Brian and Ted Retire

Happy retirement to two amazing tobacco activists — Ted and Brian — married to each other and wisely retiring on the same day! Congratulations also to Amaya for her taking over LGBTQ Minus Tobacco. I know you’ll do more amazing work as a leader in tobacco control. I’m so happy to be connected with this community in the Bay Area after volunteering in tobacco control decades ago in New York.

Poolside on Pride Day

Twinsies pictures of Snoopy and foster Dolly (fka Penny). This was the day Shea finally got to share his major keto cheesecake concoction. It was well-received and it was a nice way to wind down Pride Day after a sojourn into the city. The dogs, including our two new fosters, really enjoy going to the pool and being around us while we’re relaxing in the warm pool water. It’s nice to have such long days with lots of hours of light to linger into the evenings.

San Francisco Pride 2025

We made it to San Francisco Pride yesterday. This year we were smarter. We took BART most of the way to shorten the trip and make it as comfortable as possible with as few modes of transportation as we could take. I love the rainbow “Dog Dad” baseball cap I bought there. I can imagine places where I will wear it to start a conversation.

Unfortunately not everyone got the memo that street fairs are smokefree, so we didn’t stay long in front of city hall. I wasn’t in the mood to be confrontational during such a festive event, but I did take note of how entitled these people are to take away the fresh air of other people. While the enemy is the industry, some people still lack common courtesy.

It was wonderful to run into our sweet friend Neeraj, who we can always count on being anywhere there is two-stepping! Since it had been a year since Shea and I last two-stepped ourselves, I knew I would be useless on the floor this time. We should practice more.

Homemade Basque Keto Cheesecake

Because Shea is currently doing Keto it made it very challenging for me to find a birthday cake he could eat on his birthday. He found this recipe and made a sample and full-size cake, which turned out well. There is only a tiny amount of carbohydrates in the flour.

Rowing Early on Shea’s Birthday

Before he even woke up, I got up at the crack of dawn to take the early morning row. My knee had been bothering me for a few weeks when we were off, as I think I was losing muscle. Since we resumed our vigorous practices, no more knee pain on my long-standing bone spurs which developed after my dislocated patella back in 2018.

You’ll see a crazy kayaker with a paddle in one of the pictures. He flew along despite the major white caps we encountered.

Hello from Vallejo, California!