News Trend Lucky 13|Actual

"I will be a birthday angel and wait patiently for my treat!!"

Last summer, shortly after Ranger turned twelve, his health began to rapidly fail.

Tumors erupted on his rear end.

His appetite fell off but his thirst was insatiable; he dropped a lot of weight.

Wilting in the (not that hot) summer heat, he dragged through his summer walks.

I saw the writing on the wall and suspected that he would be gone by Christmas.

"That smells delicious!"

Around November, my boy's appetite had bounced back but his biggest tumor was growing unchecked. His vet sadly turned him down as a surgical candidate; big tumors are too risky to open up and he would likely not survive the procedure.

"Take him home and give him a good life," Dr. Bennett consoled me.

I measured Ranger's future in weeks.

"Lamb chops? YUM! Let me take that off your hands."

Then, on February 20, my boy was attacked by another dog who bit his tumor and broke it open. Losing blood rapidly, he barely made it to the emergency vet. She got the bleeding stopped but told us that Ranger's wounds never heal and advised us to euthanize him on the spot.

"No," I said, faster than my husband could blink. "We will give him a chance to recover."

We faced a long road in nursing Ranger back to health. I prayed he would make it to Easter.

"Mmmmm! What a tasty morsel. I'm in birthday heaven."

And now, here we are in July.

My boy has made it to another birthday, and I must say, he's cruising along pretty well:

His appetite and attitude are both on point; he's worked his way back up to his full 45-minute walks.

His wounds are all healed, his tumors look as healthy as evil lumps can look.

And every day, my dog surprises me with his good spirits and scary-clever persoalan solving skills.

Surely, at the impressive age of ninety-one, Ranger is in his twilight years. But I've given up guessing how long he will survive.

Video of lamb-chop eating dog available here

All I want to do today is celebrate another year of fine living with my good boy, Ranger, and pinch myself to believe that he actually made it to Lucky 13.

News Trend Out In Left Field|Actual

Here's a weird thing about my family. Whenever we take in a day at our hometown Mariners' ballpark, we invariably root for the other team.

It's not that we're anti-Mariners. We harbor no ill will to our local Seattle team.

The truth is just that most of us have developed a love connection to another MLB franchise. My husband still wears his heart on his sleeve for his childhood hometown heroes, the Cleveland Indians.

My first- and fourth-borns, huge baseball fans each, carry a torch for the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers, respectively. The story goes that each of them watched their future favorites in multiple World Series performances and fell in love.

As for me, Chicago Cubs all the way. Back in my Windy City days, I spent many a pleasant afternoon in the friendly confines of Wrigley's left field bleachers and my loyalties since then are unquestioned.

So last weekend, when the aforementioned Rangers were in town for a series against the Seattle Mariners, we enjoyed a few games from my favorite section in the whole ballpark.

^ Looking up in left field.

^ A clean view of the left-field turf... And my scorecard. Love to capture the game data. Plus it keeps me paying attention to the action on the field instead of wondering what to eat next.

^ Friday night was Fireworks Night. As the players trotted off the field at the end of the game,

we left-fielders were hurried out of our seats as well, since the pyrotechnics were about to explode right over our heads.

* * * * *

Sure, we Streichers get a few weird looks from the hardcore hometown fans as we stroll in to the stadium with our mismatched team gear and clap for the away guys' runs. But, devoted as we are to our various teams, we don't mind being a bit different.

You might even say we're comfortable being out in left field.

News Trend What Stays The Same|Actual

Happy Independence Day!

Today, I celebrated in what felt like Groundhog Day fashion with the same old tried-and-true Fourth of July traditions that have been played out year after year in my family.

^ Always I'm compelled to create backyard banners in red, white and blue

^ Classic summer barbecue dinner always spring forth from the grill.

^ And an evening spent at a nearby park, always the same location for watching our small-town fireworks display. Just like always, we spread out our blankets and snacked hardcore while waiting for the sun to go down and the fireworks to start.

Always, always, our celebrations are exactly the same.

But as I sat in the gathering twilight, scrolling on my phone as my Oreo-eating daughters scrolled on theirs, I came across a photo that set me back on my heels.

^ This photo of family friends, whose four kids are almost exactly the same age as mine, knocked me right out of my rut. Looking at their adorable baby faces, I could more clearly measure the passing of the years - decades - and I was reminded of something important.

Life never stands still.

No matter how much my holiday traditions may seem the same to me, I was forgetting some fairly major memories.

Like the year when my two-year-old had just decided to start potty-pembinaan that very day, and I was on pins and needles all during the fireworks, wondering what the heck I was going to do if she needed to go while we were out. (She held it the whole time. Crisis miraculously averted.)

And the times I front-packed my infants throughout the big evening, cuddled my frightened toddlers who were overwhelmed by the noise, and let my older girls run wild on the grassy lawn before the show began. And let's not overlook the early teen years when I broke up a few bickerfests and sent people on various missions to keep the pre-fireworks energy flowing smoothly.

