Last night, the two adults who live in my house, i.e., my spouse and myself, went to participate in our town’s annual town meeting. We left our children home. ALONE. When I was young and left “in charge” of my sister, who is two years my junior, we’d usually end up in the kitchen inventing […]

Read more "I Must be Doing Something Wrong"

Every April, political lawn signs pop up like daffodils in my small town. These straightforward, usually bi-colored, endorsements appear along the roads over the course of three weeks. The campaigns have a remarkable skill of getting them all collected by high noon the day after the local election. It’s quite a feat to get hundreds […]

Read more "The Season of Campaigns & Larceny"

Originally posted on Mark Deeble:
? The Ivory Burn is about to happen and for days the internet has been full of pictures of the pyres being built, conservationists having their pictures taken with tusks, and heart-felt video pleas. Despite the piles of tusks rising above the plains in some grotesque parody of a rural…

Read more "The story of a tusk – 28KG / VOI RIVER / 30/5/14"

The thought of drowning frightens me in a way that mirrors the way some others regard the idea of being around spiders or mice or snakes. Just the thought of it makes my heart rate tick up and my breathing change. When my kids were young, I routinely would dream of losing them to the […]

Read more "Asking for Help"

When I woke up at 4:45 this morning, the first thought in my mind was: “I can’t wait until I get to go to sleep tonight.” I’m going to guess this is not an uncommon thought for many of us who are “in charge” of getting things done. When you’re young, you’ve got to got […]

Read more "Only Fifteen Hours until Bedtime"

  Ever have one of those words that you hear frequently, and from the context pretty much know what it means, but you aren’t completely sure? For me, that word has been “insipid.” I’ve been familiar with it for years but have avoided confirming for myself its official, dictionary definition, until this morning. A friend […]

Read more "Insipid: Tastes like Chicken"

Unlike my daughter, I never wanted to be a Victoria Secret’s model. While the fame and notoriety might have been cool, the job security was far too tenuous. (Side note: VS wouldn’t have had me anyhow with my 5’6” frame and normal human shape. When I told my 13-year-old that they’d probably pass on her, […]

Read more "Self-Perspective through a Fuzzy Lens"

Some people have the skill to look at an issue, parse out the troubling pieces, and identify what’s causing the problem. While I think the ability to do this well is learned, the basic foundation rests on the rules of logic and perception–two things that I presume most people have within their grasp. Over the […]

Read more "Confrontation at its Worst"

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Since 1970, April 22nd has been set aside as a day when particular attention is paid to the place we all call home.   I have fond memories of this day from the 1970s. As a college student, I advocated for the trendy “earth” issues. In 2007, two days before my […]

Read more "Make Your Earth Day Plans Today"

The nuns were singing to me this morning as I woke up. They had left Julie Andrews, i.e, “Maria,” out of it and had supplanted her name with the word “dementia.” You know the song, from The Sound of Music, and I’m going to bet you can sign a few bars. You likely recall that […]

Read more "An Old-Fashioned Sing-Along: How Do You Solve a Problem like Dementia?"