My parents have a small organic garden. It’s near – but not near enough – to the house to have access to water pipes. So they catch rain and carry that water from the rain catcher to their beloved tomato plants in big buckets. One of the buckets has a small crack in it, water […]
Aztec lore tells that the Feathered Serpent God Quetzalcoatl created the cosmos, then the sun, and then creatures of all sorts. But this Toltec God was lonely and wanted to populate the world. So he snuck into the Underworld to steal the bones that were guarded there. The Lord and Lady of Death agreed to […]
“The sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year … men were free neither from war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to death.” ~Byzantine historian Procopius, AD 500-570 2020 was the worst year ever. It’s a familiar – and understandable – refrain. 2020 was indeed a […]
“Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.” ~Auguste Escoffier Kentucky is fairly monochromatic in February. Look out any window and you’re apt to see only shades of white, brown, and gray, snow and mud and lifeless, leafless trees. […]
When I was young, my best friend attended St. Agatha, the local Catholic school. One spring, I remember seeing her after school with smudges on her forehead, as if she had been cleaning out the fireplace. When I leaned in to wipe her face, she jumped back in alarm, clapping her hand over her head. […]
BaHee and Gloria were best friends. These two gibbons shared a habitat at the Roger Williams Zoo in Rhode Island. When Gloria started exhibiting Parkinson-like symptoms, she had to be euthanized. Bahee, once a zoo favorite (his claim to fame was giving visitors a crazy grin and a “jail high five” through the enclosure’s windows), […]
