Today was the wedding of Will Griffith and Dory Johnson at St. James Episcopal Church in Dallas Will is the son of two of our friends in Texas, Dav and Carol Griffith. We had hoped to attend the wedding but didn’t want to be out of town so soon after Nico’s surgery. Instead, Dav sent…

Today, our 7-year-old grandson Nico had a 4 1/2 hour surgery at Cedar Sinai Hospital for an ear condition called cholesteatoma, which according to the NHS is “an abnormal collection of skin cells deep inside the ear, which can damage the delicate structures inside the ear that are essential for hearing and balance.” The surgeon…

I received a comment yesterday on my blog, “20 Minutes a Day” about a piece I wrote on Mani’s Bakery in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. Turns out the comment was from the bakery’s owner himself, a man I have never met. He wrote: Wow! What a treat to read this! That’s my…

Today, Ethan Arthur Betty turns eleven months old, one month away from his first birthday. It’s hard to imagine the world without this little blue-eyed bundle of constant movement and spontaneous smiles. Was it just eleven months ago that he was born? How is that possible? It is as though he has been here forever…

I will admit that never in my life did I think I’d write that having cataract surgery would make me happy, but that was before the sight in my left eye went from not-so-good to really terrible. I initially was afraid that the eye condition I have called Keratoconus was going from bad to worse,…

As I rummaged through a long-lost box of family photos, I came upon this gem. This is my Aunt LuVerne and my oldest brother John. Today happens to be Aunt LuVerne’s birthday. She was born in 1919 and died at the age of 69. She was the wife of my Uncle Hutch Leatherwood and the…

Ray and I have discovered an easy way to make dining at home feel special. In both Texas and California, we have two different sets of matching vintage dinnerware that we use for our everyday meals. In California, where I am now, we have a lovely set of Mikasa Duplex Yellow Poppy dinner and salad…

Several years ago, we bought a large statue of Buddha from an estate we were handling. The statue had been stored in a small closed garage for years with miscellaneous household objects and boxes stacked all around it. Ray and I were happy to unearth this beautiful Buddha and knew that we’d like to find…

Just a few minutes ago, I received the following text: “I hear you need an attorney.” The message was from one of my closest students, Aaron Shahmaram, whom I started seeing for writing enrichment when he was in middle school. He was a shy boy who was nervous when we first met, but he and…