Sometimes writer’s block is an unexpected and unsavory visitor in my neck of the woods. And yet when it arrives, I am compelled to welcome that dried-up guest honorably. It is usually clearing me out for some new delight. Last week it happened to be cookies. Of course, I ate […]
Beth Caldwell – The View From Here
To contact Beth, email her at caldwellandcompany@gmail.com
I ruminated for six days on the contents of this column and came up empty-handed. I went to bed on it, woke up on it, and still nothing. I installed the ritual chocolate and black tea (the best combination since Saturday and Sunday) that are my known catalysts for inspiration, […]
I’ve always considered myself a “northerner.” I’m a hardy soul at home in the elemental outdoors. I grew up loving the open air of the wilderness—and I still do. I also think I would have made a great pioneer woman in the U.S. Midwest, tending to a small little cabin […]
Cat barf. It’s the one globule in this world that I wish I didn’t have to clean up. In fact, I would trade cat barf detail for sifting the solids out of the litter box any day. In my the neck of the woods, cat barf rates right up there […]
On Sunday morning, my dad was welcomed in his capacity as CEO of the plastic insulation project that my captain and I were stapling to my old screen porch. My dad is very good at many things, including it would seem, catching my misuse of the English language when he […]
Who knew a gander of geese could put out so much sausage-like material. My neck of the woods suddenly is teeming with great green gobs of goose poop. It is a virtual war zone out there laden with log bombs that make every step a hazard and the bottom of […]
I would much rather be writing a story about cornered skunks and wide-eyed squirrels, and the flurry of cat fur that flies when “Cash” and “Dot” decide to play tag with unwilling members of the animal kingdom around here. But that won’t be happening today, and it won’t be happening […]
Maybe you’ll read this. Maybe you won’t. If you do, and you’re the one who ventured uninvited onto my country property with a cat in a pet carrier and dumped off the cat here, you are a loser. And no, you don’t get Brownie points for buying a brand new […]
There are men who somehow just grip your eyes and hold them hard like a spell and such was he, as he pointed the flashlight in my direction and with inflection, all bundled in woollies and lumberjack red, his face unshaven, said—as I turned my head—“The lady that’s known as […]
I was sitting on my wicker couch by the creek a couple of days ago on one of those windy September afternoons that produces very bad hair and smacks of a season I am not yet prepared for. Where did the summer go? I could have sworn it was June […]
Sometimes when I open my mouth, what comes out are words I wish I had never said out loud. I’ve made that mistake a few times lately and, of course, the afterlife of regret lingers longer than it’s welcome, like the smell of campfire in my hair that takes two […]
Maybe my pets can read and thus know that I write about them. Maybe when I’m gone to work, they make themselves at home in the living room (where the “Dog Rule” manual states they are not allowed) and read my column in the newspaper—or perhaps they surf my online […]
