Like clockwork, every year just before Christmas I catch a cold. Perhaps it’s because it’s our extra busy season at work, or that I’m realizing the end of the year is mere days away and I get flustered, or because those holiday cards aren’t writing themselves, or because of the very chilly temperature outside [...]

[2008 apple sauce, October 2008.]
When I was growing up we had in the backyard from roughly June through October (or, some variation of): plums, nectarines, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, walnuts, almonds, apples, many other vegetables during the summer months. Typical to oblivious children, I don’t think my brother and I really appreciated — or even [...]

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
Now she lifts her pale forearms [...]

[Trees, Pierce Ranch, November 2008.]
Yesterday I went to Pt. Reyes with some old pals and walked along a nearly-deserted Keyhoe Beach and took photos and caught up and it was just lovely. We stopped at Cowgirl Creamery on the way — my first time! mon dieu! — and I bought some cards and R [...]

[Sunday breakfast, November 2008.]
I love fruit — I love apples sliced and paired with sharp cheddar cheese, oranges peeled carefully and segmented, drippy nectarines eaten over the kitchen sink because they’re so juicy and ripe, cherries baked into muffins and pies, strawberries eaten out of hand as quickly as I can stuff them into my [...]