Falling Off The Cliff....Or Not

I’ve feared going over a cliff. I suppose most of us have. As a kid, I remember dreaming about standing on the edge of some abyss or being on the school bus in my pajamas—long before wearing pjs to school was occasionally okay. Maybe I’ll have to take this up with that dreamy lady at the Benicia Herald, Carolyn Plath, who analyzes these nocturnal trips.

When I hiked the Grand Canyon the first time, people seemed to think it was really dangerous, that one slip of a foot and I might plunge thousands of feet to certain death or so much pain that I’d wish I were dead. Not really true. There are many ways to get injured hiking there and other places, tripping, falling, dehydration, getting lost, but falling a great distance isn’t likely, as far as I could tell.

Which brings me to the other kind of cliff we’re hearing too much about: the financial one. A fiscal cliff is a little different. I guess my wallet goes over the edge.  I stay intact on top, but I'm missing the currency and credit cards that make my life so much more livable than it is without them.

Not everyone is in agreement about how bad this fall would be. Read Why Washington’s “Fiscal Cliff” is a Myth . Read others who differ with the standard scare talk we’re all hearing on the media by following this link.

Military West and the surrounding streets are getting a major overhaul between East and West Second Street. They’ve been at it for a while now, steering us one way and another around the construction.

Someone at coffee pointed out that the corner of N and East 5^th Street is an eyesore. The dilapidated building with an ugly fence around it, right across from the Holiday Inn, is seen by all those coming into town at Fifth Street. Can anything be done about this? (See pictures). The fence looks like the one around part of the Commandant’s Quarters, a very under-used asset

My granddaughter, who was born at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, recently turned fifteen, and as that is the legal age in Colorado for her to get a learner’s permit, she went to the DMV with her original birth certificate in hand. She was turned down, as the certificate was issued by the City of Berkeley and not the State of California. This wasn’t a slap against Berkeley apparently, as officials told her certificates produced by cities are more easily copied by those in the business of producing illegal documents. A passport was found at home which was deemed acceptable, although (of course) it had been obtained with the Berkeley birth certificate.