Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.
I've written hundreds and hundreds of posts over the years. To help you find your way to the best of the best, I've tagged my favorites "Don't Miss!" Scroll down here to find them.
Another way to locate Riffs on Life that you might enjoy is to click above on your favorite category – "My Ever-Changing Family," perhaps, or "Funny Button." You can also use the search box located way up top to hunt for stories by topic. There's fun reading at "garden," "aging," "kids" and, of course, "Jon."
It’s time to put the final tweaks and edits on my book manuscript so that my editor can send it off to be formatted – and published. It’s been years since I started work on “Wrestling with God.” I’ve written draft after draft and tried format after format. I’ve been wrestling with that manuscript and what I want this book to be as fiercely as I’ve been wrestling with God and who that might be. Read more.
I keep a stash of greeting cards in my desk — birthday and anniversary cards to send to sisters-in-law, brothers, nephews and nieces as the dates come up. But that’s not what I needed on a recent afternoon. I needed sympathy cards. Two of them. Read more.
Lots of wonderful stuff to see at the Berkeley Potters Guild the other day. The work of three potters in particular, each with a distinctive vision, caused me to pull out my trusty point-and-shoot and click away. Read more.
Some artists seem to be able transfer the way their minds work onto paper or canvas. And of those artists, every once in a while, it’s a mind that you’d like to spend more time with. I’m thinking of abstract painter Judy Seidel. Read more.
The Institute of Mosaic Art left its creative mark on facades all over Oakland’s Jingletown neighborhood before moving last year to Berkeley. Visitors are welcome to stop by, and on a recent afternoon there was plenty to see: mosaic lemons, mosaic limes, a mosaic bird — and a mosaic bundt cake. Read more.
What does a farm family in Michigan have in common with a courtroom in Hayward, California? A nearly forgotten social skill. Read more.
Is Oakland the next Brooklyn? Lots of people are saying so. As rents and living expenses skyrocket in San Francisco, thanks to the tech boom, hipsters and artists are relocating across the Bay to Oakland. Read more.