Principles and Procedures
In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik published an article about the large prison population in the United States as evidence of the American justice system’s failure. “How did we get here?” Gopnik asked. Referring to The Collapse of American Criminal...
Arranging Books
Books rotate in and out of our house on a regular basis. Keith and I order and either read or set books aside for later. We shelve keepers and place others in the donate box. Sometimes, when in-flow exceeds out-flow, we run out of space. Then we sort again and take...
Turning off the GPS
Last weekend, Keith and I went to Davis Creek Farm to pick up a bulk order of beef from Adam Aucoin. Allowing time for less-than-optimal road conditions, we drove down the mountain, entered the address into the Tom-Tom navigation system and proceeded south...
Curiosity and Chairs
A few days ago, my husband and I visited Fred Dodson, a furniture and cabinet-maker in Charlottesville, to discuss chairs for the dining, coffee and end tables that he made for our mountain house. Walking through the back door of his workshop, we sang our greetings...
I clean therefore I am
One of my favorite childhood possessions was a book titled How to Grow Up in One Piece. Each page contained a humorous lesson about people, places and things around the house, such as, doors. Doors were either open or closed, the text explained, but one could never...
New Year’s Resolutions
Last week, I wrote about my son at age 10, the beginning of the double digits. This week, I begin the New Year with a story about my daughter when she was 10 years old. As recorded in a letter to my parents, here is what she wrote on her marker board on January 2,...