(re-run) Yesterday, as I drove up the freeway to BART, where I would meet two girlfriends and one of their daughters to go to the city to see Hamilton again, I was composing my blog post, out loud, in the slow lane. I was on a roll, phrasing each sentence to perfection as other drivers… Continue reading Writing It Down
Category: memoir
The Hill That Would Not Hold
(re-run from 2024) My neighbors’ hill collapsed fifteen months ago in the crazy January rains of 2023. For months nothing was happening, and I concluded that a lot of guys had looked at the hill and had either refused to bid the job or had bid it way too high. A bulldozer appeared in November,… Continue reading The Hill That Would Not Hold
The Road Not Taken
(re-run) GPS is a wonderful thing. I didn’t choose it; it chose me, being included with the 2014 Prius close-out car that I bought in November of that year. It was time to make way for the 2015 models. It was marked down. I bought it. If I’m coming back from a new place with… Continue reading The Road Not Taken
Turning the Other Cheek
(re-run) This isn’t a Bible story. This is me telling you that seventeen years ago, I agreed to take a large antique dresser as a consignment piece from a Girl Scout leader friend. I sent my helper dude to her house to have him load it up and deliver it to my store. I paid… Continue reading Turning the Other Cheek
Spinning a Spider Story
(re-run) My strength and toning instructor loves to tell us trivia while we work out. Last week she said spiders are the most active between 6 and 8 p.m. and that the female spiders go out looking for food at that time. The males follow. Isn’t that just like a male anyway, to wait until… Continue reading Spinning a Spider Story
The Sweet Spot
(re-run from 2018) It’s that time of year. The nights are cooling down, the sun is setting earlier, everything is either starting back up or ending. The outside music venues are closing up, and the Halloween costumes are showing up in the thrift stores. The kids have been back at school for almost a month. … Continue reading The Sweet Spot
Big Jack, Little Jack
Teaching high school didn’t open up many dating possibilities at work, unless you count the weird science teacher with the orange stick-up hair and the pocket protector, or the short English teacher who did impersonations as well as anyone on Saturday Night Live. One night, as I was complaining that I couldn’t find any good… Continue reading Big Jack, Little Jack
Mountain Lion
(re-run) It has happened again, this time in El Dorado County in the Sierra Foothills. Two brothers went hunting for antler shed, and instead they tussled with a mountain lion (mama?). The younger brother (18) has traumatic facial cuts and the older brother died (21). It’s so sad for that family. Didn’t they know it’s… Continue reading Mountain Lion
A Scary Five Seconds
(re=run) I had followed the same routine dozens of times. Arriving in my beach town, the dogs got excited and wanted out of the car. There’d been an accident in San Jose, so we were running a half hour behind. Daisy (Jack Russell) started barking and pulling on her tether as soon as we got… Continue reading A Scary Five Seconds
Determined to Dance
March or dance? Dance or march? A good R & B band was playing at a winery 45 minutes away, maybe for the last time before rainy season. Of course, marching would be fun, seeing all the signs and costumes, being part of history, and the weather was going to be fabulous, sunny skies and… Continue reading Determined to Dance
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 