Post Office at Union Square, San Francisco

I still needed to mail the card that I planed to drop off at the LAX airport in Los Angeles. There are plenty of US Mail drop boxes on the street in San Francisco. Since the forecast was overcast with a slight chance of rain, I decided to look for a post office so that the card wouldn't get wet. Google Maps showed a post office at Union Square, on the way from my hotel to the conference site. However, it took me a little effort to find it as it was well hidden in the Macy's basement.

If you enter Macy's main store from Stockton Street, turn left through cosmetics, take escalator down to the basement, turn right through the foodcourt, and find the cookware section, you will see a small "Post Office" sign on the far side with the entrance invisible on the right. If you enter from Farrell Street, take the stairs to the basement and walk all the way to the cookware section on the other side.

It's a small yet full service post office. I came during the lunch hours with little waiting time. There was to be a postal rate increase effective the coming weekend. The staff was very knowledgeable with the details and I was able to save a few nickels by purchasing some USPS Global Forever stamps.

It had been one of the only few United States Post Offices that opens on Sundays. However, effective May 4, 2015 this post office only opens Monday to Saturday.

Outgoing postcard US-3373244 to South Africa shows the Tony Bennett's heart sculpture at the corner of Union Square. The picture below shows the heart-shaped sculpture in its current form, near the Macy's store across the street.

Pride + Joy: One Year After Historic Supreme Court Ruling

One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings on June 26, 2013: one striking down part of the the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denied federal recognition to same-sex marriages and the other allowing same-sex couples to marry legally in California.

Since then, huge advances for the same-sex marriage have brought pride and joy to many couples who could not marry before. Before the rulings, same sex couples could marry in only 10 states and the District of Columbia; today, that number has almost doubled to 19 states and the District of Columbia, covering near 44% population of the country.

Most recently on Wednesday June 25, 2014, a federal judge struck down same-sex marriage ban in Indiana. Meanwhile, a 2-1 decision from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the first issued at the level of the federal appellate courts, ruled that the same-sex marriage ban in Utah was unconstitutional. Marriage-equality lawsuits are now pending in all 31 states where same-sex couples are still barred from marrying.

Postcard US-2333973 to Indiana, which was sent on July 25, 2013 and has since expired, was made out of a hand fan distributed by Macy's during the 2012 Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Parade in San Francisco. The 2014 Parade, themed "Color Our World with Pride," will start at Market & Beale and end at Market & 8th Street in downtown San Francisco at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday June 29, 2014.