It was a relief to discover that my small and particular anxieties are not the center of the universe. Which is to say on Sunday I flew to Houston, picked up a rental car, drove three hours to Austin (stopping at a convenience store because said car required an adapter I didn’t have for phone charging), showed up at my friend’s parents’ house because I’d keyed in the wrong address, drove 15 more minutes, ate dinner my friend had so kindly kept waiting, talked into the night, went to sleep, woke up, and around midday went to her kids’ school sports field and watched the solar eclipse. So cool ..read more

My front garden has always been a white-ish garden, ruled by the rose bed. Very polite; non-revelatory. Somehow, that’s changing. The roses are still here and the first one is blossoming. Hi little friend! The white native iris still bloom like a flock of seagulls–but I added more daffodils, and some Santa Barbara daisies (as we call Erigeron) self-sowed. Enter yellow. Then when I planted 12 white sweet alyssum in a second raised bed, and, as one does with new plants, watered them, a packet of wildflower seeds I’d thrown in there–sent in a card from a candle company of all things–decided to ..read more

This morning, another thought about aging.. How many of you follow The Gerontologist on Instagram? Recommended. A mix of videos of undaunted elders living with very high function, advice on caregiving for dementia, occasional references to positivity, and Bible passages. I find the dementia advice particularly healing, having spent so much time with my mother in her last three years of advancing and then very advanced Alzheimer’s. And yet, a caveat. Well, a question. How do you all feel about “positivity?” Do images of things being Very Okay make you feel, in fact, okay? Do videos of older wom ..read more

I know it’s only just Spring, but here in Northern California this season slips to summer like a silk veil disappearing around a corner. Which is to say, quickly. Thoughts turn to travel when the irises bloom. Here are my nascent and not-so-nascent spring and summer plans, some with my husband and some (because he still works, dang it) with other innocent and unsuspecting companions. Austin, TX for the total eclipse. I’ve got a friend there who kindly said to my self-invitation, “Sure! Come along!” I told her I’d camp in the backyard if her house was full. I’m so excited. I love nothing so m ..read more

Older women. We consider time! We come to terms with our face in the mirror! We paint it! In the comments to the post about eyebrows MJ asked me for my feelings about Jones Road Miracle Balm. Have I got a review for you, boy oh boy. Because I, like many, was pursued around the Internet so long and with such tenacity that I succumbed at Christmastime and bought a seasonal sampler. In brief, I like it. It took me a minute or so to find a good shade and figure out how to use it, but now it’s a staple. (At more length, I want first to assure you I thought about making a video but realized I don’t ..read more

One morning this week, it might have been Wednesday at 10:30, or maybe 10:37, I closed my computer, took it off my lap, lay it on the sofa right next me so I didn’t have to move and said, out loud, to no one, “I’m done.” Backstory: as many of you may remember, I’ve been writing fiction for about 5 years. It was your fault. Let me now self-appreciate. You kept encouraging me to write a book, saying very kind things about my prose. I succumbed. Let me know acknowledge my contrary being. You wanted non-fiction about my High WASP background. I tried! I did! Sort of. I wrote one book proposal and s ..read more

In 2015, 2017 (which for some reason I can’t remember I didn’t recap here), and 2018, my husband, my kids spent a few nights at the Four Seasons Hualalai on Hawaii’s Big Island. Oh yeah, and again in 2024. Last week. This time my kids brought their partners. After six years of non-happy events in my family (and the world) this was, well, so happy. I’ll leave it at that. Except for photos. The drive to Hualalai from the airport looks like this. Volcanic. The adult pool, known as Palm Grove (for non-subtle reasons), looks like this at night. Who invented moonlight on the Pacific? Very nice work ..read more

May I present dressing for for dinner last Sunday night. (Also a background photoshopped to remove mess. You’re welcome.) I wore the never-fail Dries van Noten with the Harwood coat my siblings gave me. Changed my silhouette, that coat, giving more of a trapeze dress than shift. Went with pearls, i.e.  inexpensive pearl drops from Pearl Somewhere-Or-Other and the non-inexpensive 1930s Cartier seed pearl and diamond bracelet inherited from my mother. First I tried these Neous pumps. More comfortable than they look. But it was raining, and besides in the Northern California subur ..read more

I have ignored eyebrows for decades. “Face-framing,” I’d say, “What the heck, what do we need to frame, per se?” Made it through the 90s without plucking a thing. But here Flo suggested that we could use more brow gossip. So I’m taking one for the team. Eyebrows-A-Go-Go. I mean, it depends on your goal, and your eyebrows. My goal, as always, is to address general fading into the universe. That which used to be dark is light; those aspects of my physical presence which used to clearly differentiate itself from the others now blur, become one (waistline I’m talking to you too, yes you). But ..read more

  Happy Lunar New Year! Specifically, Happy Lunar New Year in Mandarin! On top of wishing you well, I wanted to ask, how do you extend greetings for holidays you don’t celebrate, in languages that you possibly don’t speak? My close circle includes people are Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Protestant as well as those who believe in the-universe-is-great-and-magical. Some come from families who came in turn from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some speak, in addition to English, Portuguese, Hebrew, Spanish and Mandarin, not to me ..read more