When Eric and I were young and innocent, we honeymooned on Kauai. While here, we surfed, snorkeled, hiked, and beached it. We boated, helicoptered, and attended a luau. Most surprisingly to me, we also bought a one-bedroom time-share unit on Kauai’s north shore. It may not have been the most prudent decision for a young…

When we first moved to Kauai, we lived in a cottage-sized home atop a hill along the coast. I remember lying in bed at night with the ocean as background noise and suddenly hearing a wave crash onshore. “The swell has arrived,” I’d say to Eric. It was an auditory way to learn about the…

My friend Wendy invited me to join a worldwide Facebook group called, “What Do You See Outside Your Window? #stayathome.” I suppose it’s meant to create fellowship while sheltering at home, a virtual alternative to what Italians are doing when they sing together from their balconies. I posted this iPhone photo that I snapped yesterday…

I saw it again today, in a headline, a publication using an albatross as a metaphor to imply something negative, something long-lasting, something bad. Here’s the thing: An albatross isn’t a burden. Oh, sure, there’s Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and that business with an albatross around a sailor’s neck. But it ended up…

After carefully conserving certain food items—ahem, chocolate—and conscientiously eating leftovers to make our food supplies last as long as possible, I went to Costco for the first time in three weeks. (Truth is, we needed carrots and sweet potatoes to make Lulu’s food.) Outside the store, two employees were spraying and wiping down wagons with…