File Under: Another Thing to Make Me Fee...

It’s not often I feel old. My nieces in their early Twenties are skeptical, but I tell them, as you grow older, you never really have the perception that you ever hit an age that your parents were in your lifetime. But now and then I’m brought up short by a comment or event that makes me realize I’m not technically young anymore. If young is defined as the generation...

In Which It is Revealed: I Am the New Pa...

Just like I’ve never watched sitcoms, I’ve also never watched “contest shows” like American Idol. (Although I’ll be making an exception when Donny Osmond joins Dancing with the Stars later this month.) However, you couldn’t turn on the TV, glance at the InterWebs or listen to the radio (even NPR) any time this summer and NOT know that Paula Abdul,...

Random Pictology: A Two Terriers Vineyar...

Weekends are times for kicking back. Except on a part time farm. Which is why I’m punting today and posting mostly pictures instead of writing anything. How about another tour of the spread? That’s always a good stand-by. What better place to start than with this Matija Poppy. I don’t know why, but these flowers always make me happy. We call them “Fried Egg...

Why Michelle Obama Should Be My Gardenin...

Up here in Sonoma on my own trying to set out my garden has not been as much fun as I thought it would be. The favas are infested with aphids, the Lady Bugs I bought are more interested in partying than eating them, and this is the stage where “gardening” is really about shoveling stuff. Turning soil, digging in compost, hauling stuff. After the dreaming stage of planning...

All the Blarney on Barack O’Bama

I have a Boston friend who is, as my grandmother used to say, “as Irish as Murphy’s cow”. She’s more than just Boston Irish, she’s “connected” Boston Irish, as in a Godmother in the Murphia. The tentacles of her influence and connection extend across the “pond” to Ireland where she visits frequently and has a vast network of family...

Rest in Peace, Odetta, Voice of the Civi...

I meant to write something about Odetta’s passing when I heard about it on December 3rd, but it’s taken me this long to process it. Time Magazine and the New York Times wrote wonderful obituaries and reviews of her work, her music and the people it influenced, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte. She sang mostly gospel, spirituals and folk music, but she...