When the girls got older, we branched out and tried some new venues. Twice, I think, we braved the major crowds at Gasworks Park, the biggest show in Seattle, just to see how the city folks spent the Fourth.

And then there was the year we trekked down to watch the show from my husband's advantageously located office in Fremont, bringing a big picnic dinner and several high school boyfriends in tow. I prayed that the hormones would not explode before the show began.

Life never stands still, and despite what my oversimplifying brain may tell me, my Independence Day celebrations have not gone stale either.

The only thing that has truly stayed the same through all these years is the people with whom I celebrate.

Oh, and the fireworks. They're just as beautiful as I always remember.

News Trend La Comida En Flora Farms|Actual

^ What if you stumbled one evening into a pastoral dream of a farm, tucked deep into the Mexican countryside

^ Where luscious mangoes hung overhead

^ Little girls whispered secrets amidst the purple bougainvilleas

^ And a series of walkways and twinkling lights overhead drew you further and deeper into the magic.

^ And then, what if you came upon a storybook farmer's fields?

^ Herbs and vegetables - tomatoes, radishes, carrots, peas, beans - growing in orderly rows in the unrelenting Mexican sunshine

^ And the miracle of these lush green jewels thriving in the desert sent shivers down your spine.

* * * * *

^ In the distance, you suddenly hear muted voices, laughter, the tinkling of silver against plates.

^ Now you begin to search in earnest for a way in, and you discover doorways.

Doorways that lead to tables

^ Tables full of people - families, children, grandparents, couples, large groups and small - all eating their dinner outside in the pale light of evening.

^ But where is your table? As the sun fades from the sky, you circle around the building, past the pink hibiscus, to find the front door,

^  At the front door, they are expecting you. Just a few minutes, you are told, while your table is prepared. So you look around and discover a precious place to wait, until it's your turn to come in and be seated.

^ And as you sit down at your table, you lay your camera aside. No more photos are needed. You are here at Flora Farms to eat dinner, and there is nothing more to do than enjoy a lovely meal.

* * * * *

My dinner at Flora Farms

Crushed watermelon and basil virgin cocktail

Seasonal salad of field greens, raw vegetables with lemon vinaigrette

Catch of the day with sauteed vegetables and thyme-infused fish broth

Lemon and lavender cake

Every bite was a dream.

* * * * *

Read all about my latest trip to Mexico

Vamos A Mexico!

Me Gusta Nadar

Bonita En Rosa

El Jardin Me Hace Sonrier

La Comida A Flora Farms

La Mejor Parte

News Trend Summertime Princess|Actual

Step 1: Open old paint cans.

Step dua: Stir in copious amounts of kitty litter until paint solidifies.

Step 3: Haul the whole wretched mess to the dump. Ba-dump.

For the better part of June, I lived the life of a summertime princess.

Slept in.

Took naps.

Read books.

Basked in the sunshine.

Watered my gardens.

And wore nice, clean outfits all day long.

This, my friends, is a lazy life and I looked forward to it all school year long.

But after three weeks, boredom came crashing in, as I always knew it would.

I can maintain that regal bearing for only so long until my work clothes whisper to me and my heart yearns for a big, messy project.

So. This week, I forced myself to take on the most distasteful items on my summertime chore list.

Upwards of fifty stubborn dandelions lost their lives to my new hori-hori knife.

Fourteen bags of mulch upended into the garden, though a good share of the splinters ended up in my hands.

The garage. Oh, the garage. It's way past organizing; what it's getting is a good gutting. So far, there've been three carloads of donations and one deliciously satisfying trip to the dump.

And today, just for fun, we cut down a major section of overgrown hedge, and committed ourselves to the unenviable process of digging out all the roots.

Step 1: Chop away every living inch of the front hedge.

Step dua: Marvel at the newfound light and lovely openness.

Step 3: Remember that you still need to complete Steps 4-97 before this job is actually done.

Step tiga.1: Check the bank balance to see if there's money to hire someone else to finish this miserable job.

So, to summarize:

My fingernails are all cut back from vacation glamour length to a hard-working minimum.

My books are gathering dust as I fall asleep as soon as I open them at night.

My Vietnamese beach glow is looking way more American farmer tan.

My real clothes hang forgotten in the closet as my work ensembles enjoy constant rotation.

In other words, my real-life summer is finally ON. And this summertime princess couldn't be happier.

News Trend Pot Head|Actual

For decades now, I've pined for a potting bench. I don't know why I didn't press the issue sooner; I suppose I considered it was an unattainable dream, a discretionary-income extravagance, and just one more thing that would not fit in my fairly tiny backyard.

