Long Way Up Ten years ago Kim gave me a Christmas gift of the DVDs of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding their BMW GSAs around the world. First there was Long Way Round (2004), taking the Silk Road from Europe through the Far East, and then there was Long Way Down (2007), from the Highlands of Scotland to the tip of South Africa. I am a motorcycle aficionado to the max and I like…
The Burden of Conscience Imagine being in your mid-80’s and being at a point in your life when you have accomplished a great deal, more than most and more than you had ever expected. Then imagine you want to take your long-earned rest and simply spend time with your loved ones, but you can’t. You can’t because you carry on your shoulders the weight of the world…literally. All of the world’s great evils get translated…
Flea, Fly, Flu I recall that when Thomas, my youngest was a child in his early school years he needed to recite a \poem for school. The poem could be of his choosing and, like any kid, he wanted to find as short a poem as he could. The world’s shortest poem is supposedly called Fleas and it goes: Adam Had ‘em I didn’t like the implications and the contraction, so I encouraged him to…
Life on Venus I read with only passing interest that scientists have discovered phosphine gas in the clouds surrounding the planet of Venus. This is considered by many to be a thrilling piece of evidence that there may be life somewhere other than on Earth since phosphine is most often made by microbes and microbes have been long suspected to inhabit the clouds around Venus. The view is that the temperatures on Venus are too…
The Anschluss The hills are alive with The Sound of Music. They are also alive with the sound of jackboots. The German word Anschluss means union and it is generally referred to Anschluss Oesterreichische of the unification of the Germanic language countries of Germany and Austria that occurred, not by referendum, but by force when the Wehrmacht marched into Austria unopposed in March of 1938. We all know from the portrayals of Christopher Plummer and…
Bearing Witness Tonight my niece’s husband and two children came over for dinner. We haven’t seen them all year thanks to concerns about their kids’ and our COVID vulnerability (their kids have CF and we have old age). It all came off without any hitches and their daughter Mila was able to test out our new Moonstruck Madness games area. She pretty much played all the available games; mini-golf, bocce, disc golf, horseshoes and cornhole.…
On Art and Effort My friend Steve just posted a piece he titled In Praise of Talent, and it was about his experiences and reactions to the arts of writing and photography, particularly as they relate to the journalistic endeavors he has pursued through his life. He expressed annoyance at attribution to the tools of the trade (particularly in photography, since I doubt anyone would ever accuse a writer of having used his pencil, pen,…
My Aching Back About ten days ago I was going into my hot tub in the middle of the afternoon. That was when the weather was particularly hot and I was using the spa to cool off. Heat is such a relative thing. In the middle of winter, ninety degrees in a hot tub feels almost cold and you need to crank it up to 100 to be soothed. But in the summer, ninety degrees…
Quick Like a Bunny I am getting in the habit (does two or three days constitute a habit yet?) of writing tomorrow’s story in the morning hours out here in the garden on my throughly described garden desk. I think what I like best about the view are my little stand of resurgent bonsai redwood trees. When they arrived and I placed them in the rock garden over a month ago they were immediately shedding…
Choppers Yesterday, our little Blind Betty had to spend the day at the vet’s office dealing with the first of what I am sure will be an array of medical issues this sweet old dog will have to endure. One might argue that “investing” in an aged dog is unproductive, but nothing could be further from the truth. Pets are rarely economic choices, they are emotional choices. Man does keep and use animals (other than…