It’s the time of year for storms, lightning and hurricanes, so that means afternoon and evening thunderstorms: This is a shot looking east down our street. Apparently I got pretty statically charged. Fun fact: Florida (specifically Orlando) is, according to John, the lightning capital of the world, so in a way we were taking our [...]

There’s a lot about the American diet and food culture that doesn’t click with me: meat, butter, white bread, meat. The lack of diverse dining options (though I know this is not true of everywhere in the US), the high cost of ‘fresh’ produce. A huge part of the reason I love China (and many [...]

In February, my parents went to Byromville, Georgia to attend the funeral of my mother’s uncle, Haessler, and to attend to his estate. After much goading and persuasion, my father has written a guest post about Byromville, and he took some pretty nice shots to go with it. So everyone, please welcome the man who [...]

Since being back in America, I have had to deal with exposure to things that seemed foreign to me after my years in China. For example, soap in the bathrooms, toilet paper in the bathrooms, dishwashers, clothes dryers, plain yogurt, and brown rice, to name a few. Readjustment hasn’t been all that hard in most [...]

There is a general misconception among non-Floridians concerning the city of West Palm Beach and the affluence of its residents. The words palm and beach together evoke images of Donald Trump, pearls with Lacoste shirts, and men’s loafers without socks. These are all apt representations of many citizens of Palm Beach but not, however, West [...]

I noticed the silliest thing today: there are bananas growing in my yard. Where am I, the tropics or something? I thought Florida was only good for citrus and yachts, and now suddenly there’s a potassium shrub right next to where we keep the garbage cans. I’ve noticed the bananas many times before, but it [...]

When I lived in China, situations would arise when I would tell people I was Jewish. Once, I was at a restaurant for an official school dinner when we were served a chicken-brothy soup with dumplings in it that was strikingly similar to matzoh ball soup. My assessment somehow made it to the ears of [...]

I’ve now been in Florida 6 months, and let’s not pretend it has been an easy transition, because it hasn’t. The job market here is about as dry as British humor and not nearly as entertaining (though in a coup, I recently had an interview, which is as far as it went). The unavoidable and [...]

While walking on the beach yesterday, John and I were treated to a special exfoliating pedicure. The newest luxury exfoliator: Tar! (I put in the bottle cap for size reference. This was a small to medium sized tar pool.) It’s such a good exfoliation method that it doesn’t even come off your feet. It just [...]

By far one of the things I most enjoy about life in China is the outdoor produce markets. Of course, I never quite got comfortable with seeing raw chicken and beef and pork laid nonchalantly upon stone counters under a day of heat, China air, and occasional flies. Being conspicuously the only foreigner, I didn’t [...]