My phone buzzes every few minutes these days. I keep it on vibrate-only nearly all the time so as not to annoy other people with its chirps and beeps. Or myself for that matter. Some of the alerts come from the major news outlets I follow to ascertain what fresh hell awaits us today. There is never a lack of news to bring one down a bit.
To counteract the spate of depressing information flashing across my phone, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I now get a bevy of notifications from our new high-tech bird feeder. It was a Mother’s Day gift that we can all enjoy — continual...
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TYLER — Gatsby is on full alert. He sits patiently on his doggie yoga mat, wearing an official therapy dog vest, looking up with his tail slightly wagging as another batch of elementary school students head our way. They arrive at our station on a bench on the sidewalk along the school parking lot. At the behest of their teacher, they sit in front of Gatsby, our cavapoo rescue dog, while I go through my brief spiel.
“This is Gatsby. He is a registered therapy dog. That means his primary job is to make people happy,” I tell them. They nod and scootch closer to Gatsby. Soon, it is time to stand...
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DESTIN, FLORIDA — The wind is whipping from the south-southwest at up to 25 mph Another band of storms has rolled in from the sea, sending up whitecaps along the beach as the waves slide to shore. Thunder peals in the distance. The beach is abandoned on this mid-May Monday afternoon, all the beach chairs safely inside their storage boxes before being sent careening down the sand. Gulls fly about, buffeted to-and-fro from the wind. I am sitting on a fourth-floor balcony of our condo, wearing a hoodie, and feeling pleasantly chilly. An especially stiff gust of wind compels me to flip the hood up over...
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Yes, I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks
— Noah Kahan, “Stick Season’
Stick season in Vermont is the period between fall and winter, when the leaves have tumbled to the ground, but the snow has not started falling — a time of transition. Kahan is a young singer-songwriter who is heavy on my playlist in East Texas’ current season – mowing time.
I have been mowing around the margins since the grass began coming back, mainly the fenced backyard and close to the house, while leaving much of the acreage alone until the wildflowers went to seed.
Thus, on May 3, after...
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PORTLAND, OREGON — Without overtly meaning to do so, we retraced much of the steps of a trip we took here in March 2023 to visit our beloved friend Glenn McCutchen and his family here in the Rose City. Glenn passed away on April 5. We came here for the memorial service, held on a misty Saturday morning in the stately Westminster Presbyterian Church. It was a lovely service.
We booked a day before the service to explore downtown Portland, where we stayed in the historic Hotel Lucia. This nine-story hotel, built in 1909 and housed in what is an extension of the original Imperial Hotel, captivated...
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