The season has changed and suddenly I find myself anticipating the holidays. I am the first to condemn the world for jumping the gun on every ‘Hallmark’ holiday, to thumb my nose at Halloween swag on store shelves in August and Christmas décor in October, and so this mood is unusual for me. I offer only the paltry excuse that a sense of nostalgia settled … Continue reading Sunday Almanac: It Is Good to Be Home
Cross the Mason-Dixon line driving north through Virginia (and a small, weirdo finger of West Virginia) and you enter Pennsylvania’s topographically interesting southern reaches, with the Appalachians all around, and the northernmost outpost of Krispy Kreme Donuts in Scranton, home of the fictitious and also delicious Dunder Mifflin. It is what we did Monday afternoon, arriving at Fallen Tree Farm near Carlisle well before nightfall … Continue reading Travelogue: We Three Land in Carlisle
Over the course of the long holiday weekend I have fairly devoured this novel by Catherine Newman, whose main character and plot resonate with me in 10,000 kinds of ways. The setting for her story is a favorite summer vacation rental on Cape Cod where the protagonist-narrator, a menopausal mom, has returned for a week (the standard annual stay) with her husband and now-grown children, … Continue reading Reflection: Can We at Least Finish This Thing?
I read a quote recently that goes something like, people who knew the older version of you would not recognize who you are now. This might be true, although I believe a person’s essence never changes, and by that I mean, warts tend to hang around—but so does what’s good in each of us, I think, and the good can even blossom if we let … Continue reading Through the Lens: A Rare Glimpse Into an Old Version of Me
Given the milieu and such, caution seems fitting. Maybe I’m wrong but will just test the water with my toes for now. Yesterday Chef David stopped on his way home from errands and picked up a nice piece of tuna and then made seared fingerling potatoes and an uncomplicated cucumber salad to go with. We flipped on the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, and … Continue reading 2025 Almanac: Stepping Into the New Year With Due Caution
Twice in the last couple of days Chef David and I have observed aloud how lucky we are, and grateful to be sure. This Christmas we also managed to wrangle precisely the same days off somehow, to celebrate quietly at home, surrounded by warmth and love (in three dimensions and through the ether) and one sweet-smelling old canine who stood patiently for his bath a … Continue reading Christmas Day 2025
Vermont’s namesake Green Mountains, resplendent on a late summer day There were no orcs, dwarves, or elves on this trip. Just one exceptionally bad hotel (the balance exceptionally good) and mainly smooth sailing. We traveled to Vermont chiefly so Chef David and I could visit his adult kids. Mission accomplished, fair to say. The conditions in New England were gorgeous, couldn’t have asked for any … Continue reading Travelogue: There and Back Again, Vermont Style
When I was a young student of archaeology, I recall being gobsmacked by the notion that the curvaceous Tennessee River had changed its course again and again over millennia and the one I knew, the one whose bluff I lived on for roughly a decade and where my kid spent the first few years of his life, probably looked radically different from the river native … Continue reading How a Control Freak Deals With Nature
I have been spending long hours writing, but working on a more ambitious project outside of the blog. It is high time to check in, not quite high summer but sure feels that way. Against all odds, when the atmosphere outside is this oppressive (but not this oppressive), somehow our screen porch has remained a tolerable place to linger over coffee in the morning, iced … Continue reading Sunday Almanac 7.7.24: Summer Is Here
It is five of five in the morning and I am hanging my head over the sofa from behind it, about to awaken a sleeping chef until I realize he is wide awake. I am driving him to an early appointment at the doctor’s office in an hour for a little thing, so it is time to get moving. He is not fine, he tells … Continue reading Reflection: The Current State of Things
Carolina Thinklings 