Suprise Me

The summer before college I had a job that changed my entire life. If only it had changed the nation's history as well. Read More

In this cartoon, all the jurors are looking at their phones. Is that how it started, these shorter and shorter attention spans? Read More

  Back in the days of ‘Higher Education’ for me I ran into this Blaise Quote and kind of took it to heart.   Below are some additional thoughts:   Pascal’s quote is a profound observation about the human condition. It suggests that our miseries are often caused by our own restlessness and inability to be… Read More

Physical Education, or Gym as we called it, was by far my least favorite class in high school. First of all, we had to wear these horrible gymsuits, one-piece numbers that snapped up the front. They were hideous looking things, as you can see from the Featured Image. No girl looked good in them, no… Read More

My first two kids were pretty tame as teens, so when I learned about the ambulance in front of our house and every neighbor standing outside watching, it was a shock. Child #3 was far more social than her sibs, and she threw quite a party in my absence. Of course, my husband and I… Read More

  Strange Fall Other years Autumn  Means  First the poison oak leaves flame a brilliant red,  while the mountain maple blazes yellow. Usually the thrumming cricket chorus thins to a few hardy soloists when the morning and evening’s chill  signals winter’s shadow  hiding around the slipping sunshine. This year the talk of drought and global… Read More

I’m sure you would not guess it, if you guessed a long, long while, so I’ll take it out and put it on—it’s a great big Brownie smile! Read More

David came home for Christmas break from Stanford freshman year and announced he was going to join the band. I scoffed. He had played piano in elementary school, so perhaps remembered how to read music, but knew no other instrument that would help in a marching band. “What will you play,” I queried, “the triangle”?… Read More

“Everybody’s a dreamer, everybody’s a star,” sang the Kinks in their 1972 song “Celluloid Heroes.” So true. I nominate this song to be the permanent theme song of the Academy Awards show. First movie: Sayonara. As far as I remember, this was my first movie in a theatre, although I probably saw others on television… Read More

At the time, in 2006, it seemed a promising idea.  I had just retired (early) from a long career at Stanford. One is eligible to retire when age plus years of service add up to the magic number 75.  Having started fresh out of college and worked straight through, my relative youth was augmented by… Read More