Seems like we need to update some of those lyrics, you know?

I mean, “When I’m Sixty-Four” might need to be retitled “Looking Backwards.” “In My Life” might have to go “There I places I can’t remember . . .”  

And how about that p… Read full post »

Dear Prez, Mitt, Robert, Tom, Dick, Harry, Mike, Kathy, Kathi, Katie, Sadie, and Shady, 

Today, at last, is Election Day. Four (for some of you) or two (for most) or six (for a few) long years of fundraising, hand-shaking, fundraising, speechifying, flip-flopping, backtracking, fundraising, lyin… Read full post »

damned with faint braise: the restaurant critic’s comment on the lamb shank cooked at too low a temperature, leaving it tough 

anti-fun-gal treatment: locking the teen daughter in her room without electronics 

Bach-to-Bach-to-Bach home runs: the relay race run by Carl Philipp Emanuel,… Read full post »

It must be true because I didn’t win a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” Again. 

I was sure I was going to win one this year because a client called me a genius (he wrote “Look, genius, just follow the guidelines”), and Mrs. P did too (amid the sobs she said, &ld… Read full post »

Had to share this. Ran across it yesterday doing research. It’s a brilliant achievement of a magnificent scene.

The video is less than three minutes, and trust me, it is well worth your time. It is the product of 30 hours… Read full post »

Hmmmm. Where to begin . . . .  

This is difficult because I feel compelled to explain my absence of a couple of months (lots and lots of work, thank God, plus spending time with Mrs. P), apologize for my absence of a couple of months (ditto), apologize for not protesting… Read full post »

Over the last few weekends, Mrs. P and I have continued our excursions along the Delaware Canal and have now covered nearly a quarter of its length (twice, since each trip is up and back to wherever we’ve parked). (My first post on the Canal, from mid-March, is here.)

We’ve… Read full post »

With apologies to those who feel otherwise, Dick Clark’s death doesn’t mean diddly to me. But delivering the news, as tiny tidbit, not Momentous Event, to my dear one provoked an irrepressible surge of devilish shorthand ways to describe the Eternal Teen’s death.  

Here, t… Read full post »

A tom turkey came prancing through our backyard the other morning. He appeared to be feeling his spring oats: his wattle was bright red and his head a shining blue in the morning sunlight. He twice stopped in the midst of his promenade through our and our neighbor’s yard to stand… Read full post »

Diamonds strewn on sable
by generous hand,
most flickering fusion flames,
a few reflecting unseen life factory.
Near platinum crescent,
bowled to gather all the gems,
attracting Venus brightly
seduces soul to awe.

Sapphire next, replacing ebon
field with purplish blue sheen,
sky as ground for emergent t… Read full post »

In The Way (2010), Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen), a successful Southern California ophthalmologist, satisfied with the ordered life he has chosen, finds himself on an unexpected trek. Avery is a decent man—a doctor who will come to the office at eight in the morning to accommodate a patient&rsquo… Read full post »

Fog blankets sky
as snow covers ground in colder times,
blurring all,
casting pall of sameness across heavens,
blocking light,
absorbing remnant thoughts of new day.

Snow can be shoveled aside
plowed through,
yea, walked or skied over.
Fog broods, suffocates
fond dreams,
frustrates efforts to remove it… Read full post »

1.         In a commercial from Big Pharma: “May cause comic side effects.” 

2.         In a campaign commercial: “You’ll always know where I stand—right in the pockets of Big Oil!&rdquo… Read full post »

Delaware Canal State Park might be the longest, narrowest state park around. It runs 60 miles from Bristol to Easton, Pennsylvania, and is about, oh a couple dozen feet wide.

The canal was originally built in the 1830s in the canal-building heyday that followed the quick success of New York’s… Read full post »

Saturday, after posting, Mrs. P and I looked at all the photos I’d taken from the Flower Show, and I realized there were some gems that I should have included in my Flower Show post from earlier that day. Here they are.  

 … Read full post »

Winter’s bite has not been so sharp this year, though a pre-Halloween snow and ice storm boded ill. And the blooming of crocuses and daffodils before the end of February—as well as the arrival of one of the dozen most delightful days of the year, Pitchers and Catchers—had already si… Read full post »

1. Your main trait: Uncertainty. 

2. The quality you like best in a man: A forgiving nature. 

3. The quality you like best in a woman: ditto: I’m no sexist. 

4. Your main flaw: Uncertainty. 

5. Last time you cried: I felt better for it. Doesn’t it usually work for you… Read full post »

Mrs. P received the following from a cousin, so it is not original (except in this particular version of English, which is my puny translation of the Spanish version that she received). While such messages that meander through the cyberworld are often trite—or tripe—well, this o… Read full post »

Several of the orchids have decided to get us through the remainder of the winter. Thought you’d like a peek. 

But more surprising things are happening outside.… Read full post »

There is a passage in the sprawling, intriguing novel 1Q84 in which the male protagonist, Tengo Kawana, in the country to visit his father in a rural elder-care facility, hears an owl hooting in the early morning and wonders what message the bird is giving him.

That stuck with me because… Read full post »

Friday Lists used to be a regular feature of this blog. (Blogging used to be a regular feature of this blog . . . ) 

10.       When the National Weather Service states the time of the sunrise and sunset for a given location, from what location does it have in mind?… Read full post »

Yes, this Sunday I will watch the Super Bowl, joining millions of other Americans in the mid-winter national holiday, when we try to see glimpses of an actual athletic contest hidden within the orgy of corporate greed, network self-promotion, and league arrogance. But my heart won’t be in it. N… Read full post »

One of the things that always charmed me about The Fantasticks was the frank desire of Luisa’s Act I pleading declaration, “I am special. I am special.”  

Who, indeed, does not wish to be special? When I was younger, so much younger than today, my attraction to that statem… Read full post »