It was chilly here this morning. The car thermometer said 43 degrees (I know, I know–but it’s California) as I drove my daughter to catch the shuttle to her summer internship. Cold enough to think about enjoying a hot cup of tea and I remembered I’d never shared my “Me Tea” find. As a charter [...]
I spent much of Saturday walking on holy ground. First in the East Bay hills, next in another faith’s church, and finally, in a basketball gym. Sacred spaces all. I was up in the hills for a memorial service was held on a private ranch overlooking Contra Costa county. A dozen of us gathered to [...]
The summer movie season began officially for me last weekend when we took in The Great Gatsby at The Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. Built in 1926, just a year after Gatsby was first published, the Grand Lake boasts marvelous Art Deco interiors and some awfully sweet concessionaires. The story fell flat for me but the [...]
Today is my baby boy’s 22nd birthday. Like all three of my children, he ignored his due date and lingered with me for awhile. Though my midwife Peggy (aka the Babycatcher) knew this was a pattern with me and mine, she thought the baby was getting too big and decided she better hurry things along. “Happy [...]
The night that Boston police were shooting it up with the Tsarnaev brothers, I was at our favorite restaurant Camino celebrating vegetables. Renowned cookbook author Deborah Madison was in town and Camino was hosting a dinner for Madison with a menu inspired by the recipes from her new cookbook Vegetable Literacy. I’d like to tell [...]
I’m just back from a long weekend in Miami where I enjoyed the surf and sun and wondered what this world is coming to. Everywhere I looked people were ignoring the lovely sites around them and glued to their smartphones. Perhaps they’re just better at multi-tasking than me, but it seems that if you can’t [...]
My Boston kids are on lockdown and I’m locked on to news sites again. What a crazy, distressing week this has been. I’ve been so grateful for peaceable things this week, including several walks through Mountain View cemetery where I saw how the quality of light can change everything. Like the way this stone angel’s [...]
I woke up yesterday to a text from my son showing a photo of runners. “Starting lineup,” he’d written. I kept one eye open long enough to type “For what?” “The Boston Marathon,” he replied. He hadn’t mentioned that he planned to be at the marathon when we talked the night before. But that sounded [...]
Picking up from last Friday’s post—a mama racoon died unexpectedly right here beneath the floorboards of our home and her cubs went missing and that’s left me unsettled all week. But there was also a happy circle-of-life surprise this week. My niece Kristen gave birth to little Lila Sharon and all of a sudden I [...]
I thought I’d be rhapsodizing about cherry blossoms this morning. Instead, I’m waiting for the Opossum Angel of Death to remove a dying critter from my crawl space. Mother Nature is full of complexities. A few nights ago as I lay reading in bed, I heard something scratching underneath our bedroom floorboards and woke my [...]
