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By Carol Roper I once read an article in a now defunct New York newspaper, about someone who’d died and left their entire estate to God. Now possibly the story was “filler” for a slow news day, but maybe not. As required by law the estate’s lawyers made diligent efforts to locate God who had…
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Written by Carol Roper The first time I saw him, the pup was cowering against the security wall of a big Airbnb hacienda next to Guillermo and Fabiola’s ancient, white trailer. Our street was a mix of new and old homes. Their two big dogs, Sultan, a handsome black-and-tan Husky mix, and his mother Babu,…
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There is no loss that compares to the loss of our precious animal babies. On Sunday, the Ides of March 2026, on our usually quiet street as I was on my way to retrieve her, my puppy was hit by a speeding car less than a minute after she had escaped and not five feet…
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By Carol Roper The puppy, Galleta, is having the “Zoomies,” dashing around the garden, zigging-zagging among young trees and potted plants squeezing between lawn chairs, disappearing behind the house then,like a magician, reappearing moments later. The senior dog, MIcki, sits on the deck balefully eyeing the new arrival, whom she despises. Evenings Micki sits on…
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by Carol Roper When I was sixteen, I was hired at a Catholic summer camp in East Hampton, New York, to be a drama counselor. I was not a practicing Catholic, having doubted some of its dogma since my Confirmation. My entire dramatic experience was based on my participation in the chorus of “Anything Goes,”…
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By Carol Roper ________________________________________ Pink sunrise bathed the mountains and valley outside the plate glass kitchen windows of Lucy Curtis and Greg Green’s custom-built hillside home on the North Pacific Coast of Mexico. Despite Greg’s misgivings about the country, life there had been problem-free with one exception. Lucy sat on a ladder-back chair in the…
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by Carol Roper In recent months I’ve enjoyed a personal peace new to me. At first, I felt guilty for not doing something productive: watering the garden plants, walking the dog, writing a story, answering email or checking social media. But then, I decided to allow my idleness and see where it led. Busy thoughts…
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BY Carol Roper Five years after I left, I returned to a rustic community in Northern San Diego to buy a small cottage for me and my dog to settle in for a long retirement. I brought my SUV to a stop at the edge of town in front of a California colonial style…
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by Carol Roper The first time Dani’s husband told her he was leaving her she felt like she had stumbled into a bottomless crevice. She stood beside the bed where they had made love the night before, transferring the contents of a black purse to a red Steve Madden purse she recently found on sale…
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(Based on an actual event) by Carol Roper It’s early on a bright Sunday morning in January. I’m walking my, smallish, white part terrier/Chihuahua dog in Riviera Park. Flags of all nations wave from poles along the front of fenced, manicured gardens. Technically the park is closed at this hour, but I live nearby and…
