It’s Monday. And it’s June. And it’s gloomy. Or maybe it’s just that I’m gloomy about our recent oil spill and I can’t quite figure out how to write about it. So here’s a post that ran in June 2012 about June Glooms past. I used to think the weather was something adults talked about because they were […]
One night this spring I left all the doors open to the van. It was stinkier than usual, and I figured anyone who thought they might peer inside would have found little of value before being frightened off by the smell. But the next morning when I turned the ignition on, the kids gasped. Our […]
I met Jonathan Waldman when we were both magazine interns. We had a lot in common–we both got really into working on the magazine’s science column, and we were both really big fans of burritos. (He later sold me a shirt that featured a burrito-powered bike). When I ran into him at a conference a few […]
April 13-17 Ann on a recent Nature study linking dragons and climate change: “The authors recommend the obvious — increasing research in consumer-friendly fire-resistent clothing — and further suggest that monarchs desist from running around conferring knighthoods.” A sharp-eyed commenter notes publication date. Michelle on a disease affecting couples living in tipis and other small, off-the-grid […]
The other day I was just starting to work when I heard a strange cooing in the other room. It sounded like a baby. But I swore I’d just dropped the actual baby off at a friend’s house. When I went to investigate, the baby wasn’t there, so I figured I was having a mild, […]
When my husband finished grad school in 2006, we spent a lot of time talking about where we should go next. We knew we wanted to leave the college town in Oregon where we’d lived for the last few years. Should we head to the Cascades, move north along the Willamette River, or go south and west, […]
This is an updated version of a post that originally appeared in January 2012. I can’t remember why the seed catalogs started showing up, but once they did, I was a goner. If you haven’t ever gotten one, imagine full color photo spreads of produce, like the striped Tigger Melon and and the orange-red lusciousness of […]
The other day while we were playing at a nearby park, a woman got out of her car and swooped over to where my sons and their friends were trying to flip over small boulders. She had these awesome knee high boots, and bright red lipstick. Seeing her reminded me what happens to everyman hero […]