illustrate a story but for their simple loveliness and interest.

Roman arches and columns in ancient Jerash, Jordan: