“…in life one has to make one’s own mistakes.” Mrs. Bulstrode in Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

There are things in life that one can hire out for someone else to do — wash a car, mow a lawn, prepare a meal, oversee the care of a child — but even in the “insta-age” with many “on demand” services, there a few things that one must do oneself, and making mistakes is one of those things.

While a consistent diet of failure isn’t fun or illuminating, if you don’t make your own mistakes, you will have precious little…

To crochet or not to crochet? What’s the question?

Before I learned to crochet…

Truth be told, it’s been over twenty years now, and I don’t recall my life before as clearly as I might, but I do remember this:

I waited in lines — impatiently. Now I just pull out a project and keep working.

Recently, as I waited my turn in line to order coffee, I reached into my bag, put a crochet tension regulator on my left index finger, and attached a new skein of yarn to resume work on another tree I am crocheting for my…

September 17, 1979

On an otherwise unremarkable late summer day, boaters in the Carquinez Strait of California came across the torso and legs of a woman.

Authorities were notified, the items on the body were catalogued, an attempt at identification was made, but eventually, the bones of the unknown woman were laid to rest in a cemetery in Solano County.

Who the woman was would remain a mystery for 41 years.

As the crow flies

The distance from the short looping Road known as 94C just west of Woodland in Yolo County, California, to the Carquinez Strait near East 5th Street in the City of Benicia, where…