Yesterday was the end of Daylight Saving time here, also called “The Day That Just Won’t End” by assorted family members and friends. So I’ve been thinking about time and watching this frightening movie trailer again. Other times, it’s good when time feels more expansive than it usually does. Even though this post first appeared […]
Bryn Nelson is a Seattle-based science writer whose book, Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure, came out September 13. Yes, that’s right–it’s a book about poop. So of course, Helen and Cameron wanted to take a deep dive into this important (seriously!) topic. Here’s our conversation with Bryn, which has been lightly edited […]
It’s fig season again! But this year, it’s a little lackluster. It’s not the birds getting to the figs. It’s not the squirrels. There are only a few figs, and the ones that have appeared seem tired. Some of them are falling to the ground before they start to ripen, others are sitting small and […]
This post first appeared in 2012, when I was full of enthusiasm for seed catalogs and tomatoes. Now, my tomatoes are full of enthusiasm, too. A volunteer that sprung up in a planter with succulents in it has now been growing strong since last year, bursting with tomatoes even through the winter. What kind is […]
My summer feet are hoping to be on vacation right now, but they’re worried about wildfires. This post first ran in August 2019. At the beginning of summer, my feet often feel tender. There is a particular stretch of asphalt between the university parking lot and the beach that is especially pitted, and the sharp […]
Awwwww yeah, it is peach season again! I am so happy! And I am so peach-silly that I can only think about peaches, so I am returning to this post from 2019 while I recover. One update: I have not made a peach pie since. Last week I made one from apples instead. Save the […]
Earlier this week we all piled into the van and went to the Weird Al concert. My inner twelve-year-old was thrilled. Weird Al, well, he rocked. I was inspired to finally see Weird Al in person after a really lovely story about him appeared in the New York Times magazine early in the pandemic, a […]