Across the Fence

About a couple of months ago, I found it hard to find any tissue handkerchiefs in supermarkets. Not that I needed any – I always have some in stock at home. But it made me wonder how people had done without them before – because now they must have bought them like crazy. That’s when […]

Being stuck inside the State in the times of Corona doesn’t mean you cannot explore or find some utterly exquisite pockets of nature where you don’t even expect them. Last Sunday, my husband, Don, and I wanted to get some exercise in the area, and I still have that wonderful book (https://www.amazon.com/Take-Walk-Through-Natural-Places/dp/1570613265) I bought before […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]