The Forty-Ninth Parallel

“There’s a lot to do and see in this world.”

I turned 49 somewhere between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, either asleep, reading or watching The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I was flying home to Buenos Aires with my family after a three-and-a-half week vacation to the West Coast of the U.S.

Both of the movies were inspiring enough for me to jot down a few notes for a novel I’m writing. It’s about a 58-year-old man’s final adventure in Tierra del Fuego, where he traveled alone at the end of the gold rush to try to recover the riches he’d lost running too many cattle to Chile. A snow storm had killed all the cows a few years earlier. [continue reading…]

Kids Unplugged

“Hey, we like each other. Is that so odd?”

Our son was taking a long shower, and so my wife yelled to him, “Make sure you don’t drown.”

Our youngest daughter, who had just finished showering, said not to worry because her brother wouldn’t drown. [continue reading…]

Where’s the Beef?

“Just tell me where to go, please.”

My four-ton dog loves to hang out at the side of our beach house when a neighbor does a barbecue.

Scraps may come her way, and so she parks herself at the fence, looking as meek and longingly famished as possible. “How sweet” is the phrase she tries to extract from the neighbors, because that most likely means a bone or a piece of meat will come flying her way. [continue reading…]