Last night I was rattled from sleep twice – a helicopter was circling over-head. Circling helicopters in our neighborhood are never a good sign. The last time one was around for over an hour was when somebody was shot close to our neighborhood, and one of the Seattle news channels had sent their reporter team. […]
Across the Fence: Finding the Good Stuff
Indeed, these days it seems hard to stay calm and focused. 2020 seems to develop into what the Queen of England would call an annus horribilis (i.e. a horrible year). Not even considering political sensitivities, I guess we all agree that we are not happy about a devastating pandemic and its immediate consequences. And we […]
Bacon’s Double Take – Stairs to Nowhere
The other day, my friend and writing buddy, Lakewood legend Joe Boyle, sent me a photo to inspire the next round of Double Takes. He described it as “stairs to nowhere” – now, anybody who knows me will have a hunch that I immediately came up with a contradictory reaction. Because there is nothing that […]
Across the Fence: Hands
The other day, I observed a little bird on the fence outside my kitchen window, combing its feathers with its little beak. And all of a sudden, I became aware of what a miracle we human beings have at hand in our hands. How much for granted we take them until they get hurt. And […]
Across the Fence: A Decade in the USA
Sometimes I can’t believe it how time flies. May 25, 2010 happened already ten years ago. That was the day when I got up in Stuttgart, Germany, around 3 a.m. to pack some odds and ends into my suitcase, tossed the keys to my apartment into my own mailbox, and took a cab to Stuttgart […]
Across the Fence: Pancakes
Do you remember specific dishes from your very early childhood? Some that you outgrew but still make, a little changed up? I can still taste the German pancakes my mother used to make when I was about four; we usually had them for lunch in our nursery, my mother, my brother, and I. Sprinkled with […]
Across the Fence: The Ice Saints
Remember last week’s article about making hay while the sun shines and not counting chickens before they’re hatched? And that these adages come from farming – very obviously so? Every once in a while, in a DIY store, I come across the Farmers’ Almanac of the current year, and I wonder whether anybody really uses […]
Bacon’s Double Take – A Knife Connection
When Joe emailed me the below photos the other day, I was stumped. Not only didn’t I get his hint about how that connected us, nor did I have a story about a knife. I thought. The first stayed true, and his story might or might not reveal it. The second is wrong. I have […]
Across the Fence: More than a Cathedral
The other day, on Easter Sunday, while I was sitting at home instead of in church listening to a service, I found myself reflecting which church in my life had featured as most important. Was it the one I went to Sunday school and was a shepherd kid in a nativity play? Was it the […]