Foggy will do, but slow might be better.  It is what happens when one begins a day with the effects of Walgreens sleeping tablets wearing off.  The good news is that this has been preceded by adequate sleep.  The bad news?  The fogginess, of course.  But above all, the night from hell that sparked it all.That night being preceded by a day that left stuff behind the way election flyers, free bags of soap or breakfast cereal, not to mention coupons for the local pizza joint, Read more [...]

It was 1967, and it was the summer, and there is absolutely no mistaking this, because it was to be my last summer in a sense.  Late in the next spring, a bullet and six months in hospitals brought an end to summers.  And the following one, well, it also was not recognizable as a season.  So, this was my last normal summer, and how genuinely normal it was...that is an interesting, not to mention haunting, question.August.  It must have been August.  And I am almost certain Read more [...]

The day dawns grim.  Distances between all points have stretched and loosened at the same time.  A clear syrup fills all spaces.  I rise from my bed and commence swimming through it.  I don't want to make tea.  I don't want to drink tea.  I don't want to do anything I am currently doing.  Hibernation, suspense of time and animate world, that would be good.  Still, the tea is good.  And incredibly, I do find myself under the the showerhead, which is also Read more [...]

Wow, but it's a long way up the Hayes Street hill.  This is the slope made infamous in San Francisco's Bay-to-Breakers marathon, annually the site of tens of thousands of runners, some costumed, a few nude, all winded...laboring up this infamous hiccup of the San Andreas Fault.  Not that anyone struggling up this incline has a neuron to spare for geology.  It's all about getting to the top, staying alive to the top, staying power being all there is.  Though I do have enough energy Read more [...]

What sort of California summer day is this, gray as London and about the same temperature?  It is, of course, the day of the Menlo Park summer festival.  No, it is not called that.  Actually, the thing is a street fair.  And what fare of the streets?  Oh, paintings of Venice.  Olive oil pressers.  Corndog fressers.  Hand puppet makers.  And the San Jose Tamale Company.  I find them last, at the end of the road.  The closed off road, our main Read more [...]

Hello, Paul, hello, Paul.  Thus we greet each other, doppelgänger style, helper and helped.  I make it a point to go out on mornings when volunteer helper Paul is here.  We take a break from chores and head for one of Menlo Park's few breakfast options.  But this morning is different somehow.  Perhaps something in me has settled down.  And down is good.  Down to earth.  Down to business.  Down to basics, including those in the kitchen.  I admit this Read more [...]