Feats of boredom
I’ve been following tightrope walker Nik Wallenda’s recent successful effort to obtain permission to walk across Niagara Falls. But I’ve decided I’m indifferent to it, for two reasons. First, if I want to watch this sort of entertainment for its ‘deathwatch’ component, I’m going to be disappointed. In order to get TV coverage, Wallenda has […]
Thanks and thoughts
We’ve just arrived home from Toronto. I’m tired. LOML is tired and I’m just guessing our two youngest are tired, too. If I said it was just another relaxing weekend in The City, I’d be lying. We were together to ride in the 2012 Ride for Heart. With your generous help we managed to raise […]
Serendipity
DNA tests show that some of the greatest, and most recognized, grape varieties were the serendipitous result of one variety being crossed with another, by either chance or design. The University of California Davis proposes that the “chardonnay” grape we love originated from a cross of “pinot noir” and “gouais blanc.” (The latter was brought […]
NBA playoffs 2012
Dwayne Wade and his mother Jolinda have traded roles a few times lately. He will sit proudly at the front of the congregation in her church. She has had her proud moments watching her son play basketball. Dwayne plays for the Miami Heat, now in a battle with the Boston Celtics for the eastern crown […]
Skin deep
Beauty. What is beauty, anyway? Since I was a little kid, beauty has mostly been defined by cosmetics companies, fashion designers, advertisers and marketing specialists—defined to sell products. My mother, who loved to read magazines and watch movies, had her own definition of beauty and mostly it was focused on slim women who looked good […]
The fossilized list
I was recently given a gift certificate to buy a book, and I chose The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of all Time Special Collectors Issue. I’d like to say that this was because some earnest treatise on the collapse of the global economy was out of stock, but I can’t, because it wasn’t. I […]
Fruit of the desert
By happenstance, I recently came across a news article on vineyards in the Gobi desert. My only previous knowledge of the area was its historic significance as a barrier between the Mongols and the Chinese Empire. I more recently read of the Gobi’s fierce sandstorms (one of which deposited over 300,000 tons of sand on […]
Snakes and Ladders
Many of you readers may remember the board game called “Snakes and Ladders.” You rolled the dice, and counted spaces to try to win the game. If it so happened that you might land on a ladder, you saved time and space by climbing to another level; however, if you landed on a snake, you […]
Battle of the beige
In spite of what I’ve said about growing old, some things just don’t improve with age. Thank goodness we live in wine country and I’ve got a huge wine rack in my kitchen. The wine is aging nicely, but the kitchen. Oh, my. The kitchen. Oh, sure, our kitchen is mostly intact for a room […]
The mass ‘oops’
Like me, you probably clip articles out of the newspaper and, as you tidy your desk, reread them with bafflement. Here’s one that got to me. Under the heading “insurance,” the headline read “Aviva unit fires all its staff by mistake.” It turns out the investment arm of the U.K.’s second biggest insurance company had […]