Mrs. Alice Todd, center, mother of Thelma Todd, is pictured between Roland West, close friend of the dead actress, and Mrs. May Whitehead, personal maid of the screen star, as they enter church at Forest Lawn ... more Mrs. Alice Todd, center, mother of Thelma Todd, is pictured between Roland West, close friend of the dead actress, and Mrs. May Whitehead, personal maid of the screen star, as they enter church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park to attend funeral services in 1935.

Need combo cap: Above: Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his pet pig Hognob (Nick Park) lead the rabbit hunt in “Early Man.” Right: Eddie Redmayne, left, Maisie Williams and director Nick Park pose with dolls of the ... more Need combo cap: Above: Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his pet pig Hognob (Nick Park) lead the rabbit hunt in “Early Man.” Right: Eddie Redmayne, left, Maisie Williams and director Nick Park pose with dolls of the characters they voice.

My cell phone rang. I could see from the caller ID that it was my 27-year-old son.“I’VE GOT THE WARRIORS GAME ON TAPE!” I screamed into the phone before he could say anything. “DON’T TELL ME WHO WON!”“First of all,” he replied in a soothing tone, “you need to relax. Secondly, no one in the 21st century says they have the game on tape. It’s on a DVR. You’re dating yourself.”“Whatever.

If there were ever a day to explore the moods of San Franciscans, it was Sunday. The nearly cloudless skies provided the perfect backdrop for a balloon-filled, pop-up interactive art installation that explored human emotions — and then put them on display in a small public art space alongside the Asian Art Museum.If you’d have walked by Civic Center Plaza on Sunday, you might have thought a very popular child was throwing a very chic birthday party.

Like generations of bandleaders before him, Myles Boisen knew just whom to call when he needed a pedal steel player who could come in without rehearsals and nail every solo.Last September, Boisen’s band Crying Time put together a birthday tribute for the late country music legend George Jones at the Ivy Room in Albany, featuring a stellar roster of Bay Area vocalists.

Let go of expectations. I say that a lot when it comes to raising “spirited” sons. On the night I take the family out to Le P’tit Laurent, I shouldn’t expect that the boys will actually use forks rather than their hands to lift escargots.Letting go starts with me not assuming that what made me happy will make my children happy.

Garden expert, longtime edible-landscaping teacher and author Robert Kourik stopped by the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa the other day and took a look at the grove of spineless cactus. This was a kind of plant developed between 1907 and 1925 by Burbank so it could be fed to livestock.What Kourik noticed is that the plants have started to grow thorns; the spineless are becoming spined.

Rachel Khong is the founder of the Ruby, a communal space for women. Rachel Khong is the founder of the Ruby, a communal space for women. The Ruby is a membership work and gathering space for women in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Ruby is a membership work and gathering space for women in San Francisco’s Mission District. Women enjoy the camaraderie at the Ruby, a work and gathering place in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Musician and composer Beth Custer remembers filmmaker Cathy Lee Crane coming to see Custer’s group Trance Mission in the 1990s. The two women became friends, and when another of Custer’s outfits, Eighty Mile Beach, wanted to make a video of its song “Red Helicopters,” Custer called on Crane.Crane, in turn, asked Custer to compose the score for her 2006 film “Unoccupied Zone: The Impossible Life of Simone Weil.

Hundreds of revelers squeezed themselves into heavily boned corsets and balanced top hats over heavily greased hair. They patiently waited in the January cold outside the Regency Ballroom on Friday night, handing over tickets to the party inside one by one. Some glowed with ghostly illuminated costumes or eerie lanterns. Their aesthetic blended Dickens-era London, vintage carnival, steampunk, Edward Gorey, vampires and burlesque all at once, but somehow it worked.