Trampoline hair girl, Castro Valley, CA.

Couldn’t have said it better myself: a series by Maira Kalman, “The Inauguration. At Last.”
She’s been given a berth the last Friday of the month at The New York Times, “And the Pursuit of Happines,” in which she’ll explore American democracy.  I might find myself tempted every now and then to send you over there.  If [...]

Okay, I could have foisted this trio of cameraphone videos on a pianist friend and asked her to try to identify the piece (hi, Skye!), but then I thought: wouldn’t it be more fun to ask the world wide internets?

Our girlchild burst in the door last week in as close to a dither as I think I’ve seen her. She’d been at the neighborhood toddler playground. “Baba, Baba! I made a new friend at the playground today!”
Which of course put me in a dither, because our daughter is — how can [...]

“It looks like an opened leaf, with tiny green raindrops on it,” said the lil’ monkey, as she held the opened snap pea.
When I am running through the short list of why it is that living around growing young people is a really, really wonderful experience — meaning, literally, wonder-full; mostly theirs, and hopefully as [...]

Orange rind smile, San Leandro, CA.

Erm. Cool visual used to be here (okay, from Jan 23 ’til late Jan 28) but you’ll have to link to it below to see it, since it may have been lousing up some folks’ Internet Explorer-mediated connections to this page? ?
Made from words in Obama’s inaugural speech, and found here. Thanks [...]

This was last week.  We’d just finished eating a fine meal at our favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant.  And no, I don’t like it just because there’s a waitress there who for years has been willing to  (unable to not?) flirt regardless of whether the mother of my children is sitting right there at the table [...]