2nd Night in Ojai

I am sitting in a parked car with my computer. It is pitch dark all around me. The only light is the computer screen. I can hear Ray, Chanel and Jeff laughing around the campfire. I have been responding to my online class’s comments on 20 Minutes of Writing a Day for 1 Month. Today…

Musings

I am sitting with Elena. This is our first official session in our writing “group,” meaning the two of us. That’s just fine. I enjoy our time together. We both might feel resentful if another person joined us. We might look at them and think, “No, that’s not how we spend our time here. It’s…

College Essays, Online Classes and A New Car for Liz

I am grateful to have the work, but I am tired. I have been working straight since noon (it’s 8:30) with students on college essays, law school essays, and letters for special scholars programs. My back is aching from being bent over the computer and my mind is less that clear. I’m glad there isn’t…

Stumbling onto a New Blog Template

I have been fooling around with the look of my blog. I actually prefer the option I had before, but, of course, I can’t find that now. Oh well, a little change never hurt anybody, especially me, who is someone who can get a bit mired in the status quo. I don’t know if shifting…

Doing What Needs To Be Done

I have been organizing all my bills and billing today. A satisfying process. I decided I needed to make a list of all of our bills and include all the passwords to the websites so that if Ray ever needed to handle this stuff, he wouldn’t be completely lost. I do all the paying of…

The Nightmare of Car Shopping

Yesterday and today, we have been out car shopping with Liz since her car was totaled in an accident last week. Ugh. No, we do not have a new car sitting in the garage at Liz’s apartment tonight. We wish we had a new car there, we want to have a new car there, but,…

Peter’s House: Repainted, Staged and Ready to Sell

Here are the pictures of my friend Peter’s house, which we’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. Our work has included clearing out the rooms of personal items, repainting several rooms, bringing in additional furniture and art that would highlight the features of the house, and landscaping the exterior to create a clean…

Honey-Sweetened Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

This is a great recipe that is tried and true. I made it the other day and the cake was scarfed up in no time. You can substitute sugar for the 1 1/3 cups of mild honey, but keep the 2/3 cup of honey at the beginning of the directions for sure. Delicious. Let me…

Car Wreck in Downtown LA

I am very grateful that my daughter Elizabeth is alive and well today after being involved in an auto accident yesterday in downtown LA. A young woman came out of a side street (with a stop sign) as Liz was driving down the road and wham! That was it. Luckily, the young woman is okay,…

My Father’s Words

These are things my dad used to say: 1) “That old dog won’t hunt.” This meant that excuse won’t work; that plan isn’t any good; that behavior isn’t what it should be, etc. 2) “Hasta La Stinko” This was accompanied by a smile and a wave to a bunch of teenagers who seemed to constantly…