Last night, I attended “Becoming Americans,” the story of Vinh and Leisle Chung, a married couple who now live in Colorado Springs.

In Strasbourg, on the edge of France, there’s a coffee shop that’s been there since 1884. High on the wall above all the baristas is the lettering: “Mon Grand-père était torréfacteur.”My grandfather was a coffee roaster.That was in the early days of my coffee obsession, and I was a bit overc…

As a former co-worker used to say, you learn something new every day. For me, that was recently finding out that the president is somehow in charge of making and distributing baby formula. WHO. KNEW? Except, FAKE NEWS. To be sure, the commander in chief has many responsibilities but that is …

What?! We have to vote... again?!​​Yep, the Earth has spun twice and we’ve got to pick people to do stuff. It is written.

How does that Onion article go?​“‘No Way to Prevent This,’” says only nation where this regularly happens.”​“This” refers to mass shootings, and America experienced not one, but three deadly shooting sprees just last week.The first occurred May 13 in Milwaukee where multiple shootings occurr…

It seems President Joe Biden is close to a decision regarding canceling student loan debt — this latest iteration is apparently based on income levels. I don’t think people should have lifelong debt for getting an education. I recently read about someone who borrowed $20,000 for college; she…

For those of you looking for a quick, succinct update on world news, this one’s for you. I’m like 65 percent sure this is what’s been happening:

I keep my to-do lists in one of those Moleskine notebooks. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s leaked draft threatening to overturn Roe v. Wade, I have vacillated between numbness, despair and absolute rage. While none of those are necessarily healthy or productive, I know that I am far from alone. The last five-plus years have culminated in this very re…

My wardrobe is a gated fence... Allow me to explain.

“If the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. … It will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.” That’s from the White House statement on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel …

Every single morning of the week before last, I had my 6 a.m. coffee at the edge of the Pacific Ocean — not the near side, the far side. I only had 10 days back home in Australia, and I was determined to make the sea sick of the sight of me.

In case you didn’t know, this coming Sunday, May 8, is Mother’s Day. I must confess that I have a love/hate relationship with this annual observation. The “love” part is that I knew I wanted children ever since I was young and am so fortunate to have three beautiful, smart and kind young adu…

Dreams do come true.It’s been about seven years since I stumbled across my very first Tiny Desk Concert, produced by NPR. I’m pretty sure it was Denver’s own Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats. And now Tiny Desk Concerts are some of my favorite things on the interwebs.For those not fa…

If you don’t know, I have had horrendous luck with cars over the past three years. In 2019, while heading south on Interstate 25 toward Pueblo, someone’s poor driving while merging forced me off the road. To avoid hitting them, I slammed on the brakes, but realized I’d still crash if I didn’…

We all got a nasty surprise yesterday from the Supreme Court of the United States that means we’re all waking up in a different America today.In a leaked opinion, it seems the court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion in the United States.For nearly 50 yea…

Some of my fondest childhood memories are those of someone reading to me. I especially recall The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, Caps for Sale from Esphyr Slobodkina, The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff, and Curious George, authored and illustrated by H.A. and Marg…

I have a confession to make… I’m not a big fan of social media. Sure, the concept is great, but the execution (and side-effects) leaves something to be desired. It’s not social media’s fault, it’s the people who use it. And let’s face it, many of the things that make social media unbearable …

(Satire in brief by Stephen K. Hirst)No freakin’ way: woman on Tinder owns a business, is sarcastic, likes wine, two kids are her whole worldLocal man Jonathan Thompson may have discovered his soulmate last week, as he was blown away by a woman’s Tinder profile that he swiped right on during…

When did living in an apartment or renting a home become the only affordable options? Have we conceded that we’re going to become a nation of renters, with investors gobbling up the houses (and driving up prices) while the rest of us pay off someone else’s mortgages?I’m not talking to indivi…

For fans of The New York Times podcast “The Daily,” or those who enjoy listening to shows like “The Daily Sun-Up” from The Colorado Sun for a condensed, statewide news fix — you’ll be pleased to know that the Indy is now dabbling in audio journalism, too, with the help of our friends at Stud…