But this spring - in my year of No Day But Today - I decided there was no more holding back. So as my husband was dropping me curbside at the airport on our way to Vietnam, I threw back over my shoulder, "Hey, if you want to make me a potting bench, go for it."

Of course, in classic husband mode, he didn't do much while I was gone. But the morning after my return, while I slept till noon, my husband whipped a little something together for me.

^ It's a pretty solid little potting bench.

One shelf at the perfect work height.

One shelf down below for storage.

And in a little design tweak yet to come, we will add one more narrow shelf up top.

Best of all, this rascal cost us not a penny. Leftover bits and drabs of pallet lumber, a handful of nails and screws, exterior-strength Varathane from my paint stash.

I kind of love it.

^ No longer do I mix up batches of mud on my kitchen counter with my ongoing potting and re-potting projects. I can make all the mess I want out here, and simply sweep the soil to the ground when I'm done.

^ Tucked into a corner of my side yard that gets morning sun and afternoon shade, the bench is also an ideal plant hospital. This little succ-in-a-pig needs some TLC and he's thriving in this protected place.

^  Let's be honest. If nothing else, the top shelf of my new potting bench serves as a giant landing pad for my beloved clippers and Hori-Hori knife. A hundred times a day, I set them down and forget where I laid them. I always find them eventually so they're never exactly lost but it's nice to have a big fat place to put them down.

^ The bottom shelf provides plenty of storage for my inventory of  garden-related flotsam and jetsam. I will also confess that through most of the summer, I maintain a stash of adorable plants that I bought before I knew what to do with them. Sooner or later, a genius idea always presents itself and I put the extras to good use. Now I have a proper waiting area for them.

^ There's something about my potting bench that makes me feel like a more gurih gardener. Maybe it's looking down on those neat stacks of obediently waiting of pots.

^ Or catching a daily glimpse of at my little stash of Burpee seeds, just like Grandma always bought.

^ I love not only how my potting bench looks but also how it makes me feel: as if  - one by one - my dreams really are coming true.

News Trend La Mejor Parte|Actual

Of all the beautiful things I saw in Cabo, the rock formations of El Arco are my favorite.

Not entirely sure if my question was polite, I decided to ask anyway.

"Mart?N, what about Mexico makes you most proud?"

Then, in the darkness, I leaned forward to hear his response.

Portrait or landscape? I can never decide.

We were driving home from Flora Farms, a good forty minutes away from our hotel, and our cab driver, Mart?N, had been politely silent for all of the outbound trip and now the first few minutes of the journey home.

But my tongue was loosened by the drunken beauty of the evening, and I wanted to hear more from the people who belong to Mexico, to better understand what it means to be a Mexican.

Darkness had long since settled in, and as we rode on under the stars, Martín began to talk.

"Of all the beautiful things in Mexico, I am most proud of our people's hospitality. People from all around the world come here to visit Cabo and other cities in Mexico, and we want everyone to feel welcome and cared for."

His words made a melody in my heart. What a lovely thought, that a country's greatest gift could live in the hearts of its people.

I told Martín about all the kind and generous people I had met during my stay:

our poolside waiter, Luis, who cracked jokes and encouraged my wobbly Spanish banter with him

the sweet woman from housekeeping who came to clean up the handfuls of sand carelessly spilled from my swim suit onto the bathroom floor, who spoke not a squeak of English but painstakingly swept up every single grain

Erika, the concierge, who seemingly juggled six guests' different requests at once with a charming smile and not so much as a single hair out of place.

And I told Martín about the Mexican-Americans who put a new roof on my house a few years back. As they hammered away, they sang Mexican folk songs in rousing choruses and brought along a microwave to heat up their wives' good Mexican cooking in my back yard at lunchtime.

He smiled at my stories.

I couldn't see his face but I could hear his soft chuckles as he drove on in the dark.

Then Martín told me about his wife, who books reservations for local Airbnbs and tends to the family, and his two children, a girl and a boy. His daughter, he explained, is madly in love with Shawn Mendes. A few years ago, he and she were en route to Mexico City to see the pop star in concert when an earthquake happened. Their plane was rerouted and the concert cancelled; his daughter was devastated. But more recently, Martín bought tickets for the two of them to have breakfast at a publicity event with Shawn, and his daughter was able to pose for a picture with him. Martín proudly showed us the pic on his phone - Shawn looking handsome beyond words and his daughter beautifully composed for a girl standing in the arm of her idol.

The ride back to Pueblo Bonito passed in a snap, and too soon, I was climbing out of the van and saying goodbye to Martin.

"Come back to Cabo soon," Martín smiled. " I hope I will be of service to you again."

And I knew, in that instant, that my time with Martín had been the very best part of my trip to Cabo.

* * * * *

Read all about my latest trip to Mexico

Vamos A Mexico!

Me Gusta Nadar

Bonita En Rosa

El Jardin Me Hace Sonrier

La Comida A Flora Farms

La Mejor Parte