Fall is a Cheat. It’s cheating me out of floating around in my inner tube and wearing t-shirts outside and walking around barefoot. Cheating me out of sandwiches with pickles and wasabi mayo. Cheating me out of early morning walks with the dogs. The deck umbrellas are put away and the inflatable hot tubs get all set up and you go camping just to enjoy a campfire and drink hot tea. Then you come home Read more…
They came out of nowhere. A huge German Shepherd and a big mutt resembling a Ridgeback. Sherlock was chasing the ball into the sagebrush and was bowled over by the German Shepherd. He leaped up just as the other dog got there. They circled him. One on each side. Sherlock dodged right and the Ridgeback went left. They were both in front of him now. I backed up. The owner of the dogs broke into Read more…
The storm dumped so much water in such a hurry, it suddenly fell asleep. Rain-rain-rain swimming pools of rain falling nonstop from the blackness of the sky and then BAM. NAP TIME. All gone. So quiet. The crickets were like, SCORE!, and started singing and celebrating as the eerie silence surrounded my house. They didn’t even know there was a tornado warning today. They didn’t even know they almost got evicted. They didn’t even listen Read more…
I wanted a tattoo. Because now I can claim I’m a free spirit and will not be defined by conventional office jobs. They hold no magic. “You’re Not the Boss of Me!” I holler at no one in particular. I know the fierceness of the wind and the desperation of the first stages of hypothermia and the fear of big rigs when I’m on my bicycle. I am intimately aware that I could be caught Read more…
The sun is a little softer these days. Gentler. No biting and screaming and punching. ‘He’s gone soft,’ I smile to myself. So it’s September now, and I don’t mind all that much. The plums have been consumed and the peaches long disappeared into cups of yogurt and almonds and cinnamon and fresh mint. Tomatoes and tomatillos and leeks still hang around for an egg scramble. Strawberries and blackberries for a side. Freshly plucked from Read more…
Winter Is Coming, they all say. Some because of Game of Thrones. The rest just mean that it’s late August and they’re sick of summer. I sucked the sunshine through my teeth. Not Yet. Don’t Go Away Yet. I Need You. School is starting and the nesters with young are buying their soccer minivans and stickers showing how many stick figure kids they have and the My-Kid-Will-Kick-Your-Honor-Student’s-Ass stickers to put on the back of those Read more…
Lovely blue sky innocent happy happiness. It was seventy-four-hundred degrees as we busted out the hand pump and stuck the nozzle into the tube down by the water. Truckee River Floating Time. Dry bags full of cell phones and car keys secured with ropes to our floating palace. Ice in the cooler spot, some cans of sparkle water, and one Coors Light that our friend Jennie found in the snow behind a tree in the Read more…
It’s just one of those evenings. The crickets are carrying on, yelling’ about this and that. The sky is purple and there’s only one cloud and it’s grey and the sun passed on and the stars didn’t wake up yet. It’s just one of those evenings. 80 degrees with no humidity and slightly cooler air swishing around at half a mile an hour and there’s only a few birds letting everyone know where they’re camped, Read more…
I don’t spend a lot of time talking about when I made more money hustling dice than I did working my eight-to-five. Or the time I decided to move to Ft. Collins on a whim but ended up living in my car for a few weeks and then just coming home. Or when I got super mad at my housemate and threatened to dump her cremated cat into the fish tank. I don’t talk about Read more…
Day Whatever. Smoke poured into the valley, menacing and dark. I closed the windows on the house and turned on the air conditioning. What a thing. Air Conditioning. Conditioning The Air. I looked at my foot, still peeling from the swelling going down. From the beating the trail imposed. No feeling in my toe yet, but the doctor said it will for sure come back when it does, no sooner and no later. My Read more…