The Side-Hill Saugus

    Once, when I was young and foolish, (and possibly drunk), my husband convinced me that there was a goat-like animal in the Andes known as the Side-hill Saugus.  It circled the Andean mountains, always moving in the same direction.  Over the generations, evolution stepped in. The Side-hill Saugus developed uneven legs, the right side legs longer than the left.  Evolution has done odder things.  
    Days later I was furious to find he had made up the whole thing.
    Flash forward forty years.  My right ankle has built up so much scar tissue from repeated sprainings  that I cannot navigate uneven terrain, like a beach.  I can walk in one direction, with my right foot waterside, but turnaround, with my right foot on higher ground than my left and it is unbearably painful.  
    That's karma for you.  My husband now has his own genuine Side-hill Saugus.

"Find Your Place"

   The Trustees of the Reservation, a Massachusetts conservation group, has a wonderful motto: "Find Your Place."  So simple, so true.  A place where you feel at peace.  Isn't that what we all want?
   My brother doesn't buy lottery tickets because, as he put it, "I won the lottery the day I was born."  Me too.  My father bought the above house in 1953 for the princely sum of $8000.  It is the emotional center of our lives, even though most of the time it is vacant or filled with renters.

This is the view from the front porch, and this is my place.  I suspect it is other people's place as well. When  I was a teenager, I was bored silly by the quiet emptiness of the space. I couldn't wait to go to town, a ferry ride away.
   "Find Your Place" had a darker meaning today, my first day back.  My password list vanished from my desk while I was gone.  Poof.  Whom the Gods destroy, They first make mad with ever-changing passwords.  Who can keep up with this nonsense?  Why doesn't cyberspace have a 'find-your-space' option?

Boomers on the Beach

You know you are of a certain age when, surrounded by miles of white sand and clear water, you hug the shadows.  Between the six of us there are dozens of scraped basal cells, MOHS surgeries and In Situ cancers.  Oh for the days of baby oil and careless abandon.....