Living Alone I returned home from a few weeks away yesterday. I had traveled from Rome to Munich to Newark, stayed two nights in Manhattan and flown home from JFK direct to San Diego. It is always a long ride back and forth from San Diego to Europe, but we make a point of using it to stop in NYC to see the kids whenever we can. This time I came home by myself since…
Me and Betty This is the start of day two since Natasha has gone home and before Kim returns. I can see that we have a routine and the secret seems to be to keep to that routine whenever possible. Betty has accustomed herself to sleep in the living room. I’m not sure why she prefers it to the bedroom, where she sleeps when Kim is here, but I must admit its easier for me…
On the Celtic Altar It’s another atypical day here on the hilltop. I have a very clear sense that the weather has been off for several months now. It just doesn’t feel much like Southern California, at least not as I know it. What keeps me from saying that more definitively is that this is only my third Spring living here, so I’m not sure I can speak so comprehensible about the weather patterns. My…
Scripto Ergo Cogito Ergo Disco Ergo Sum Rene Descartes started it all in 1637 in his Discourse on the Method, which most scholars consider his seminal philosophical work. I have amended it to read (in Latin), I write, therefore I think, therefore I learn, therefore I am. My default activity these days is to write. I know this especially now because I am finishing a ten day trip to New York and Italy and I…
Waiting for MLK Today is April 4th, the day fifty-four years ago when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In those fifty-four years, it is hard to decide if we have made progress on civil rights and a true state of equality and justice for all in America. In the last few years we have seen more signs of resurgence of movements for white supremacy than I can recall seeing at any…
Out of Rome As I head back home to San Diego in my Jet Blue seat, I have just watched for the umpteenth time, Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. There are few movies that I find so beautiful. It is beautiful in cinematography, beautiful in its haunting soundtrack, beautiful in its turn-of-the-century costuming of the adventurous safari set and beautiful in its narration as though we are hearing directly from the…
Slammin’ Salmon Ever since I was a kid, I have had a strong aversion to fish. I, like most people my age, ate my share of fish sticks in my youth and I didn’t hate them, but they are coated with bread crumbs and fried or baked to the point of being a bread stick with some tasteless white stuff in the middle…and a lot of tarter sauce all over them. I think its fair…
Wandering Through Grace When I start a new story like this, I pluck a recent story from the recently saved ones and use its format to delete the story and replace the title. That saves me from having to choose a font and font size and get the alignment right. Today, the old story I plucked from the array was When Will You Make an End, which was about my Hobbit House, but starts off…
A Pleasant Spot Yesterday we arrived in Rome and suddenly went from another large airport (Leonardo Da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino), where, in typical fashion these days, we had to talk about 1.5 miles from the arrival gate to the baggage return. It took so long to walk that distance that our bags beat us to baggage claim area. I think of it as forced exercise, which requires you to broken-field dash through countless glittery…
All The King’s Men Every time I think we have finally gotten past the shadow of the Donald Trump presidency, something takes me back and I find myself thrown back into the desperation of feeling like I’m that poor inmate stuck under the thumb of Ida Lupino, who plays an evil warden in the 1955 film Women’s Prison. The horror of that film is less about what goes on physically in the prison than the…