San Diego

Sep

07

It Runs in the Family

Family  Posted by

Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles. Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing about your righteousness. – Psalm 145: 4-7

Most doctors take a dim view of the self-diagnoses certain of us love to make with the help of the internet. When I’m afflicted with one thing or another, I usually get caught up in some late-night online symptom sleuthing. My findings are quite often hair-raising and only serve to add to my insomnia.

And when at last I do get in to see my doctor, I helpfully supply my own personal diagnosis of the ailment that has brought me to her office.

Problem is, most of the time I’m wrong.

The physical therapist I saw last week corrected my assessment of my current problem. The trouble was not the flare-up of plantar fasciitis I had so confidently advised him I had. He looked at an x-ray and let me know that the real reason every step I take feels like a demon is driving a nail into my heel is because I have a bone spur.

And, now that I think about it, it wasn’t actually shingles that other time, nor was it skin cancer the time before. Maybe I should just abandon my amateur practice of worst-case scenario medicine and leave the diagnosing to the professionals. ( I do love this advice from a sage friend regarding alarmist tendencies when facing ailments and disorders: when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras!).

A New Diagnosis

But this time it’s different. Todays’s web-surfing helped me with a self-diagnosis I am sure is 100% accurate.

I have thalassophilia.

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Oct

31

Fishing for the Right Words

Writing  Posted by

My grandfather loved the sea. He’d built a sailboat, but what he enjoyed even more was the small cabin cruiser on which he spent the happiest days of his retirement fishing for flounder. An introvert and engineer, he was a patient, soft-spoken man. I imagine he liked fishing in large part because of the quiet it afforded him to think his thoughts in peace.

My father also loved boats, but did not have the same high tolerance for passively waiting in solitude as did my grandfather. My grandmother was fond of repeating the old saying: “Patience is a virtue, have it if you can; seldom found in woman, never in a man.” Although I didn’t perceive it at the time, she was probably

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Nov

30

Starring the Sun

CrossWise Living  Posted by
Starring the Sun

 

For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory.
Psalm 84:11

 

They call the high cost of living in San Diego a “sunshine tax.” We pay for the privilege of hearing virtually the same weather report everyday—70 degrees and sunny. The downside is that we face a looming water shortage, and many of us are now having to transition from lush green lawns to water-wise xeriscapes.

I’m not going to lie; I’m mourning the loss. I grew up in New Jersey, where playing on the soft and fragrant lawn lingers in my memory as one of childhood’s most sensual pleasures. There is something in me that recoils at the sight of rocks and bark and scraggly native plants. But times change, and so must we.

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