The Museletter, the local homespun newsletter that a small group of us have been putting together for the past 20 years, is one of the reasons I moved to Floyd. Back then it went by another name. It was mostly supported, and still is today, by the alter-natives, the back-to-the landers, the musicians, and artists […]
I was on the phone with Mara setting up a date to play Scrabble when she said to me, “I enjoyed the reading you did about your mom at our last open mic, but I think it was the first time you didn’t read any poetry. That was weird.” “Do you know why?” I asked […]
On more than one occasion I’ve written about my youngest nephew, Patrick, who I refer to as “my prodigy” due to our mutual interest in everything goofy, gooey, and giddy. Now I’d like to introduce his older brother, Matthew, who could also be considered a prodigy of mine, but for a different reason. My first […]
1. Somebody rescued a scarecrow from somebody else’s trash and put it in my garden for a surprise. It’s meant to scare crows away from our corn seedlings, but it ended up scaring me. I thought it was a stranger loitering in the garden! 2. Somebody played pool with my husband in our cellar on […]
Joe saw my car parked in front of the Café Del Sol and decided to take a break from his busy counselor workday to come in and say hello. Mara, Leah, and I were gathered around the Scrabble board in the cushy chair corner of the café. After some friendly antics and Scrabble game theatrics, […]
1.Come in…sit down…relax…converse…my desk doesn’t always look like this….sometimes it’s even worse. When I was growing up my mother had a plaque in the kitchen with those words on it, except the word “desk” read “house.” With 9 kids, even though she was great at housekeeping, I guess she felt the need for a disclaimer. […]
“There was an old story that when a revolution occurred in some ancient land the new ruler was asked, “What’s the first thing to do?” and the new ruler answered “Kill the poets.” ~ Bill Moyer I wanted to wear my new purple beret to Sunday’s Spoken Word event, where I was scheduled to […]
He lives up the road from where “The Sopranos” is filmed, stays at Chelsea Hotel when on assignment in New York City, and grows hot peppers in his New Jersey backyard. A guy who wears a ponytail and is editor of a Chemical Engineering magazine is almost guaranteed to be interesting. And he is. Vanx […]
My friend Alex called to set up one of our monthly Scrabble games. We were trying to pick a date in between her cancer treatment, medical tests, and a possible surgery. “It has to be before the 20th because we’re going to Iceland,” she said. What?! Why? I asked. “My sister-in-law offered us a free […]
My girlfriend, Juniper, called me from her cell phone on her way to the airport. She was headed for “The City of Love,” San Francisco, to visit one of her sons and was wearing a poppy flower in her hair for the occasion. I can always tell that it’s Juniper when I pick up the […]
1. This is the time of year when sitting on my own porch can make me feel guilty. We have a family of phoebe’s nesting in our rafters, and when we go out onto the porch the parents get all agitated and watch every move we make. 2. The birds are back…checking out the real […]
AKA: The All You Can Eat Buffet One of the reasons I moved to the country was to pursue a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Most of us have jobs to make money in order to pay for shelter and food, but I think we forget that it’s possible to provide some of those things directly ourselves. […]
