Where the Streets Have Two Names

I wrote this post in 2018, and I’m happy to still be leaving on the same . . . road? * Let’s call the thoroughfare I live on Lemon Grove. There are two signs for it, one at each end of our block. Until very recently, one of the signs read, “Lemon Grove Avenue”. The […]

Something Nice and Small

Anyone else having trouble focusing? Me, too. This week, while trying to write this blog post, I spent an inappropriate amount of time looking at prepared meal delivery services with no plan to purchase anything. The food just looked so calm and pretty in its little jars. So I do what I often do when […]

Orchid Care for the Uncertain

I wrote this post in 2019, when I was feeling prickly and uncertain–not too different than how I’m feeling these days. We do have a few more orchids now, although I still am not quite sure how to care for them. * I wake up this morning on the prickly side—or at least, I’m prickly […]

Our Moon

Last week, Ann wrote about her moon epiphany and Our Becky’s book (Ann: “Our Moon, you know the one, lead review in the NYTimes Book Review, longlisted for the National Book Award”) about our most glorious satellite. I got to ask Becky about Our Moon in January, and I’m thinking of this conversation again at […]

Dancing in the streets

This is the game my older son and I played one weekend a few years ago. He would bolt into a four-lane thoroughfare, and I would shout and jump around: “Get out of the street! It’s not safe! GetoutgetoutGETOUT!” Then I would dash into the street after him and we would laugh and laugh. And […]

What Could Go Wrong?

This post first appeared in 2016, but I started thinking about it today while I was watching “Young Woman and the Sea,” a Disney movie based on the book by Glenn Stout. In it, Trudy Ederle encounters a bloom of jellyfish while she’s swimming the English Channel–and the filmmakers manage to make the experience look […]

Once Upon a Phylogeny

This post first appeared in 2013. My dancing shoes no longer have heels, but at least fairy tales are timeless. One of the ornaments that lives in a box in the attic has a fairy wearing a blue gown on it; she’s sitting on a crescent moon. This picture has a quote below it: “If […]

Weather the Weather

Yesterday afternoon, all at once, my son and I started to feel a little sluggish. For me, a little afternoon slump isn’t so surprising. But for a kid who’s usually climbing up doorjambs, ripping off pull-ups, or teaching himself how to do a corkscrew flip on the trampoline, it’s weird. But there we were in […]