(Heckle, the famous feral cat. Photo Socotra.) I am down at the farm this morning. It was a quiet night, the mercury vapor security light flooding the circular driveway with bright light against the rich, full country dark. I am glad I was not Secretary Geithner, having to look at the Europeans roll their eyes […]

So, the grand opening of the Nosh experiment at Willow continued Thursday evening- Day Deux of the grand experiment. We were there in force, again. Mary and Old Jim; John with an H, and his bride; Jake and the lovely Celia; Melissa, Big Chris-with-a-C, the Good Doctor, and a burgeoining cast of characters eager to […]

It is Indian Summer here, warm and glowing and filled with denial of the coming change in the weather. I wanted to be in the pad-locked pool yesterday. The last weekend looms at the Big Pink pool- and I am praying that the weather holds. It is supposed to cool off here- down to the […]

The contractors at the Agency on Monday morning scuttled like cockroaches when the kitchen light is switched on. Many had wheeled carts piled high with cardboard boxes filled with binders and tens of thousands of top-quality words promising to meet all the requirements of the Agency. I was one of them, of course, or I […]

It is another of those mornings that defines the New Normal. Lovely day for an early walk; the fading silver disk of the full moon hanging in a bluing sky. I was on foot early, since the electronic prompt on the dash of the Hubrismobile has been scolding me with the count-down to “A”-level service […]

I wrote the date and then I had to stop. Ten years, almost to the tick of the clock. I was not going to do this to you. I was going to write about the incredible victory under the lights at the Big House last night, but I cannot disrespect the people who died by […]

There is something in the air this morning. It is not rain, for a change. The skies have cleared and there should be an optimistic stride in our steps. The Big Pink pool is open, today and tomorrow; and again for the swan song next weekend. For good or for ill, the Big Proposal goes […]

(NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite took a stunning image of 4 tropical systems in the Atlantic on Sept. 8, 2011. Hurricane Katia in the western Atlantic; Tropical Storm Lee’s remnants are battering Arlington and Big Pink with a specific and credible amount of moisture; Tropical Storm Maria is well organized in the central Atlantic; and newborn Tropical […]

It rained and rained and rained. Five inches in Arlington; the District was saturated and the streets flooded. The storm had no name, and lasted longer than the last one that did- great greats of gray water that kept coming like the Monsoons that washed away Yongsan Garrison when I lived in Seoul. I had […]

Three o’clock, wide-awake. There was a bit of work unfolded next to the computer and it nagged at me in the darkness. I gave up and padded out to the balcony to see if it was still raining. I found myself in the cloud- the rain faint, the night air impenetrable and completely saturated. I […]