Point Reyes in fog. Scarce water this summer, but these guys all know how to make the most of their otherworldly environment.
Two chinoiserie canvases (in the archaic, blithely colonialist style of the 18th century) painted by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781).
Two contributions offered by my daughter toward the workplace decor.
North Beach at mid-afternoon in July.
This is an entrance to Golden Gate Park, and I have stood and looked at it thousands of times, because this is also the corner where I catch the bus to go home from work five afternoons out of seven. Below the picture of the park entrance is the picture of the piece of the park wall that I lean against while I wait for the bus. The stones have stood here for about a century. Each block was carved to resemble the natural surface of weathered rocks, they called this type of carved stone "rusticated" and this style of carving was much in fashion a century ago. 
View from the kitchen here at Spencer Alley, facing west. The evening fog has made it (after struggling) over Twin Peaks and is creeping down into Eureka Valley. From there it will engulf the Mission too, before long. And its cool winds precede it. The lumber on the left is the back stairs of a neighboring building. Large yellow peak at center is the backside of the newly built Holy Family Day Home. But the little peaked roof at the top of the picture belongs to another building altogether, a building on the far side of Dolores Blvd, the beautifully restored synagogue that houses Congregation Sha'ar Zahav. The ocean is out of sight here, but feels close because of this freshness of fog she sends across San Francisco every night, almost.
Early walk for coffee on Saturday morning. Took a shortcut down Ford Street (which is only one block long). Nobody was out so early, not in this part of San Francisco anyway. And the light was spectacular. So coffee got slightly postponed in favor of picture-taking. 
I get to work early, after riding the 33 bus-line across the middle-part of San Francisco. This is the view from the front door of the library I am about to unlock. Facing south toward Twin Peaks, here still blanketed in fog – with the lovely-ugly Sutro Tower (for signal transmission) along the horizon, marking the spot where Twin Peaks will indeed be visible later in the day. At right, St Ignatius Church.
It dead-ends after only half a block, and that is all there is of it. Most San Francisco people know the town pretty well, but I have yet to meet anybody who knew where I lived when I named the street. No, wait, I tell a lie. My barber knew. But he happens to live around the corner.
I owe a lasting personal debt to Italian fashion designer Valentino (whose long career was glorified at this recent retrospective in Rome). Last year I was making a skirt for my daughter and struggling with a side-seam zipper. The fabric was embellished with swirling appliqued strips in heavy taffeta. These created three-dimensional surfaces on the fabric surrounding the zipper, which then would get crushed in a conspicuously unattractive way under machine stitching. Just at that time I visited the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and saw a collection of garments from the collection of famous New York fashion person Nan Kempner. On one of the mannequins was a 1970s Valentino gown in red silk chiffon with a bodice of tiny horizontal pleats. It zipped up the back. I stood and gazed at that zipper. It had evidently been hand-stitched with each stitch placed BETWEEN a pleat and NEVER on top of a pleat. Afterwards I went home and redid the skirt zipper for my daughter entirely by hand, using the Valentino method. 
From one school year to the next in the life of a Midwestern child of the early 1960s. The plastic eyeglasses gain a duct-tape bandage where the earpiece has broken. A different home-made shirt. A different home-cut hair-trend. The sub-suburban reality of improvised appearances.
