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,

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

“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...

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...

Art by Boltax Yesterday, I totally wasted the day. Amazingly, it felt good. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to work a to-do...

At last. A bona fide perk of old age. At least for us elders in California. Scarcely able to believe what I was seeing in the San Diego...

In my small circle, July brought forth three baby boys and one very large cucumber. I had nothing to do with birthing the young boys; I...

"except for the Presidential s**t show..."

Existential questions like this over an extended period of time led me to re-imagine my office recently. My corner office. Before you get...

It’s fascinating how one person’s seemingly innocent gesture can affect another person in unknown and unexpected ways. There’s a house on...

We were together at twilight time. As we strolled, holding hands after Cadillac margaritas and carne asada fajitas at our neighborhood...

Today, I spent the morning cleaning and polishing my dining room chandelier. It’s industrial design featuring ninety-six crystalline...

The stirring, captivating, and extraordinary music of Eva Cassidy floats through the air in my home as I write. I have listened to her...

Via Zoom, Jan, my good Duplicate-bridge-playing-friend, said, “Can we take a break? I want a V-8.” We did. When we resumed, I heard the...

I am an incurable list maker—never more in my sweet spot than at the beginning of the New Year when it’s time to write resolutions....

Way back before the twenty-first century began, in 1999, there was an extraordinary garden store in Santa Barbara, Smith & Hawken, where...

Lost in translation in a QR Code nation. Weird sensation Increasing presence in my everyday life of a two-dimensional square made up of...

On my radar…an architect, an actress and an unbelievably awesome vocalist – all women! First, one of British drama’s royalty, Nicola...