September is National Preparedness Month. Do you know which Yolo County evacuation zone you live in? Are you set up to receive emergency notifications and alerts? What would you take with you if you had to leave your home on short notice? And what do these questions have to do with our smartphones? Read on. [Read More…]
Published in the Davis Enterprise
The bitter and the sweet of these days
In our May column we wrote about the experience we had going through the Starbucks drive-thru, when the folks in the car in front of us surprised us by paying for our order. We ended the column by saying that we would, to the best of our ability, pay the kindness forward. Last week we [Read More…]
“Stuck in the Middle With You”
Remember the classic song by Stealers Wheel? It came to me as I was preparing to write our July column. It couldn’t be more appropriate for this moment in time, as we begin to understand that the pandemic is not coming to a close as we’d all hoped by now. Instead, we seem to be [Read More…]
At the worst time, she had the best Mother’s Day ever
My mother will turn 94 at the end of this year. Each year our family tradition is to gather at her retirement community in the bay area. Not everyone lives close enough to attend, but as many as can make it, do. This year is different. Visitors are not allowed at the retirement community [Read More…]
Not-so-random acts of kindness
The other morning Jay and I headed for the Starbucks drive-thru after a necessary doctor appointment. We ordered our coffees, and drove around to the pickup window. As the barista handed us our drinks she smiled and told us, “The car in front of you paid for your order.” We were in disbelief. “Really? Really?” [Read More…]
On weathering the storm
In a recent newsletter we asked our subscribers to share how they are making meaningful use of the stay at home time we are all now experiencing. From catching up on to do lists to some inventive and fun new endeavors, here are some of the responses we received. Catching up Several folks wrote that [Read More…]
“And the password is…”
Password was once just a charming little game show hosted by Allen Ludden. Today, the word “password” triggers eye rolls, deep sighs and a little cringing. On a recent house call we asked our customer for one of his passwords which he needed to log in to an online account. After the initial deer-in-the-headlights look he [Read More…]
Lost in the Cough & Cold aisle: iPhone to the rescue!
At some point during my month-long cold I ran out of cough medicine, decongestant, etc. so I showed Jay the empty medicine containers and asked him to pick up some replacements at the drug store. After about an hour and a half, at which point I wondered if he’d run out of gas or gotten [Read More…]
