Salt Point / / /

—From CB— Sunday we opted out. For the day, at least. No news, no email, not even plucking a weed from the vast half acre of our existence. The wars will go on, people will shoot each other, the President will go to the can, major criminals will enjoy a cook-out, but...

Gated!

—From EF— Our cats are quarantined. Maybe not the right word. (Segregated? Gerrymandered? Red-lined?) Whatever, our bedroom is upstairs and we don’t want them bouncing on our bed. Unfortunately, in our house there was no door to the stairway, so when we got...

Age . . .

—From CB— This is a peculiar age to be passing through. My dad never made it this far; my mom had seven more years, dying at 85. You know you’re in the last act, but you don’t know how long it’ll go or how the playwright will end it: a gunshot, a curtain descending...

Seven . . .

—From EF— This is our violent Seven. When we were writing our joint memoir Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making, we looked at the parade of years and realized that every seven years we had hit a node of change. Something had to be released, and something new had to...

Dog . . .

—From CB— A friend pointed out the obvious: the rage factor on the Web is a pandemic. I hesitate to launch a scientific study, fearing the consequences, so this is only in the nature of a thought experiment. Imagine that some poor soul ventures a Facebook post with a...

Fizz . . .

—From EF— Are you old enough to remember pop rocks? The candy that suddenly popped and fizzed in your mouth? It wasn’t around for very long, but it was an intriguing idea. You put something sweet in your mouth, and it went off and did its own thing. For me,...

A One-Hoss Shay . . .

—From CB— Without thinking much of it, I’ve tended toward brand loyalty. We’ve been Mac owners since the first 64k. I can’t pass a pub that advertises draught Guinness without a stop. I’ve been with various models of Elizabeth Fuller for nearly sixty years—always a...

Why? Why? Why?

—From EF— I seem to be starving myself again. Not an idiotic weight-loss program, although I am very happy to have lost about six pounds in the last couple of months, even without going to the gym. No, it’s the process of denying myself the things that would...

Writing & Writing & Writing . . .

—From CB— Multiple workings this week. We’re in chapter 10, 4th draft of a new novel, making slow progress. I sent out queries for our last two, got one expression of interest from a publisher I think is a shyster. Started a free online writing course, more like a...

Cat Pans . . .

—From EF— We have house cats. House cats use cat pans. Every morning, early enough to see the glory of the rising sun, I leave Conrad to sleep another hour and come downstairs to start my day. At the foot of the stairs I unlatch the gate that keeps the cats from...