“Mr. ZIP is on the street,” my husband tells me when he sees the Postal Service truck at the corner. Don adopted that nickname in reference to the character the USPS used to illustrate ZIP codes when we were young.* He tells me so that I’m warned that mail will be...

The Earthquake The earth trembled And rocked with the rolling surge Of a colicky ocean wave And glass bottles vibrated Like echoing bells And books leaped from The library’s rattling shelves. I awoke And registered the earthquake On my personal Richter scale And...

Memorial Day was memorable. We don’t celebrate much on holidays, but this year it brought on more melancholia than I’d expected. We don’t have family nearby, and friends are usually busy with their families, so my husband and I spend quiet holidays together. This...

Every May, I look for the jacaranda trees to bloom. In Southern California, they appear as the weather turns warmer. In years when the weather is unseasonably cool, I have to wait for the purples, which spread across the Southland like wildfires. Homeowners gripe...

Random thoughts (because it’s hard to focus these days): On Easter we watched Andrea Bocelli sing “Amazing Grace” on TV.“You know he’s blind,” I said to my husband.“He’s just looking down at the words,” he replied.“No, he’s blind. He usually wears sunglasses,” I told...