Gazpacho and Love
It’s past midsummer here, and even though we live in the middle of Los Angeles, my husband I have a bumper crop of tomatoes. We grow tomatoes, strawberries, basil, and other herbs in Earth Boxes in our backyard. And blueberries in a wine barrel on wheels. It’s my small nod to having grown up on […]
Keeping it real (estate)
Exactly three years ago my husband and I entered the uniquely grownup, age-accelerating experience of buying a home. I have posted this before, but early summer and all the “for sale” signs around town when the weather turns warm always remind me of it. And I’m finally at a point where I don’t start to […]
Aloha, tristesse **
This is a post I meant to write in early January. File under “sad synchronicity” and “strangers on a beach.” My family went to the Big Island in Hawaii for the week between Christmas and New Years. I was in a funk, as I often am at the holidays, raw and exhausted and not in […]
The Unpleasant Pensieve
This morning as I was having breakfast down in the yellow and blue kitchen here at Ragdale House, a place that calms me like an idealized version of the kitchen in my childhood home in Wisconsin, I had a conversation with the Ragdale housekeeper, R. In a mixture of English and Spanish, I learned that […]
The house of the opposite of mirth
I’m just back from spring break vacation with my kids. As usual, it took nearly the entire trip (five days) to relax. But we had fun and much needed bonding time, free from the usual soundtrack to our familial relationships — do your homework; brush your teeth; brush your teeth NOW; hang up your swim […]
Amateur Night
Chain chain chain! Chain of fools. (Quoth the longtime fool.) I took this photo out of the moonroof of my car on Valentines Day, as my husband and I fought five minutes of traffic to go to our favorite Japanese restaurant. Normally traffic is about like this on Thursday nights at rush hour, but I […]
Hybrid holidays
If you read my blog regularly, you know that this year, and every year at the holidays, I’m rather morose, joyless, and ungrateful. I feel guilty about it, which only makes things worse. Now that the holidays are over, I think I can diagnose some of what ails me. This is hard to write, but […]
Facebooking your freak out
Facebook is amazing. And awful. We all know that. I’ve been on Facebook for about four years, and I credit being connected to various people from all times in my life to feeling better about sad times, like when I announce that I’m sad as I observe the death anniversary of my father or […]
The Designated Celebrant: Confessions of a Holiday Hater
December 18, 2012: It’s a week before Christmas. Since we’re a mixed religion family and Hanukkah has passed, my kids have opened most of their holiday booty from my husband and me and the rest of the family. I tried to remain neutral about the holidays, waiting with no fixed expectations for joy, peace, wonder, […]
After the Newtown, Connecticut, Shooting
After Several Days of Rain Crisp December, just before noon Billowy white clouds defy gravity As wet red maple leaves whip windows and each other. A man with little red riding hood on his back Smiles at me, his George Clooney face mouths a small ‘thank you’ As I stop the car so he can […]
