Call it Easter or call it complicated

We sat in our little group around the large round restaurant table — a journalist, a master gardener, a Realtor, a law student and a poet.…

Caring is key to good service

To say it had been a bad day would be an understatement.

There’s one in every crowd

I had just delivered a birthday cake complete with its sputtering candle to a delighted couple at the end of the bar, cleaned up the post-prandial…

You can be right or you can be happy

The sun had been shining and the birds were still chirping; only winter in Northern California can look like this. Seventy-six degrees when the sun goes…

Getting right to the Point

“Where are you guys?” I said into my cellphone as I sat in my car just outside the Presidio Social Club, in San Francisco’s Presidio. “Do…

Mixing sex with dollars is risky business indeed

“How’s it going girlfriend,” said the girl’s friend in that strange intonation that usually accompanies just such a statement. “It’s going,” said the new arrival. The…

Don’t confuse hip for classic

“Hey Jeff,” my co-worker said. “Do you know what this is?” I followed the point of his thumb to the tattooed 24-year-old in his stocking cap…

Competition is all good fun, except when it is in a bar

“Would you like to look at a menu?” I asked the couple after furnishing each with a pre-dinner libation. “No,” said the male half of the…

When it comes to cocktails, just call me old-fashioned

“What’s that you’re making?” the young woman sitting in front of me asked. Seeing how I had just made 10 different drinks, five of which were…

No matter the game, someone will lose

They arrived just before kick-off. The two men I had seen a half a dozen times before, backslapping and high-fiving their way through many a football…