That’ll Do, Pig My old college fraternity pal, Doug, stayed with us with his wife, Liz, for the past few days. They came for a western trip to spend time in Phoenix, Sedona and San Diego. We had been inviting them to come out and stay with us for several years and they finally had the time on their dance cards to come out and make that happen. They timed it to join us for…
As the Ball Bounces This is the first morning since my return from New York City that I am feeling more or less normal and over my bout with a cold. Yesterday, Mike asked me if I was still on to go with him to his ballgame over in Carlsbad. To be honest, I hadn’t remembered that I had committed to a Thursday outing, but I do recall bugging him about when I was going…
The Uberization of Life I am just back from our five day whirlwind cabaret tour of New York City. We had Kim’s gig for the Make-a-Wish Foundation gala at Sony Hall on Thursday night (I was not-sleeping on the redeye at the time), the Mabel Mercer Foundation Cabaret Convention performance at Rose Hall at Lincoln Center on Friday night, the Those Girls show at the Laurie Beechman Theater on 42nd Street on Saturday night and…
Rockin’ Around the Clock Big wall clocks are all the rage it seems. It used to be a somewhat novel thing to have on your wall as an adornment back when you had to root around to find them from some old train station and then figure out how to power them. But now they have been homogenized into a normal Wayfair or Overstock item of which you can choose among literally thousands of styles,…
The Show Must Go On I am sitting on a redeye flight to New York, headed to a show tonight that Kim is singing in. She has been invited to sing at the Cabaret Convention at Rose Hall of Jazz at Lincoln Center. It’s only one song and its a duet with her pal Lennie (accompanied by Steven), which is a long-time flying configuration for her performances, but it is Lincoln Center and it doesn’t…
Being of Service When Kim joined the Hidden Meadows Women’s Club, she did so because she very much wanted to make more friends in the local community. She came back from the first meeting with a positive report that she felt there were many potential new friends to be had in the Club. One of the first things she did was to volunteer to have the next meeting of the group at our house. It…
The Boys Are Back in Town Unlike Fred MacMurray, I do not have three sons (aka My Three Sons, the Americana TV series that ran throughout the 1960’s), but I do have two sons and they are just about all I can handle. They are two dramatically different individuals separated by thirteen years and two separate mothers. I can triangulate a few traits that they each have based on their mothers’ characteristics, but I would…
Water on the Brain We live in one of the only counties in California that tends not to have too many water restrictions. That’s good for me and especially good for my garden. I’ve spent a lot of time and a fair bit of money getting my irrigation up to snuff with its 25 zones and four programs with different watering frequencies and all zones having heir own watering duration. It’s not a perfect bespoke…
What’s Up With Pumpkins? When I was growing up, Halloween was a very special kids’ holiday, mostly because of Trick-or-Treat, but also because of the pageantry of the costumes and the fun and spooky events and parties. It really is a kid’s paradise, and at the center of it all is the ubiquitous jack-o-lantern, which are created as another special event of carving pumpkins on the kitchen table. From my youth, you had two choices…
Prickly Neck Do you know that feeling when the angel of death passes over you and something happens to make you feel kinda weird as the specter of the infinity of time brushes by? I just finished a motorcycle ride of 1,600 miles across northern Spain and I had only one close call when some oncoming idiot came around a curve in the mountains too hot to handle and drifted a few feet into my…