I stayed up late a few nights this week and got up early a couple of days to finish reading a very compelling and controversial novel, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. That is my favorite reading — finding a book so enthralling that I wake ready to pick it up and go to sleep with childlike …

It’s Earth Day Eve. Do you have all of your shopping done?Earth Day doesn’t get the same attention as many other special days — Christmas, Thanksgiving or National High Five Day (today), for instance. In fact, when it comes to celebrating our planet, it sometimes feels like we’ve been kickin…

Editor’s note: This blog contains spoilers for The Walking Dead.When The Walking Dead first aired, I thought the plot was horrendous. A zombie apocalypse? Turned into a TV show? Pfft, that sounded awful and I refused to watch people navigate a desolate planet combating the undead. However, I…

If you’ve been driving past our little corner of South Nevada Avenue lately, you’ve probably seen some activity. We’re cleaning up our gardens and our property in time for Music at the Indy, to make room for our friends at the Colorado Farm & Art Market, which will kick off here June 8, …

A list of my current obsessions:1. Reese’s Big Cups with potato chipsMy first Big Cup was an impulse buy. The next 80-something were, I swear to God, totally and completely necessary. Right up there with toothpaste and toilet paper. Every time I go to the grocery store, I have to get at leas…

I’m not much of a comic book guy — but what I wouldn’t give for a real-life Justice League right about now.

Career grifter and glass of milk-personified Jared Kushner got some pretty good news this week, as Saudi Arabia decided to invest $2 billion in Affinity Partners, his new private equity fund. While that kind of payday for a member of a presidential administration only six months out of power…

Colorado is experiencing a mental health crisis.

I’d really like an Easter Bilby.Some of the things I miss from home — Tim Tams, chicken salt, Vegemite (I don't want your opinion) — I’ve learned to track down here. But no one here is selling Easter Bilbies, so I think it’s a concept America should steal.First some background: Easter Bilbie…

After the elections of 2016, I read a comment from the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. She noted that those of us who were blindsided by the results of the presidential race needed to take stock and decide who we wanted to be in that moment and in the future. I found that to be profound and have t…

As a huge fan of live music, I was thrilled when I first heard about the Sunset, a planned 8,000-seat amphitheater going up on the Northside of Colorado Springs. Local businessman J.W. Roth, who’s also responsible for the 1,000-seat indoor Boot Barn Hall at Bourbon Brothers music venue, is t…

This generation of kids will be political powerhouses in the coming decades.Food for Thought, a facilitator of discussion groups, hosted the Colorado Springs School District 11 Students Speak Up panel on April 2 at Palmer High School — a pair of middle schoolers and a high schooler represent…

It’s that time, y’all.

My parents love estate sales.My father enjoys, in particular, the personal objects left behind — letters, business documents, photographs. Last year, while my mother was buying normal things, he was acquiring a bunch of these items and creating a story.Over the course of several months, I re…

Everyone by now has likely heard of the contretemps between Chris Rock and Will Smith at this past Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. I haven’t seen the tape, only read about it. I abhor violence and don’t need to witness it when I can avoid it instead. My takeaway when I heard about it was t…

Justices and journalists — our jobs are not dissimilar. Sure, the nine that make up the United States Supreme Court get to sport cool robes, and they make a little more than I do, but our jobs both, in the end, entail getting to the truth. We both research, we discuss, we question, we make d…

I was living in Cusco, Peru and it was sometime in March of 2020, at the start of the lockdowns and quarantines, that I realized I would be spending a lot of time indoors for the foreseeable future. A big clue was the soldier with the rifle who yelled at me to go back inside my apartment whe…

Black women face a lot of discrimination, ridicule, undermining, man-splaining, criticism, snarky comments and insults from society.It’s well-known that they make less money than white women (although more than Hispanic women) and their accomplishments are often seen as somehow “less.”  It s…

As I shoved a tall stack of more than 80 save-the-dates into a mailbox last week, I griped to my husband about how many invitees we have for our fall wedding.Lots of couples nowadays are deciding they don’t want the whopping price tag of a traditional wedding, opting to elope or have a “micr…