Holiday challenge: to avoid some relatives
The fireplace is burning (because it’s not a spare-the-air day), the wreath is hanging, the tree is sparkling. Promoting her books, “Success Equations: A Path to Living an Emotionally Wealthy Life” and the forthcoming “But It’s Your Family,” psychologist Sherrie Campbell has sent word of her availability to talk about a pressing holiday issue: family members no one likes.
“Toxic family members love manipulating people into giving them all of their undivided attention,” says Campbell’s statement, “and have no problem getting in between family members to pit one family member against another.”
The solutions, she suggests, may be to make gatherings smaller, limiting them to spouses or children/parents, or perhaps escape holiday obligations by making plans to go somewhere you’ve always dreamed of visiting.
When push comes to shove, however, “It’s you or them. Make them choose. Tell your family members that you will not attend holiday events as long as your most toxic family member is invited.”
This last solution would work, perhaps, if everyone could agree on who is the most toxic family member. But if worse comes to worst, “Be careful not to feel too hurt” by the family’s “inability to choose you over the toxic person.”
If you buy a Christmas tree from Delancey Street, you’ll be doing good for people turning their lives around. If you buy it from the Guardsmen, you’ll be doing good for at-risk youth. And if you live in San Francisco or have a business here and you buy a tree from Friends of the Urban Forest, you’ll be doing good for trees.
The Green Holiday Tree project, a collaboration between FUF and SF Environment, encourages people to buy trees that, after the holidays, will be retired from decorative use to be planted as street trees. The buy-and-return scheme is intended to provide “environmental benefits in San Francisco by capturing carbon, cleaning the air, reducing stormwater runoff and providing wildlife habitat,” say the Friends. The trees are 3 to 6 feet tall, available in a choice of species that are appropriate for the local climate, and the $95 cost is a tax-deductible donation to the nonprofit. More information is at tinyurl.com/ya4dfxls.
Employment opportunities: Meanwhile, was it a disgruntled alumnus who scrawled “Soon Firing” under the “Now Hiring” sign on a blackboard outside of Thorough Bread & Pastry? This was spotted by Adda Dada.
“How long,” asks Janice Hough, “until Trump asks for an H-1B visa to hire a chief of staff because he can’t find any Americans to take the job?”
As to the striking mental health workers at Kaiser, Betsy Nolan’s favorite sign read “Thera Pissed.”
“The head of the Mexican drug cartel is El Chapo,” says Fred Reiss. “Here, he’s called Big Pharma.”
More office Christmas party advice, this from the National Federation of Independent Business, directed to managers planning the merriment: “Ask trusted managers and supervisors to intervene and stop any fighting.”
As to that 1980 movie, “Personal Problems,” written by Ishmael Reed and mentioned herein a few days ago, Aife Murray writes to say that any member of the San Francisco Public Library can see it free on Kanopy.com.
Following a unanimous vote a few weeks ago by its building committee, the full board of the San Francisco Unified School District voted unanimously on Tuesday, Dec. 11, to rename Nourse Auditorium the Sydney Goldstein Theater. (That’s specifically “theater,” not “theatre”; Goldstein, who died Sept. 25, always told friends the “re” spelling was affected.) The auditorium is part of the Board of Education complex that’s been the subject of a long plan to transform the site into the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.
The renaming honors Goldstein as founder of City Arts & Lectures and spearhead of the renovation of the theater. Those who spoke in favor of the renaming included community leaders — U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabra, Alice Russell Shapiro, Cissie Swig, Grants for the Arts chief Kary Schulman and U.S. District Judge Chuck Breyer, Goldstein’s husband. Also speaking in its favor was Mission High School student and Islamic cultural proponent Kenan Mirou, Syrian refugee and recipient of a Sydney Goldstein scholarship.
School board Commissioner Emily Murase, co-sponsor of the motion — with Commissioner Rachel Norton — noted that the renaming not only honored Goldstein specifically, but also was in keeping with city officials’ determination to name more civic spaces after women.