Each time I visit Northern California, I remember how it's funny that I never seem to remember how beautiful it is when I'm not there. This happened again last week, when I went there with with my wife and my kid over spring break.
So apparently the hot new thing is to go to Europe and sleep on hay beds. CNN says so! Hay hotels. Yes, sure. "With private bedrooms and the option for 'real' beds, the 'Zum Alten Marstall' is at the 'luxury' end of the market. It also takes advantage of its position at the foot of the 11th century Castle Guttenberg by adopting medieval styling throughout. Here staff wear embroidered tunics and woolen cloaks and male guests are referred to as 'Knights.'" All the rancid eel pie you can eat! Also you get lice and, on weekends, all the peasants you can beat to death. But come Monday, its back [...]
Summer unofficially begins on Monday, so we're takin' a look at it. This is: Here Comes Summer. Hey, so you resent those teachers with three whole months off? Well! Do read on.
We're looking at a modest vacation this summer, Robyn and me. Our oldest daughter and her husband live in Portland, Oregon; we're going to take the better part of a week to drive lazily up the coast in a rental car, spend a few days with Emily and Blake, and fly home. Sounds pretty good right about now, as I'm scrambling to complete my grades for the spring semester.
Nine days: that will be [...]
Everyone's dug into President Obama's official reading list for his vacation this week on Martha's Vineyard: Richard Price's Lush Life (which is terrific), Kent Haruf's Plainsong (which sounds interesting), David McCullough's John Adams (which sounds like, um, he should just watch the movie instead), couple others. But we did not notice until now that the President will also be receiving a very interesting sounding package from a local bookstore. "Over at Bunch of Grapes…a clerk acknowledged that they had sent books, but when asked which ones, she sounded as if she were on the press office payroll. 'Nothing [we] can share with anyone,' she said." What do you [...]
