Oracle wins back-to-back races Sunday — 14 and 15. The San Francisco-based boat is still down 5 to 8 points overall to New Zealand, and New Zealand still needs just one race to take the America’s Cup from the defenders. But what a display of guts and tactics on San Francisco Bay by Team …
Oracle wins Race 13 on Saturday. New Zealand still leads overall, 8-3 in first to 9 series. Second race of the day postponed. Congratulations to skipper Jimmy Spithill, tactician Ben Ainslee and the rest of the crew. Brilliant overtaking of New Zealand after New Zealand won the start. Spithill and Ainslee, seeming to read the …
If you are a newspaper editor and looking for a dog, I wouldn’t advise an Australian Shepherd. You get pushed and pulled in the newsroom all day and come home at night to a really professional herder who thinks head games are fun. If you are feeling a little ragged, as I sometimes am after …
Susan’s grandkids, Sierra and Mason, were down at her place in Ranchos for a visit. Cooper and I were invited down for a sunny morning walk in the arroyo. No walking in arroyos in the afternoon, though. Clouds flowed in and rain fell. Orno Creek ran for the first time in a long time. I …
Work day book-ended by report this morning of Elmore Leonard’s death and sighting tonight of a young-looking black bear in Orno Creek. I am an admirer of writers who are craftsmen and the handiwork of bears.
Refrigerator, August 2013
I’ve thought about this Hemingway sentence for years: “On the smoking skillet he poured smoothly the buckwheat batter.”
The goal was visual, I think. All the more reason to like “Big Two-Hearted River.” Canned spaghetti and beans soon to celebrate. (I think well-read brother Pat tried it before I did).
“He opened and emptied a can of pork and beans and a can of spaghetti into the frying pan.”
“I’ve got a right to eat this kind of stuff, if I’m willing to carry it,” Nick said.
Not sure what my mother was thinking, but dressing the Hawkeye Village kids in women’s clothing seemed to be the gag for Halloween 1953 in Iowa City, Iowa. That’s Pat front row, left. And that’s me, next to him, apparently about to barf. Nor do I know what Mom was thinking when she dressed Pat …
My first home, married student housing, Denison University campus, Granville, Ohio, late 1940s. My father, an undergraduate on the GI Bill, would have been 20 and my mother 19. My mother told me they saved nickels for Hershey Bars. Graduate school at Iowa City, where Dad studied at the Writers’ Workshop, was even more spartan …
It’s a beautiful day and we’re feelin’ good and goofin’ off. For-the-record photos above and below. Lori and Sara threw us a party this morning and gave us a ride home in the Subaru. (Cooper prefers being driven about to hoofing it these days. I’m not prepared to admit the same holds for me). Got a birthday serenade over the phone from Santa Fe and promise of dinner at the Range on Sunday. Sister Jane called and I think there might be notes and jam in the mail from Hope and Winifred. Judy and Bob gave me space and taped a birthday note to my garbage can out on the road. Colleen sent me an e-card. Now lunch and reading and naps. Maybe a walk in the hills this afternoon if it clouds up; evening otherwise. Gotta go find some earrings for a certain, soon-to-be 7-year-old niece. It was seven years ago today that I brought Cooper here from the Eastside Animal Shelter, estimated age 3. He was still covered in stitches and ticks. I let him out of the car and into the house. He trotted down the hallway, took a quick right turn into the office, relieved himself by my desk and has lived here happily ever since. I can’t believe Lori wrapped presents for these guys. I suspect Dianne had something to do with it. Thanks, all.
Cooper booking mug, Eastside Animal Shelter, August 2006
Copper and Sara open present at party for Cooper, August 2013
Camera-shy co-pilot, August 2013
Facing iMac paparazzo, August 2013
dreamranch 
