'I said I wasn't feeling well,' Spike Milligan's famous epitaph...are words to live by. There's always something hanging over one's head, isn't there? In my case, it's backing into the garage. I may feel that I've got the driving thing down, somehow, post-holiday, but this is a different matter. So I wasn't exactly overjoyed when Jane mentioned that our former contractor was going to be in the neighborhood and had offered...generously, one must add...to help me back in my van. At the heart Read more [...]

Can a mild cold hang on like a limpet for weeks? Apparently. Also apparently, it could be much worse. Jane returned from the friendly skies with laryngitis. This, whatever I have, is much more unobtrusive. Mostly, it pops up in the morning. A reminder, if I needed one, that my aging body has gone through some stress in the last weeks. Stress, schmess. The move to San Francisco has given me a whole new lease, not to mention perspective, on life. How much is there of the latter? This matter weighs Read more [...]

You know your holiday is over when you stare in dismay at credit card bills that accrued in just a few days...in one of the world's most expensive cities. Should've known better, you tell yourself. Better stay home now. Maybe forever. Turn to less expensive pastimes. Like growing lettuce. Or taking naps. Or watching the fog. The San Francisco low-cloud phenomenon is legendary, and for good reason. The urban backdrop keeps changing. Glen Park just happens to be a meteorological borderland. In the Read more [...]

Is any condition more aptly named that jetlag? Quite a bit is lagging at this particular moment...such as the day and my consciousness. I rolled up to the desk quite prepared to begin my morning blog, then tilted my wheelchair back, 'just for a moment.' And half an hour later woke up, only to find myself no better rested. Time for something else, I decided, and headed out the door for Sunday morning errands. This included my fortnightly manicure. And, gosh, it was handy to find Glen Park's row of Read more [...]

In eating the flesh of enemies, cannibals believed they were acquiring their courage and strength of their enemies. How else to explain my final English breakfast? Not that it was a full English breakfast...but a deliberate attempt to ingest the morning meal at the retail heart of the British nation, Marks & Spencer. Specifically, the one nearest my hotel in the Edgeware Road. It was one of those tube strike days when the sidewalks look like a swarming refugee camp. I fought my way through the Read more [...]

It’s Leviticus in the streets, I have decided…life and death so very close together…in this my inner journey through London. What else can explain it? I am positively charged up being here. And I am so painfully aware that I may not be here in this, my formative city, many more times…or if the fates are against me…ever. While intellectually inescapable…this basic truth is avoidable in every other way. And there’s something else going on about London for me. I keep thinking I’m going Read more [...]