June 25th, 2018 | Architecture and Design, Europe, Gardens and Gardening, General, literature and poetry, the world and Mother Nature, Travel, visual arts
Every time I pick up a Ross King book, it’s longer and weightier. Brunelleschi’s Dome was a little bit of a thing, perfect for reading on a transcontinental flight. Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling was longer but then the Sistine Chapel ceiling is a better...
April 9th, 2018 | Family, Friends, Gardens and Gardening, General, literature and poetry, Memory, Time Passes
I read Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus (2016) and it permanently decreased my options on the sushi menu. The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (Ballantine/Random House, 2006) may not permanently put me off pork, but it will make me...
April 2nd, 2018 | Gardens and Gardening, General, the world and Mother Nature
My maternal great-grandfather, Elwyn Greeley Preston Sr., established for his family a summer retreat on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. He acquired several contiguous parcels of land on Mooney Point and filled in a number of marshy areas to create firm...
January 12th, 2016 | Gardens and Gardening, General, Memory, Travel, United States, visual arts
Planes roar down from the west, above Balboa Park and I-5, to the runways at Lindbergh Field about every minute or so during the day. The first plane seemed loud but in a familiar way—I did, after all, live here in the 1980s. We woke to a pearly Monday sunrise and the...
July 1st, 2015 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Gardens and Gardening, General, the world and Mother Nature
Our grill is no less used that the stove. It produces a perfect roast chicken and keeps the smell of onions out of the house. When red peppers are cheap, we blister a few dozen over the flame and freeze them in olive oil for whenever we need them. And, of course, it...
May 24th, 2015 | Europe, Gardens and Gardening, Matters of the Spirit, Popular Culture, Travel
You think you know what to expect but you really don’t. I had a vision of the Nemunas Loops Regional Park (Nemuno kilpų regioninis parkas) as a sprawling area, a place needing vigorous hiking skills or better yet a car. The park is 25,171 hectares—a quantity that...
