Living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean presents its challenges, here and there. Some days I can’t find my favorite brand of tart cherry juice because the shelves haven’t been restocked. And what about green onions that I once called scallions. Where are they when I need them? The list gets longer and more serious. When you live on a land mass that juts out of a sea, friendships can take their hits. But not the water resistant kind that touch our toes like distance isn’t a care. So this doesn’t mean that all friendships can stay alive after how...

This is tough. Almost as tough as when my girlfriend Joanna, a very special classmate, came to the island, and we picked her and Steve up in our shiny silver car. Who would have guessed that a three year old Tesla (“Tes”) could cause me such internal turmoil. (I could only imagine what she’d think.) Our 2012 black Chevy Volt was back in the garage plugged in for the day and would have been less roomy for a tour of the island; otherwise we could have hidden Tes at home. My father, the late George Gilbert, who I’ll always adore, commented early on, that my husband was...

I thought that editing the Milton Katims’ piece for Music Journal stretched my editing skills to the max. I was a 24 year old freelancer when I picked up an assignment that curled my dendrites to a tight coil. What he could induce with his baton was one thing (he conducted the Seattle Symphony for more than two decades) but decipherable he wasn’t. What I guess I’m trying to explain is that I’m not a novice at editing. I was rewrite editor for my JHS newspaper (quite a title, I know), editor of of my high school paper, edited a weekly shipping journal, hey, this isn’t...

Bryce has a perplexing problem. Something’s missing in her life. Her cell phone’s gone. No forwarding address, no heartfelt good byes … just one day it was there and the next day it wasn’t! I have a theory that it happened about the same time she started “planking” (looks like a push-up) in the gym. Gravitational forces may have re-situated her precious aqua phone far from home. I keep telling her that it’s on an adventure. Away. But where? Nobody said it would be easy. But unlike me she hasn’t got the hang of worrying. Last heard from, she was...

I’m thinking of starting a gym for people who bend backwards not to perspire during work-outs. (You know, of course, that bending backwards is not a medically approved method for keeping dry…) I envision a gym for people who don’t bring towels in their duffle bags and who take enormous pride in their under-active sweat glands. A place for gym attendees who stand tall knowing that they leave behind no traces of residue on the machines they’ve visited. A work-out site for those of us who’ve done our best to avoid the company of “wet wipers,” the wretched...

You may have guessed. Lately, our kitchen has become a meeting site for those tiny black ants that seem to prefer late summer  weather. Ours love purple onion scraps but also are adventurous eaters who will sample whatever’s within reach — and they have a very long reach. We squoosh them with our fingers but have begun wondering if they deserve greater respect and  a change of scenery.   We look to you our readers to show your compassion for family expansion by adopting a few or maybe 100. We will deliver them, likely attached to a food bit rather than our arms or knees which they ...