Josh Oakes says he is raw. Raw as in new to many aspects of running a full time tour guide business here in Melbourne. We met yesterday and he took me to a beautiful part of the country, the spa-focused region of the Macedon Ranges. Here, he said, the emphasis […]
Tina Banitska paused for a moment, feeling a bit emotional when she took me through her 15-year labor of love called The Convent in Daylesford, Victoria. “Excuse me,” she said, sensing that I could tell this made her emotional. She grabbed my arm and continued, ‘I get this way sometimes, […]
“I’m sorry.” These words are everything to Australia’s Aborigine community, and just a month ago, they were uttered by Australia’s new liberal prime minister Kevin Rudd. For more than a decade, the conservatives have ruled, and they were not about to apologize for what the white man has done to […]
Melbourne has the prosperous feel of a city on the up and up. I got this sense right after we got off the plane and stood in a line waiting for customs. As a cute blond Labrador was walked through the line, sniffing every passenger’s feet and luggage, posters up […]
I’m looking out at the oil drilling rigs and the misty pacific ocean from the Sun ‘n Sands Motel in Huntington Beach. This is the place that I got after requesting something with ‘character,’ and made my host Wendy say in email that ‘of course you’d think it was marvelous, […]
I tossed and turned last night, having dreams that I forgot to blog, or missed a flight, or some other figment of my imagination as I contemplate the nine days of travel ahead of me. Like so many other times, the nervous nellie in me makes packing, planning and actually […]
Last night I read a story in the WSJ by Anita Raghavan about men who receive alimony–and don’t feel a bit bad about it. The story profiled a group of men whose high-earning wives paid them thousands of dollars a month, and resented the hell out of it. One producer […]
Ah the joy, the sweet utter joy, of ridding your lawn of the detrius that builds up over the long New England winter. I have been looking at the sticks, pine needles, and leaves that pile up and make my house look like a suburban ghetto. I have seen them […]
It’s frustratingly cold, snow is on the lawn, and we’re heading to VT for a surprise 50th birthday. But I still had time this morning to read a few nuggets in my favorite newspaper, the WSJ. In India, there are milkmen who punch in to work every morning at the […]
I quickly finished reading the April issue of Wired last night. The cover story was about how Apple does well by going against all of the cooperative, sharing, and caring principals that have made other Silicon Valley businesses successful. They hide from the press and play hardball with anyone who […]
Outside I am watching two ducks attempt to mate, splashing around on a half-frozen pond. Ahh, spring! Even little bunny hop has made an appearance, so, despite the threat of a snowstorm tomorrow, spring is coming along. We have brought back ice coffee and coffee ice cubes at the cafe, […]
Today I had a delicious lunch in the cafe, our havarti and ham melt special. Then I had a chance to read an essay by Andree Aelion Brooks, who proved herself a witty, saucy and clever woman when it comes to men. Her point? That at her age, it’s best […]