Black Friday

Black Friday is a tawdry commercial invention and I won’t give it the dignity of calling it tradition, no matter how many years it’s been going on. A tradition I endorse, on the other hand, is the Black Friday horror story. Another tradition I endorse is avoiding human contact by shopping online. But in a fit of […]

Saturday Bag o’ Nuts

The Nut Tree was a landmark of my younger days in California. In my last year of high school and first year of college, my friends and I expressed our newly-found independence and adulthood by driving from Sacramento to San Francisco on weekends. The Nut Tree, just off the freeway south of Sacramento, was a mandatory coffee stop. That […]

Traffic Jam on Toast

Home again, winding down from the elevated level of tension that comes with staying alert while driving long distances and dealing with traffic.  How much distance?  About 2,500 miles.  How much traffic?  Be glad you don’t live or work in Los Angeles.  Yes, we were there, and yes, it’s that bad.  It’s that bad in […]