Notes from Around the Block- Irv–the Owl Man on the Rancho
- Olive the trees have olives
- Wanda Hickey and the Frog Pond
- A recently discovered DNA thread: forwarding news articles
- A Bride in Blue
- The Gates to a President’s Hell: Water and the IRS
- Marriage in Oxymoronica
- The Present Moment
- If your life were a book
- From the mouths of old babes
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Monthly Archives: December 2009
The Coffee is Percolating
by cheri block Joe and I are warming up for the Dark Ages. We are reading (or rereading) The Confessions of St. Augustine, Beowulf, the Koran, The Song of Roland, and Lancelot. To recap for those of you who have … Continue reading
Mr. Griswold’s Eulogy
Mr. Keane looks like Gordon Lindsey, I told my dad in 1961. Gordon Lindsey was the owner of the local mortuary, the one we kids tip-toed by on our way to school. Mr. Lindsey grew red roses and calla lilies … Continue reading
Lookery at the Rookery
by cheri block In 1992, out of the blue, several elephant seals arrived at Piedras Blancas on the rugged central California coast. Why they chose this spot while on their migratory path down to Santa Barbara is still a mystery. … Continue reading
Rowing to Artemisium
by cheri block Judge Blah and I launch our sea kayaks into an estuary on the California coast and paddle out to a spit for lunch. On this sandy peninsula far from the peopled shore, live motley crews of misfits, … Continue reading
A Banquet for Demodocus
by cheri block sabraw Last weekend, we held a banquet for Joe’s 78th Birthday. Banquets are a major motif in Ancient Greek literature, and in some Roman literature too, so hosting a dinner tailored for Joe seemed entirely in keeping … Continue reading
A Concert for the Children
by cheri block sabraw Saturday, Judge Blah and I took our grandson and our niece to the San Francisco Symphony’s holiday presentation of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. As you might guess, the energy in the symphony hall … Continue reading
Where is the French voice?
My blog is usually about writing, literature, people, dignity, and philosophy. So you will bear with me as I deviate from my normal humor and address one of of life’s unfinished horrors— France’s role in deporting 78,000 men, women, and … Continue reading
Frost to the max
We have snow on our lawn, still sticking from yesterday’s arctic blast. The frog is blue; the succulents, red and frozen. The last rose of the season opened her petals before she heard the weather forecast. Out in the meadow, … Continue reading
Max on Frost
Most children educated in the United States are familiar with the sweet poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Because it is short and intellectually manageable, I use it to teach literary analysis to my younger … Continue reading
aardvark, here
by cheri block When podcasts first became vogue new media, I began listening to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl. I downloaded her podcasts from iTunes. Everything about her business endeavor was hot: five thousand or more hits a month on … Continue reading
