When Stew and I watch political conventions, award ceremonies and other long-winded televised events, the video recorder is our best friend. We fast forward through the blather and sometimes the commercials, and pause, even replay, moments worth remembering. Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention was one of those moments. Hard to believe, but her …
Author: Alfredo Lanier
My husband and I live on an off-the-grid ranch outside San Miguel, along with the challenging but dear company of four off-the-street dogs and three cats. My interests lie in politics, writing, photography and sundry forms of spirituality.
End to a Mexican standoff
Two years, two months and eleven days after it began, the legal wrangle over a piece of land abutting our ranch ended with the two opposing parties signing an agreement to essentially split the disputed parcels. In a most unceremonious signing ceremony on the sidewalk in front of the civil courthouse—closed to everyone except lawyers and …
Tip-toeing through the wildflowers
Spring is a fickle season around the ranch. Back in the States, we always heard that the spring equinox fell on March 21, give a day or two, and April showers punctually brought May flowers. The safe setout day for spindly seedlings grown indoors was around mid-May in the Chicago area, though if you didn't want …
The history I've learned during the Covid-19 lockdown
I came to the U.S. in 1962, a month after my fourteenth birthday, and spent my first school year in America at the Joan of Arc Junior High School, a hulking, Soviet-looking public school on the upper West Side of New York. My first year was taken up with learning English, navigating the maelstrom of …
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What America needs is a political siesta
In the warm-up to the upcoming presidential campaign, President Trump has already fired salvos of his trademark insults and nicknames at his likely opponent, including calling Biden "Sleepy Joe."If I were Biden, I would welcome that as a campaign slogan: I, for one, am ready to take a little political siesta, a respite from the …
The daily circle of life and death at the ranch
As people who always have had pets, Stew and I have learned, or should have learned, that sharing our space with an animal companion entails many hours of fun, when it's healthy and giving you its undivided love, but also at that inevitable moment when it dies, or worse still, when you have to "put …
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In battle against Covid-19, it's Germany 1, U.S. zero
Yesterday Stew ran up the Stars and Stripes up the flagpole at the ranch, as we usually do on the Fourth of July, along with the Mexican flag, but it didn't feel much like a holiday, with the United States under siege by a tragic trifecta of a pandemic still out of control, a sputtering …
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Rains are here. Time to sample the cacti.
According to our recently installed rooftop weather station, during the past two weeks we've received exactly four and a half inches of rain, an auspicious kick-off for our rainy season, which, if all goes well, should bring us about 25 inches of precipitation when it ends four months from now.The total could vary, of course, …
Thoughts on a joyful two days, amid the bad news
Last week was a stormy one in the U.S., marred by political and racial strife, while the Covid-19 pandemic continued to spread in large sections of the country. Except for two days, when Stew and I felt a welcome respite from all the gloom. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "[a]n …
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It looks, cooks and tastes like a burger, but…
Some forty years ago, while staying with friends in Minnesota, I was served soybean "bacon" strips, prepared in a microwave by the hostess, who has long pursued a healthy diet, including a reduction in the consumption of meats and other animal-based products.The fake bacon strips, sporting whitish stripes meant to resemble the layers of fat …
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El Rancho Santa Clara 