Yesterday I opened a “letter” from my mother; a perfect example of
her eccentric idea of correspondence. Bereft of card, signature, or,
God forbid, “Dear Daughter”, the envelope contained 3 newspaper
clippings – each annotated with her inimitable, looping script. To the
first clipping, a review cautioning that a new kid’s hardback called
“The Graveyard Book” may be too dark for sensitive children, my mother
had added “This sounds good!” A study exploring the effects of the
color red on both attention span and anxiety prompted this commentary:
“You know I made all red things for your cradle and crib! How to
create an obsessive compulsive?” And of course my personal favorite,
an interview in which Nadya Suleman, the recent mother of octuplets,
asserts that she wanted a family to help combat depression. In this
article the words “children” “cure” and “depression” have all been
manically underlined. Radiating a giant arrow, the newspaper’s indent
points to my mother’s own thickly inked phrase: “What an idiot!” She
may not write much, but it sure reads loud and clear.
My mother’s attitude towards children and their rearing being what it is, she often chose the Wolf Creek Inn as the ultimate destination on the many and extensive road trips we took together. Touted as “the oldest continuously operated hotel in the Pacific Northwest” by the State of Oregon’s recreation department, the Inn boasts perfectly articulated period décor, both a ball and dining room, and a magical, perfumed orchard. It is also remote, haunted, and almost entirely unfit for children (read: no television).
This past weekend I was in San Francisco for The 8th Annual
Sketchfest. This was a two week long Comedy Festival with comic
performers ranging from Stand-up, One Person Shows, Improv Groups,
Sketch Companies and then there were shows that sort of defied
description. Some of those were the ones I took part in. 
One of the things I love most about traveling is finding out-of-the-way places to visit. Especially ones that have a cool history to go along with their surroundings. Which is how we found ourselves in the old mining town of Jerome, Arizona. Well, to be honest the initial draw was the three wine tasting rooms located in this tiny town – it has under 500 permanent residents – perched on the side of a mountain with one hell of a view down.
Of course you surely know the only reason to travel is to eat, so when I got an invitation to attend the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience, I jumped at the chance. I admit to a bit of hidden skepticism. I mean how could an island sitting in the middle of the Caribbean Sea possibly have any interesting food?
What was supposed to be nothing more than meeting my good friend
Robert – who is like a brother to me – in Dublin, Ireland to celebrate our
birthdays in December, turned out to be something of an excellent
extravaganza. Robert is the CEO of Clive Christian, "the world's most
beautiful kitchens" according to their monthly ad in Architectural
Digest. He had a meeting in Dublin that happened to fall on my birthday
2 days after his. He appears to be a stuffy, British guy with his
finely tailored 3-piece suits with Hermes ties who speaks the proper
"Queen's English", but his biggest claim to fame is that he was a
'roadie' for ABBA back in the 80's. Depeche Mode, another rock band from
that decade was playing in Dublin at the time, so that's what we decided to do
for our birthdays.