I attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate many moons ago and received my Ph.D. from the School of Social Science at UC Irvine. I was lucky to spend a year in Western Samoa doing postdoctoral research.

I love roses, and for you rosarians, my roses include Sombreuil, Sympathie, Austrian Copper, R. glauca, R. primula, Doorenbos Selection (possibly my favorite), Scotch Double White, Hebe's Lip, Madame Hardy, Mozart, Buff Beauty, Felicia, Marie van Houtte, Crimson Glory, Duchess de Brabant, White Pearl in Red Dragon’s Mouth, Cardinal Richelieu, and others. Those names alone make it worth growing roses! The rose to the right is a mystery rose that was growing on our property in Mountain View, California. It's the only rose I've successfully cloned. It has big cabbage-y blooms in spring, then fat orange hips in fall. It's tall but with fullness. We now have its daughter (or whatever a clone is) in Half Moon Bay.

There really is something to organic gardening. I have a garden in Northern California that I only get to visit occasionally, except for being there in the summer. About every 6-8 weeks I go to the garden and all it needs is the pulling of a few weeds (mostly oxalis). I find that amazing. The healthy plants seem to keep out the weeds. I have a new approach to my garden in SoCal--I just get whatever plants my friend Stepha Genelza, master gardener, gives me. Lately I have some new violets, succulents, geranium, narcissus, iris, and thyme from her garden. The other plants I enjoy are natives—like ceanothus, California poppies, wild roses, Douglas iris. I saw the most incredible columbines in Colorado on a visit there. And something called a royal catchfly in Ohio, a superb flower. I could go on, but…

Some fun things my family does include traveling together (see links to the boys’ pages) and a family bookclub. Finding books that span middle-aged parents to a 13-year old is not easy, but we have had pretty good luck. We all liked Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, had violent disagreements about Irving’s Owen Meaney and Robinson’s Housekeeping, and even did a session on Grizzly Man, moving into film. Sometimes we meet face to face and other times through email. Some of the online meetings are logged here.

In February, 2005 the then 12 year old, her friend, and friend’s mother and I went to Baja California to see the whales up close, getting to touch them (well, I was actually preventing the girls from falling into the water as they reached out but they did indeed touch them). Hearing the whales breathe inspired a new connection to nature that I had never experienced before. In August 2006 the family went to the spectacular Marble Mountain Wilderness in Northern California. We did not see Bigfoot but we know he was there. We did see a bear and a hawk flying with a snake in its talons. Last summer we read A Confederacy of Dunces for the family book club. A superb book. We are now reading David Copperfield.

David Copperfield turned out to be a bust but we were proud of ourselves for trying. In the summer of 2008 we went to several national parks in Colorado and Utah, including the magnificent and uncrowded Sand Dunes National Park. I was inspired to get one of those tiny teardrop trailers after eating in the rain, but they are super expensive. We actually had beautiful weather except for that one evening.