Author: RiverAdmin
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The Garage That Was
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation The garage at 403 W 2nd St is gone now. Not entirely. The stone and concrete base is still there, along with the remarkably respectable pile of brick and stone we salvaged from the walls. But the little building that stood there for nearly a century has, after several weekends… Read more
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Considerably Less Structure
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation Toni is asleep beside me in a blanket. Toni, for the record, is our heritage turkey poult. We still don’t know whether Toni is a she or a he, so for now Toni is simply Toni: small, delightfully curious, and completely convinced that I exist for warmth and occasional preening.… Read more
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The Next Move
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation Last week, I wrote about games. About how much we seem to love them, whether we are watching football, playing cards, or inventing entirely unnecessary rules for ourselves just because apparently life is more fun that way. You may remember that I love games that let me build things. But… Read more
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The Games We Play
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation What kind of games do you like to play? Yesterday, I passed through the living room and found Don watching the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers play football…in Melbourne, Australia. Not Australian rules football. Not rugby. American football. Two NFL teams had traveled halfway around the world to… Read more
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Neighbors on the Page
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation Every week, Dave Staab and Brad Rapp do something kind of miraculous. Column inch by column inch, they build a whole community out of paper. For someone rather obsessed with community, connection and “doing stuff,” I’m a bit ashamed it took me this long to acknowledge it. There are council… Read more
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A Wine Glass and Some Bubble Wrap
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation I missed last week’s column. Life has been moving at a fairly ridiculous pace, and somewhere between work, family, construction projects and the usual assortment of small fires, last Thursday arrived without an article attached to it. This week isn’t looking much calmer. But I wanted to stop long enough… Read more
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Roots & Renewal
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation You may have noticed that somewhere around a year ago, Rachel and I stopped telling you what we were doing each week and started showing you what it feels like to do it. There’s a reason for that. Telling is boring. Both for the teller and, I suspect, the tellee.… Read more
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Confessions of a Geek
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation I have a somewhat embarrassing number of imaginary houses. Some are in The Sims. Some are in House Flipper. Lately I’ve been puttering around in Solarpunk, building little floating islands and growing things in places where, conveniently, nothing seems interested in eating the seedlings. I’ve never been into TV or… Read more
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That Was Not on My Schedule
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation Tempered glass is fascinating stuff. It doesn’t break into dangerous-looking shards. It turns into thousands of tiny pieces that look almost harmless. They are, however, decidedly not. Quick recap: Don was moving piles of dirt; a modestly sized rock bounced from the bucket and hit the glass door; the door… Read more
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Pointy Scraper Thingy
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation I was standing there, pointy scraper thingy in hand, battling a hunk of somehow-still-sticky clay on the inside of the excavator bucket when the transport truck came around the bend in my driveway. I couldn’t have been happier to see it. The drivers, you see, are equipped with all sorts… Read more
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The Pond Ate My Boot
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation The pond ate my boot. Well…part of it. Specifically, the pond ate the sole of my boot. Just… nommed it right off my foot. The audacity! I was almost done expanding our main pond when it happened. Remember all that rain in May, when I was waving my fist at… Read more
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After the Storm
By: Selina Pedi-Smith, Pellere Foundation Welp, my plan to start Tai Chi on Saturday mornings got waylaid almost as soon as I came up with it. I woke up this past Saturday to a good bit of storm damage and…you can imagine where the day went. We didn’t do fireworks or hot dogs or s’mores.… Read more