It was sometime in junior high or high school that my mom and my sister and I started the tradition of painting our toenails at the beginning of Spring Break vacations. We lived in a place where the snowbanks hadn't melted by March, so our toes wouldn't have seen the light of day since the … Continue reading A Signature Color
Tag: Travel
A Safe Bet
Writing yesterday about the canoe trip my dad and I took together got me thinking about the other road-trip he and I took, five years later... The first thing I signed up for, when I hit college, was a course to get certified as a Scuba diver, because I planned to study Marine Biology. I … Continue reading A Safe Bet
The Daddy-Daughter Downpour
When our parents used to tuck us into bed at night, Mother usually sang something---they had a broad repertoire of folk songs---and Daddy was our stories guy. He had an ongoing saga about a pair of mischievous alligators, "the Lucys," who followed us on all our travels, getting into trouble as they tried to keep … Continue reading The Daddy-Daughter Downpour
Welcome to the Future
Journal entry from December of the year 2000: I'm about to embark on a week-long sailing trip, and I'm agonizing over what book I feel like taking. It has to "fit the mood," it has to have at least the possibility of sparking poetry-writing... and it has to last the week. Correction: It has to … Continue reading Welcome to the Future
The State of the Sky
Alexa has a new voice this week. If you're not familiar, Alexa is the name of the imaginary person who speaks from the Amazon Echo, which is a small speaker connected to the internet. Alexa is very helpful in our household. We call out to her from the kitchen to add things to our grocery … Continue reading The State of the Sky
Scanned-alous
I just spent the bulk of a rainy weekend scanning a load of personal photographs---several boxes-full, stuffed to bursting with the life-in-photos of an utter shutterbug. I actually have stiff muscles---not from heavy lifting, obviously, but from repetitive motions and sitting in the same position for hours on end. I bought the scanner several years … Continue reading Scanned-alous
Beat to Hell
It's only natural that most of us try to keep most of our possessions in unspoiled and "like-new" condition for as long as possible. We don't like it when our phone-screens get webbed with cracks, or the paint chips off our cars, or the knees go out in our jeans (well, maybe that's still fashionable … Continue reading Beat to Hell






