Sally Fay

Many of us have been to and worked on many a benefit over the years and appreciate the work that goes into them, but when you find yourself in a state of constant elation at one, it catches you by surprise! Well, that's how I felt throughout the entire night...

Palm trees may sway in Hawaii but it was the sway of San Franciscans that prompted the existence of the gem on the big island, the Mauna Kea Hotel. Certainly, some credit has to be given to Laurance Rockefeller, but San Franciscans should...

Everyone says time heals, but what it really does is clarify. For me it took a year or so after the divorce settlement before I could say, "Oh, wow. I had no idea my ex was that kind of a person." Funny how one of us thought we had grown...

There is something especially moving about Beth Setrakian's dream to open up a bakery cafe finally coming true. Anyone who has followed Beth and her culinary talents through the years has watched her working hard towards this dream. We have all...

On Dec. 8th and 9th in New York City, Sotheby's will auction off art and antiquities from the collection of the late San Francisco grande dame, Dodie Rosekrans. I was lucky enough to know Dodie and her husband, John Rosekrans, growing up...

Before it's too late, head over to the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco and see the exhibit of paintings, historical drawings, sculpture and monotypes of the important California artist, Nathan Oliveira (born 1928), who died last year. Beyond October 22nd you will never again see these last paintings of...

Here's the deal. I am a first timer at divorce so please don't think of me as any expert or a qualified advice giver. Everyone's situation is different. I am just grappling with mine and sharing my experience. I am giving you a sincere reading from where I stand. I...

Recently a friend brought to my attention the current exhibit of Jake Lee's vibrant water colors depicting unseen history to California's earliest days at the Chinese Historical Society of America (the oldest and largest in the U.S.) at 965 Clay St. in San Francisco. The name of the show is...

I love the T.S. Eliot quote, "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." It describes exactly how I feel now to be blogging about Arts, Culture and Society in my...

As traumatic as divorce is for a couple, it is what it does to the kids that is most heartbreaking. One minute they are enjoying the freedom and glee of their lives, next minute, the music is interrupted. Kids love when life and family are one unified melody, a beating...

Can you imagine being hired by a family as a travel agent, being privy to personal details about them, deciding in the process, that, regardless if it is unethical, you would pursue the husband? You are in your mid-forties, divorced, no children, you know what it is to struggle and...

Without a doubt, while we were going through our divorce, the hardest thing for me to come to terms with was discovering the extent to which my husband had lied to me. I had to see the evidence laid out on a conference room table during a "Discovery" session before...

The utter destruction of divorce cannot be underestimated. It comes in like a tornado and hurls the house, the contents and family members literally out the door. That my life has been a mad scramble in the last three months is an understatement. House closed, moved, storage bins, holidays, gift...

No more poignantly does the hurt of divorce become more glaringly exposed than at Christmastime. Let alone all the lit up messages of the yuletide season for love and peace and family that switch on and off in our psyches, it is a time that we naturally reflect upon our...

The first thing you hear when faced with divorce is "Do you have a good lawyer?" Everyone is emphatic about it. I wish at this point that someone had taken me by the shoulders, thrown a glass of cold water in my face, asked me if I was listening, thrown...

Explain to me the phenomena of where the husband has the affair, leaves the wife of 26 years who loved him, strips her of her house and belongings and stability, treats her abominably, and he's mad at her. I find it fascinating. Wait a minute, shouldn't I be the one...

In the last year, I got divorced after 26 years of marriage, had to sell the house my three children grew up in for seventeen years, had to split all the art and furniture that had made our home, had to have all my children "leave the nest," had to...