Yeah, the C word. Somehow modern humans found a way to come up with a worse C word than what we already tiptoed around (except in the UK, where it’s cute and sassy for Ricky Gervais to say it!) prior to 2020. So why are we not going back to the cove this weekend? I […]
The Return to Greatness
I didn’t realize until I was post-processing the photos from a short trip to Orange County this past weekend that we’d not visited Shaw’s Cove for a full five years. You see, after 2019 things got weird. Things got weird for almost every aspect of everyone’s lives, but going to the beach suffered too. Technically […]
Spending Independence Day with their Former Dependent
For a few years mom’s heard about the light show that we observe from our roof in the hills of Northeast Los Angeles every July 4th. This year she decided to visit, bringing my father along for the first time in over two years. Mandatory disclaimer time: yes, we’re still the lone two people on […]
Maui Wowie
On Saturday we woke up dark and early before the sun in order to catch our Uber to LAX before 7am. We were flying southwest and had checked in the day before right at the buzzer, the instant we were allowed to, but still ended up in C group. When we finally lined up we […]
The City of (not sun) Light
Our train arrived in Paris after sunset and we tried to use the “easy” subway system we experienced in London and Brussels but were quickly stymied by a glitchy machine that wouldn’t keep English selected past the initial screen. Kind of a problem for figuring out what to buy. Belgium even had a guy walking […]
They Should all be Belgian Fries Instead
We reached Brussels before sunset, perfect for checking out the Bourse Christmas Market. We’d picked the right lodging in some ways and the worst in others. The hotel was right next to the market and the hub of the city, but it was also somehow very loud at night with clanging and banging and strange […]
The Other Half
For many years Sam has wanted to visit the famous Christmas Markets in Europe. For many years I’ve wanted to at least set foot in the country where just under half my DNA originated (at least after the walk out of Africa where almost everyone’s originated). Dad’s half I connected with in Bavaria in 2016, […]
A weekend 80 years in the making
Maybe a year ago we started floating to immediate family the idea of a surprise visit to Ohio for my father’s 80th birthday. We’d done this for my mom in the Before Times and it was complicated enough then arranging surreptitious transportation all the way to the Shire. After months of random conversations about how […]
The Risks of Rationalizing Caution
Why Write? Many years ago I used to post political musings here. This stopped (well, oops, I guess it happened again with Yellowstone) when I decided: Now that I’ve been “blogging” for over two decades I’ve seen the dangers of free expression (#2 in the above list) sneak up. I’ve regretted things I’ve said and […]
Yellowstone 2023
The Prologue We’d long planned a Long Yellowstone (multiple puns intended, as in the Long family) trip, but as time ebbed on, some Longs had young kids ill suited (yet) for dangerous national parks (some of the acid in those Yellowstone pools will boil and burn your flesh) and other folks (me) became concerned about […]