It isn’t clear how long it will take cycling to escape the long shadow cast by Lance Armstrong‘s six doping-tainted Tour de France victories. It hasn’t happened yet, as Chris Froome found out while winning the 2015 Tour yesterday. He was a little too convincing as the winner of a tough mountain stage on Bastille […]

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I much prefer people from some professions to be older than I am. Presidents. Ministers. Doctors. The ones I deal with, anyway. I have always assumed that someone is certainly going to be wiser than me if he or she is older. I don’t think that’s an unusual preference; as you get older I believe […]

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When Americans — Californians, in particular — return home from overseas, one of their highest priorities is having Mexican food. Which is unavailable in many parts of the world and is substandard in much of the rest. Thus … We had Mexican for the third time in two weeks, the other night, and it was […]

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We invited several dozen people over to the Pismo beach house for Day 3 of the wedding, which has turned into the brunch/lunch affair, often held out of doors, in the summer sun. It was carefully planned.

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This is becoming a thing, isn’t it? The three-day wedding. We saw it last month in Greece. Sunday is the day-after brunch/lunch. Saturday is the event. And Friday?

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What would happen if we combined the two biggest secular American holidays? We found out. Not really by plan. And it was fabulous.

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Walking towards a pre-wedding reception on the southern edge of Hydra port, on the Greek island of the same name, we saw the monstrous yacht. It was not just any monstrous yacht. It was one of the biggest private yachts in the world. “Biggest” is a hazy designation, and seems to be sure to be […]

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Infants apparently do not get motion sickness, not that they can express their relief at their resistance — nor lord it over the rest of us. But it has been suggested that the old also have some degree of immunity to the condition. I am still waiting for that geriatric benefit. So far, my sense […]

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I’d had the idea, for a couple of decades, that not seeing the rom-com Sleepless in Seattle, circa 1993, was a blot on my movie-viewing career. I am a fan of When Harry Met Sally, and Nora Ephron wrote that movie as well as Sleepless. Meg Ryan played the female lead in both movies, and […]

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Many religions speak of an afterlife and, in particular, of heaven. An eternity in another realm … that’s an important concept, and one that is a comfort to many people. It is interesting, however, how divergent the views are on heaven, even within Christianity. It is generally described as a place of eternal happiness and […]

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