Is this year over yet? At least it didn’t seem as long as the last couple of years, whew. 2022 was fairly mellow on my end; mostly spent in and around San Francisco, with a few short road trips for museum excursions, wine tasting, baseball games, and the like. I attended the Art Deco Society Preservation Ball in May, and (finally!) Le Bal des Vampires put on by PEERS just after Hallowe’en. Free music: saw Phoebe Bridgers at Outside Lands and Elvis Costello during Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (both festivals in Golden Gate Park). One new experience for me: Opera in the Ballpark (La Traviata, quite stunning on the big video board, with hot dogs that I bet you can’t get in the San Francisco Opera House snack bar. It was hella cold, though!)
I am finishing up a (tediously but unavoidably long) book design project, a third, expanded, edition of the guide to Cypress Lawn cemeteries in Colma (I now know where all the bodies are buried!) written by local historians Michael and Shirley Svanevik; and I’m still participating in a couple of (mostly online, thanks to Zoom, the rare silver lining of the Covid pandemic) book and writing groups. And I’m still making feeble attempts at decluttering; if you get a mystery package with some dubious treasures, it most certainly did not come from me
Looking through my photo collection (I upgraded my iPhone from 6 to 13, and love being able to shoot decent fireworks pix!), I see a lot of stuff from museum exhibits. There were some really good ones — in California alone — this year: fashion designer Guo Pei (Legion of Honor), Ramses the Great (de Young), Diego Rivera (MoMA), 2021 film costumes (FIDM), and a swath of movie memorabilia (Academy Museum of Motion PIctures). I also continued my volunteer activity as a docent for Western Neighborhood Project’s exhibit of historical artifacts from the (currently empty but on track to reopen under new management) Cliff House.
Also flowers!
I decided it was way past time to make a return trip to Maui, which I did with my friend Ruth in October (it was her first trip to this island). My last visit was back in 1976, when we, as poor grad students, slept in a tent and mostly ate meals over a camp stove. On the other hand, we got to hike Haleakala crater, which I would not attempt today. The 2022 visit was a bit more upscale. We stayed in a small, kinda funky but totally comfortable guest house, Old Lahaina House, walking distance to downtown, the beach, and some laid back eateries. We had a fabulous boat snorkeling excursion to Molokini, attended one of the high end Hawaii Food & Wine Festival events, and enjoyed a luau and a slack key guitar concert. We also ate some delicious local food, visited the volcano, watched a lot of sunsets, took naps and leisurely swims in our private pool. It was awesome. Probably my favorite part of the visit was a volunteer Malama ’Aina activity organized through HFWF22, a visit to the agricultural non-profit Kipuka Olowalu, where we learned about their efforts to reintroduce native plants and helped to weed some taro patches. Hawaii has been agressively promoting ecotourism, with many opportunities for visitors; I highly recommend checking these out if you are planning a trip to the Islands, or to anywhere else for that matter.
These are my reading and viewing recommendations for the year, for what it’s worth:
Books: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (actually, everything Vo has published so far is fabulous): A Thousand Ships and Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes (female-centric takes on Greek myth, preparation for my upcoming summer women-only Greek Island cruise). I’ve also been reading a slew of memoirs and biographies, from Ronnie Spector to Moe Berg to Ron Shelton to Buffy Sainte-Marie to Simu Liu to Duke Kahanamoku. And Star Wars novels.
Movies: Everything Everywhere All at Once (Michele Yeoh is a goddess and may finally get the attention she has long deserved); Three Thousand Years of Longing (ditto Tilda Swinton); After Yang and The Banshees of Inisherin (O’Fearghail Clan Forever!!).
Streaming: For my money, the best TV series this year were Andor and Reservation Dogs. I’m also currently enjoying Wednesday.
Oh, and my little band of coral reef ne’er-do-wells have had some new adventures:
Coming up with new holiday greetings is boring, so I’ll just repeat what I said last year. I wish everyone a happy, warm, and stress-free holiday season: remember that it goes until the end of Lunar New Year festivities, at least where I live, so make the most of it. Drink lots of egg nog, watch as many episodes of The Great British Baking Show as you can find, set up some sparkly lights, create a bookhenge in your living space. Give yourself a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine, and a booster shot for whichever gift-giving holiday you celebrate.