To be clear: I do not hate cookies in the sense of “culinary delight”. In fact, a soft choco-chip “big” cookie is one of my favorite things. So much so that I avoid them, fearing I might regain the habit of decades past. No, the cookies I hate leave a bad taste in the mouth, […]

[Read more →]

So, disappearing is not impossible. Not yet! And thank goodness for that. Not to say it’s easy to go off the grid. I mean, completely off the grid. Like, no one can find “the you” of this moment. Even with so much of you well known to list-making authorities and rapacious commercial entities who want […]

[Read more →]

What I miss most about television here in France is easy access to the American game show Jeopardy! I have been watching it since I was a kid, back when the show was hosted in New York by Art Fleming. It ran for a decade, went off the air, then returned in 1984, much to […]

[Read more →]

Landon Donovan is back! Again! If it seems as if he retired quite some time ago, well, he did, in the first instance — from the LA Galaxy in 2014. A year and change later, he returned to the Galaxy active roster during an end-of-season run, and he played just enough to suggest he was […]

[Read more →]

The world has changed in 50 years. Of course it has. But in ways that we, sometimes, don’t immediately recognize and never anticipated. A few months ago, we were driving past the elementary school near the house where I grew up, and I pointed out the spot where we kids were able to scramble onto […]

[Read more →]

St. Louis, you can have them back. What’s that? You don’t want them? You don’t traffic in stolen franchises anymore? Good call. That was Super Bowl 53 we watched yesterday, and Rams fans (such as they are) can’t un-see it. I’m old enough to have watched every Super Bowl ever played, and your Los Angeles […]

[Read more →]

While in Southern California for these months now, we have been fortunate enough, on several nights, to be staying in a household that watches the game show Jeopardy!, as we do. We recently saw most of the five-day run of the semi-notorious Jackie Fuchs, former bass player for the Runaways, a 1970s girl group, which […]

[Read more →]

Our Southern California sojourn has taken us to San Diego, where we found a rainy (!) day and were prompted to consider visiting an indoor venue. Such as the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. It was impressive enough that we were happy the day had turned rainy. The highlight was peering through the […]

[Read more →]

The bells rang on the hour, as they always do, here in “our” French village. And then a few minutes later the bells at the 300-year-old church rang out again, and this was a gusher of clanging and banging that could mean only one thing at 4 p.m. on a Saturday: A wedding! And the […]

[Read more →]

Its a “thing”. The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of those teams … and perhaps the ultimate example of that sort of club … in “working” the disabled list. Basically, they have a pool of 10-15 relief pitchers and now, in the second year of the 10-day disabled list, the club moves those 10-15 guys […]

[Read more →]