Siftings
Oct
12
Far Far Away From My Heart
I thought about driving my car into a bridge abutment on the way home. I asked my new boss, Mike Alison, what he thought about attending my former boss’s retirement party and that was his response. Way back when, when local legend Larry Laschen retired as Vernon Hills Village Manager, the Village...
Sep
11
Shedding Layers
In the office before the sun touches the Pacific. The State has two questions about the homeless grant and I want the answers - good answers - to be the first thing they see in the morning. Not to read too much into the questions but, if those are their only remaining questions, there might be...
Aug
23
System of an Up
Near midnight, arrive in the One-ga-low kitchen from City Hall after a Council meeting. Though many thought it impossible, the Zoom meetings have made them longer. Gonna have a cookie. Flip on the light and my current nemesis scatter from the countertop. Ants, so make that nemesi. I have a...
Jul
19
Pretty In Silver
"A John Hughes Film" scrolling through the credits of a 1980s movie was soothing to the soul. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink and a dozen more, scrolling by, telling some Capraesque tale of longing and redemption, but with vibrant colors and slick soundtracks. The decade...
Jun
28
Beds We Make
“Honey, I’m home”. It’s a joke I’d sometimes tell myself, out loud, while returning to the one-room “Fortress of Solitude” tucked into an oak woodland of Carmel Valley. The joke would bounce off the cold masonry walls as I flicked the tuner and amp switches on, and KRML would crackle through the...
Apr
03
Countdown - Music From The Pre-Isolation Era
A baker’s dozen live songs from when social distancing was the last thing on our minds. To make you (or, at least, me) smile, and look forward to a concert, someday.
13. Foo Fighters – Everlong
The last eight minutes of Letterman.
12. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Let The Day...
Mar
29
Next Normal
The ball always finds you. It’s a baseball maxim about being prepared, usually referenced when someone new and – implicitly - not ready for what’s about to happen, enters the game.
The Spartans have sixteen players this season, a big jump in team size from the eight to ten who were suffering...
May
26
A Descent
This is sketchy. Most mountain deaths occur on the descent. You’re often hurting. You’re always tired. Down seems easy, but down is what kills you the most. Slips. Falls. Rock falls. Avalanches. Gravity has dozens of ways to kill you and you’re that much closer to meeting a gravity-driven...
May
26
A Peak
This is stupid. In a cloud atop Mount Diller, I break out the map and compass. The plan was to climb Mount Diller, then work along the ridgeline leading to Lassen Peak. Bivvy somewhere near the summit, and head back down tomorrow. But this is stupid. I can’t see fifty feet, much less my next...
May
13
Steps
“Jealous?” The youngest effortlessly ambles down the stairs ahead of me and looks up. I’ve a new downward stair procedure given the toe thing, and it’s not exactly fast. I smile because, just walking is its own small miracle. Four cars and one truck have hit me so far, and that last one blew up...
