Green

It’s embarrassing enough that it took me 12 years to go to Channel Islands National Park, especially since I see the islands almost every day. Last month, I got on board the dive boat that would take us to the place they call the Galapagos of North America. At last! The captain said something about […]

Time Will Tell

Sometimes I lose track of time when I’m in the water. There are days when it seems like I’ve been paddling through whitewater for hours, the wind makes my ears feel like icicles, and my arms are burning. When I get back to the car, only fifteen minutes have passed since I started surfing. Then […]

Redux: Silver Lining

September must be my preferred house-cleaning time, because once again, I was purging things in closets this weekend. And like last year, when I wrote this post, I found a disgusting amount of silverfish. (I feel a little better that it’s not just me: even my very organized and clean neighbor says she finds them […]

Where the Streets Have Two Names

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 other said, “Lemon Grove Street”. When someone asks for my address, I usually don’t say either. I just say I live […]

Redux: Friend Me

  This post originally ran last summer. This summer, we tried to do better–we only planted two squash plants. Still, we went to dinner at a friend’s house last night and left behind a very large zucchini. At dinner for my 18th birthday, one of my friends gave me one of those long, narrow posters filled […]

Cloud Cover

When I turned on my phone over the weekend after a blissful week without cell service, I got an increasingly alarming series of messages from friends at home. A fire broke out near where I’m dogsitting If I get evacuated can I bring the dogs I am going to text your mom I’m evacuating my […]

Egg Drop

This weekend my oldest son held two brown eggs in his hand. He cradled them gently. Then he threw one on the ground. It bounced, and he laughed. This one was rubber. The other egg he held was a real one. I’ve never gotten used to the fake egg. Sometimes it appears in egg cartons. […]

Loose Ends

I usually avoid talking to people at the gym. But a few weeks ago, the man next to me had his shoes untied, and I couldn’t help myself. The laces were bright red, and extremely long. He was doing side steps that looked like they had high trip potential. And I was extra-sensitive to falls […]