Today we—me, hubby Luke, doggie Mira—went Christmas tree hunting. Paid $10 online + some kind of tax to be able to head off into the Tahoe National Forest/ Yuba River Ranger District South in search of the mythical perfect tree, hopefully amidst a snowy mountain...

“It is a tour de force, quite literally, as those tributaries rush heedlessly toward their ultimate conclusion. Part John McPhee, part Norman Maclean, part Joan Didion, majority Maggie.”–Joseph Mackin, Editor, 2paragraphs

Amidst the current situation, a lot of people are talking and writing about their struggle to find meaning, a way to live through what appears to some like very possibly end times. In my search for strength, I frequently land on 1968.

As we watched our young children reverently scatter my mother’s fake ashes on the sand dunes surrounding the beach cabin, clutching the powdery mix in their small hands first to their hearts, and then releasing it, I knew that someday I might have to tell them what happened to the real ashes.

Every Thanksgiving, I think of Hercules. But not the Greek hero. My Hercules was a magnificent fifty pound Broad Breasted Bronze Turkey, the one and only turkey on the farm where I lived. Which created some problems.