Do blog readers keep restaurant hours? Have you noticed that weekdays can be slow and that blog traffic tends to pick up over the weekend? On a good day in the blogsphere, it seems that you get your early-riser breakfast crowd, hopefully followed by a few readers who trickle in around lunch time. Then there’s [...]
I completely forgot about Earth Day this year. Last Friday, I was sitting in a Sushi restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, with my son and group of his friends when someone pointed out the Planet Earth printed on my T-shirt and asked if I wore it for the occasion. No, I was completely oblivious. My [...]
I am from a granite boulder seawall and cotton candy at Paragon Park I’m from blackberry stains and beach rose petals catalpa beans and bamboo I grew up on a peninsula in an amusement park town. A lighthouse and a roller coaster are the unforgettable hometown landmarks that are forever etched in my memory. [...]
I’m from my grandmother’s picnic basket sleeping on curlers in baby doll pajamas kerchiefs and bobby socks..hoola hoops and the twist Dear Diary today is Friday… I’m standing on the wall of Fort Revere in my hometown of Hull, Massachusetts. It used to be covered in graffiti. The ocean is to my left, the [...]
My son, Josh, was published by the time he was 3 years old. An article and a poem I had written appeared in “Mothering Magazine” around that time, and I was a regular contributor to “Nurturing,” a Mothering-like magazine out of Canada. I sent his poems, drawings, stories, and recipes, along with my own submissions [...]
Asheville, NC, Sunday 4/24/05 – We’re in downtown Asheville on a street lined with specialty shops and cafés, having just returned from the computer lab at my son Josh’s college where I posted my daily blog entry and he read his email. Inside the restaurant, my son and I sit down. I brush pink azalea [...]
It’s like making a community pie from scratch every month – putting together the local newsletter that I’ve co-edited for the past 20 years. Some people email submissions; some leave them at the designated community drop off – a green plastic tub under the stairs of the Harvest Moon Food Store in town. We get [...]
My eldest son, Josh, loves the Red Sox, which is unusual for a Virginian living in North Carolina and has something to do with the fact that his parents come from Boston. My son has a lot of heart, which makes him a good candidate for being a Red Sox fan. It takes someone with [...]
Every spring my husband and I go to Asheville, North Carolina, to visit my son – the potter who is also a closet super hero and has recently referred to himself as a “fire keeping alchemist” (a pottery reference, I suppose). We live in the country, where many of our friends have animals, chickens, and [...]
In our small town of Floyd, we actually have a street named “Batman Thumper.” The Blue Ridge Parkway goes through the county and tourism is on the rise. Here are a few quirky sites that aren’t on the map: In Oddfellas Cantina, a local restaurant, there’s a Barbie doll wearing a red dress, trapped in [...]
Not long ago, I read that Albert Einstein was so distracted by his mathematical passion that he went out one winter day and left the hanger to his overcoat inside his coat…while he was wearing it! It scared me because it sounded like something I would do. I found myself patting my back after that, [...]
I am from my father’s eyes after he saw the holocaust at Buchenwald and the nape of my mother’s neck where white pearls hung before her thyroid surgery… It’s Never Too Late I regret that when I was in high school, I never wore my hair in a ponytail. I wanted to. I wanted to [...]
This is the time of year that the screens go back up on our windows and the porch picnic table gets covered with a red and white checkered table cloth. It’s also the time of year when I can’t keep my hands clean. The red clay of Virginia outlines my cuticles, and my nails are [...]
This (preparing my tax return) is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. ~Albert Einstein The Audit In April I calculate poetry the way others do their taxes as though the world was overdue for a good accounting Bursting to put [...]
I’m from ice skates and alphabet streets jump ropes and black and white TV… This is the photo that was meant to be posted with the “Where I’m From” entry last week, but my computer was ill and wouldn’t upload. It’s still not fixed but the symptoms have gone dormant. Can a computer fix itself? [...]
I agreed to a 5 question interview with J&J’s Mom at Millersville. I just got finished telling her, after viewing her wall mural art (posted at her site) that she could have a new career as an artist…or maybe as an interviewer, which is another art form, according to a book I recently read, titled [...]
My idea of a great job would be writing the sayings on valentine heart candy, or coming up with the names for lipstick or paint colors, but I know even that would get boring. I can’t think of anything that I like enough to want to do it over and over, day in and out. [...]
Loose Leaf – ADJECTIVE: Related to, having, or being leaves that can be easily removed, rearranged, or replaced: a loose-leaf notebook; loose-leaf paper. The American Heritage Dictionary. If you type “loose leaf” into a search engine, you’ll get a multitude of pages having to do with tea or paper. As a writer who fills notebooks [...]
