Nature
Squirrel in the Kitchen
The reward at the end of the eight hour drive is immediate. I pry myself out of the cramped car and stand up in the soft needles splayed across the dirt driveway, feel the breeze enfold my bare arms and listen to the sighing trees. No visual cues are needed. Based on these lesser senses…
Read MoreRaspberries Aplenty
For the past month, every couple of days I have been able to go outside and pick myself at least a pint of raspberries from the bushes alongside our porch. Growing up, raspberries, and macadamia nuts, were considered the height of luxury. According to my mother buying pints of raspberries, or leaving out a…
Read MoreHe/She/Ze
(This fanagram is also available as podcast. Click on podcast in the category menu at the right.) I first ran into the pronoun “ze” (pronounced zee) at Frances’ graduation from Grinnell College. In the written material, the third person singular pronoun was always a composite slashed affair of he/she/ze, and similarly the possessive pronoun was…
Read MorePodcast: Rendering Judgment
You know that expression, “being sent off to the glue factory?” Well, this is what that is all about – the rendering factory.
Read MorePodcast: Warm Spot in the Lake
What IS that warm spot?
Read MorePodcast: Fruited Plain
Our first attempts at a garden.
Read MoreSnappers and Me
For any of you who vacation at a lake, this story may seem familiar, you have probably had some encounter with a snapping turtle. My story begins at the end of a long hike around a mountain in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, when we were looking forward to the quiet peace of the rocks…
Read MoreNow Thank We All Our Sphincters
Now Thank We All Our Sphincters Last week son Ned sent me a link to a blog posting with the note – “Mom, I thought this was funny – it seemed like something you might write.” The essay was entitled: “On Buttholes,” authored by one Mia Warren who spends 900 words discussing the fact that…
Read MoreBest in Show
A couple of weeks ago, Nick and I found the TV offerings particularly desolate and we struggled to stitch together a reasonable combination of a primary TV show and a toggling alternative. After much flailing about, we hit upon the unusual combination of the Westminster Dog Show and a documentary about snipers. The sniper show…
Read MoreRoad Rage
Yesterday I had a medical meeting at O’Hare, but since I had lent my son Ned my car for the rest of the school year, I went to my father’s to borrow one of his. I was running late, and as I headed off to the airport I noticed the gas gauge was hovering near…
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