“Are you going to the prom?” a high school friend asked me on a warm May afternoon in 1966. In the background, Brian Wilson’s perfect falsetto crooned, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” It made me think of my boyfriend, Ricky, at the time. We were hot teens and I was a good Catholic girl. “Not this one,” I replied, hinting disappointment. It was my own senior prom. “Can’t you bring Ricky?” my friend asked. I thought about our last date at the local […]
“On 9/11, despite being out of mobile phone reception, a huge number of hikers abandoned their walks. They hadn’t heard about the terrorist […]
I don’t doubt that climate change is upon us. So when the conservative think tank, Heartland Institute, recently set up an electronic billboard that read, “I believe in global warming. Do you?” with a billboard sized photo showing the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, as the believer, I thought I was self-incinerating. But I wasn’t. It was a Six-Oh Dear! symptom–also known as a hot flash. Admittedly, I wore the pretty-in-the-morning out after more than 23,000 daily wake ups. But there are mornings when […]
Seen also in The Cambrian A thousand or more northern elephant seals sprawled across the beach when I arrived for my volunteer docent duty yesterday. These intrepid seals travelled about 2500 miles to this beach to lose their dead skin and old fur. They must haul out and remain on land for four weeks in order to molt. We call this shedding of the dead epidermis and old fur a catastrophic molt. I posted myself at the very south end of the Piedras Blancas […]
Serendipity introduced me to my first husband at age 17. A week after our meeting he promised that we would marry some day. I laughed out loud. At age 27 I was his widow with two children. I lacked a life-plan. And on that late summer day when my children’s father unexpectedly died, helter-skelter reintroduced itself. I involuntarily joined the Hapless Young Widows Club (HYWC). HYWC isn’t a chartered nonprofit organization. But HYWC does chart a rugged path of misjudgment and denial, and […]
“Good morning, Dennis,” I greeted the Russian scientist as he sipped the hot coffee we readied for the morning workshop session. (I attended as a volunteer to help the facilitator, The California Gray Whale Coalition, tend to the business of running a workshop smoothly.)
“My grandson called me this morning and wanted me to ask you a question. He wants to know, why do polar bears like to live in the snow?”
It was a warm September 1954 morning when Spouse boarded the bus from his suburban Los Angeles home for his first day […]
Spouse’s face lit up when I answered, “Sex” to his question, “What are you going to write about today? He added a […]
Author’s Note: Here’s the link to the podcast on Animal Radio http://animalradio.com/top.php The interview begins at 00:33:20 Before the day’s commotion begins I like to rise ahead of the sun and either soak under the stars in the hot tub or spend quiet moments in a chair in mindful contemplation. Don’t get too impressed with this early riser routine of mine. It’s a reluctant pleasure. Today’s late winter morning, in the 5 a.m. neighborhood, and the day after some serious gardening, […]
Neighbors actually talk to each other in my neighborhood. Here’s a recent conversation that I overheard between spouse and another retired man as he walked his dog. “Gorgeous day today, isn’t it?” spouse greeted dog-walking neighbor. “It sure is. It’s the kind of day that makes me glad to be retired, even without my late wife,” he noted. He lengthened his pooch’s flexi-leash. “I’ve learned to enjoy life without my wife—she died 12 years ago. But I’ve gotta friend—he just turned 70—and all he […]
