The Land of Curdled Milk & Honey

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like on Conserva-Earth, where this nasty woman lives. Do young couples elope because they hate each other? Does the water smell vaguely of urine? Are surfaces coated with a thin layer of grime? Does everyone carry? Are pimples considered marks of beauty? Who are their role models? The Walton family? […]

Hey, Baby

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvccehgpXP4[/youtube] I thought this video, which has been widely shared on Twitter, would be all over Facebook by now, but so far no one in my small circle of friends has posted it. Too often, when women try to explain the sexual harassment they experience on the street, fending off or trying to ignore comments and […]

Open Windows

I haven’t opened Windows since I got my iMac … no, seriously, I meant to write about actual windows, the kind you open to air out the house when the weather is nice. After months of running it full time, day and night, it’s a treat to turn off the air conditioning. We can feel the house […]

Local Color

Donna and I wake up around six. Our bed is situated so that the first thing we see is the sun coming up through the sliding glass patio door in our bedroom wall. I jumped out of bed a few mornings ago, put on a bathrobe, and went out through the patio door to take photos. […]

Friday Bag o’ Whatever

I don’t know how long outdoor grills are supposed to last, but we’ve retired one charcoal kettle grill and one gas grill since moving into this house in 1998, and are some years into our second set. The charcoal grill, a Weber, is holding up well, but the gas grill, also a Weber, is giving up the […]

Thursday Bag o’ Statuary

Ugh, relatives in the heartland. Again. I unfriend out & out racists when they reveal themselves on Facebook, unless they’re kin (I did unfriend a nephew, but it was over animal cruelty). In the wake of Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson and the protests that followed, some of my relatives have started sharing white supremacist chain letters and […]

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

During our drive to New Mexico last week we had to stop at two US Border Patrol checkpoints, one on the White Sands Missile Range inbound to Alamogordo, the other homebound on I-10 between Las Cruces and Deming. We were racially profiled at the first one, which is to say the BP agent glanced at us […]