It’s been a real effort for us half-full people to put a smiley face on the state of the world, with all the financial disasters and increasing numbers of crooks, cheats and liars.

We upbeat types are not born optimists. We keep a sunny nature even when it’s forced. I think that’s because we fear if we ever went into a steep dive we’d just never stop falling. The half-empty types have it easier. They go around being grumpy and gruff, expecting the worse. But they can always become enlightened and like Ebenezer Scrooge suddenly start kissing babies and dancing in the street. We cheerier-than-thou types might never be able to pull such a turn-around if we got bogged down by only bad news. We might start wailing and never stop.

Still, some days it takes real work to resuscitate your inner Pollyanna.

I don’t need much. Just something to indicate that war and cruelty are not part of human nature and greed is not the only American way and the high and mighty are not all disappointing masters of evil.

Two things lately lifted my mood. I caught a repeat of a Bill Moyers TV interview with a music-maker named Mark Johnson who goes around the world recording a harmonica player in New Orleans and a violinist in Moscow and a choir in Africa to make one song. The global musicians are called Playing for Change and their rendition of “Stand by Me” will make you cheer and cry.

This week at the gym somebody mentioned a story I’d completely missed about the businessman who put up $1 million to take over a hotel in Washington D.C. for the inauguration and give free rooms to wounded veterans and terminally ill people. Now, there’s an antidote for the Bernard Madoffs of the world. Be a generous rich person. Share the wealth. Hoard and you lose. Karma is back.

You have to look for things to cheer yourself on those dark days when you think, “Good grief, what’s coming at us now? Is that fog or a plague of locusts?”

It’s not that I am immune to worry. I worry about the union pension going belly up. Of Social Security running dry. I use to worry about our house losing value. Now it has, and I worry about keeping it. I worry about the newspaper business, the book business and the construction business. But I’m happy for the shoe repair people, pawn shop owners and second hand stores enjoying an upturn in the middle of our downturn.

I worry about something happening to our health plan. I worry about waiters and bartenders losing their jobs because we can’t afford to go out. I worry about California trying to balance its budget by taking money from the schools. I worry about all the people who will lose their jobs if the auto industry goes kaput. And then there’s terrorism and starvation and worrying about one more man or woman being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But everyone’s worrying, and that’s something to make you feel better. We’re not alone. We all feel downwardly mobile. We all are adjusting. We all are cutting back. We all are making more soup. We’ll all crash together. Or recover together. Maybe we’ll get to be true aging hippies and live in the commune we missed in the Seventies.

Hey, there’s something to look forward to.

Listen to the Looking for My Inner Pollyanna radio segment on KRCB’S Another Voice.

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This may be a cautious Christmas for the consumer, but it is tradition that every year two friends and I take a day off to celebrate Christmas in the city, which means heading down the freeway on a midweek morning for the Larkspur ferry to skim across the bay and deliver us to San Francisco for a day of eating, drinking and shopping.

We’ve been doing it pretty faithfully for more than 20 years. First there were three, then four, then five of us. Now we’re back to three stalwarts honoring the ritual and we’re not going to let a recession get in the way. It costs nothing to be with friends, and every woman knows you can shop without spending.

It costs nothing to be with friends, and every woman knows you can shop without spending.

We go to the city to join the festive swarm. You don’t get that shopping from a catalogue or ordering online or going to a mall. Like it says in the song, you need city sidewalks, dressed in holiday style, lit up and loud. You want street musicians, glossy red shopping bags and fantasy windows. You want to be part of the bustling crowd.

This year there was an apparent lack of bustle. Two weeks before Christmas the streets were tame. Lines were short. The cable car guys were so glad to see riders they invited us inside where it was warm and there were seats aplenty.

The crowds were thin but the spirit was there. A young violinist played on the corner, her instrument case filled with dollar bills and a bouquet of white tulips.

We had no problem making merry. Our ritual includes starting off with a Ramos Fizz, a cocktail that one in our group long ago christened Stepmother’s Milk during a challenging period when four of us had acquired young stepchildren and found that leaving town and drinking in the morning is an ideal way to commiserate. The stepkids worked out but we’ve continued with the fizz.

