Category: Uncategorized

​The idea that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” was invented by 19th century cereal manufacturers, most probably John Harvey Kellogg, a religious zealot who believed eating breakfast cereal would make Americans strong enough to stop thinking about sex. (It didn’t. Go figure.) The Spanish, who have no such Puritan goals, enjoy…

Coming home after a long absence is like Christmas. I run around for days exclaiming over clothes and crockery and books that seem to have come into my possession by magic. When did I buy red boots? What’s this yellow bowl doing in my cupboard? Have I read this Agatha Christie? But this time, what…

​So how close did we come to missing our transatlantic flight? We knew returning to Spain under pandemic conditions wouldn’t be easy. But of all the things I’d fretted about, I’d never anticipated a tardy Uber driver on the journey’s very first leg (which was so short it was more of a toe, really). All…

Today, my suitcase came down from the attic so I can start packing for Spain. I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to type those words. But I feel compelled to follow them with ¡Ojala! — a Spanish term meaning roughly “God willing and the Covid don’t rise.” Not only do Rich and…

​“Oh, look, you can book marijuana-friendly lodgings through a site called Bud and Breakfast ,” I said, showing Rich the ad in our free newspaper. As a travel writer, I felt I owed it to my readers to find out more about this new Airbnb-style website for potheads. The home page shows people smoking hand-rolled…

​So this friend of ours is entertaining a group of clients at a posh restaurant. Late in the wine-soaked evening he goes to the restroom, then forgets he has a tableful of guests awaiting his return, sends the valet for his car, and drives home. We can only wonder how long the others waited, what…

How many times have you walked into the kitchen and wondered why you were there? Can’t remember? Can’t count that high? Can’t even recall what the question was? Don’t worry, this kind of forgetfulness is perfectly normal at any age, says neuroscientist Lisa Genova. The culprit isn’t memory loss, it’s distraction . We’re simply not…

When country relatives came for lunch last Thursday, naturally the first thing we did was ask them to sniff the inside of our tool shed. As regular readers will recall, last week Rich and I were struggling to identify and eradicate the hideous smell coming from under that shed. A powerful pest repellant had driven…

It all started with a skunk digging for grubs in our garden and leaving behind a vigorous amount of spray. For European readers who may not have had the pleasure, a skunk fires off a noxious, sulfur-laden defensive spray so powerful it can deflect a bear attack, temporarily blind a predator, and be detected by…

​It took me days to realize what was so weird about downtown San Jose. At first, second, and third glance, it’s a pretty good downtown, with wide avenues, a few solid old buildings, glittering skyscrapers, plenty of housing, and cheerful banners urging the populace to dream and thrive. It’s not breathtaking, like Rome or Bangkok,…