My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
“My sister’s dog has taken up painting,” remarked my sister-in-law Deb during a recent Zoom call. “He’s pretty good. Abstract art, of course.” “Yes, I can see how it would be hard to achieve realistic detail without an opposable thumb,” I replied. “But back up a minute. Her dog paints? Pictures? How?” It’s a simple…
I didn’t realize orgies were back in fashion until I read about the one Spanish police raided on New Year’s Eve. More than 50 participants were arrested in a suburb of Barcelona — not because anybody cared about their sexual hijinks, but because they’d violated Covid restrictions limiting indoor gatherings to ten people. A neighbor…
Many years ago in California, a salesman showed up in my office holding a cardboard tray enticingly stuffed with cookies, candy bars, and chips. “I’m going to leave this in your break room,” he said. “No, I don’t want any money up front. We’re HonorSnacks . We trust that when one of you takes something,…
I love entertaining and over the years I’ve learned to cope with all sorts of potential disasters: blizzards, drunken guests (yes, Dan, I’m thinking of your three-martini-chugging experiment), being cornered by a friend’s heartbroken suitor who read me his terrible poetry for an hour, a feral cat tearing the hide off one guest’s lapdog and…
In the US, brownies are nothing remarkable, but one of the benefits of expat life is that if I show up with a fresh-made batch here in Seville, I am worshiped as a domestic goddess. My husband being a die-hard chocoholic, I always add — in lieu of chocolate chips, which are rare and of…
“Maybe the universe is telling you something,” my friend Enrique said yesterday, when I had poured out the sorry tale of last week’s stuttering book launch , plagued by bizarre tech glitches that temporarily prevented some people from downloading free subscriber copies or signing up to receive updates on my blog. “But wait, there’s more,”…
Actually, what I’m feeling is whew ! I loved writing Seville’s New Normal: Insider Tips for Visitors 2022 . It started out as a purely practical guide, a way to answer the questions that were constantly arriving in my email inbox: How has Seville changed over the past two years? Is it safe? Is it…
I love getting email from readers, which is good because ever since I announced my decision to return to Seville from the US, my inbox has been flooded with questions. Practically everyone seems to be contemplating a trip here at some point over the next year, and they are baffled by the entry requirements (a…
When I mention my daily siestas to Americans, they often look at me sideways, obviously wondering if I’ve entered my dotage, never matured past the age of five, or deteriorated into a day-drinking couch potato during the pandemic. Some sidle away in quiet alarm at this point, but the hardier souls ask, “You take a…
“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Charles Dudley Warner (often misattributed to his friend, Mark Twain) Seville made worldwide headlines this week by announcing our city officials will be the first to name and categorize heat waves . Of course, I realize those of you who are reading this huddled…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