Eating and drinking our way through the city provides time to sit and talk which is really why we do this. Shopping has always been secondary. During a whole day together, with no real agenda, we catch up on dogs and partners and kids, current health status and favorite book and movie recommendations. We’ve known each other since our hair was naturally brown and blonde. We make each other laugh.

We have our route, our designated stops at hotel bathrooms and favorite stores. We look. We touch. We try on shoes. I lusted for a $1200 red leather swivel chair. Our total take was one Christmas ornament, one fancy ginger grater from the kitchen store and three pair of sensible but cool-looking shoes.

Another part of the ritual is the late afternoon martini. We like to search out bars that feel like old San Francisco with lots of wood and preferably a sunset view. It’s not that we drink a lot but, you know, shoppers get thirsty. This year we found a bar on the 36th floor of a Union Square hotel where we watched the sky go from misty pink to indigo. We toasted to missing friends, to our new president, to rain coming to California and a magician to fix the economy.

Leaving San Francisco from the deck of the ferry the city looked as dazzling as always, reassuringly resilient and vital, the Embarcadero buildings outlined by white lights in their new low energy bulbs. We stood under a lopsided moon, huddled together against the cold and then ducked inside.

Listen to the Eat, Drink, Scale Back radio segment on KRCB’S Another Voice.

I think our new president-elect was just having fun with Barbara Walters. You know how it is when someone starts bragging about their dog. You can’t just let the gushing go on and on. Had Barack Obama responded with something like, “Oh, I lovvvvve those darling little dogs,” the public would have jumped on him like a pitbull on a cockapoo. Not to disparage either breed, however, especially the latter - we have a cockapoo in our house.

When we first got our dog a friend asked me what kind and when I said cockapoo she smiled and said, “Of course it is.” I wasn’t sure what she meant? A dog too fluffy for her tastes, but in keeping with my curly headed nature?

Let me tell you, an alpha dog cockapoo doesn’t back down for anyone. Just try to kick one off the bed in the middle of the night. But would I take offense were someone to call her a girly dog? It depends on what they mean by girly. She’s female but she’s not a princess. She’s more cute than elegant. But what’s wrong with cute?

In her interview with the Obamas, Walters went on about her dog Cha Cha, a Havanese, and a breed she thought would be perfect for the next First Family. She said that Cha Cha was like a sweet little terrier. This caused Barack to say, “You mean a little yappy dog?”
He went on - “You mean it sits in your lap and things?”
Michele said it was a cute dog. Barack said, “It sounds like a girly dog.”
Before he went any further down the girly path, Michele Obama reminded her learned husband, “We’re girls. We have a houseful of girls.”
And Barack Obama declared, “We’re going to have a big rambunctious dog of some sort.”

Back in 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger famously used the term “girly men” against his opponents in the California legislature, the ones he said didn’t have the guts to pass the budget. The term offended Democrats, gay people and feminists.

Obama not only waded into the girly world but the dog world. Both can bite.

The term girly is generally used to disparage that which is more decorative than useful and harkens to those old unattractive stereotypes attached to the female gender. I suppose the term girly dog might refer to tiny canines that can be carried in a purse or a backpack. But is small and compact necessarily feminine?

Perhaps a girly dog is one that wears scarves and sweaters, dressed by an owner who refers to herself or himself as the dog’s Mommy or Daddy. Dogs that people speak to in high voices and kiss on the lips. But that could also apply to a bulldog named Butch.

Would a girly dog also roll in disgusting matter, drool on the furniture, get mud on your favorite duvet, howl when it feels like it and drop hair everywhere. Or is that a… what? A manly dog? More stereotype problems there.

I know big rambunctious dogs that tremble under the bed when it thunders and go into a dreamy trance when you scratch their bellies. I know small adorable dogs who bring home dead things.

Was this Obama utterance a breeding slur or a gender slur? Or to give the man his due, was it simply a rare display of his humor. It really doesn’t matter since both Obamas say it’s Michele who rules on family decisions. She and the girls will choose what gets to live in the White House. As for the First Dog Walker? He’ll soon learn to be grateful for a creature that, no matter what happens, will forever greet him like he’s the most important person in the world.