You may not agree, you may not care, butif you are holding this book you should knowthat of all the sights I love in this world—and there are plenty—very near the top ofthe list is this one: dogs without leashes. "Dog Songs," Poems by Mary OliverThough our seven-and-a-half acres of rocks, trees …
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.
Front seats at a rare whale show
It was, as Stew put it, "a National Geographic moment," when nature puts on a live show rarely witnessed outside the pages of a glossy magazine or a nature documentary.Late Thursday afternoon, with the surf quieting down, we heard loud and sharp plop-plop-plop sounds, like thunderclaps, that we soon identified as coming from a humpback …
On guns: Couldn't have said it better myself
From today's Washington Post:America's ritual of outrage By Anthea ButlerIt is an American ritual, engaged in on almost a monthly basis. A mass shooting. Screaming. Frantic families. Shell-shocked survivors. Carnage. Grim-faced police and emergency responders, and news reporters smelling blood in the air, angling for the right shot of grief-stricken friends and family.Then, the tweets and statements …
Continue reading On guns: Couldn't have said it better myself
In the company of pelicans
On this quiet beach, where not much goes on except the rhythmic crashing of the surf, brown pelicans have captured my attention. They come out in droves at sunrise, largely vanish at around noon and might reappear a couple of hours before the sun sets.With their huge beaks with a pouch underneath, tiny beady eyes, …
And so, on to the beach
To people hunkered down in snowstorms and subzero weather up north, hearing someone living in ideally temperate San Miguel complain about the weather must sound like insufferable whining. Oh shut up! What do you know about cold or winter misery?Home for the next two weeks.Except memories are short and feelings about the weather are relative. …
Should retirees be grateful to Trump?
A year into the Trump presidency the continued rise in the stock market—actually a continuation of a bull market and economic recovery that had begun under Obama—has fattened our retirement portfolio handsomely. And the Republican tax cuts—a wet kiss to corporate America—can't help but propel the continued rise in the stock market, and even the world …
And now, a short suspense story: How we liberated our pickup from the San Miguel auto pound
On Dec. 10, our trusty 2000 Nissan Frontier pickup was in a head-on collision with another pickup. On a scale of one to ten, this mishap scored a four or about the equivalent of a broken nose. It's all fixable and fortunately there were no serious injuries thanks to the sturdy burro bumper on the …
Trump revives memories of my "shithole" country
My trip to Cuba with my husband Stew in 2013 in large part was a pilgrimage to try to reconstruct my childhood, abruptly interrupted in 1962 when, at age fourteen, I had been shipped off to Miami with thousands of other children, presumably to save us from the communist apocalypse about to engulf the island.What …
Continue reading Trump revives memories of my "shithole" country
Why is Sarah Huckabee perpetually outraged?
While walking the dogs this morning my hubby Stew, who also functions as unsalaried political analyst and ace chef, made an astute observation: "That woman Sarah Huckabee seems to be perpetually outraged about something."Stew's right. Sarah seems to wake up outraged before she slides into outright disgust as the day wears on.Worse still, the rest …
Continue reading Why is Sarah Huckabee perpetually outraged?
The melting pot is alive and well in New York City
The very thing that Stew and I love about big cities, and New York in particular, is their heady diversity. Entering such places feels as exciting, and revealing, as diving into a sea teeming with all sorts of creatures you've not quite familiar with. Yet it's precisely that diversity, all those differences, that so many …
Continue reading The melting pot is alive and well in New York City
El Rancho Santa Clara 