Character Debate I am always reminded of the role played by Michael Douglas in The American President when he finally decides he has had enough of the high road and ignoring his opponent’s nasty jibes (his opponent, Senator Rumson played by Richard Dreyfus). He calls a press briefing and finally says, “being President of this country is entirely about character.” And he goes on to say, “We have serious problems to solve, and we need…
Pause and Reflect It’s Saturday morning and I am finally back in the hot tub after what seems like a month of toing and froing. What a hard life, right? Not so much hard, but life is certainly more challenging than normal for everyone and that means that pausing and reflecting is an even better thing now than normal. What exactly is so challenging? Let’s start with a family review. To begin with, as Mark…
Frazzled On Wednesday I think I pushed Handy Brad too far. He had worked through the weekend to get necessary things done in the garage. This included painting the walls now that the epoxy floor was in and, as a last-minute, but logical, addition to the to do list, the laying of industrial rubber baseboards to finish off the intersection of new floor and newly painted walls. I must admit, what started as a practical…
The Humidifier My Nephew Jason was here painting his wonderful Otomi mural on our garden wall during the hottest two days of the San Diego summer. Now, Jason has lived his entire life in Las Vegas with its Uber-hot summer weather. His business is a garage door company, so he is often out with his installers and repair crew in the heat of the Las Vegas day. And then, to top it all off, he…
August Doldrums I just sat at my desk and realized that my New Yorker calendar was still showing June. How did that happen? Well, I guess that means I’ve had a busy summer and while it has involved a lot of work of many types, it has mostly just sort of slid by without me formally sitting at my desk and keeping things refreshed, like my calendar. Today is Thursday and that means trash…
Otomi on My Mind Kim can’t speak a lick of Spanish and her pronunciation is worse. And here we are, living in an Hispanic culture where almost 90% of the people who come to the house to work on things for us, from the house cleaners to the gardeners are Mexican. Handy Brad is from the Pennsylvanian part of México, but most of the rest are from the Altiplano or Mexican Plateau. This is where…
Betty Boop Today Kim and I picked up a twelve-year-old white resume stray that Kim has chosen to call Betty. Cecil passed away six weeks ago and Kim has decided that she wants to dedicate her dog affections to aged dogs that have no home. Everyone who knows Kim knows that she has a lot of love to give and dogs are a favorite object for her. There is only so much that humming birds…
Teaching the Unteachable I am getting that prickly feeling after six months of planning to teach a course in late September. I am six weeks away from the first lecture, but I have been through this drill and I know how many hours of preparation is required for each scheduled hour of lecture. Experienced professors will tell you they can get it down to 4-5 hours of preparation. When I started teaching in 2007 at…
It’s a Dog’s World Yesterday Kim told me she is ready to get a new dog and she wants to find a senior dog to adopt. Her reasoning is that she will never replace Cecil in her heart, but she wants to improve the life of a aged dog in its declining years. She seems aware and prepared to accept that she will have some heartache over the possibility of another pet dying, but she…
Cruising on Grand I haven’t been out of the house (or at least off the property) all week. The main reason has been that I have lots of work to do, and the secondary reason is that we’re still heavily engaged in several household projects. This week it was all about the inside and outside of the garage. The outside was getting a functional makeover. That included a new cedar shed in the back for…