In early May of this year, THWAM* and I took our first real road trip since summer 2001. (The man is not a huge fan of driving for days on end.) That one took us 5631 miles in a huge circle from Texas to San Diego and up the Pacific coast then round to Colorado and back to [...]

It was Mary shouting into the phone yesterday, “I’m alive and I’m home! Did you do your words?” Yes indeed, she’s a crackerjack. The hospital stay lasted a month, and I don’t think she remembers that she called here twice during that time. She’s home now, but not really, since her children have moved her [...]

The modest livingroom in our equally modest ranch house is my space now. It’s mine simply because I’ve filled it with objects that are dear to me, and I feel uncommonly welcome there. In that room I vibrate with the beneficial energy the objects bring. Nearly everything has a connection to someone I love, and it’s their [...]

Maybe the biggest blessing (or the biggest curse) about retirement is that you have great gobs of time to think, time when nothing and no one presses you to be somewhere else doing something else. I recently had such a time-gob and I thought about underwear. I don’t actually remember wearing diapers, but I know [...]

I’m sure you’ve heard all the talk about the two Hangover movies, right? As far as I can tell they appeal mightily to the males of our species, or at least to those of a certain age (or maturity level?) I haven’t heard that they have the same draw for females of any age (or [...]

Since we didn’t have any patriotic plans for the Memorial Day weekend, we decided to do the truly American thing. You know, SPEND A LOT OF MONEY as a kindness to the economy. It took no time at all to realize that we were each very deserving of a BRAND-NEW COMPUTER. (I’m using all-caps to [...]

I’ve written about my friend Mary before. You might remember that we’re phone pals because she loves our competition over the Scrabble words in the daily paper. Mary’s a crackerjack, that she is. In her eighties, almost blind, living alone, and carrying on a social life that could daunt most anyone. She plays bridge at [...]

It’s been many (14) months since I promised to go away forever, but I guess forever is only as long as you want it to be, ’cause, I’M BACK! Did I learn anything while I was gone? I think so. I learned that too much personal truth can cause wide fissures in family relationships. It [...]

This will be my last blog post.  I know, I know, you heard that once before, and then I reappeared.  It won’t happen this time.  I promise.  This time it’s over and I’m out. I’ve been a writer since childhood because I was born with a hyper-intense (abnormal?) need to be understood by somebody who [...]

So here is what I did about the hard personal questions raised in the previous post.  I took the month of March to think things over. It was a good time.  I felt a need to dial things down, take it easy, pull back a little, let the time flow over me.  I didn’t really make [...]