Two-thirty, I thought. That is too damn early for anything interesting. I could not get back down. My brain started churning through what the eager-beaver Realtor was talking about, and getting the unit spruced up for sale. “Thin things out,” he said. “Replace the vanities in the bathrooms. Otherwise, you are pretty much good to […]

(Willow’s secret experiment- don’t tell anyone how much it costs! Photo Socotra). Old Jim called me up to ask if I was going to stop by Willow on the way home. It was a tipping point- left to my own devices I would have just gone home to Big Pink and enjoyed the mellow afternoon […]

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.” – – Eric Arthur Blair, better remembered as George Orwell Looking back from this small summit on the road to ruin, I recall a time in middle school when “1984” was so distant in the future that it was […]

(The new calendar promulgated by the Revolutionaries of France.) John-with and Jon-without bookended the Amen Corner at the Willow Bar. I had wrestled with the notion of going to the bar, and the inclination to just go home and cocoon was in ascendance as I walked slowly back from the Mediterranean food cart to eat […]

This is getting tiresome. I wanted to do something about deer repellent and tips from my garden experts, the Russians next door at Refuge Farm, and the Naked Gardener, and specific recommendations from my Coon Ass Cajun buddy about deer and the solid advice about marigolds and best garden practice from a committed herbalist in […]

  I honestly have no idea how I can have been at the computer since five-thirty and watched the night be overwhelmed by the assault of dawn, and still have not done a damned thing. I will not include the several streams of invective on everything that is going on, since none of us can […]

(I turned on the flat screen when I got home from Willow. They got the little murdering creep. Image capture courtesy ABD News.) What a week. I am exhausted, drained, wiped out. Last night brought a sort of closure to a very long day that began with some answers and many more questions. Too many […]

(Crowd Sourced image capture of Suspects 1 and 2 near the finish line at the Boston Marathon.) Sorry, I have been hunched over the computer, streaming NPR for information about “Suspect 1” and “Suspect 2” since before 0500 this morning. The answer was apparent throughout- name and age is always the first thing they get, […]

(Associated press image of the mushroom cloud at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas.) Some maybe-informed people say that the explosion down in West, Texas, a little town of 3,000 people, was the equivalent of a three-kiloton nuclear detonation. The estimate of casualties is all over the map, and highlights the problems of the vulnerability […]

(Curious montage of the pre-explosive phase of the Boston Marathon attack. I have no idea if this is related to the actual operations but it certainly is curious. Montage courtesy “Based Heisenburg:” http://basedheisenberg.tumblr.com) My brother ran Boston last year- making the field at his age is a pretty impressive thing, and I am very proud […]