Category: A View From My Eighties

16 Dec at 3:06 pm

Don’t Return That Vessel Empty!

Gene was writing witty advertising copy at an agency in San Francisco so we had moved to a rented house on Belvedere—a small enclave in San Francisco Bay. Our fourth child, Amanda, was brand new. David, our eldest, was five.…

7 Dec at 5:31 pm

Approaching “A Further Shore”

Musings

9

You know, every so often life takes you by the scruff of the neck and gives you a good—a really good–shaking. Everything goes blotto. Numb. Still everything hurts. Up till then, things were going along swimmingly. Your family got fed.…

27 Nov at 12:56 am

Some Years of Brussels Sprouting

In the Kitchen, at the Table

1

I want to write a few lines about Brussels sprouts before the stroke of Thanksgiving… Hard for me. Doing my best. But here we go. Yes, I read online there has been some genetic pushing and pulling in the Brussels…

20 Nov at 11:15 pm

Oh, David!

Doing My Best

12

I began writing this “sickabed-on-two-chairs…” Not really two chairs…our big bed…but I love that old-fashioned expression. I’ve been ill—wretched deep hacking cough of bronchitis—because my son—my firstborn—is in the hospital. Gravely ill. (Hate that adjective.) Whether or not he will…

5 Nov at 7:14 pm

“Turn the volume up!!!”

Musings

7

Here I am. Still sickabed on two chairs. Never occurred to me I’d be in bed with bronchitis for a whole long week. Nuisance. (The worst part is I didn’t get around to unpacking from our trip to Boise when…

1 Nov at 6:12 pm

Just Checking In…

Musings

14

Not well. My old friend from Mill Valley days, Bronchitis, has pushed its way through the door and taken hold of me. (In Mill Valley our house was in a grove of dew-dripping redwood trees and I was constantly plagued…

20 Oct at 9:16 pm

The March

Around and About

0

Nothing I can add to what you’ve likely read and heard about the tens of thousands of us across the country. Just that I’m so glad I did it… What was surprising is that I would say the average age…

15 Oct at 2:32 pm

My I Love America Morning!

Musings

4

My I LOVE AMERICA* Morning: This Saturday (October 18th) I’m going to join the No-Kings Protest here in Santa Cruz. Walk one mile through town… Be one more American sending Trump a message that he has got to give up…

14 Oct at 2:30 am

The Trip That Settled Traveling Again?

Aging Ain’t for Sissies

9

When I was four years old my grandmother dressed me in my best, drove me to the Los Angeles train station, tearfully handed me and my little suitcase to a Super Chief “nurse-stewardess.” The uniformed stewardess never left my side…

2 Oct at 5:12 pm

The Inspiring Jane

Musings

12

I can’t imagine there is even a handful of women of a certain age on this planet who, this morning, don’t feel diminished by the loss of their sister, Jane Goodall. Ach! When I was of traveling ability I so…