A Ticket to the Circus The circus is a very American institution and is a part of our cultural way of life. To be fair, the circus predates America and goes back as far as the Roman Empire. If we define the circus too narrowly to be all about clowns, trained animals ranging from elephants to small dogs and even fleas, and acrobats of all kinds, we might be too limited. Most circuses have musicians,…
Breakfast Hack This weekend, Kim’s nephew Josh, his wife Haj and their kids JJ and Leila are staying with us in order to launch a day at Legoland. Josh’s older brother Will is also staying even though he is more a local than not since he lives in Ocean Beach. The good news is that Kim and I get a pass on the whole Legoland deal and are only hosting breakfast and dinner with the…
Joe Versus the Volcano Do you remember that 1990 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie about the guy who is a hypochondriac and stuck in a mind-numbing job who decides to volunteer to throw himself into a volcano in order to save the world? It was a funny movie about how we can all learn to live by putting everything at risk. I have watched more politics over the last six or seven years than…
Death Pays a Visit When I was much younger, someone gave me a copy of the Gail Sheehy book Passages. It outlined some typical moments in our lives when certain things naturally occur. I specifically recall reading that while in our 30s we almost all come face to face with our own mortality, usually by way of the death of a loved one. We are then forced to grapple with the inevitability of our own…
Stepping It Up Today was a nice sunny day, but a bit on the cool side. I am starting to teach my course tonight, so I plan to leave my afternoon pretty open to get my game face on and do a few course administrative chores. I have been waiting for clear weather for a few days so that I could get some things done in advance of Joventino’s arrival tomorrow. I have bought 600…
Coming of Age Tomorrow is my 69th birthday, which means I will be starting my 70th year. I have never been a person who cares much about age as a defining characteristic. When I hit 30, 40, 50 and even 60 it was a non-event. I’m not so sure that 70 will be any different for me when it comes in a year. I think it’s fair to say that these days, except for the…
Movietime My movie habit began very solidly during high school in Rome, Italy. While growing up in Maine during Junior High School and also during ninth grade at Hebron Academy, I don’t remember caring too much about movies, or even TV for that matter. Those years were heavily dominated by getting into outdoor sports ranging from skiing and canoeing to golfing and tennis. TV and movies were at best an afterthought. That all changed when…
Jambalaya One of the more interesting places in the U.S. is New Orleans. I find it so interesting because it represents the confluence of cultures ranging from the French, who originally owned the area to the Spanish, who controlled the land to the west. The American continent is divided by the mighty Mississippi River and New Orleans is the place where the Mississippi spreads its wings across a large swath of delta as it flows…
Getting Tired We have two cars and I think its fair to say we feel like we need two cars. For short periods of time like when son Thomas was here for a visit, when he needed to borrow one of our cars, we can survive with just one car, especially because I have two two motorcycles in a pinch. Southern California is not New York City. In New York City you can survive on…
Tanks, I Needed That It has been almost a year now since Russia invaded Ukraine in its latest round of aggression against its former significant satellite country to the west. They began their hostilities against Ukraine in the same month (February) in 2014, but the world was in a significantly different place vis-a-vis Russia back then and the global community more or less stood by and let Russia have its way with parts of Ukraine,…