The New Americans

When we’d been back in Sacramento for five years, I mentioned to a friend that I needed to apply to have the children's citizenship changed from Canadian to U.S. (because they were both born in Canada).

Life and Death on the Wasanuri River

In 2007, my mother and I flew to Africa to join a “land tour,” which turned out to consist of 20 participants and 3 guides of mixed competency riding on a converted refuse hauler and rattling their way around Kenya. But once the shock wore off, we forgot about the “rustic” accommodations and the lack of flushable toilets (or any toilets) and surrendered ourselves to the adventure that lay ahead.

Because quite an adventure lay ahead!

The Tornado Strategy

My daughter, in the first grade, was a dreamy, unpredictable child, and it came out in quirky ways. 

Nothing I could really point to and say, “See! What an awful kid!” Still, she could be considerably annoying and was always easily distracted. It was a full-time job trying to keep her on track and I already had a full-time job.