My wife Cat and I were sitting on our magical hill in San Diego’s Balboa Park, reveling in the beauteous wonder that is nature. Off to our left was a spread of dense, gnarly … above-ground tree roots, basically. I won’t even try to describe this botanical oddity. But think gold-hued, ancient, above-ground tree roots (connected to these intertwined, truly weird “trees” that grew low and parallel to the ground). Think the kind of place you’d expect gnomes to live.Or,... Read more
While my wife and I were walking around Balboa Park, we came into an area that we both instantly recognized as the Reality Version of a fantasy place we dream about all the time. “Whoa,” said Cat, stopping. “Whoa,” said I, bumping into her back. And there it was. Our Hill With The Tree. Now we’re getting into some pretty personal stuff here, so of course I’m naturally hesitant to say too much. But the gist of it is that... Read more
So. Seniors in White. About 50 of them. Turns out they were lawn bowling. When we first came upon them, I said, “Hey! Bocce ball!” “No,” said a player near me with surprisingly good hearing. “Lawn Bowling.” I stepped nearer to this guy, because he had a nice face and it was a beautiful day and it felt like we were all angels. Especially what with all those guys, on a huge square of perfectly green, perfectly trimmed grass, wearing... Read more
(We left off last time with me … um … being a schizophrenic mind-possessor. It wasn’t pretty. You didn’t miss anything.)Killer attack squirrels! For real! So here’s the lowdown on the crazed rodent hoedown. My wife Cat and I were walking around San Diego’s Balboa Park. Gorgeous day. Vast expanses of grass looking like the Elysian Fields of heaven—assuming angels play Frisbee. Which they might. But probably don’t. I really wouldn’t know. Anyway, the whole park is just idyllic. People... Read more
(We left off last time with me promising to get serious about getting to the part of this story that actually involves my wife Cat and me getting attacked by killer squirrels.) About twenty minutes into our walk through San Diego’s Balboa Park on a day so beautiful it was like being transported into heaven without having to actually die first, Cat and I took a seat on a bucolic, grass-covered hill—and that’s when we got attacked by killer squirrels!... Read more
So it’s spring here in San Diego. Which means the weather is … well, like it is just about every other day of the year, which is so beautiful it practically makes you want to stay inside and close all your curtains since you can’t take the pressure of having to do something worthy of such a beautiful day. (It’s a real problem. People think we Southern Californians are mellow because our weather makes Actual Angels jealous. But the truth... Read more
I’m so hot in this San Diego coffee shop I’m sitting in. I feel like I’m in a coffee pot. It’s too bad, too, because if ever in my life I had a chance to come across as a genuinely cool person, this is it. I’ve got my laptop; as far as anyone can tell I’m deeply concentrating on some very important intellectual work; besides me sits a brain-stimulating mug o’ latte. Except for the fact that I’m dying of... Read more
I don’t see how anyone can doubt that Jesus was sometimes extremely funny. He was, after all, fully human. People are funny. So I think it’s safe to say that at least every once in a while Jesus was a veritable crack-up. Especially given that his whole ministry involved communicating with people—which, of course, necessarily involved employing at least some humor. It’s true there’s not a lot of major yuks in the New Testament. Not that I can see, anyway.... Read more
Okay, so we were talking about Life Lessons that we can learn from nature. Hmm. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is Flipper. (For you younger readers, Flipper was the name of a dolphin who used to star in a TV show called Flipper. The show first aired in 1964. That was right about the time America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was really starting to crank up. Though Vietnam was certainly a difficult time, the one... Read more
So what, then, are we to learn from nature? Real nature, I mean—not coyotes. Coyotes are, like, nature’s dogs. It’s like they’ve been domesticated by God, or something. They’re too confusing. Trying to learn a lesson about nature from coyotes would be like taking advanced calculus. Forget it. The kind of Nature Lesson I have in mind is something simple and easily digested. “The wonders of God’s glory are many,” for instance. “Through Nature God speaks to us in a... Read more
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