Out here on this hilltop, November is an unpredictable month. I can remember a stormy November with 17 days of torrential rain which almost made my flat roof unserviceable. This year it is more normal with a hint of evening rain on one or two days , but mostly clear skies, like we have had for the past many months. It’s been very dry overall for a long time…so say my succulents. With daytime high…
I’ve had some strange dreams lately. I really don’t know what to make of them, so I’m doing my best to ignore them. As is usually the case, I only remember dreams if I wake up in the middle of one. Disturbing images are not so incomprehensible, but sorting out what motivates some dreams gets very hard. Why would you dream of someone you long ago made peace with? Especially if that dream consists of…
Snap is a funny word if you look it up. The first thing you have to get past is the fact that the food stamp program in the United States is called the SNAP program, standing for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That program helps 12.6% of Americans (42 million) get enough to eat. There is evidence that at least another 20 million Americans could be eligible for SNAP, but do not take the benefit. This…
Michael Keaton is one of the actors I always want to watch. He’s never really gone full A-List, but he has hung in there for a long time and keeps doing interesting projects every step of the way. While he earned his chops mostly in the sitcom TV space, I think his breakout film role was probably Bettlejuice, which is very memorable, even though its weird. In fact, I think the only reason it still…
I doubt many of us knew where Rafah was a year ago. That is one of the strange silver linings of war. Earlier this year we took a boat ride in Laos on the Mekong River. I knew the name all too well from those newsreels of the Vietnam war from the mid-60s. Someday someone will say, “I’m going sightseeing in the Donbas Region” like they were going to the Lakes District of England. I’m…
Today Kim and I with Gary & Oswaldo head south out of Oregon and into the gold rush area of California that lies to the north and east of Sacramento. Frank tells me that every Fourth Grader in California has to take an obligatory show & tell trip into the gold rush area to see where the state got its origins and a lot more. Statehood came to California in 1850 as a direct result…
We are in a very tentative place as a world right now. More so than normal and in more ways than normal. The bright spot seems to be the general economy as reflected in the fiscal numbers ranging from growth to inflation to unemployment, not to mention the daily record-setting in the stock market. I don’t mean to understate or ignore that entire piece of good news, but what we all understand these days is…
I have written before about my extended family by virtue of my father’s multiple marriages and dalliances over his life. By last count there are nine of us siblings with six females and three males. I am the oldest of the males…at least as far as I know. That’s the thing about my father, you can never really be sure because owning up to his parental obligations was simply not a high priority to him.…
A Bright New Day Today is the first real post heat wave day on the hilltop. It is 63 degrees outside and should reach up to about 80 during the day. I just spoke to Joventino the gardener (in Spanish as usual) and he seemed genuinely happy for the heat to have passed. You see Joventino works at least six days a week for at least 10 hours a day in the outdoors. I’m sure…
Back in the Oven We are currently experiencing a late season heat wave. The Excessive Heat Warning sign is posted and it looks as though today is the first of what is expected to be a four-day streak where this hilltop high temperature is expected to exceed 100 degrees. It says it’s 101 right now. Someone finally published a temperature map that seems to confirm what I have always known since moving out here. On…