I hope that I'll be able to balance self-care with others-care for the good of both. I hope that I'll be able to see my father for the first time in four years and that he'll be able to make memories with his two grandchildren. I hope that my wife gets a job that gives her purpose and focus each day -- a distraction from the news and P...

This is December's prompt for Postcrossing and I just barely made it (the 29th)! First of all, I never play the lottery because I'm morally opposed to games of chance. Furthermore, lottery participation is a net loss for most who play it and most of the people who play are those who don't have much income to spare. That being said, bec...

This was supposed to be November's post, but school got very busy and it was never written... until now! To be honest, I can't decide on a single one. I've received many wonderful gifts from parents, siblings, friends, and relatives over the years. What a makes a present the best? Here would be my criteria: 1. the amount of care and th...

My local post office is about 1.5 miles away, serving the cities of Artesia and Cerritos. It is designed in a California Adobe style, reflecting the architecture of the Spanish Colonial period through Mexican Independence and California statehood. In this style, roofs are made of u-shaped clay tiles that channel water down at low angle...

I live in a neighborhood that's calm on the ground for one that is part of the massive urban basin of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. People are out taking walks from dawn to dusk and mid-day. Few cars on the street give a feeling of open welcome to guests and residents. Many trees provide shade to cool lawns and homes from the strong...

In this era of "cancel" culture and "unfriending" I'd like to advocate for keeping in touch with people who think differently than we do. How often do we listen actively to understand another's POV? Not to find holes in the argument, but to try to see the world from their perspective? How can we use that conversation to measure the dis...

The year marches on and suddenly we are 1/3 through 2021. Students have returned to our school yet the bursting vibrancy of 2000 adolescents’ energy has not. We were guarded at first but now we’ve relaxed. As the guidelines loosen for vaccinated adults and the county descends the state’s color tiered system, the guard relaxes. I don’t ...

It's Spring Break. We are about to go camping in the Owens River Valley. I'm fully vaccinated now. Many millions more are too. There's more talk about when all will open up. Government entities are conservative on how they open up. Citizens are relaxing in how where they wear masks. I hope that we don't have to ride another wave! This ...

It's amazing to think that for a year of hardly going anywhere, I would go through so much anyway. Most of the journey has been emotional and mental. I count Day One of the quarantine as March 13, 2020, the day that school dismissed for two weeks. Then another month. Then the rest of the school year. Certainly we'd begin the 2020-2021 ...