LEAVE THE DEER ALONE

There was a doe on the beach in front of our house. It is not the first time we've seen a deer on the beach, but this one was distressed, maybe shocky. She stood hunched, ears drooping, head low, and perfectly still for a long time, wet from having been in the ocean, but no …

BLAME THE CHILI VERDE

Early on, in the '90s, when I said I didn't eat meat, people would offer me chicken, and I would have to point out, Isn't chicken meat? What about duck? they would ask. Turkey? Rabbit? I started calling myself a "vegetarian" because trying to explain what I ate led to a lot of confusion. And a …

“IF IT BEEN A SNAKE . . .

. . . it woulda' bit'cha." When there was a break in the weather, we walked north, our usual direction. There was sand, but on our way out we were mostly in the rocks at the eastern edge, picking up trash. I found the hilt of a plastic knife and then the sheath. Gary found …

GULLS & OYSTERCATCHERS

We socialized a lot this holiday season. So far, a party, visitors, driving to Portland to see our sons and their families, and their extended families. The weekend after next, we will have a full house here for Twelfth Night. Gary wants Dundee cake, and we will have salmon and mushrooms and grains and salads. …

SLEEPING IN

Sleeping in . . . will not happen. Of course it won't. Tomorrow is Christmas and even though I do not have to provide a holiday meal for anyone, I did make 5 panettones today, plus the stuffed baked potatoes with and without dairy, and the pumpkin custards with and without dairy and refined sugar. …

COLLEGE DEBT

Never trust memes. Verify. My mother first explained "where the money went" to me when I was about eight years old. "Here is how much your father earns each month . . . " She wrote out mortgage payments, utilities, food . . . The budget of Trevor Klee is making people hysterical. Where does …

A YEAR OF READING IN REVIEW

  I read, I realize now, a great many memoirs, beginning with Anne Frank's Diaries and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green [Joanne Greenberg], and right through recent best sellers. An essay on the Brevity blog defends the memoir against accusations of "misery porn." Judging from my recent history, I am on that …

LIVING AT SEA LEVEL

There is a major front moving in. Gary has come up the stairs twice to tell me about it. Perhaps two inches of rain. He will need to buy the whipping cream today—how much did I need? Three quarts. The tide sweeps up nearly to the hedge and he suggests we might get a walk …

WRAPPING UP

The year is not over, but with Hanukkah already past, five days to the beginning of winter, and just over two weeks till 2019, "the season" is closing in. The day before yesterday I wrapped gifts for twenty people. Yes, I am amazed too. We sent out fewer holiday cards, but we did get them …

NO ONE WANTS YOUR STUFF

Mom told us: "Just sell it or give it to the kids [her grandchildren] and they can sell it." She had promised that I would inherit her home, the house I designed and supervised in building, ordered the cabinets, installed the tile backsplash and the tile floor and walls in the bathroom and the entryway …