A Day in the Life 05:00 Matthew wakes up, wanders around the house a bit, crawls into bed with me. He thrashes around for 10 15 minutes, then says "I want to get ...

A Poet, by Any Other Name… I suppose that it is a comfort to those whose computer systems depend on me to think of my verse as a hobby. “He dabbles in poetry,” they ...

a random act of kindness I had a bad day today. A bad day on top of a monumentally stressful week that included the loss of an old friend to a tragic illness and the ...

Abandoned! It was just the sort of situation that the expression “too good to be true” must have been created for. She had said that she would meet me here, and after ...

After the Show All of my old world and all the things in it are hard to find... if they ever were mine. Shawn Colvin I sang in the mixed chorus at my high school ...

All Compassion is Local I recently dipped a toe into the murky waters of politics. It's not my gift. Sacramento County wants to eliminate funding to the backbone of ...

automation As I'm typing this: I have a load of clothes being washed in my washing machine. Another load of clothes is being dried in an automated dryer ...

Car Trouble My car has this cool feature: you can simultaneously close or open all the windows from outside the car by holding the key in the lock or unlock ...

Compact Fluorescent Lights We've all heard the statistics: if every person in the US would replace their incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs ...

Corporate Personhood I am skeptical about bumper stickers as an effective form of communication. Can any important social issue be reduced to a message that fits on ...

Creek Adventure Sacramento County is flat. Really flat. There are many trees, which is a Very Good Thing , but thick trees in such a flat land means that you seldom ...

Desert Heart HIKING GOLDEN BROWN HILLS, sun dazzling, dry breeze hot I kneel before a great flat stone and, struck from behind I am surprised to find my heart on ...

Doctor in the House? Matthew and I went to the Sacramento Zoo this morning. We were waiting at the gate to have our membership card checked while the gentleman at ...

Elizabeth Keating In 1988 I closed my information technology consulting practice and embarked on a thirteen year quest to become a physician. It was a journey filled ...

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold ...

Flare From the light of dreams to morning's gloom, Illuminated by a son, next darkened by a cloud. A sun filled ride to a light, supportive room Then late and lost ...

It is not my place; it was his. I honor memory. Pretzels that distracted while pizza cooled are gone, churros now. The rest remains: lines where I held him 'til arms ...

Fresh Linens I just bought some new sheets. They're nothing particularly exotic, just some 400 TC cotton sheets that were on sale at overstock.com. I don't buy sheets ...

from seed to fruit WHEN YOU PLANT a tree, it is with the expectation that it will grow But O! so long from seed to fruit: the tender shoot That first sees sun by foot ...

Harbingers of Spring ...and I wonder if the Spring, like you, won't come back next year. JE In four decades, through times both cynical and mystic, early manifestations ...

Home Improvement This house has needed a new kitchen since about 1970. That's when the previous owners added on to the kitchen by enclosing the front porch, but never ...

Hummingbird Repose It is one of the places I go when I need to escape from the pressures of work and school. The hummingbird aviary at the San Diego Zoo is an ideal ...

I Have Time I HAVE TIME to sleep a few hours each night, Time to play two year old and five year old games, Time to earn a living, attend church, support my communities ...

José José is not a poster person. He's not a starving doe eyed child. He isn't a struggling single mother. He isn't bravely fighting cancer. He hasn't risen to national ...

Just Say Whatever Mark 13:11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the ...

Legitimate Claims Ancestry allows us to participate in a larger world, to experience vicariously the greener pastures of other lives, the exotic romance of far–away ...

Let 'em Fail! Imagine that a passenger liner, far out at sea, strikes an iceberg. The owners of the ship, with the government's blessing, had removed the lifeboats ...

Lies, Damn Lies, and Divorce Statistics In a recent article in the San Diego Union , Richard Louv contrasted the work of anthropologist Helen Fisher with that of ...

longer days RonRisley 12 Apr 2008

me, simpsonized I've been simpsonized:

Metering Trees Crews are busy all around Sacramento County, digging and plumbing, installing water meters. Like many transplants from elsewhere in California, where ...

More Prose $ in recognition of single parents (07February2005): some site news and a tip of the virtual hat to people who raise kids on their own $ Elizabeth ...

My Collaborator There have, on occasion, been moments in my life when a scene would suddenly take on a preternatural clarity. Though rare, such moments seem to expand ...

