I failed spectacularly at preparing for our recent “Big Vacation,” at least when it came to having functional hiking boots.  I can’t blame my poor performance on lack of time or knowledge. Chad and I had been planning our Salish Sea UnCruise vacation since Christmas 2019. I had plenty of time to prepare for our…

Like many people, eating is a big part of my vacation experience. (Yes, eating is also a big part of my routine normal life experience, but the context is different). Eating new food and eating in new places, as well as eating familiar food in new places, is part of the fun of vacation.  The…

I had the day off and I watched a movie at home via Amazon Prime all by myself! This is an occasion of note (and blogging) for many reasons: I rarely operate our TV on my own (that’s Chad’s job) I/we rarely watch movies (we watch a lot of episodic TV shows)  I rarely watch…

“What’s your favorite Shakespeare play?” –audience question asked via chat after our livestreaming performance of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).” “Um, whichever play is the shortest?”–me I’m just not that into Shakespeare. I’ve been lucky enough to see many high quality and creative productions, and I’ve even been in some Shakespearean or Shakespeare-adjacent…

When I played the game Risk with my brother as a kid, he would sing a little original tune when he moved his armies from one continent to another: “Oh we’re going on a boat, and we’re never coming back..” (YES, I’m still shocked by this, but I DID play a game as a kid…and…

Today is the twenty-first anniversary of my mom’s death.  I didn’t do anything in particular to observe it. I did frequently think, “DAMN, it’s been TWENTY-ONE years?! I really miss her and can’t believe it’s been so long since she’s been part of my life.* I also can’t believe how old I’m getting.” I didn’t…

Sometimes it really does feel like all the world’s a stage, or at least that an audience can pop up at any time.  Our band Pigeons From Hell played an impromptu concert this weekend–okay, only for two people and only for about twenty minutes–and it was awesome.  As a literal garage band, we were in…

I don’t want summer to end.  Yes, there are many delights of fall. And this has been a rather crappy summer–just in terms of weather and environment alone, with the heat wave and the drought and the bad air quality caused by wildfire smoke.  I’m not even that much of a summer person–I don’t hang…

I’m amazed by how many letters my friends and I used to write each other in the eighties/early nineties. Yes, forget emails and don’t even think about texts–these were actual letters handwritten (okay a few were typed) on paper. Not quite papyrus scrolls or stone tablets but almost. I don’t want to turn this into…

Today I finished packing up all my belongings from my onsite work office.  I may have to go back and do some cleaning and dusting and paper clip redistribution, but this great task of transition is essentially complete.  Surprisingly, I feel less overwhelmed than after my first session of moving. Yes, I still haven’t touched…