Grandfamilies: Sideways–Six Things You Can Do When Trouble Comes

Cadence and Lala. February 2014. If you know someone whom trouble has never visited, well, you don’t know that person as well as you think you do. Rotten stuff happens. It rolls right in along an astounding array of avenues, squats down in the middle of our routines, cracks itself open like an old egg, and raises […]


But Is It Art?

And Why I Doodle (It’s Good For My Noodle) Lately I’ve been insisting: I’m not an artist; I’m a doodler. And I’m not mock-modest-fishing-for-compliments. Honest. I will confess, though, that I have been reflecting on art for a while now. And I’m wondering how we decide if a given creation is art. Does Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart’s famous […]


Mayday Mayday Mayday!!

Believe It Or Not, Everyone Walked Away. God is good.  Calling in Trouble.  Maybe you didn’t know that the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary is the uniformed, volunteer component of Team Coast Guard. Probably you didn’t know that  I met my husband when I joined the auxiliary. He taught the course, Boating Skills and Seamanship, that I completed as […]


Counting the Cost?

T-Ball. Count the Value A few weeks ago we watched our grandson, Cadence, play T-ball. The game was like most T-ball games: small children with vague notions of the rules ran around for an hour under the patient supervision and loving instruction of lots of parents. Cadence Tearing Up the Baseline. One particularly common move for […]


Like a Cup of Cold Water

Rush Hour. Laguna Hills, California. November, 2011.  Simple DeedsStopped at a red light controlling a busy intersection, I watched in my rear-view mirror as cars came to rest behind me. It was quitting time on Friday, a brisk hour for traffic. Surveying the scene, I noticed three young men pushing a van that had broken […]