December 14th, 2013 | Gardens and Gardening, General, Holidays, Travel, United States, visual arts
“And we walked off to look for America…” Well, perhaps not in the way that Paul Simon’s lyric suggests, but our travels in 2013 took us to corners of the country less familiar to us. My Dear One and I fled Maryland’s January chill to Tampa, Florida, and enjoyed...
December 8th, 2013 | Gardens and Gardening, General, Holidays, Pets, the world and Mother Nature, Time Passes
Snow began to fall today sometime in later morning, near the end of Sunday Morning on CBS. Slate-gray skies and nippy air encouraged me to move briskly as I took my morning turn around the neighborhood. Newscasters solemnly itemized the cars wrecked, the trees and...
February 3rd, 2012 | Pets
My parents apparently intended to name me “Maggie,” but settled on “John” when they became convinced I would be a boy; my mother, in a postnatal stupor, responded to a badgering nurse that my name was “Ellen” and that’s what...