A few years back I got embroiled in yet another email argument with a friend whom I respect, about gun ownership. Our opinions on guns, and politics in general are, and remain, as diametrically opposed as east and west. He's a firm, long-time owner, who, if I recall correctly, keeps a couple of handguns in his …
Continue reading The futile search for a solution to gun violence
Tomorrow evening Stew and I will be going on a thrice-postponed trip abroad, our first since the Covid-19 pandemic began more than two years ago. We've been vaccinated twice and received the booster, in addition to a flu vaccine and the first of two shingles vaccines. And of course, we'll carry our KN-95 masks in …
Continue reading To mask or not to mask? But why? Does anyone know?
Stew checked our rooftop weather station a couple of days ago and found that, so far this year, we've had 0.07 inches of rain. That's damn close to zero. He also found that relative humidity during the past week has been in the low double digits, sometimes dipping down into the single digits, particularly inside our …
Continue reading Mother Nature cuts through the gloom of current events
Stew and I are avid movie watchers—this year we had seen most of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture—but we are also impatient with the notoriously long-winded award ceremonies. We record the broadcast so we can zip through the endless commercials, meh comedy skits, acceptance speeches that turn into orations, and other chaff that consume …
Continue reading The unbearable wokeness of the film industry
While living "off the grid" may have an ecologically virtuous ring to it, some definite inconveniences come with the lifestyle, in this case having no garbage pick-up for three weeks, which sent us looking for the San Miguel trash dump. The location of the dump is apparently a well guarded secret, and only Stew's …
After a little over 12 years of service, a few weeks ago we replaced the two monster lead acid battery packs of our solar electric system with a deceivingly petite set of lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) batteries. The change felt somewhat comparable to trading in a lumbering, gas-guzzling—but familiar—2009 Crown Victoria for a snazzier set of …
Just this afternoon, I received this Messenger text from my family in Kyiv. The grammar is not great but their message is clear. I feel frustrated. Wish I could do something for them.We are all in Kyev. It is really dangerously. The real war. I could not imagine such a scenario in the worst dream. …
Ukraine should occupy no more space in my brain than Uzbekistan or Xinjiang but for the whims of fate, in particular my living in Chicago for 30 years, where I made some Ukrainian friends, and the Cuban diaspora after the communist takeover, including two close relatives who wound up in Ukraine. Those connections now fuel my …
San Miguel newbies are shocked to discover that we do have a winter season here after all, with some overnight freezes, sere vegetation and spells of gloominess that might seem interminable next to the eternal sunshine they expected. Our winters are not nearly as bleak, mind you, as the one Gustav Holst depicted in his hypnotic …
In deference to the demographics of our circle of friends, who trend old and often trip over things, yesterday we hired a backhoe and two young guys to clean up the stones that boobytrapped the garden in back of our house, and patch up the holes with black dirt. Alas, by noon the project had …
Continue reading A heart of stone, just in time for St. Valentine's Day
El Rancho Santa Clara 