Elsewhere I’ve written about gratitude journals. They help me see how many things happen every day to be grateful for. And also? Just how many tangible material pleasures I take for granted. Today, for instance, I made fruit salad. Normally, I’m a big fan of farmer’s markets, and local food. Especially in the summer, when…

I’m crazy about dragons.  It’s at least partly because I was born in the year of the dragon (a very auspicious year, just in case you were wondering). And it’s also because I was raised in Southeast Asia, where dragons have a far richer and better-known mythology. When I was little, not many kids talked…

I bought Mayuree as a puppy from a woman in Bangkok. She was a South African-bred Afghan hound, as sweet-tempered as honey. Her name meant ‘female peacock’ in Thai. But she was never much of a preener. Always more of a curl-her-long-legs-in-your-lap-and-nest kind of girl. Each year, books are published about life dogs: dogs you…

I’m one of those people who need down time. Not simply distraction time, like reading — although tI need that, too. 🙂 But mindless time spent staring out windows, or at birds, or the blue prairie sky. Time w/ out structure — a kind of  time w/out skeletal framework. Invertebrate time — both it and…

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