On My Rocker It's back! After fourteen months at the restorer, I finally have my rocking chair again. A year ago February I sat rocking Matthew on my lap when the ...

a paean to loneliness where it really happens. craving distraction. wishing for a word, a touch. so desperate that even a television voice would be welcome. but ...

Partners in Learning Few would argue against the statement that America’s educational institutions are in a sorry state. In his essay “The High Cost of Ignorance ...

Petrichor "Petrichor" is the smell produced by the first rain on dry ground. It is a wonderful word as well as one of my favorite scents. We just had a couple of weeks ...

port wine like a glass of port wine born with a kiss of sun and a spray of slightly salty breeze plucked away, crushed, strengthened in a musty stew filtered, clarified ...

profound changes My car died a dramatic death last Saturday. I was driving on a beautiful spring day with the top down. Elizabeth was in the passenger seat. We were ...

the public trough I recently attended a rally protesting cuts to health care for the mentally ill here in Sacramento. The Sacramento Bee covered the rally, and one ...

Remembering How to Breathe There is a cosmological model that posits that every time some probabilistic event happens in the universe, reality forks into two or more ...

scarlet with my neighbors #8217; long since bare I cling to turnéd leaves rust and brown, sere and crisp, yet not surrendered to the ground where others #8217; have ...

The Screen Time Conspiracyand other #8220;clinical guidelines #8221; woes I recently received a communiqu from a physician asserting that the #8220;AAP American ...

Second Night Spaces Our second night together In not too many years Our love, so long enduring, So chaste and pure unless you count The thousand or so lascivious thoughts ...

In Recognition of Single Parents I woke up today with a cold, a URI, the sniffles, maybe the flu, the crud, whatever you want to call it, I felt (and feel) horrible ...

Solitude Must Seek Its Own Repair Solitude must seek its own repair, Relying not on others to find right, Trusting but to God, to self, to prayer. Though counsel has ...

From: ron #64; .net Date: 11November2008 09:07:43 PST To: spamsieve #64; .com Subject: SpamSieve saved my life Well, not really, but I thought ...

spring awaiting RonRisley 10 Mar 2007

Tea, Daddy? A couple of months or so ago I was feeling sick. Very sick. I was taking care of three year old Matthew and was trying to keep up with him despite the ...

thanks be bicycles breathing cheap airfares clean water co workers comfortable shoes Con Dad electricity Elizabeth financial security fresh food health hot showers ...

The Science Wizard We just threw a sixth birthday party for Matthew. He wanted a Harry Potter theme, and I thought it would be fun to have a magician. I did a web ...

The Trouble with Time Machine I guess it's the 21st century equivalent to getting a lump of coal in my stocking. I don't know which of my many moral failures led to ...

The Walk ON THE WALK I am alone. The child wrapped around my belly Has simple needs, satisfied for now. The phone at my belt, silent. Trees, sky, pavement, air lack ...

Tincture of Time I simultaneously trained in both medicine and psychiatry. That road has frequently landed me in a situation where I will be in a general medical clinic ...

To Blog or Not To Blog Back in the early 1990's when the World Wide Web was new, before there were page spinners and WYSIWYG HTML editors and cascading style sheets ...

Tolerance, Intolerance, and Disingenuity What happens when tolerance meets intolerance? Won't intolerance always prevail? Consider a mythical, isolated island nation ...

Truth The quest for truth: is it a noble, virtuous undertaking, or an exercise in futility? Is it something of concern to every thinking individual, or a colossal ...

Vacation They leave. Often too soon. They leave us behind with the thousand daily sorrows and joys of our lives. We speak of their big things, their public things ...

Wealth and Privilege I have been in a major funk, feeling sorry for myself. I don't imagine it's pretty, but my friends have been supportive nonetheless. One particularly ...

Loose Associations $ José (21June2009): not poster material $ feeding at the public trough (12April2009): apparently, we're bottom feeders $ the screen ...

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WHAT MAKES experience worth waiting for? Why not indulge in hedonistic now? Always, there is an easy open door. Temptation beckons, there to show us how To bypass ...

WHAT PROFIT, then, in contemplating ends While things begin, at midpoint, at the last? We know that tricky time just warps and bends Perceptions of our now, our then ...