I found myself at an unexpected funeral one sunny day. One of my fellow library Board members died suddenly just a few days earlier, and I received an email one afternoon asking that I attend her service the following day. I later learned that she was Jewish and that they do not believe in embalming, […]

Dad’s birthday dawned sunny and beautiful. He probably would have approved that I spent the morning doing some cooking for the week: my friend Alice’s recipe for dak dori tang (spicy braised chicken) and Ottolenghi’s recipe for mejadra. It was Suzy’s international kitchen! Megan and Rob hosted the party this year. I arrived to find […]

Even though I’m skipping Christmas this year, I was still delighted to learn that the local theater was putting on a holiday show. Megan and I decided to have a pre-theater dinner at Luna Trattoria since we enjoyed our last dinner there so much. This time was just as delicious. I couldn’t resist having the […]

Just because you’re a pre-conversion Grinch who doesn’t have a single decoration up at your house or even one Christmas card in the outbound mail doesn’t mean that you’re immune to the magic of the Festival of Lights. Despite the fact that we are skipping Christmas this year, Megan and I were looking forward to […]

This is my first post for December! That’s pretty bad, even by my low standards. You can probably guess that this means things have not been going well in Suzy World, and you would be correct. I won’t bore you with the dreary details*, but suffice it to say that things are crazy at work […]

It was nice having four days off in a row. On one of them, I slept until 10:30 am. I can’t remember the last time I did that. I also went to bed at 8:30 pm that same day and slept through to 6:30 am the following day. Life has been exhausting lately. Megan and […]

The old man himself at Point Reyes, New year’s Day, 2000 I spent the morning of the Evil Eighteenth cooking, as I often do. Something about Dad’s birthday and deathday seem to inspire me to cook, wishing he was there with me. We never got in each other’s way in the kitchen, which is a […]

Step right up! I was glad to see the red and white striped tent appear in the Village, since it could only mean one thing: Flynn Creek Circus was back in town! Megan and I had bought tickets well in advance, and when the day arrived, we were both in somewhat bad moods after a […]

With all the tragedies lately, I am not feeling it for my birthday this year. Yesterday was the memorial service for Erica’s mother, which she handled with grace and fabulous make-up. Arriving home from the service, I discovered I had lost my diamond bracelet, which I really liked. I must have fastened the clasp incorrectly. […]

I decided to try some of my own frivolous medicine to help me deal with the recent losses in my life. If it worked for Erica and John, maybe it would work for me, too. I started by indulging in the Royal Wedding, which I had recorded on BBC America so I could merrily fast […]

It had been far too long since we had eaten at Luna Trattoria, and far too long since we had seen a play in the Village. We set out to remedy both of those omissions on the same night. Our multi-tasking was made easier by the fact that Luna had moved to the Village from […]

Birthday Girl It was a postcard day as Megan and I headed to the beautiful Valley to pick up the equally beautiful Jessica for her birthday dinner. It had been a long time since we had driven in that part of the county, so we took our time admiring the springtime scenery. The rolling hills […]

Happy birthday to my blog! It turns 17 today. Kind of hard to believe I’ve been writing it that long. Things have certainly changed since I first started. Back then, I lived in beautiful San Francisco, I was married, I owned a lovely apartment in the best neighborhood in town, and both of my parents […]

It may be appropriate that the days leading up to Dad’s birthday had such English weather, raining like crazy one minute, sunny the next, then hailing. Inland, there was snow, and it seems that all this late season precipitation may help to keep us from drought status. Fortunately, the sun was peeking through the clouds […]

After my garden tour on Sunday, I went over to Megan’s house, where I admired and petted the magic pelt of the beautiful (and ancient, at 17) Harriet. Harriet the Spy sightings are rare, but always welcome. We were headed to the ballet in Point Arena, and this time we had a special guest with […]

Happy New Year! It dawned sunny and beautiful here in Hooterville, though I’m sorry to say I am still suffering from the plague. At this point it appears that I will spend all the time I took off from work being sick. Come to think of it, the last time I took time off was […]

Surveying the hellscape of 2017, I can’t say I’m sorry to see it end. Including a nightmarish government, a seemingly endless plague of disasters, natural and otherwise, and the deaths of those too young to die, it was just one bad thing after another. The word “apocalypse” crossed my mind more than once. In the […]

While the rest of you were celebrating your Christmas, I was cleaning up after ours. Every year I tell myself not to bother cleaning up before hand, and every year, I ignore my own well-meant advice and am annoyed/horrified by having to re-clean everything I had cleaned the day before. This year, of course, was […]

Christmas Jessica (with Jonathan in the background) Merry Christmas! Y’all are a day behind us, since we celebrated yesterday. And celebrate we did! I spent most of the morning making about a thousand of my world famous cheese biscuits, with an eye to bringing some to Jarrett later in the week. It’s a good thing […]

Yesterday Megan and I both enjoyed getting up after the sun did, putting the heat on in our frigid houses, and scampering back to bed with coffee and our neatly paired animal companions (two dogs for her; two cats for me) for more than an hour. How luxurious is that? Eventually, we got up and […]