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The parking lot in front of my local Trader Joe’s is always a bumper-car mess. It’s easier to drive past it to park on one of the mall’s parking decks. From there it’s a quick walk through the inside of the mall, finished by ducking outside again to access the grocery store entrance. The mall…


Name That Color

I am a pen nerd. From fountain to gel to fine-point Sharpie, I love them all (with the exception of ballpoint, but with so many other choices it’s good to have a limit to my enthusiasm). Since I’m currently writing the rough draft of this post with a sea green Pilot Precise V7, it should…


Danish Windmill

We see our first sign for the Danish Windmill in Illinois, at least 280 miles away from its location in Elk Horn, Iowa. More signs follow, dotting I-80 W with such regularity that we start wondering how big a deal this windmill thing actually is. My daughters and I are on the fourth day of…


Juggling

Years ago, if you’d looked up “multitasking” in the dictionary, my picture would have been next to the entry. I was good at it. Practically flawless, in fact, and proud of it. Of course, I was not the only one. So many women I knew juggled care, schedules, and appointments for four or more people,…


Island of Misfit Manuscripts

When I was very young, I looked forward to the Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Back then, I was most interested in Rudolph and Hermey the Elf, lovable characters rejected by the Establishment because they didn’t fit an expected mold. I’ve grown up. The part of the show that sticks with me the most…


Autumn Leaves

My parents met in 1953 at the Garden House Hotel in Hurleyville, NY, where they were both employed for the summer. My father was a program director/performer in charge of entertainment. My mom, who’d done everything she could to get out of spending the whole summer in the Catskills away from her friends in the…


Happy National Holiday

Happy Diatomaceous Earth Day! No, really. Friday, August 30th, is National Diatomaceous Earth Day. It’s also National Trail Mix Day and National Toasted Marshmallow Day. Despite this, I bet you still had to go to work today. That may be because none of the holidays I mentioned are federal holidays. There are eleven federal holidays…


Probability of Winning

My brother talked me into joining his fantasy football league last year. “You’re ready,” he said. “And you’ll love it.” On the face of it, those are funny statements. Up until maybe ten years ago, I knew nothing about football. Other than the marching band, nothing anyone did on that field made any sense to…


Can’t Put It Down

My mom was an inveterate reader. Reading “a book” was for amateurs. She usually had three: the current book-club selection, the book she really wanted to read, and something light on the nightstand to fall asleep by. It didn’t take much to sweep her into a story. A page or two and she was gone,…


Grave Matters

Once upon a time, people stayed put. They lived and died in roughly the same geographical area in which they’d been born. It made sense to bury them there as well, where family and friends who’d celebrated and mourned with the individual during his or her lifetime could stop by the cemetery on holidays and…