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REOPENING

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REOPENING

Wags and Wiggles, the local doggie day care, reopened this week — and not a moment too soon. Django was getting the same cabin fever as the rest of us, despite more trips to the dog park than he'd ever experienced. He's a hound and alert barker, with a propensity for taking personal responsibility for our safety and well-being, patrolling the backyard and howling at any perceived threats. Having us around the house 24-7 put him on high alert. He's adorable but anxious, and finally getting the chance to once again hang out with a bunch of dogs all day has calmed him down a bunch.

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A TOWN CALLED MALICE

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A TOWN CALLED MALICE

I'm waiting for my wife to get her nails done. Thankfully, the Laguna Beach Brewing Company is just across the parking lot from the salon. So here I sit on a picnic table outside, "A Town Called Malice" — one of the great underrated 80s songs — playing on the outdoor speaker system. Today, it's an ironic term in that I feel anything but malice in this special town I call home. . . .

AFRICA (PART 1)

AFRICA (PART 1)

We rented a Toyota four-wheel drive in Dar es Salaam from a sharp dressed man who called himself Kennedy, then drove west into the heart of Africa. It was my third day in Tanzania. I had run each morning in Dar es Salaam, through crowded streets that smelled of wood smoke and raw sewage, past tall Masai warriors dressed all in red and very far from their homes in Kenya . . .

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PARIS

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PARIS

It is the last Sunday morning in July. I arrived in Paris well past midnight, exhausted from the long drive. The Rue de Rivoli was a madhouse, thick with tourists and revelers. I checked in and walked around for an hour to find a meal, but nothing was open. After settling for peanuts and a cold Leffe at a bistro on the Rue de la Madeleine, I hit the sack. There was no thought of a wake-up call.

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FREELANCE

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FREELANCE

 I don't know how many times I used the phrase "full-time writer" in the first five years of my career, but not a day went by that I didn't whisper a silent prayer that God free me from my corporate shackles and find me a way to make a living solely from the written word.