Ode to Programmable Timers Like the first rise of the conductor’s baton in the hushed concert hall, there is a moment when my home is filled not with music—with light. Thank you, programmable timers. The light began when, as a recent widow, I moved into 215, my new home just as the time changed, my days falling into autumn darkness—the deepest darkest cover of loneliness late afternoon through the never-ending space until bedtime. Soon, I ventured to Ace Hardware and returned

Sorry, not really a statue, my friend. You're a bust. Head and shoulders only. But what a delightful companion you are! Ready to party at the drop of a hat. To celebrate. How glamourous you looked for New Year’s Eve. Those white and silver plumes in your hair and those rhinestones dripping. Show-stopper! It’s adorable how each time I go to Texas, you don your Dallas necklace announcing my destination. Like you’re ready to burst into “The Stars at Night are big and bright. Dee

New Year’s resolution, 2006, number seven? Learn something new. I It has taken me a few weeks to get my mojo going, and amazingly I am learning not one, but two new things. The first, a surprise even to myself, I am studying meteorology. Starting simple with a Great Courses program taught by a UCLA professor. I say simple, but it’s turning out to be as difficult as learning a new language. But fascinating! According to the bespectacled professor, Nature Abhors Extremes . Som

“Twas a month after Christmas . . . They all know. My family. I wish for an all-family reunion at least once a year. Miraculously, it happens again and again. This year, the clan—relatives from the Outer Banks, Brooklyn, Washington, Oregon, and nearby Valley Center—gathered in San Diego over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday with three full-family happenings and mini-family get-togethers sprinkled throughout the week. Two birthday parties, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning

Stack Packs for my Writing Group Cash at 5 in his great-grandfather's football sweater “My grandmother invented the Stack Pack,” five-year-old Cash boasted vehemently to his six-year-old sister with the pride reserved for a Nobel prize winner recently recognized for discovering a cure for a deadly disease. The Stack Pack—gifts assembled one atop another—minimum three—then wrapped with gaily decorated paper, anchored together with hidden tape between each and tied with a color

Marshmallows on the sweet potatoes or not? Packaged dressing? Yes or No? Why is turkey so damn expensive? Pertinent questions like this are being asked in homes throughout my neighborhood. The city. State. Country, for God’s sakes. Pertinent questions about the most over-stuffed holiday of the year. It’s Thanksgiving. Ninety-four percent of people in the United States will celebrate the holiday this year. A holiday time for counting the number around the dining room table,

Happy one-hundredth birthday to Wilma. And Happy Publication Day! Available on Amazon - https://a.co/d/8q12Sbc or by contacting me directly for a much less expensive copy!

Wilma Withdrawal is definitely happening! After completing any major project, there’s some kind of letdown I’m thinking... It happened after completing my first book, T he Orangewoods—Seasons in the Country Artfully Lived, which was published three months into the pandemic. An extremely soft landing into a shutdown world. It happened with my second, After Goya—A Mature-ish Fairytale . With this one, the letdown lingers with me regretting at times that I hadn’t writte

La Familia, Gail Roberts, 2005 My gleaming new washing machine and dryer, so white they’re almost fluorescent, stand side by side in the...

Usually at this time of year, I am musing about the arrival of fall... Last year, I wrote about autumn and art.** Several years ago, I...

“There are certain shades of blue that make me ache.” In her recent newsletter, this one titled “Shades of Blue (and Something New),”...

As a writer who has NEVER been published in the New York Times, and much more importantly as her grandmother, this is wildly...

There’s a new gathering spot—some might call it a watering hole— that you might not have heard of in Banker’s Hill , my neighborhood in...

A wild , worrisome and wonderful weekend in Los Angeles (our second visit this month) ended for us driving through the last stages of...

If, as Health Fitness Revolution offers, music and specifically attending concerts “is fun and leads to reduced stress levels,” I should...

The sight or smell of a cigarette repels me. Wretched. Disgusting. Downright stinky. Josefina Aguilar, Oaxaca Mexico Curiously, two...

Bill Murray Sighting in Bankers Hill, California Actually, there is no Bill Murray and me. But, in my mind, there’s a Me and Bill Murray....

Since the moment close to two decades ago when I first opened the slender, rectangular white box—minimalist and elegant in...

Ten days after Trump demeaned Brutalist architecture and its heavy imposing aesthetic, I stood in the background as Robert, a man I care...

Girls’ getaway played out riotously, as always. Giddiness, the order of the day. Each day we were together. Giddiness coupled with...