and while I blogged, Helen went to the dogs. The dogs will have to pay taxes surely.

Two blocks from our place (blue blob on map) in the Outer Richmond District this Memorial Day weekend is Ocean Beach. Thither went Helen with camera, while I added to this blog.

The temperatures this weekend are 53 to 55F = 11 - 13c. Water temperature ditto. So the Sutro baths not in contemplation. Also not in contemplation as they are today not as they were when my father was born in 1906. Some sense of affinity hereabouts inasmuch as my father's father's stepfather's mother and stepfather were married in San Jose (Silicon Valley) in about 1873.

Helen's photo of the baths today and a postcard painting of the 1907 fire from Google images

On the main beach, the world was out with its dog. The SFGate website reports that:

There are an estimated 120,000 dogs in San Francisco, according to the city's Animal Care and Control department. There are anywhere from 108,000 to 113,000 children, according to U.S. census figures from 2000 and 2005.

This wide shot of the Ocean Beach is full of dogs, dogs, dogs, though hard to see, mostly smaller dogs, click to enlarge:

These dogs will have to get to work and pay taxes for the ageing humans.

In corners under cliffs there are love letters and related hieroglyphics freshly engraved in the sand. Doubtless the dogs provide comfort zones for hellos. We do not know to what extent these particular dogs have contributed to these fresh between-tides romantic inscriptions. Do your own fieldwork. For the quantum physical experience, bring your dog.

On the walk beside the beach, many older women speaking Russian. One woman from Connecticut, here briefly for her son's graduation, suggested that San Francisco's hills might provide excellent income for hip surgeons. However it was Helen's observation five years ago in Soriano nel Cimino, a hilltop village north of Rome, that people who walk up and down the town daily seem very robust in later years.