Good Fences Make … For Exhaustion When we moved into our house, the property came with an aging wooden fence along one side of the backyard. It was dry, splintered and cracked, with missing pieces here and there, knotholes had become portholes, and the entire fence was in general need of serious renovation or […]
Mutt-friendly Montrose Like many parents, some of our favorite books to read to our young children were in the Beginner Books collection. One title in particular, “Go Dog, Go” by P.D. Eastman, was high on the repeat reading list for our kids’ bedtimes. My wife, being an enthralling storyteller (I’ve always thought she should narrate […]
When She Flew, We Soared I refer to last week as “geek week,” not only because that’s when Apple began selling their new, highly coveted iPhone 5, but also due to the spectacle of a low-altitude flyover of much of Southern California by the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Not to be outdone, my lovely and talented […]
Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls. I’ll Get It. As my kids will attest, I have three immitigable personal quirks (okay, at least three). One: I can’t walk past a light switch without turning it off if no one’s in the room. Two: An outside door left open during the winter while our […]
Call Me Fed Up In the classic Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth” the band sang, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Now, I don’t know if whatever’s happening is only happening at my house or throughout the entire Crescenta Valley. It could be happening all across L.A. County and […]
Missing Meatball Already Way back when I was a kid, we used to sing a parody version of “On Top Of Old Smokey” that went something like: “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese; I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed!” I know it’s an odd connection, but last week I couldn’t help […]
The Con is On My father-in-law called while I was working at my desk the other day. He asked if I knew that one of my sons (the one attending college in Missoula, Mont.) had been in a car accident in British Columbia and was now in jail. Wait. What? I was vaguely aware of […]
Summer Medal Moments It’s official: I’ve gone into Olympics withdrawals. Granted, I’m probably not as depressed as the London cleanup crews or vendors stuck with shelves of historically unpopular official souveniers, but now that the 2012 Summer Olympics have come and gone, I’ll have to wait two whole years until the Winter Games in Sochi, […]
Becoming a Podium Pundit If medals were awarded for watching Olympics coverage, I’d win gold. Guaranteed. I’m an Olympics junkie. People who know me know I’ve never followed professional basketball or football (although I do like to watch the Super Bowl every year strictly for the commercials), and most baseball games can put me out […]
A Hot Time Was Had By All Last week I did something I’ve always said I would never, ever do. I purposefully traveled to Dallas, Tex. in the hot-as-a-flippin’-furnace middle of July. Actually, I’ve always said I would also never, ever, ever go to Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque – or for that matter – […]