Locked in—Tuscany

cabin fever doesn’t just happen in winter…take my true story set in sunny Italy I study the part in the auburn hair of a taut young woman heading for the beach. The Riviera Versilia. She’ll disrobe in the transept formed by the aisle of beach chairs and the Tirennian Sea. Stretching out on the canvas …

Advertisements

Spring Fever

This week’s story is a reminder that Spring will come. My lower back starts to cramp. Why do mechanics have to move the seat just to do a test drive? You’d think they were driving cross country and had to have the seat just right. Now it going to take me a dozen tries to …

Maurice’s Walker

Stuck inside as many of us were this Arctic week, I only dashed out to snow-blow the driveway in ten-minute spurts. That left a lot of time to reflect on how a snow-blower would make for a good handicap-walker. And so this story… I live on a street with twenty-nine houses. There used to be …

City Food/Country Food

a recent commercial for Big Brother/Big Sister reminded me of this story I wrote for Mother Earth News Miguel studied the fruit and vegetables laid out on the planks of a make-shift roadside stand. He glanced at the money box with the ‘thank you’ card taped on its side and the stack of re-useable bags …

Isla Mujeres

An Australian lad has to cut his 'gap year' short  There was a shoe—or maybe more like a boot—careening in the wave-wash far below. It was hard to tell from the fourth floor of the hotel where my wife and I had been effectively imprisoned by a three-day blow. A northerly, I was told. Not …

Hibernating

a grandmother tells her grandson how to endure a long plane ride A man in the row ahead of them looked over the top of the seat and glared at Milo. “Quit kicking the seat, okay?” he demanded in the form of a question. “This is a thirteen-hour flight…” he added through lowered brows and …

Mind the Queue

Random thoughts on staying in line…here and abroad In Italy, there was a pedestal in the middle of Piazza Emanuelle, where a policeman stood to ostensibly control traffic. At times, I would take a cappuccino to an outdoor table just to watch the conductor of the day orchestrate the flow of circular traffic. Whistle in …