—
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,”…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
(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…
-
by Carol Roper Standing behind a glass fence on the terrace of the dream house he and Sofy had designed for their cliff side lot thirty-two years ago, Porter Thomson focused his night vision binoculars on the fishing trawlers off shore along the Pacific North Coast of Mexico. The air he breathed was vibrant with a…
-
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know today what I didn’t know when I was young. When I was young, I believed if only I had a man I loved and vice versa, I’d be happy. We’d be happy. We’d have two kids. Maybe his, from an earlier marriage. None from me. I couldn’t give birth.…
