One of the first things I did when my family moved to our house a few years ago was buy a decent bird feeder. I filled it with seed and hung it from an eave on the porch, and less than a minute later a couple of black-capped chickadees flitted over to investigate. Before long […]
Month: December 2021
One of the great pleasures of the pandemic era has been going on hikes with my dad. We live in the Washington, D.C. area. When you think of this area, you may not think of hiking. But my parents live quite close to an undeveloped ravine with beautiful tall trees, kingfishers, and the occasional Common […]
Up here in Seattle we have reached the Dark Wet season, which always leaves me grasping for any glimmer of hope or joy. I have always liked the idea of keeping a gratitude journal, but the few times I’ve tried it, I end up fixating on the same lovely things in my life, like friends […]
This originally appeared in 2015. There’s a popular myth about Dutch last names that goes like this: When Napoleon occupied the Netherlands and instituted a family name registry, only the upper classes had such names already in use. A significant subset took the opportunity to protest foreign rule by registering under silly names like “Born […]
(An unauthorized continuation of “Things We Like”) Scattered along the deep ravines and canyons where I live are trees called ghost, or sometimes grey, pines. The trees are scraggly and uncharismatic. “Scarcely in any sense a beautiful tree,” Willis Jepson, one of California’s early botanists, wrote of them in 1901, they give “no comfort of […]
We’ve done this before, talked about the books and films and everything else we’ve liked. Here are our lists from years gone by. And if you should be so moved, we also offer books we ourselves have written. Ann: I like lemon ginger scones. They are buttery, a tiny lemon bite and a bigger ginger […]
We’ve done this before, talked about the books we’ve liked. Here are our lists from years gone by. And if you should be so moved, we also offer books we ourselves have written. Cameron: Maybe this is boring, but I liked a lot of the new seasons of Netflix series this summer. Especially Lupin (Omar Sy!!!!!!!) and Never […]
We’ve done this before, talked about the books we’ve liked. Here are our lists from years gone by. And if you should be so moved, we also offer books we ourselves have written. Helen: The most entertaining reading I’ve done lately is a pair of young adult novels set in the near future: Catfishing on […]
