being not doing

As much as I rely on it each morning, I recognize that coffee is a luxury item. Ditto with sugar and chocolate, but we’ll get there. After spending time in Europe, I couldn’t go back to coffee dripped through paper. Similarly, if it weren’t for the Greek students introducing me to the […]

On Friday, I took a break from the other novels I’m reading and whizzed through C. J. Cherryh’s Deliverer, the latest in her Foreigner series. This is the only series of hers I’ve read, as I was drawn to the first contact elements. I know there are other series of hers that include […]

At the end of month two, I have faced two major hurdles in my efforts to not buy new books this year, and come over them slightly battered. Vows were meant to be tested, right? Slips are an opportunity to get back on the wagon, right? Right.
In January, I visited Powells for […]

Breaking quite a dry spell, I read Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring this past week. I did enjoy this book more than The Salt Roads, likely because it was more plot-driven. I didn’t love it; I would have liked to see more character development, and a thickening of the story. […]

This week, I roasted vegetables for the first time. One might think that, as a vegetarian for over 10 years, I would have tackled this basic cooking style before now. But I hadn’t; I typically sauté or stew or steam. Truthfully, I never used the oven much for cooking. Baking, yes. […]

One of my favorite parts of any trip to a new region is seeing birds I’ve never seen before. My trip to Portland last month was no exception, and I was happy to catch sight of even the common regional birds. I’ve updated my lifelist to include the birds I saw out there, […]

When I transitioned totally from student to teacher a few years ago, my standard anxiety dream changed as well. The old student standby of ‘I show up for the first day of classes, only to discover that they have been going on for weeks and I am behind, with only one night to do […]

Having gone through a couple of disastrous Valentine’s Days over the past 13 years, my partner and I don’t really celebrate the holiday. We usually go out for dinner and celebrate Martin Luther King Day instead, both because we find it to be a much more valuable commemoration and because it’s closer to the […]

We must have been perfectly prepared for the storm: in line with Murphy’s Law, we didn’t even get any actual ice. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, slush, some wind. That’s it.
Nothing like what we remembered from Indiana 17 years ago. Which was, you know, good. I’m sure my foresight will be duly […]

As far as I can tell, we’re as prepared as we can be for the ice storm expected to hit the DC area any minute now. It’s supposed to rain and freeze all night, and I fully expect to wake up to a house without power. Our town is full of trees: lots […]