I got a jarring reminder late last night as to why newspapers need to be accurate. Here’s what happened. I couldn’t remember what day of the month it was, and just looking at a calendar was no help. So I did what I often do in such circumstances. I checked the date on that morning’s San Francisco Chronicle. “SUNDAY, November 20, 2016” was printed atop the front page of each section.

Yikes! My 73rd birthday will be Wednesday, Nov. 23, and as it happens, the 66th birthday of Linda Sturdivant of Inverness Park was on Wednesday, Nov. 16. At the Point Reyes Disaster Council’s pancake breakfast three weeks ago, I had purchased a ticket in a fundraising raffle and won a $40 gift certificate to Tony’s Seafood restaurant in Marshall. Linda is a good friend of ours, so Lynn and I had agreed we could use the gift certificate to celebrate both birthdays together at Tony’s on Sunday, Nov. 20. However, if this really was Sunday, Nov. 20, and we hadn’t gone to Tony’s, we must have stood up Linda. I was mortified.

At a loss as to how we could have gotten the day mixed up, I rebooted the computer and checked Google. What a relief! The date was really Saturday, Nov. 19. No harm had been done,  except to my nerves.

Today we drove up to Tony’s for lunch. The sky over Tomales Bay had mostly cleared after rain Saturday night. The sun was shining, and through the window beside our table in the restaurant, we were able to watch a flock of pelicans perched on pilings.

The food was great, as always. Lynn had shrimp, Linda had prawns, I had fish and chips, and we all had barbecued oysters. The portions were large enough that we had leftovers to bring home. Once back at home, I checked the date on that morning’s Chronicle. For the second day in a row it was: “SUNDAY, November 20.”

From my perspective, The Chronicle should run a correction and an apology. Displacing Saturday with Sunday could easily be taken as anti-Semitic. Or maybe anti-Seventh-day Adventist.

Word usage: In hopes of receiving plush appointments, a gaggle of right-wing politicians are currently trying to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump. Judging from the bunch of Neanderthals who have been offered jobs so far, it apparently it isn’t too difficult to ingratiate yourself with the Donald. Just don’t mess with his hair.

“To curry favor,” according to the Bergen Evans Dictionary of Quotations, is derived from the name of a 14th century horse. In the French satirical poem Roman de Fauvel, “the horse symbolizing worldly vanity is soothed and lovingly tended by all classes of society, so that to curry Favel [or Fauvel] was to seek to advance yourself, to ingratiate yourself with the powerful.”

But grooming the Donald’s hair with a curry comb is risky. If you irritate the powerful beast, he may well let loose with his famous bucking, kicking, and whinnying.