At the height of my ambition, I could write 12 or 14 hours straight. Afterward, I’d collapse and daydream while my mind decelerated. I might relive old times, check in on lost friends, brood about …
Thursday, May 27
Dear Mr. Alice:Years ago my husband (then boyfriend) carved our initials in an oak sapling. He said that after a few decades they would be eight or ten feet up in the air as the …
Dear Matthew Alice: A number of years ago I read about a woman who had written a book of recipes she had developed that supposedly replicated the taste of the items of a number of …
Matt: What are the birds that I see digging holes in the dirt around my house? I don't know what they’re trying to do, but whatever it is, they’re not making much progress. What’s going …
Thursday, May 20
The house of death in Tijuana is the color of dusty bubble gum. Just off the Plaza Club de Leones, with its cathedral-like tower, where Revolucion curves away to the north, SEMEFO, the one-story coroner's …
Dear Manhew Alice: I keep hearing rumors that the cheese on pizzas these days is imitation. This rumor is very disturbing. If it is true, what is the pale yellow glop that we are eating? …
Yo, Man hew: A golfing bud of mine and I have had this ongoing discussion about the origin of the term "links. ” I say a golf course is called that because all the holes …
Five years have passed since two fatal shotgun rounds were fired through the windshield of Hector Felix Miranda’s blue Ford LTD on a subdued residential street in Tijuana. As a caustic and popular columnist for …
Tourism is invasion by other means. It’s a battle for leisure-time territory fought between armies in Hawaiian flowered shirts and standard bellhop issue. Where no tour package has yet feared to tread and every new …
Thursday, May 13
The Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard seems at first an unlikely venue for a major alternative conference dealing with the “Truth About UFOs” — or to give it its proper title, the National New …
Dear Matt: I just finished off a box of saltwater taffy, and I’m wondering — how guilty should I feel? How bad is the taffy? WHAT IS saltwater taffy? Is licorice a contender for the …
Dear Matthew Alice: What do animals that normally hibernate (like bears) do in a zoo situation? They always seem lively, year ’round. — Waltz + Mims, San Diego Think about it this way. If you …
Her loyalty to old friends - n that, she is single and firm. Hence her return to San Diego Rep this weekend in two benefit performances for the theater that first recognized her as something special.
I kind of expected everyone to be more stylishly dressed, I was surprised to see people in shorts and jogging suits, and I liked the way that at one restaurant my husband had to wear a jacket.
Thursday, May 6
STREET GAMES The streets north of Tijuana’s Avenida Juarez are not the kind of neighborhood for people like me. So when I have reasons to walk there, I always learn things. Some of the things …
While perusing a box of Noodle-Roni the other night, I noticed that on one side was the cryptic message “Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr." Curious, I checked the rest of the larder and found any number …
Dear Matthew Alice: Why don’t I feel the urge to yawn when I watch my cats yawning? I can’t get them to yawn either. Is yawning only contagious to the human race? — Carol Wilson, …
Outdoor recreational opportunities in North County took a quantum leap recently with the opening of the Mount Israel Recreation Area in the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove area near Escondido. A cooperative effort of the Olivehain Municipal …