One Small Dog

If I’m honest, the whole shady exchange felt like a drug deal; or how I imagined a drug deal would be transacted.

After losing our beloved Abby (from old age), we had been without a dog for four years. I’d sworn steadfastly that I would never have another dog; losing her had been too painful.

But after four years, the rooms in our house echoed with a silence that could only be filled, realistically, with something small and fluffy.

The Side Trip

I’ll be the first to admit that we can be somewhat overzealous travelers, but the journey we attempted from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Mostar, Bosnia was nothing less than harrowing, even for us.

A Slippery Slope

One might think that one could safely stand on a rickety stool and reach an item on a high shelf. One may even think that this could be accomplished without mishap.

But no, not necessarily. One can slip off the stool, backwards, and one can strike one’s head against the corner of a bed frame. And such an event could befall one when one is completely alone in the house.

This could happen. This did happen.

The Theory of Relativity

I sat in the sterile waiting room, clutching an unopened issue of Popular Mechanics, dread seeping in from all sides. And when the technician approached with his obligatory dingy clipboard, I knew my worst fears had been realized.

"Your vehicle failed the smog," he said, dispassionate enough to border on indifference.

This had never actually happened to me, and I stared at him blankly for a minute, trying to process exactly what he might mean by that.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

Almost every Sunday, I sit in the 4th pew from the altar at the 1:15 Spanish mass. It's not an ideal spot, since the vent for the air conditioner is perched directly above us, leaving us stunted with cold, and shafts of sunlight pierce the slanted windowpanes at a cruel angle. But that's where my mother insists that we sit. She wants to get a good seat, like it's a production of Hamilton.

The Reckless Ones

I’d never seen water quite that shade of clear-sky blue, and I’d never seen men quite as shifty as the two that stood in front of us on the beach in Negril, Jamaica. One man wore a UC Berkeley t-shirt and the other wore a faded fedora.

Temporary Roommates

The most concerning moment came when we thought the car had been stolen.

The children were home from college for winter break. Of course, we were happy to see them, needless to say. It’s just that they are no longer children, and I started noticing some, well, irregularities in our otherwise carefully ordered lives.

Life 101

Recently, I went to mass at the Newman Center, here in Sacramento, and afterward, when I would normally walk to my car, I found myself walking across the street onto the grounds of Sacramento State University.

As I wandered past the same trees that had grown in the same spots when I was 20 years old, I stopped to consider them with my almost 50-year-old eyes.

Wall Colors

Recently, my mother-in-law came for a visit. Both of my kids are away at college and don’t live at home, and yet I did not have a “guest room” to offer my guest.

The Gelato Diet

It was a typical day.

Or so I thought.

Wandering the aisles of the grocery store, I glanced dispiritedly at the contents of my cart: cat food for the stray, milk, bananas, cold cuts.

Then I remembered that my parents had half committed to coming over for dinner and I considered buying a pint of ice cream so my father would have something he liked for dessert.

The Dreadful Perry Mason

Peri-menopause has not been kind to me. Being in my late 40s (not an appealing word—“late”), this harrowing and unpleasant condition has dogged me for years. Far longer, according to my bemused and yet overly earnest doctor, than is typical.

What a thing to say to a woman who has suffered enough.

One Good Meal

Loaves & Fishes is a soup kitchen run by the Catholic diocese. It is located in a not-so-pretty part of Sacramento, just north of downtown. They serve one substantial meal a day, 364 days a year, and only close on Thanksgiving because so many other groups offer meals that day.

The Road to Nowhere

We’d learned from the guidebooks that no visit to Maui was complete without experiencing the Road to Hana. It was strongly recommended that we leave at 7:00 in the morning because 2000 vehicles traveled the road each day! Cars cruised bumper to bumper all along the road and it took several hours to reach Hana. It was a one-lane highway that was too narrow to even allow two cars to pass each other, and it had 600 sharp turns!

Clearly something miraculous took place on the Road to Hana, and we wanted to know what it was.

Aloha Madness

We hadn’t even completely taken our seats on the flight to Maui when I caught the older woman sitting next to me (I had an aisle seat) staring at me longingly—or staring at my seat longingly.

Singing with Dario

When I was 22, I signed up for a 6-week singing class. Unfortunately, the only thing I learned over the six weeks was that none of us could sing; not even the instructor.

At our first session, we learned that the instructor’s name was Dario Vanni. Of course it was. When he introduced himself, we nodded knowingly as though we had guessed as much.

Four Trains to Windsor

At the Earl’s Court tube station in Central London, my new best friend, the underground worker, explained (speaking with that adorable British accent) how we would reach Windsor Castle. We would travel on four trains! It would take 90 minutes (one way) but it would be worth it.

Countdown to Midnight: New Year’s Eve on the Thames

After days of sightseeing from morning until night, I felt a little wobbly but didn’t have the heart to squelch the excitement felt by the rest of my family. They wanted to see the fireworks show over Big Ben.

The Beach

In 2008, my mother and I traveled to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. One of my Spanish cousins was getting married on the island and as an added bonus, we would see many of my relatives who were flying in from Spain.

Sewing for Beginners

I actually wanted to learn how to sew by hand, but I guess that particular skill is no longer taught. As I entered the classroom, I eyed the rows of tables laden with fancy, computerized, expensive white sewing machines.

The other ladies in the class exchanged tips about exotic mechanisms called "bobbins," and referred to ironing as “pressing.” I grimaced and wondered about the distinction. Did I know how to “press?” I thought I could iron, but could I press?

Well, resolute, I decided (as I took my seat in front of one of the gleaming blockish machines) that if they could out wrangle the contraption, so could I.

On Losing a Son in the Foggy Pocket

By the time we had visited San Francisco State University a couple of times, we were forced to come to terms with a perplexing reality: the campus was perpetually shrouded in mist and topped with heavy gray skies. The very air was, frankly, damp.