Leo Albert Dodson Gast

Welcome to the world, sweet child o' my brother!

This guy.

After his first ever bath:

So with it. He's like, "What in the hay?!" Situationally appropriate response.

Now he's cooing gangbusters at seven weeks old. Firstborn son of the next generation.

More cooing...

I am in love.

Global Citizenship

Thanks to my new job, I actually celebrated Earth Day this year! 

One of the many highlights was seeing these free condoms designed to raise awareness around the connection between human population growth (every day adds an additional 227,000 people to the planet) and current extinction rates (dozens of species a day). 

I was up in Jackson to hear the likes of Harvey Locke from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative speak and to watch two excellent films: NOVA's Wild Ways, about the critical role of migration corridors in the survival of terrestrial animals, and Our Local Epic, about the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River. It was completely inspirational. 

I was blown away (again) by the power of film as a storytelling and educational medium and it made me all the more excited to join my dad and his partner for the Telluride Film Festival this year. 

Harvey Locke has the enviable ability to identify essential guiding principles in conversations about complex conservation issues. In our hyper bipartisan country, he suggests moving away from the "I'm right, you're wrong" argument and instead embracing the question "What can we do right together from here?" 

I was reminded of the agency individuals have to affect positive change, especially when working in concert with each other.

Oh, Hello.

I could watch this throwback dance video forever. A tonic for whatever ails you.

  

The People Have Spoken

Give the public the chance to vote and be prepared for the consequences. They could be brilliant. 

Case in point: In 2007, Greenpeace asked the public to name a humpback whale and he was christened Mr. Splashy Pants. 

Yesterday, the British government experienced this...

It doesn't get much better than Boaty McBoatface. Unless, of course, we're talking about finally voting women onto US currency.

Due to popular pressure, Harriet Tubman is to kick Andrew Jackson to the back of the 20 and suffragettes are to have Lincoln and Hamilton's backs on the 5 and 10. 

Now we can say, "women are on the money" in this country and it'll have a sly double meaning.

Sure, it's small and symbolic. But it's something. 

And something, as they say, is (sometimes) a heck of a lot better than nothing.

Blackbird

Standing O

I gotta give it up for my partner-in-crime: god bless my husband. I fucking miss him when he's away. And I am so proud of him and glad of his adventuresome spirit. Every day, I choose him anew. 

An Advice Column

Our lives are fragile things. Yet tough little suckers too. Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of stories that remind us how to remain supple as we cultivate resiliency. Dear Sugar dares us to show up for this work in progress we call the human experience, teaching us how to hold onto slivers of hope as we wrestle demons.

Friendship Looks Like This

Here in this place lives a family...

and I love them so.

Mica is our source for beautiful, doorstep eggs by the dozen...

with artful help and guidance from her mama.

Nate is a chef who can teach us how to engage the eggs in delicious meals...

and his papa stewards the homesourced meats.

I was so moved when I found this...

To have these four informing and enriching my notions of home, family, work, play and love...

What a gift. What wealth. What a joy.

An Ode To Setting Things Right

In this slim fantasy novella (an offshoot of the series that began with The Name of the Wind), I found for the first time an account of how OCD feels that resonates with me. 

The haphazard wisdom of being attuned to the animate in inanimate objects.

The Trump Card

The horror.

The humor.

Unfortunately, horror trumps humor by a long shot when it comes to this guy.