I have two walnut trees in my front yard. Every year I engage in a multi-month skirmish with the resident tribe of squirrels. Over the 17 years we have lived here, I have employed several techniques to protect my crop: some legal, some sporting, some questionable. The cumulative scoreboard shows me somewhat ahead (to be fair, I’m the one who’s keeping the tally), but last season Sciurus griseus triumphed over Homo versutus, so I built a cage with a trigger that—when coated with peanut butter and nuzzled by a hungry, unsuspecting squirrel—drops a trapdoor and secures the thief. Continue reading “Walnuts and Squirrels and WHAT? Oh, my!”
Category: Humor
Midnight Fantasy in Sevilla
In the summer of 2002, on a vacation in Spain, Ann and I were in Sevilla, walking back to our lodging after a typically late dinner. It was midnight, but the twisty, cobbled lanes were not entirely deserted. As we entered a three-way street junction, lit only by a few faraway home lights, two young men on a motor scooter drove up behind Ann and snatched her purse. It was hooked over her shoulder, so the scooter’s acceleration yanked her off her feet before snapping the purse strap. I had been about 15 feet ahead and had not seen the approach, but I heard her cry out and saw her fall. Continue reading “Midnight Fantasy in Sevilla”
Father’s Day in Australia
It’s Sunday, Father’s Day in Australia.
Looking for lunch on the South Coast of NSW, we see a sign for a bistro. It appears to be housed at the Coledale RSL, so we pull over. Many cars. Many people. What’s an RSL? We have no idea, but we vote unanimously to give it a look-see.
People are sitting at outside tables eating and drinking beer. Inside, they’re doing the same, but the walls are covered with many video screens, each one of which shows a race track in operation or Lotto numbers being picked.
Is this a casino? Continue reading “Father’s Day in Australia”
On Balance
There is very little to recommend California’s Interstate 5 except straightness and speed.
In a midsummer’s sunset somewhere south of Buttonwillow, I am rolling at 80, glazed by oncoming lights and nearly listening to bad luck and worse love on a Country FM out of Visalia. I lift, drink, and am down to an inch in my water bottle.
Suddenly a below-decks clang-clank yanks my eyes to the rearview, and there’s something bouncing along behind me in the road dusk, losing ground. A non-conscious thought hikes my foot off the accelerator, and I coast into senses and an immediate inventory: there is no smoke, no smell, Continue reading “On Balance”
Gas(p) Prices!
After a terrific cioppino lunch at Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero (the huge quantity of crab paired extremely well with the wallet-slimming price), my wife and I motivated south on California’s Highway 1. She was driving. I was marveling at guano-encrusted rocks jumping up from the seabed. It was a bright blue day, and we were in our Prius, on the way to Santa Barbara for a long weekend.
“I think we need gas,” she warned.
I leaned over, glanced at the gauge, and gave my mathematically confident reply. “We have 125 miles before empty…give or take ten.”
Her expression convinced me she was unconvinced.
“We can make it to San Luis Obispo,” I explained. “I’ll drive.” Continue reading “Gas(p) Prices!”
Motivating Your Children
Posted on the refrigerator.
‘Nuff sed.
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