【推荐1】My morning routine varies little from day to day. I walk the dog, eat breakfast at the kitchen counter with Katie and Matt, and then settle in for a day at the computer. And because I work mostly from home, I have learned that little walks into the outside world are important for psychological well-being. So before I begin attempting to put sentences together, I walk over to a little coffee shop in my neighborhood, and chat with the folks behind the counter.

The coffee shop is on the other side of the historic Chesapeaker & Ohio Canal from my house. Whenever in season, tourists line up to take a slow boat, if not to India, at least into the 19th century.

One warm day last fall, I turned the corner to see one of the boatmen sitting alone on the boat, bathed in early-morning light. He was playing the violin. The scene stopped me in my tracks. What I witnessed could only be described as a perfect moment. Ten seconds at most. But months later I still remember just standing there, watching, listening, and taking it all in.

We all have such moments put before us. Little surprises. Whether we’re wise enough to see them is another thing.

I thought of the violin man one Sunday afternoon while reading the biographies of those killed in the Columbia incident. The specialist Laurel Clark, talking from the shuttle a few days before it was to land, said it was blissful to see the simple unexpected wonders of space, like a sunset. “There’s a flash; the whole payload bay(有效载重舱) turns this rosy pink,” she said. “It only lasts about 15 seconds, and then it’s gone.”

I once had a friend who had a strange habit that never stopped to amuse me, maybe because I never quite knew when she was going to spring it on me. It could come in the middle of a particularly lively dinner with old friends. Suddenly, she’d say, “Stop! I want to remember this moment.” I realize now, after her death, what wise advice that is.

【推荐1】My wife loves Christmas songs, and she loves to sing them. Sixteen years ago, while we were driving on vacation, she decided to pass the time by singing “The Christmas Song”.

Then she began to sing this favorite song again and again. Suddenly, I had an idea of playing a trick on her. When she got to the line “Jack Frost nipping at (轻咬) your nose”, “Why are you singing that song?” I asked.

When she looked confused at my question, I pretended to be surprised that she was unaware of the story. I went on to lie to her that Christmas songs often had a dark past and that Jack Frost was the name of a violent patient who escaped from an insane asylum (疯人院) on Christmas in the 1920s and went around biting faces, particularly noses.

She was shocked—no, horrified!— that people would sing about him.

Fast-forward to a couple of years ago. It was snowing outside and I was in a good mood. I started singing “The Christmas Song” and my wife scolded me in a joking voice for singing a song to the world’s most terrible mad man. I had no idea what she was talking about.

She then said that Jack Frost, the nose biter, had forever ruined that song for her. I laughed and admitted that I was joking that day and I honestly didn’t think she believed my joke.

Apparently, for the past 16 years she had shared this dark and terrible story with anyone who would listen. As it dawned on her that she’d been cheerfully spreading a lie for so many years, I guessed a sea of confused and disbelieving looks and a crowd of people staring at her as if she were a nose biter.

As for me, I am now the King of Lies who is never to be trusted by a cute and attractive heart again.

【推荐2】We adopted Franny, our crazy and lovable Boston puppy, from a local rescue at the start summer in 2022. However, two weeks later she was nowhere to be found.

We often leave our yard doors open to allow Franny and our another dog, Olive, to visit enclosed backyard and lie on the deck (甲板). My heart sank severely when I failed to find any. No sooner had I sensed that than my wife and I charged to our car to comb for this missing dog swiftly. I was scanning the yards a few blocks over when my phone rang all of a sudden: A woman and her daughter had our dog. Franny had been jogging down the alley (小巷) behind their lawn when they grabbed her and called the number on her tag (标牌).

I located and blocked off the gap in the fence that Franny had squeezed through in case she went out secretly and got lost again. However, she was on the run again one month later.

This time she made it much farther — all the way to a high school, where a man found it eating lunch in the sun with some students. Franny was returned to us, her big brown eyes looking ashamed as the man handed her over to me.

These days, our backyard is secured like a maximum-security prison. We love this crazy dog more than ever, and Franny finally seems content to stay put now.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the kind folks who took the time to grab our adorable runaway and return her to us. All of them refused any recompense, regardless of how much I pushed. These minded our family that the world is filled with those who will go out of their way to lend others a hand.

【推荐3】As a teenager, Gray would collect mushrooms (蘑菇) with her family in Cape Town, South Africa, and after moving to the coast 14 years ago, she fully accepted wild foraging ( 搜 寻 食 物). Gray started experimenting with wild flavors, adding edible flowers and herbs to iced teas and cakes.

She became a personal wild food cook, foraging daily for ingredients down the coast in the summer. “I believe that food that is picked as fresh as possible and as close to your location as possible is the best for you,” Gray says, “and wild foods meet all those requirements.”

Wild foods are considered to be anything not planted by humans. They’re sourced depending on the season. There is no shortage of options in the Cape Floral Region — recognized by UNESCO as one of the most special places on Earth for plant biodiversity. More than 9,000 plant species grow in this region.

“Foraging here supplied the main food for the Khoikhoi people, one of the oldest people on Earth,” according to Mark Heistein, CEO of Cape Winelands Biosphere Reserve. Hundreds of these ingredients are also believed to have medicinal qualities, says Heistein, “like rooibos tea, considered a health tea, which is exported worldwide.”

Since 2017, Gray has been sharing her love of the edible landscape with locals and tourists through seasonal workshops around 10 kilometers south of Cape Town. She has taught thousands of people how to forage.

When COVID-19 hit South Africa and the country entered lockdown, Gray was unable to run her group workshops in person, but she continued to find a growing fanbase online. She has run 10 online workshops for groups during lockdown.

“It’s very ironic (讽刺的) to be able to create this connection for people to nature through a screen,” Gray says. “The true foragers are not on any social media platforms — they’re the ones who are doing the work in the mountains and out in the wild.”