When the temperature drops, what do you let loose? Gentle rain? Snow wrapped hail? Lightening and thunder? A swirling vortex that pitches cows and cars into trees? When the rain falls, do you squish like mud? Soak it up like the grass? Disappear it like sand? Let it roll off your granite back? When the... Continue Reading →
Sometime back in October or November, I realized that I would soon pass the 100-post mark on this blog. I thought that perhaps the 100th or 101st post would be in honor of a new year and that maybe it would be interesting to make a list of one hundred things that I am thankful... Continue Reading →
Even the big ones. [Scene: IB Music class. Me sitting at a table with seven 17- and 18-year-olds. Textbooks are open and we are discussing the music of Europe from the Middle Ages until about 1750.] Andy: If you could have lived in a time period other than now, just to see what it was... Continue Reading →
"Hello Ms. Lillis." Grigor was, as usual, first to arrive in my choir room. Slightly out of breath from the stairs, he paced awkwardly in front of me - body parallel to the desk but eyes fixed on me. Without a break in my typing, I glanced up from my computer and smiled. "Hi Grigor." ... Continue Reading →
One dry day in July, a hot wind swept me through the sun-scorched fields of central Iowa. I was a blinking red dot on a GPS unit, gliding though a near-perfect grid of rural county roads where east, west, north, and south meet at right angles, rushing rushing ever towards and away. The corn in... Continue Reading →
... is in knowing that, even when she is not actually in distress, she will always be helped. Car trouble? Pop the hood and fiddle with the fluid gauges, pull out the jack and start setting it up, put up those hazard triangles and see just how quickly the mechanical muscles show up. House flooded? Appliances... Continue Reading →
This is not the Tour de France, nor the PGA. There are no dance troupes involved nor is it a tour of duty. (Unless you deem my mission worthy of such a name.) What's the mission? Meet as many new babies as possible in six weeks. Welcome to The Baby Tour 2012! RULES: 1) The... Continue Reading →
Living with a foot on two continents means traveling between the two places regularly, and regular travel brings the inevitable question: so what are you going to eat first when you go home? A frenzy of thoughts usually trample through my brain each time this happens, always beginning with that incessant and tiring question 'where... Continue Reading →
Nairobi may be a noisy metropolis with classy restaurants and hotels and malls and such, but it is still in Africa. There are many daily details that remind us of that fact: the red dirt that sticks to your shoes, the roadside vendors hawking wares, ugali and beef stew in the cafeteria, the sound of... Continue Reading →
Ode to Plastic Bending and unyielding; Soft as flesh or hard as bone. Inanimate. And yet there is No form you cannot assume, No task to which you are not applied. Shaper, connector, keeper; All the tools of this great race are Fashioned from you and by you. No child of these generations will know... Continue Reading →
Of Wonders & Wanders 
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