My friends in colder climes scoff at the idea of spring in a part of the world that seems perpetually April-May, but they haven’t sat on my back patio, pants rolled above the knees to absorb vitamin D and color into lily white legs, gazing out over a lush and vibrant, albeit small, backyard. This is the green that hospitals and mental wards strive for, a tranquil, complex green that simultaneously draws my gaze and returns itself to me — not that pea green that always seems to coat institutional walls.

Somehow we’ve managed to add four trees to the five that were here when we settled in 10 years ago. Our orange tree, which took several disappointing years to grant us any fruit, is now covered with fragrant blossoms. If a strong Santa Ana wind doesn’t blow the baby oranges off again this year, we’ll have a sunny and abundant crop.

These are the days I love living in Southern California.

Suffice to say Whole Life Times has been commanding a lot of my time, but we’re having so dang much fun! Love the stories, and Angelenos are incredibly enthusiastic and alive with new ideas. Print is not dead but alive and thriving in community media. Readers seem to be enjoying a break from the fast-food information onslaught and enjoying our local and sustainable magazine. Bite off a thought, chew and enjoy.

Please visit me at the Whole Life Times website and get a taste for yourself!

About the last thing I ever expected was to be editing Whole Life Times again, but life has an amazing way of surprising us. Please check it out at wholelifemagazine.com!

The heat wave earlier this week was positively beastly, especially for the furry beasties who lay about on their backs, paws in the air, panting.

But today is cooler and the jasmine vines, forced into early bud, perfume the evening air with their intoxicating fragrance that fairly makes me swoon.

I wonder if the beasties notice. Elsa seems more attuned to the twittering of the birds building a nest in the candle lantern hanging from the patio beam. Not much interest in jasmine but she can smell a can of tuna opening from a mile away.

What a relief that our president is reaching out to the government of an Islamic country. We have a history of polarization—when I was growing up it was “the Commies;” more recently Democrats and Republicans have done it to each other right here at home—and it doesn’t seem like a good way to move toward world peace and progress. Whether or not the United States and Turkey will be political allies is almost immaterial. It makes sense to keep our friends close, and our enemies closer.

United Airlines made the skies so friendly that someone opened a hotel. The largest helicopter ever produced – the Hotelicopter – features 16 “luxurious” rooms and two suites, each replete with a queen-sized bed, warming toilet seat, dimmers and room service. There’s also a public area featuring an art gallery, wine tasting, tanning, yoga and Japanese garden with koi pond.

Life getting too hectic? Need a quick getaway or secret hideaway? It’s the ultimate place to have an affair without danger of being discovered. Unless, of course, you charge it on your AmEx and leave the bill lying around.

Rumor has it that Rick Wagoner, Edward Liddy and Ruth Madoff have all booked rooms for the maiden voyage this summer.

Although I’ve never been one to hit the sack particularly early, lately I’ve been dreading going to bed, because I don’t want to confront the swamp monster. The swamp monster doesn’t lurk under my bed or in my closet; no, the swamp monster has taken up residence in my lungs. If I’m not completely vertical, each breath reveals a hoarse, murky, wet sound that must belong to a creature with green scales and bleary eyes. This wretched interloper sneaked aboard while I was short-terming in a hermetically sealed newsroom—a great gig with fabulous people, but for this uninvited guest who came home with me. It’s been about ten years since I was last sick (lucky me!), so I’m going to share what I learned this time out.

1. Get enough sleep! It doesn’t matter what you need to do to get sleep, but it’s the number one priority.
2. Give up on the gym, except for the steam room, for a while. Exercise only exacerbates the condition.
3. Drink lots of fresh lemon juice to restore your body’s appropriate acid/alkaline balance and fight inflammation.
4. Forget inhalers and cough medicine with codeine (which about destroyed my stomach lining).
5. Minimize stress. Yeah, this one is tough and I’m sure it kept that smarmy monster around longer than I would have hoped.
6. If you’re not getting better, get antibiotics. I really dislike them, but sometimes it’s silly not to take advantage of modern medicine.

What a beautiful day in Southern California! My yard has sucked up every juicy bit of moisture the beneficent rain gods saw fit to deliver this winter, and is shimmering in the afternoon sunshine with vibrant shades of green. A few audacious geraniums and one bold rose dot the backyard landscape, while out front purple and snow-white hyacinths dizzy me with their heady fragrance on my way to the front door. Spring has sprung.

Usually I’m a pretty friendly and easygoing person. I smile at strangers, start conversations and generally go with the flow. But more and more since “the bailout,” I’m finding myself to be incredibly testy when big companies try to rip me off for a few more dollars. Take Dollar car rental. Their promo on Southwest Airlines website promised a discount of 15 percent on a rental, to be awarded at time of rental, but when I got to the counter this weekend, they couldn’t even find the promo code in their computer. Fortunately I had a printout, but it didn’t do me any good; they refused to honor their offer. Now we’re not talking about a lot of money here. Less than $10. But you know that I-gave-at-the-office feeling? I keep feeling like the American public are such chumps for compensating these corporate hogs for stupid decisions. And yet, not really having a choice about it. It reminds me of some weird torture I read about where the one thing you need to save your life (and of course I forget what that is, maybe a key to get you out of a buried alive kind of situation) has been surgically implanted in your eye, so you have to poke out your own eye to save your life. We’re having to poke out our finances in the hopes of ultimately saving the economy, and we really don’t even know if it’s going to work.

There are plenty of villains to blame for our current financial crisis, but discouraged as mostly anyone who actually has access to a computer and the knowledge to use it may be, it is nothing compared to what is happening in Zimbabwe. I’m sitting in a warm house, freshly breakfasted and ready to wrap a few small Christmas gifts, but something like 70 percent of the people in Zimbabwe are scavenging crickets and literally bitter fruit to put something—anything—in their stomachs. In the New York Times story of this morning (”In Zimbabwe, Survival Lies in Scavenging”), this phrase stuck out: “… the economies of scale that kept prices low for hybrid seed and fertilizer are gone.”

Excuse me, hybrid seed? Robert Mugabe is a thug and the country’s policies are abominable. Land redistribution was a disaster (not entirely in concept, but certainly in execution) and keeping foreign aid out was horrendous. But if these farmers had good old-fashioned seeds, nature’s bounty that can be harvested from one year’s crop to start the next, they at least would be able to plant. Why are we not suing manufacturers of hybrid seed in international court? Hybrid seed is a crime against humanity and nature.