The boy and I are driving back from a morning’s peregrenations — hardware store (my idea, natch), bakery (we both agreed, natch), library (his suggestion) — and we were listening to one of his favorite songs on the Free to Be You and Me album: “When We Grow Up.”
It’s sung by Diana Ross, and here [...]

This image is of a Wonka-esque factory along Copenhagen’s harbor, taken by me using my sister’s cellphone camera.  I was brandishing it out the window of a moving taxi en route to the Opera House and the beloved’s and my first date night with childcare (ever? certainly in a foreign country).
My then-family of three was [...]

The deathless Malvina Reynolds, on death (and loving life). “This World,” 1961:

Baby, I aint afraid to die,
It’s just that I hate to say goodbye
To this world, this world, this world.
This old world is mean and cruel,
But still I love it like a fool,
This world, this world, this world.

I’d rather go to the corner store
Than sing [...]

Mercedes Sosa, Argentine Folk Singer, Is Dead at 74
What a voice, what a heart, what a force of nature. From the New York Times obituary, linked above: ”I didn’t choose to sing for people,” Sosa said in a recent interview on Argentine television. ”Life chose me to sing.”

I wanted to caption this picture “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well,” but the beloved thought that would be too strange and obscure.  Also, if I used the actual Shakespearean line, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio” and so on, it wouldn’t hook the same way, since we’re all too accustomed to the [...]

A wee anecdote: not much, but all I can muster at the moment, what with all the pre-K doings to do (and savor) these days.
We hauled our family out of bed early — must practice for tomorrow! 8am school bell, yegods! — and rewarded our accomplishment with a special breakfast out.  We chose a local [...]

The beloved and Nancy behind a “flight” of Rhone wines, San Francisco, CA.
This isn’t a picture of a bunch of wine glasses.  
It isn’t a picture of my beloved, either, though that’s her, directly across from me.  
What this is is the only recent picture I have of my friend Nancy — the woman in [...]

Today’s the last day this button is true.*  Tomorrow, the beloved and I will have been together for 15 years.  Fifteen!
I’ve had a very low output here at LD while I’ve been licking my wounds and refocussing my vision after the death of an old friend.  There’s much I might like to say about the [...]