So Long, Holden Caulfield

The first time I ever laughed out loud while reading a book was in the midst of CATCHER IN THE RYE. Rest in peace, J.D. Salinger.

Who Cooks For You? Who? Who?

This great horned owl and his (her?) mate have been hovering around this redwood tree for a couple of weeks now. The tree is roughly 50 yards from the backyard, and the owls balance at the very top in the early morning, around 7 a.m., and again in the evening, around 5 p.m., calling to a third owl, somewhere in the distance.

This morning, they both flew from the redwood to the eucalyptus, then back to the redwood again; when one flew off, the other sat tight, so Steve ran upstairs to fetch his camera. This is the result, although he wasn't thrilled -- the sky was overcast and the light poor -- but I think it's pretty good.

He also ordered an owl call from Cabela's; instructions say to blow it as if you're saying: "Who cooks for you? Who? Who?" But every time we try, we crack up. Which means we won't quit our day jobs.

Storm of the Decade

Steve's been a lover of open water all his life, swimming, surfing, and scuba diving in the Pacific Ocean. But even he was intimidated when he saw these waves off the coast of Elk, CA (just south of Mendocino) on Monday, January 18, in the midst of a winter storm. He estimated the swells at close to 30 feet.

These, too, although you had to be there to appreciate them (and be terrified by them).

The brown pelicans were wary, too; they huddled on the shore in a group of 200 the first two days we were there.

Steve was standing on a hilltop when he took this photo. I found the abalone shell at the edge of a creek that had become a river that was rushing into the ocean. The rain gear is no joke -- about three minutes after the photo was taken, the sky opened and Zeus drained his bathtub on our heads.

Road Trip

Verlyn Klinkenborg, a writer who sits on the editorial board of The New York Times, recently wrote an essay, “The Road West,” which inspired me to dig through the notes in my "idea" file -- six pages from my reporter's notebook, detailing our road trip in 2002, when Steve and I drove across the country during our move from Georgia to California.

Here are the highlights:

• Just outside Birmingham, gas was $1.03 a gallon; in Little Rock, $1.06. Nothing beat Oklahoma City, though, at 99 cents, which warranted an exclamation point in my notes.

• Someone wrote “Colby is my bitch” in white spray paint on a highway overpass near Jasper, Alabama. A few miles down the road, someone else wrote “I love Lucy Baxter.” There were a lot of signs, too. In Jasper, it was widely advertised that you could get “Same-day dentures” before enjoying an exotic dance at the Booby Trap, and then lunch at BK’s Barbecue in Holly Springs, Mississippi. (The man next to me ordered six bowls of soup and ate them all. Steve ordered a hamburger.)

• On Thursday, February 28, as we were driving from Little Rock to Amarillo, Steve and I began discussing the Grand Canyon. I wanted to go, Steve didn’t (he’s been there twice already), and so he said it was closed. He thought this was hilarious, and repeated it several times, saying, “You should write that down.”

• From Amarillo to New Mexico, there wasn't t much to see, beyond a few broken down corrals and windmills, with some rim rocks in the distance. It reminded me of southeast Oregon.

• The speed limit outside Albuquerque was 75 m.p.h., but no one drove that fast.

• In Grants, NM, there were no trash receptacles at the gas station where we stopped, and we had to haul our empty Coke cans, potato chip bags, and banana peels to Flagstaff – where it was eight degrees at 7 a.m., when we awoke on March 2. We spent a few hours at the Grand Canyon (shocker, it was open after all), and on the way to Needles, we passed an old lakebed with rock outcroppings that ribboned over the surface like half-submerged serpents; accompanying this description in my notebook is a sketch of the Loch Ness monster. I wish I’d taken a photo.

• I tallied the dead animals we saw along the way, which included six coyotes; three dogs; one cow (which I mistook for a washing machine); six skunks (one of them at milepost 43, said Steve, trying to be helpful); one pheasant; one red-tailed hawk; one sage thrasher; one cat; two owls; one raccoon; and one “unidentifiable.”

• On March 3, at 1:30 p.m., we arrived in Sacramento. It was the best road trip ever, and I was sorry it was over. I'm ready to go again.

"Heel" Your Dog in Slingbacks

I met Sandra Ramirez-Thomas at the 2007 Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, and we've stayed in touch, critiquing one anothers' stories now and then, and following our day-to-day activities on Facebook.

Not long ago, Sandra's FB profile pic featured her dog's feet encased in vintage slingback heels; I thought this was clever and funny, and mentioned it to my daughter, Jena, after realizing her own dog's feet resembled the feet of Sandra's dog.

Jena thought this story was a hoot, and yesterday, sent this pic of Miley.

Gives new meaning entirely to "heeling" your dog.

Coming Soon: Narrative's New iStory App

Narrative Magazine's free iPhone app debuts in early 2010. To celebrate their launch, they've created the iStory, 150 words of dramatic fiction or nonfiction, and are soliciting submissions now. Narrative pays $250 for each iStory accepted. (Check out the guidelines here.)

My own iStory, "Assets," appears here, along with iStories from Alan Ziegler, Skip Horack, and Yuvi Zalkow. We'd be honored if you'd give us a read.