Preparing a Thanksgiving meal on Kaua‘i goes something like this: You spend days selecting the dishes you will make. You compile a long list of necessary ingredients. You hit your favorite grocer and find only half the items on your list. So, you stop at a second and third store and tick off a few…
Tag: Writing
The Irony: Someone Stole Mark Twain’s Memorial Plaque.
Whoever stole the plague adorning a monument at Mark Twain’s grave last month had to climb a ladder to do so. At least, that’s what a local historian suspects, as reported by the Elmira Star-Gazette, since the monument itself stood at a height of 12 feet, the same measurement used by riverboat pilots to indicate…
In Which Mark Twain’s Unpublished Manuscripts Inspire Me.
I’m sitting in a bed-sized window seat overlooking Sycamore Canyon in Big Sur, California, in a friend’s barn. Through an octagon-shaped window, I can see the famous Big Sur coastline, as well as, the occasional deer that roams by. In addition to deer, crows and vultures catch my eye. Sometimes, it’s the neighbor dog—a shih tzu…
Mark Twain’s Lesson on the Literary Sidekick
The smell of the fireplace at historic Volcano House permeated the air, threatening to give me a headache, while a motor roared to life behind us. “I’m just going to do a fast vacuum,” a housekeeper said. “You guys can stay.” My traveling companion—we’ll call her D—and I sat in wicker rocking chairs facing a…
Seasons and Writing and Birds Come and Go.
I was in search of a story today, so I went on a walk. Since you cannot lace up your athletic shoes at my house without this one giving you the eye, I happily said, “Wanna go for a ride,” and Lulu darted out the door. We headed for the coastal path on Kauai’s East…
Do These Pants Make Me Fit In?
The ornithologist and I picked our way across a knife-edge ridge high on a Kauai mountain. We were here looking for the nesting site of a rare and endangered bird—the Newell’s shearwater. Due to development and cats and rats and barn owls and a host of other threats, the total population of this particular species…
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