Smells of two worlds mix in the kitchen: one of boiling beans and noodle soup and chile rellenos, the other of black olives and goat cheese and figs. Each day is a clock with its two hands tossing tortillas as a child appears and then another and another till Rafael is born on Sept. 15, […]
I double faulted on an important point in a doubles match last weekend. Usually a moment of some agony (few tennis players are intentionally charitable), I smiled at my opponents instead. “Mulligan,” I cried out. (I had purchased 5 mulligans before the match.) So happy to have another serve, I barely thought of all the […]
If you could see the moment after in the painting above: Monfils hitting the ground running to cover the next shot, which his opponent misses. If you watch the first two shots in the video below from Tennis TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWMQJEf3pL8 First Shot: The long sprint forward sudden scissors kick leap high in the air while […]
Her headband draws any softness of hair back away from her fierce, focused eyes. Powerful arms hips legs all work together to crush another backhand winner at the Olympic Games in Rio. No-nonsense, aggressive play. That’s how you take what might be yours. Murals of Monica dot the island. “Siempre va a ser mi recuerdo […]
I softly cried my way through Chapter 25: “Thirty Days in Tuscon.” Maybe I cried because my youngest brother worked through a hidden bottle of Vodka each morning. Maybe I cried because we never knew. Barry’s parents never knew that, as Barry himself puts it, he was “a suicidal alcoholic bent on destruction.” In “Thirty […]