My catholic roots are showing. There's a big catholic church six blocks from where I now live. It must have a big congregation because it has four services on Sunday. That's a lot.

Anyway, I checked it out yesterday on the way home from my own church's Wednesday service, where I lit a candle for my grandma and asked the congregation to pray for her health.

But old childhood habits die hard, so I'm off to the 8:45 am service at St. Anne's. They had an earlier service at 6:30 am, but that was way too early for me.

I'm going to have get used to attending catholic services again anyway, because if and when I fly home I'm probably going to be attending catholic mass ever yday with the family.

The family back home is very, very catholic, and yes they know I attend a protestant church, which is so sinful and scandalous in their eyes. But they don't bug me about it too much, because I've always attended catholic services with the family when I'm home. I just don't take the communion, which totally freaks them out as well, but I think they're just happy knowing I'm at church with them.

It's 94 degrees in downtown San Francisco, and it's pretty hot here at the coast as well. Wow, a real summer day in San Francisco.

I'm thinking I need to write about my whole family history. It's so complicated, and I've been trying to piece it together for years.

Let's just say my biological mom was a "hippie lettuce smoking, drug taking air headed hippie chick" type, except she was born way too early for her type. And when you're a pioneer in a still somwhat scandalous type of woman, born into a "good family", well it gets complicated, real complicated, very fast.

Let's just say my mom was the type of person who experimented with more than her fair share of whatever illegal drugs were available at the time. Today, she'd be a normal college girl. Back then, she was a pariah to everyone and especially to her snobby stuck up family.

My mom is really why I have "inner hippie" in me. It's in my genes.

I just found out my grandma is in the hospital. Maybe that's why I've been feeling homesick.

So here's my weird family story, although I understand this situation is becoming more common.

My grandparents practically raised me, because of issues with my mom, my dad and my step-dad. It's all very complicated, but it worked in a way that situations like this have to work.

My grandma is like my second-mom, probably more my mom than my real mom. I'm sure this is the way that divorced kids feel about their step-moms.

Anyway, grandma had heart failure and since she's old (she's 88) and has other health issues, heart surgery is a problem. What they can do is an angioplasty, which will clear the blockages in her veins thereby extending her life for a little while longer.

I have a feeling she's going to be okay, that she'll pull through. She is a strong woman, but I'm praying for her. Of course, I'm in a strange mood now because this all brings back long forgotten but never really quite really forgotten family issues so much of which happened before I was born and in my very early childhood.

I'm not sure how much I want to blog about this issue, because like any family issue it's so very, very complicated.

But if you read this, send healing thoughts to my grandma, my second-mom.