is located 30 miles from downtown LA, over the Santa Susana Mountains

Santa Clarita looks something like lower Los Angeles did before Hollywood arrived, as if it fell off a page from Twain: gnarled Oaks, arroyos cluttered with racoons, rabbits, opossum, and owls. A river lashes the grasslands to the cliffs. It's tempting to just spend time hiking the trails and paseos but we are up at 5 am to start a day wadded with projects and chores. So when we are asked to explain how we pack a 27 hour day into every 24, we show people The Lists which are posted on every mirror (Leos never fail to look in any mirror available, including the bowl of a spoon). It helps that Liz only sleeps a few hours between midnight and dawn, maintaining an accelerated Op's tempo. Her idea is that you hit the floor running, be excessively organized, and imbed your day like a mosaic so you fall into bed exhausted...but happy, every single night.

in an inspirational setting
	What are we doing these days? Computer work, writing, website projects, classes until noon. Back over the hill to the office in Glendale for the afternoon for project management. Thank goodness for satellite movies and dozens of news stations so we catch up on the news in the evening. We also read the New York Times, and Le Monde along with the LA Times, to put it all in perspective.

where work and play interweave.

Painting and gardening in the hot, dry, high desert summer; knitting in the fall -- at least one mohair afghan to give away each Christmas--as well as charting a few sweaters and hats; creating artisan breads and Viennese tortes and pastries and testing new formulas during the winter; web graphic design all year long. We take a walk around the lake every Sunday evening and practice German whenever we are in the car or with European friends, spaßeshalber.

In an accelerated world, facing the horrors of terrorism and the economic stresses associated with it, this is the shift that enables us to thrive.      Weekends are devoted to tending the fruit trees in our Mediterranean garden: figs during July and August; apricots from a bumper crop which we turn into jars of dessert toppings; oranges, twice a year; lemons, limes, grapefruit, all summer; kumquats and tangerines in the fall and later winter, along with blackberries, blueberries, pomegranates, persimmons, apples, olives and four varieties of grapes. Nectarines and avocados in the spring. We collect guava and roses of every color every day, throughout the year as well as our wisteria which bloom twice each summer amid a profusion of purple hydrangea, white jasmine, and firey red bougainvillea. Our half dozen camelia bushes fill in all winter. This year we had dozens of heirloom tomatoes and squash in our raised vegetable beds that sprang up from seeds in our compost. A robust and varied timetable like the one we keep is the new normal for those of us who are moving away from the 40 hour week to one where work and play are blended.

This is the direction of our future.

One of the most intelligent treatments of the live-work-play paradigm was proposed many years ago by B. F. Skinner in a seminal book, Walden Two, an obvious nod to Thoreau. In it Skinner lays out a persuasive case for the cumulative benefits of organizing one's productivity in such a way as to include physical and intellectual chores in a full spectrum, natural living environment. Skinner previewed the reversal of the Babbitization of the career professional who would incorporate in his day such seemingly menial tasks as cutting wood, yard maintenance, washing clothes, repairing equipment, etc. Mental and physical heavy lifting are balanced in Skinner's world, with minimal wasted time and energy being continually renewed by stimulating different parts of the brain. Highly organized and productive home communities would thrive in such a rich and varied, interdependent environment. Years before Skinner, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, a genius whose understanding of early human development exceeded even that of the revered Jean Piaget, spoke in a similar manner. Dr. Steiner wrote extensively on the mental and emotional benefits of rhythmic, repetitive motions associated with manual labor, early in life and their ramifications for improved intellectual, especially quantitaive and reasoning function, later in life.